Sugared Harpy

My newest piece is up at DotMoms called, The Big Month…

For years, I wanted to have a third child but someone never wanted it. That’s right. I wanted a baby but my husband most certainly did not. His reasons were always good, too good. We had two kids already, we were both in college, kids are hellions on wheels, we both worked outside the home, the marriage needed help, we then started new careers, the laundry was never done, the cats looked jealous already, the living room paint wasn’t dry…

Yet one glorious day, he looked at me and said it. “Let’s have another baby.”

I, naturally, collapsed in puddle of laughter before looking up, tears in my eyes, “Are you kidding me, because that’s not funny.”

Once upon a time, I thought my dear husband would freeze and refuse to emit forth the life-giving elixir.  Once upon a time, I thought he would either refrain alltogether or at the last moment jump away in fear, only to dump the stuff on my thigh.

Once upon a time, I was apparently wrong.  It’s off-time so there’s nothing to think of, but lo, it has begun.

This Next Blog, a show and tell blog, brought me:  Sugared Harpy and the Joy of Pregnancy

Let’s push all unpleasantness, aside, shall we? But all of you, thank you. I hope you each received your email of thanks, because my god. Ladies, you are fierce harpies and I am so grateful I’m not on your bad side. Thank you so much for being here.

Cue non-existent segue.

We are down to only a few weeks until babymaking time. Which means, of course, another design change. Okay, really, it’s just that school is staring soon and that makes me feel all autumny already. I assume it’s wishful thinking for better weather and the onset of my favorite season. With autumn comes the free candy giving and my neighbors start stringing up lights. Christmas lights. Wait, it’s worth the shitty pictures I can steal in the dark of night and post here.

The header image for this latest site remodel is one I’ve been waiting to use for some time. It’s Guido Cagnacci’s Death of Cleopatra, 1660. Blah blah deathcakes, it’s her luscious belly I adore. It’s my belly! With better coloring! With a hint of hey, I’m trying to get knocked up over here!

I also think her skirting is wonderful, but that’s a nerdier discussion.

But the tagline, it’s babymaking inspired but low-down dirty fucking approved (see, Bloodhound Gang, “No Rest for the Wicked”).

Enjoy.

Dear reader who found my site whilst googling, “molds to make babies,”

Holy shit, that seems so much easier than my big long plan. I planned on making babies by way of the following:

1. Get over this damned yeast infection and wait until my sister is properly wedded and bedded later on this month. There is drinking to be done.

2. Start having hot fertile monkey love with my husband. Refuse his seed anywhere else on or in my body but the business end, right up cozy with my cervix and it’s helpful fluid.

3. Repeat as necessary.

4. Get good and knocked up.

5. Wait. Probably, miserably, for nine long months while I grow the products of getting knocked up. Expand into a waddling teepee of baby and bloatiness.

6. Push baby out of my body. Which will suck in a painful, vomiting kind of way.

What a bother!  Your way sounds almost delightful. Melt something (eww, what?), pour something, pop in the refridgerator and hooray! Babies! In any color and flavor I want!

Although, I am concerned about the tiny cake problem. You know, things being overly tedious. I’m not good with tedious.

If you can tell me more about this making babies with molds in regards to the tiny cake problem, I may be persuaded to try this thing your way. The melty, moldy way.

Sincerely,
Melissa

I bought this:

And, it’s an awesome book that assumes you are an adult with an intelligent mind without assuming you have a degree in obstetrics. Of course, I am not yet pregnant nor our we to the point of trying. Soon, however, very soon we will begin this weird process of trying to have a baby. Like on purpose.

Behold:

As I’ve mentioned once or twice, I’ve never done this. I was drinking, having sex on the pill, and going to cheer practice the first time I got pregnant. The second time I was breastfeeding on a post partum depression bender. I luckily produced healthy, amazing little boys.

There are so many people in this world who struggle with infertility and I can’t help but sometimes feel guilty, no matter how irrational that is, that my fertility was once the bane of my existence. I use to feel, and I sometimes still feel, guilty that I ever felt that my body was consistently betraying me when so many others would have slapped me and taken it over for some good use.

Feeling guilty doesn’t help a damn soul and it’s time for me to shut it and simply respect this healthy womb for what it is. It’s time for me to put it to it’s good use, to enjoy it for what it can hopefully still do well. It’s hard to let the old feelings go and respect my reproductive organs as healthy, baby-making wonders.

