Ultra Sound

We had our ultrasound finally on Wednesday. It took over a month for them to be able to book me in, putting me up to 26 weeks (your first should ultimately be completed by your 22nd week). That is fine. I just needed to get some ultrasound pictures so we didn't start the favourtism too early, and of course to make sure that the child was but one, and that is was healthy, which I think it looks pretty good up there in the picture!

The experience itself was very impersonal and strange. Let me first explain the ultrasound experience we had with Rohan before I get into this one. With Rohan, the technician was super friendly, super chatty and explained what each picture was when she clicked on it. It was easily visible to myself and Colin and she explained where each thing is. Rohan was in the right position, so she exclaimed her joy for that as well.

While we were there another technician came in to test the 3D imaging on the machine, which meant that we were able to see Rohan in 3D, a totally surreal experience to say the least. That is when it becomes really 'real' is when you can see the child within you in the flesh..............almost. It was a really exciting experience and we received a few sneaky 3D pictures (something we would have had to pay $100 for if we had requested it) and a ridiculous amount of regular pictures. I felt pretty good leaving the roomy light room.

This time around it was like night and day. The technician was waiting for us when we had walked into the room after my name was called. He was very very french and explained to us, in french, that Rohan isn't normally allowed in the room. I brought him because I wanted him to be apart of all these special pre baby experiences, get him more excited by the prospect. It turned out to be okay, though we are not allowed to bring him again.

The room we were brought into was tiny, no windows and had a very dark and basementy feel to it. Although we attempted to answer his questions in english, the technician was still speaking pure french to us, which made it a bit difficult for us to communicate. I am admittedly timid and nervous when I get spoken to in french, and instead of asking people if they speak english, I strain my ears as much as I can to catch some words I might know. It works.............sometimes, okay, almost never.

So we are in this little room and he is rolling the roller on my belly occasionally saying things in english such as 'spine' and 'heart' and 'kidneys' and I am straining to see what he is mentioning on this tiny little tv screen that was placed on the wall opposite me, about ten feet away, that I can only assume was for the 'benefit' of the mothers. This combined with the rapid speed in which he was rolling over everything made the whole experience blurry and impossible to decipher. Than a woman popped her head in the room, said something to the technician, and he left abruptly, leaving us wondering if we should stay or go. We sat there (me not having had to hold my urine for the last 2 hours or anything). Waiting. He came back, rushed through the rest, took a couple of pictures of the head, printed them out, told us the doctor would be in to see us momentarily. And so we waited. The doctor arrived 'so what am I hear to look at' he pronounced as he walked in. Ummm..........the baby? It is our first ultrasound. 'Oh I see' he rolled like he had somewhere very important to be, and it wasn't there. He finished, said hi to Rohan and started heading towards the door, 'can we go?', 'yup, you are finished'.

It was magical! We felt.......strange coming out of there, uncomfortable, clinical. At least this wasn't our first time, it would have been very alien and anti climatic. Well it was actually, but we know that is not the norm, and that helps!

Breath

At this very moment I am sat on my front steps listening to the birds singing their songs, the crows even joining into the beautiful harmony of the background. The wind is rustling in the leaves with a sound that has the deceptive equality to the sound of raindrops falling. I can hear the faint sound of a piano being played in the far distance, someone practicing, using their morning to create music for the few that are awake.

Rohan is a small distance ahead of me, playing quietly in the makeshift sandbox that his innovative daddy created from him, his orange shovel being shoved inbetween his toes in an effort to use these unlikely digits to dig in the sand. The frustration of the difficulty he is having written all over his face.

I am quietly typing away at my computer, sipping my coffee, trying not to make too much sound, or too much movement, in order to prevent myself from breaking this spell that has been created so early in the morning. So peaceful, so magical. These are the days that I am truly grateful for all that I have. This is what I can vaguely recall as the dreams I had as a little girl of what my family would feel like. The morning sun peaking over the trees, the beautiful child playing contentfully, the child within, playfully reminding me of its presence with small jolts and punches.

