Balance

As time moves faster and the little elephant on my page gets ever closer to the 40 week mark and my to-do list grows ever longer, I find myself reflective.

I am also finding opportunities to talk to C about what we both are thinking about and hoping for ourselves as parents. During our years of IUIs and IVFs we often found ourselves noticing families and children who may be misbehaving and asking ourselves what we would do and even judging other parents, knowing we would do it better. But, as my due date gets closer, all that knowing becomes very real. What do we know really? Nothing.

I have a very close friend who has an 18 month old and both of them came to stay with us for the weekend. It was a great time and we had a lot of fun, but there were moments where the baby absolutely wore me out. I imagine part of it is because I am 34 weeks pregnant and exhausted enough just by getting through the day, never mind spending it chasing a baby, walking around parks and getting up early and staying up late. By the end of the weekend, I found myself very grateful they were leaving and that made me feel bad. Here was one of my closest friends with her son and all I could think of was that this preview of things to come was more stressful and anxiety inducing than fun.

We live far away from each other and the past few nights I have gotten a few emails from her about her son's struggles with sleep and her and her hubby's difficulty with agreeing how to handle it. I don't really have good advice for her and I'm finding that I don't want to hear about it. It scares me. I spoke to C about it tonight. I told him that her stories were troublesome to me for a few reasons, and that I hope and pray that our sweet boy is a good sleeper, that the two of us are together on how we handle it (and don't turn on each other) and that I am strong enough to let the baby cry if that is what he needs to learn how to sleep.

It is exhausting to try and figure out right now what we will do if we have a similar problem a year and a half from now. It is my instinct to always have an answer. To be definitive in my plan. How can I possibly expect myself to know how this next part of my life will go???

I am not naive enough to think that we will have no problems and parenting will be a piece of cake, but right now the things going through my head are finishing my to-do list, getting through childbirth, and praying for a healthy little boy. C is confident that we can handle anything life gives us (which is comforting and true considering everything we have been through so far), but now I am just struggling with how to support my friend and protect myself from the worries of the distant future. I know she doesn't realize that this is difficult for me to hear. I have known her for 20 years and I know that she is just venting. I know that I can be honest with her, but right now it makes me feel weak to tell her how I really feel. I want everybody to think I am so prepared and ready to handle anything, but inside I am a little twitchy.

I am very honest with C about my feelings. My hopes and my fears too. I don't want to worry him though. I love his confidence in us. I feel it too. I just need to find a healthy balance between taking care of myself and protecting my little growing boy these next 6 weeks, being respectful to my family and in-laws who seem to have a lot of advice right now and my dear friend who is struggling with things that I can't fix and gives me anxiety about the future.

The goals are a healthy little boy in 6 weeks, a new title for me and C and a peaceful, loving life. The trick is the balance.