But how does anyone know they’re really ready to have another baby? Especially after all these years? As ridiculously excited I am and as ridiculously excited as Mike is, doubts still creep in. Even as I take the daily assload of supplements (prenatal vitamins, an extra 400mg folic acid, ginormous flaxseed omega-3, and calcium) to help our chances with a lucky third healthy pregnancy, I get twinges of doubt.

I start to doubt our financial situation, my mental health right now, the boys and how this will affect them, our families, Mike’s participation, etc. You name it, I’m worrying about it.

That is, I was.

Until I re-read this.

It’s Cancerbaby’s blog. In it’s short entirety, I re-read every entry she wrote because it’s probably going to come down soon (her request).

As many of you probably already know, Cancerbaby, Jessica, developed ovarian cancer in her early thirties. It stole her fertility and she never was able to adopt. She never had her children. Because she didn’t make it.

She passed away in May. She was thirty-three.

I’m sitting here in tears and I never knew her, never dealt with anything like she did. But her words, for now, exist and they are beautiful, honest, brutal, and funny. Read them.

Although her words weren’t meant for a healthy fertile like me, Jessica and her life remind me to just go for it. Shut up my worrying mind and do it. Have the kids I want because I fucking can. Quit feeling guilty and respect this body for getting so damned lucky so far; just have the kids I want. The babies we want. I don’t know what my future holds. Neither did she.

In honor of Jessica, I will never use the word, “preggy.”

Players: Mike and Melissa

Scene: Target, shopping for school items during Missouri’s tax-free school supply holiday and taking a wee break hunting for an adequate flaxseed omega-3 supplement without contaminants.

Mike: Did you see that?

Melissa: No. God, what did you see?

Mike: That girl.

Melissa: Uh, no?

Mike: That’s what you should wear when you’re pregnant.

Melissa (head-whipping around): ?

Mike: There’s a pregnant woman over there wearing a low-cut dress. She’s all boobs in that thing. You’d look hot like that.

Melissa (immediately walking away from Mike to find this woman and her breastilicious dress, finding her, casually staring at her bosom, then walking back to Mike): mkay? * (mutters: creepy weird guy) *

Mike: Tell me about boobs during pregnancy…your boobs.

Melissa: ?

Mike: Seriously.

Melissa (haughty): They are fabulous. Fucking fabulous.

Mike: Okay then, I’m ready to knock you up.

Right now, I’m on my period.

Congrats if you didn’t click away.

But really, I’m sharing something real with you. Sure, it’s gross, but it is what it is. It’s not “the visitor,” it’s not “Aunt Flo,” whatever. I’m on my period. There are tampons involved. I’m over it.

It’s my second to last period before we begin trying to have a baby.

And I’m worried.

I worry that the wait is going to mess with my fragile mental stability. I worry that money is low and we really could use an extra $30,000 a year. I worry about getting pregnant. I worry about staying pregnant. I worry about being overweight and pregnant. I could use to lose 30 pounds and I would carry better but I haven’t. My eating habits are poor because I don’t eat all day and then whoa! I’m hungry at night. I (duh) can’t sleep. I have work in the morning and I’m exhausted.

Mostly, I worry that Mike is going to be the stoic during this entire pregnancy and I’m going to feel alone.

Like last time.

Mike’s stoicism, really just a manifestation of him internalizing his feelings instead of audibly expressing them, reminds me of being alone the first two times around. It’s not his fault. He is not to blame for how I feel. The blame is put on a partner of Christmas past, but Mike and I both deal with my leftover demons as they come.

They come often, still. Even after ten years, there are things I realize I have shaken yet. Being alone during pregnancy, birth, and beyond is a real fear of mine, a seizing of the heart when I think about it.

My ex is not a bad person, but he was really, really stupid and childish during the pregnancies and lives of our kids. Because he WAS a child. So was I.

But women don’t have the luxury of staying the child when we get knocked up. We don’t have the luxury of taking a few extra years to grow up. If Daddy wants to sleep with cute, slim women while his ballooning pregnant girlfriend/wife is at home breastfeeding the toddler between bouts of morning sickness in her three-day old sweats and ponytail, he can do so with little consequence. It’s why I believe so strongly in women’s choices regarding pregnancy, birth, and child rearing.