The stresses of my day are not awake yet, sleeping peacefully in my quiet mind. No job to look forward to, nothing to fill my time today but the impending ultrasound. A confirmation that the baby I carry is alive and healthy.

Breath. In and out. breath. The substance of life, something our bodies do for us subconsciously. Something we ignore. I feel like I can finally take the time to enjoy it, to appreciate it, to expand it and to pay attention to it. Breath.

Penis Play

There is a saying that has recently come to mind that goes something like (speaking about boys and their penis's) 'once they grab hold, they never let go'. It is a funny saying, and I have thought to myself that it seemed pretty accurate, boys (men) do seem to have a never ending fascination with their genitalia. Now, however, I fully understand that saying.

Since Rohan discovered this extra appendage, he has been yanking on it as if his life depended on it. At first it was always a surprise to him whenever his hands accidentally came across his family jewels, a very pleasant one indeed, he would linger there for a while, pure delight strewn across his face.

Now that he is older, everything else takes the back seat to his penis play. If he has no diaper on, his hand will very rarely remove itself from his boy bits. If he has to do something with two hands, he may give up the task in favour of a much simpler activity that will require just one hand. He has also now taken to pulling his penis up over his diaper/shorts/pants/tighty whitey's and while yanking it as far out as it can go he makes a loud satisfying pssssssssss noise. He pretends to pee on everything in his wake, Mama, Daddy, the couch, himself, stray animals, stuffed or real...................it is hilarous. How do you not unintentionally provoke that with laughter?

His new thing now, which is just impossible not to encourage with boughts of tear inducing laughter, is his one man 'Puppetry of the Penis' act. He pulls at his penis as far as it will go along the side of his body while claiming' bum'. He is trying to reach his penis all the way to his bum, let me tell you he gets much farther than you would expect from such a small appendage! He does this quite often and with a new reaching goal each time, such as his knee or just as far down his thigh as it can get. I am so glad I have a little boy, he is petty much the greatest!

I am pretty sure he will be a bit angy at the Mommy the day he reads this fateful blog!

The 'incident'

I had an 'incident' with Rohan yesterday that scared the bejessus out of me. It is an occurrence that is so hard to explain without feeling as if perhaps I was just imagining things, or having a case of the severe over reactions.

I think I had mentioned this on a previous post, but it can take Rohan an extra long time to wake up in the fully functioning sense. He is up and out of bed, but for the most part he sits on my lap and just kind of whines a bit until he is ready to face the day. This can take anywhere from 5 minutes to close to half an hour.

Well yesterday was no different, except it was a bit different. He awoke from an hour and a half nap, only to come out into the hallway upstairs and kind of lean his head on his arms against the wall moaning 'no mama' which is of course his usually mutterings when he wakes up. That's fine, nothing out of the ordinary. I bring him downstairs and sit him on my lap and there he sat, inconsolable for ages. Not the usual mutterings or moaning, but some outright tears streaming down his face. There was nothing I could offer him to stop him from crying. It was at this point that I decided it was time to snap him out of it and get the day going. I figured if I changed his diaper and get him dressed again, we could start our afternoon.


Well it was this move that sent him spiraling out of control. I took his diaper off and put it in the garbage and he lost it. Not in the usual toddler 'I am mad at you' sense, but in a very strange eyes glazed over panic attack. He kept trying to get into the garbage to get the diaper back, and it being filled with urn, I was not so inclined to let him grab it. He was just screaming and squirming and losing control. I have never seen him in this state..............ever. I tried to grab him and comfort him and hold him and talk to him, repeating for him to look at me look at me. He looked right through me with a one track mind for that diaper.

After the struggle had been going on for over half an hour I decided to let him grab the diaper out of the garbage. It had offered me the look of an episode that a child with Autism might have, so in my head I decided that maybe the diaper was some sort of comfort device for him. I was also curious about his next move once he had possession of this diaper again, would he try to put it back on, what did he need from it? So in a daze he grabbed the diaper, ran to the couch and lay down in the fetal position sort of rocking, cuddling the diaper and muttering 'no my, no my'. Scary shit right?