My ex left it all to me. The reading of the books was my responsibility. The buying of the stuff was my responsibility. The doctor’s appointments were my responsibility. The dealing with issues as they came was my responsibility. Paying for it was my responsibility. Caring about it was my responsibility. My ex loves his kids, but those were some lonely times for a young girl.

I couldn’t run away like he did. I had to deal.

So when Mike doesn’t respond to my lame attempts at discussion about the upcoming attempts at conception, when he isn’t interested in reading anything, when he keeps it all inside, I get that sinking feeling again. The feeling that once again, I’m going to be reading, learning, loving, hoping, and caring about this new thing on my own. The feeling that my partner will probably love this child more than anything, but won’t invest until later. The feeling that, until later comes, it’s all up to me. Again. Alone.

It’s just a bad combination of his upbringing and my past. I don’t blame him for it, it’s not something he did. Unfortunately, like so many other harsh things he’s had to help me though, this is another deep-seated fear.

I’m trying so hard to get through it.

We shop at Sam’s. Yes, the super warehouse giantico. Because lo, the toilet paper is cheap and the yogurt is plentiful and the Naked orange juice comes in a gallon jug.

Typically, we buy the Mondo Tampax Box. 100 count.

It took me years to get to the point where I could buy tampons in bulk. I don’t mind buying, carrying, using, or discussing tampons at length. But carrying a box of tampons the full length of my head and torso gives me the willies. Like HELLO! I BLEED! (Which at this point, I’m still totally fine.) (Here is where I lose my shit:) I BLEED A LOT! DUDE, LIKE SO FUCKING MUCH! I’m totally going to use this all in ONE month! I’ll be back in a few weeks! HIGH FIVE!

But now, I’m okay. Mostly. But for a while I’ve been able to purchase the monster box of Tampax at Sam’s. Today we went to Sam’s. I need tampons. But we didn’t buy the ginormous package.

Mike: Do you need tampons.

Me: Yep.

Mike: Okay, we’ll grab some while we’re here.

Me: You know, maybe not. Maybe let’s just get a regular sized box and press our luck.

Mike: * silence *

Goddamn stoic.

—
Renaissance Rivals on Penelope Room today.

You may recall that Mike and I are going to attempt the art of doing it to conceive. I’m overfuckingjoyed and a wee bit obsessed, not because I’m baby obsessed but because my personality is one in which I obsess in general. It’s why I like my work, it’s career-sanctioned obsessing.

Mike is a stoic. I hate it. This is typical of a baby-centered conversation in our house:

Me: OMG! I totally won this childbirth multi-media kit from Cool Mom Picks!! Now we don’t have to sit next to stupid young lovebirds having their first luvmuffinbabydustedembie. The ones who don’t realize their ass is going to be handed to them in a few months. And, that they will lose their shit.

Mike: You’re not pregnant.

Me: I will be, motherfucker. See plan:

Mike: Yeah, but you’re not yet.

Me: I hate you.

Mike also likes to pretend that our babymaking endeavors are five years away and we have all this time to think about it, when CLEARLY there is no more time left and we haven’t lost any weight and are you taking enough vitamins and shouldn’t you at least Google this and why haven’t we bought any books yet? Motherfucker.

This is not a good way to reassure your wife that you really do want to have another baby:

Me: Seriously, are you excited or not? Why don’t you even want to talk about it constantly like I do?

Mike: I am excited.

Me: That does not sound convincing. I mean, no little tummy flip-flop when you think about it? Nothing?

Mike: I am excited. See. Excited.

Me: Stoic motherfucker.

I am pleased to announce that I have cracked the stoic exterior with a single pair of booties.

These booties:

In a previous life that ended about two years ago Mike thought it was super cool to wear socks with sandals. No matter how much we taunted, Mike would pull on his white socks and black sandals every day. Yes, even in the winter. With jeans. Or shorts. And a sweater.

So I’ve been meaning to send him a picture of these, to see if I would get the usual “you’re not pregnant yet,” where I would have to reply with my usual, “motherfucker.”

This morning I emailed him a picture of the sock/sandal booties circa Mike, 1990-2004, with this message:

This is what your baby will wear.

I received this reply (and please note how totally normal this response is):

Those are awesome.

Aw yeah, mofo’s ready to do it.