I started to talk to him in a calm soothing voice without touching him, as my touch was just making things worse before, so I didn't want to risk him going off and running in a panic again. Eventually I convinced him that the diaper was dirty and that he didn't need to cuddle it anymore. I picked him up, sat him on my lap and started to softly tell him the directions we will have to take to go pick up daddy. Than snap, back to normal, he asked for ice cream I fed it to him and he slurped away content fully, diaper out of sight out of mind.

That is when I cried. Some of the thoughts running through my mind were (as it happens with all moms I am sure) that I messed up my child, my bursts of emotions as of late have become too much for him, or my past with episodes of super sadness have been passed onto him.........I have already messed up my kid, he is just two, and I have another one on the way, what was I thinking. I also though about how I had no idea how I was going to deal with this, this last straw, this last thing of so many things piling up of things I didn't want to deal with, how was I going to be able to handle this one?

He was fine. I took him to the doctor to pick up some papers, and I started to explain the situation to the secretary, and burst into tears. She made me an appointment for Rohan. I went to work to give the papers to the manager (my official I ain't workin' no mo papers) and explained the situation to the kitchen manager (tearless this time, though just barely). She had had a similar experience with her daughter and it turned out to be sleep walking. He had been up for so long that it hadn't occurred to me that was sleeping during the fit. It was actually kind of a relief to hear that, I think I can handle sleep walking a bit better than psychotic episodes, or whatever else it could have been.

Right now, Rohan is fine, but I haven't yet recovered. That was one of the scariest experiences I have had with him so far, feeling completely out of control, not knowing what to do to snap him out of it.................or whether he was going to snap out of it at all. He was like a different child, as if he was possessed, as if he didn't know who I was. God that was awful.

Our precious time together

I was going to use this blogging opportunity to bitch and complain about how unbelievably complicated they have to make it to move to Quebec and officially become a resident............grrrr it is so frustrating, but I have much more pressing things to talk about. Like my cuddle monster.

I have come to realize how much I take for granted how loving and affectionate Rohan is. At times I even consider it overwhelming to my space how much he needs to be attached to me, physically, all the time. I cannot even leave the room to go to the bathroom without Rohan following me in tears. I often sit on the toilet with Rohan sitting on my lap, this is a skill that I have learned to master since his infancy!

But, overall, I love it. I love his cuddles and his kisses, his coming up behind me and giving big random hugs. He is more able to express his love than I can, and it is beautiful. Which gets me to worrying about what will happen when we have another dependent to love. They say that a child's memory does not truly start to form until sometime after their second year, so chances are he is not going to remember all of these special times that we shared these last two years, just me and him. He won't remember any of this me and him stuff, so in the end he may not actually miss it. But I will remember it, and thinking about it makes me start to pre-miss it.

For the last two years (plus pregnancy of course) Rohan has been the centre of my universe. He comes first, everything and everybody comes after. Sorry Colin, I grew him, he wins. We have had all of our special times, together, just the two of us. I have watched him grow and develop and become a strong independent little man. He has watched me grow and develop and become a strong independent mom. We have shared, we have cried, we have kissed each others tears away, we have sat cuddling on the couch for an accumulation of hours together, chatting or not. When he comes into the room in the morning, we spoon and sleep. I am nervous about losing that special time with him. ( can you believe my eyes are actually getting misty right now............frick!)

It is hard to imagine allowing anyone to compromise our time. Ever. Me and him are a team. But already I am not able to offer him all of me. I am tired, a lot less tolerant, moody, sporadic acts of tear are starting to become commonplace. I need to be alone more. It kind of sucks really. I just to keep reminding myself to bask in the glory of this beautiful child, enjoy this time that we have together and don't let it get away not matter how busy I am with the new baby. Rohan will still need mama, maybe even more than ever at that point. Oh man, I can only imagine the waterworks of him not needing me anymore........................oh wait, what boy/man doesn't need their mother!! Yay for boys!

Pure Bliss my friends

I have this insatiable appetite for alone time. I just want to be surrounded by no one. Me, the trees, the water, only the sounds of nature and the clip clop of my computer........okay, I guess I could omit the computer this once!

I have started to wake up earlier than the boys in the morning, just have a few moments to myself. I check my email with out anyone banging on the keyboard to get my attention (and Rohan gets pretty angry as well.........hey hoooo), maybe write a new blog (oh lord I am addicted), or just sit and sip a hot beverage and listen to the sounds of the house. It just never seems to be enough time though.

There was a time in my life when I felt that I had too much alone time, when I would have loved to have more people, places, activities to fill my day. I only vaguely remember that feeling.

When Rohan was a baby I always had this overwhelming guilt whenever I left him at home with papa to have my own time. Guilt mixed with a sort of emptiness, a bareness, a nakedness and a huge fullness (the tata's of course!). I knew, I could just feel, that he was crying for me, and in most situations that was the actual case, which enhanced the guilt. These days I only leave him to go to work, which insights a whole new bundle of emotions and feelings.

I have my yoga once a week, and in so many ways, this has saved me and my sanity. I spend an hour with other pregnant moms in a nice zen atmosphere stretching and strengthening my ever expanding body. I have gradually been leaving the house earlier and earlier to sneak in so more and more alone time before the class starts. As I run out to the van with the soft sound of Rohan's cries blowing in the wind I feel this (ridiculous) giddiness. My heart starts beating like mad, I get flush and short of breath, as if I am getting away with something or I am heading on an adventure of a lifetime. What the end result of this mad dash out of the house is is parking outside of the yoga centre and reading for half an hour. I pull in, push my seat way back, roll down the windows, dangle my feet out and read. It is bliss my friends, pure bliss!

I have an up coming glucose test at the the birthing centre which will consist of my drinking a highly concentrated glucose beverage and sitting around waiting a couple of hours until it hits the blood stream, than getting my blood taken. Pretty mundane and boring right? Not for me! I will have to find someone to watch Rohan for that time as there is no way he will tolerate that much time inside the midwife's waiting room. This means I have to go alone. And wait. For hours. Nothing to do. Literally a dream vacation for me!! And that is how exciting my life has gotten!

Super Mom

I have made the decision to stop working much earlier this time around. I have many mixed emotions about it. I have come to realize a necessity I have that requires me to be a super mom, or just a super person. I will myself to keep going, to come home from work, do all the laundry for work, do our laundry, fill the dishwasher, empty the dishwasher, make dinner, entertain Rohan the whole time, give Rohan a bath, start up the nightly routine, lay with Rohan until he falls asleep (yup bad habit that is getting harder to break), than I try to sneak some alone time in playing on the computer (that I am pretty sure Colin sends me a resentful eye the whole time I am on it).

But I find I do the same thing while at work. I always refuse to take a slow side of the restaurant, rarely ask for help and end up going like crazy for 6 hours straight. I cannot prevent myself from working to hard, as if I have to prove that I can still do it even though I am pregnant. I think it is a stubbornness that has run in my family for generations of women..................or is it just women in general? Is this a gender thing that forces us to feel as if we must prove that little things such as creating life won't hinder us in our everyday accomplishments? Set our natural emotions aside, keep your head down and keep on trucking.

For the most part I have been delaying the departure from work. It makes me feel like a cop out, like a wimp, like I just can't hack what so many other women, mothers can and have done for years. Hold a job(part time even, sheesh woman get it together), take care of the house, take care of the two year old and the thirty year old, and the bills etc etc. On most days I don't do much, I come up with stuff to fill my days and get me out of the house. But on those work days, I feel like I am going non stop and fall exhausted into bed when I get home (or do the above activities with Rohan and the house, depending on when I get home and how much needs to get done).

I push myself, and I forget that it is not just myself that I have to worry about. My health, stamina, energy levels is all key the health of the child within and without. Working too hard makes me a very unfun mom that is for sure. Priorities, these are the things that parenthood is made of!