We met, my husband and I, right after COVID, and within, I think, three or four months, started talking about getting married. We were engaged, married in October of 2021, and then started trying like a month after. We got lucky that we were immediately able to have a viable pregnancy, and that’s where we’re at.
So far, everything’s good. I would see other pregnant women at work. My sister was pregnant last year. And you feel, “oh, you must be tired”, because that would take a lot. But until you actually go through it, it’s like… I did not realize walking up three stairs was going to wind me, and it does. I live in a two story townhouse, so I come upstairs a lot, and I may have to take a break coming up the stairs now.
{Did you always plan to have kids? How did you decide?}
I tried to live my life. I knew big picture things. I was going to go to college, I was going to be a lawyer, I was going to get married. But I never had too much of a strict timeline. That’s something my mom kind of instilled in me when I was younger- you can’t plan too far in advance because your plans depend on other people.
I picked out baby names before I even met Josh, and my mom would just laugh and say, “yeah, we’ll see what your husband says.” And sure enough, my number one baby name that I thought, “I will always name my girl this,” his 15 year old niece has that name. So my mom’s like, “see, I told you.”
With motherhood, it’s kind of tricky because I think I know what it’s like because my friends have kids and I see them birthday parties in the zoo. But until you’re really in it, you don’t know.
Rocky, my almost 16 year old Pomeranian, he’s got sundowners, so he gets confused at night and he thinks it’s daytime. For the past year and a half, he has not been sleeping through the night. About every hour and a half to 2 hours, I’ve been waking up, taking him outside. Does he need water? Does he need food? What’s his problem? So what’s kind of been a frustration for Josh and I is people tell him, “get enough sleep, get enough sleep, y’all need to sleep.” And we’re like, “okay, well, we’re dealing with an elderly dog.”
We’ve tried so many things, and we finally have a routine, a little system. He’s got arthritis, which we didn’t know about until last month, so he’s just been in pain, and he’s been barking about it for a year. So now he’s on pain medicine, and with the combination of a sleeping pill, he goes to bed 10:00 at night, wakes up at six in the morning. That was kind of frustrating going through that with Rocky and him barking all the time.
I’m like, “I don’t know how I can do this with a baby.” And my mom’s like, “look, with the baby, it doesn’t last forever. They will go back to sleep, they will grow out of it. But Rocky’s just going out of this world at some point.” So we’re just trying to keep him comfortable.
It is kind of like with the whole life and death, we’re bringing in a brand new life and we’re ushering one out. Sweet.
Rocky has almost died three times on me. The last time he almost died was 2019. They gave him six months to live. He’s obviously still here, so whenever I take him back, [they say] “oh, he’s doing great, he’s a miracle!” Then it makes me feel guilty of, “well, if he’s in pain, I want to put him down.” But if he’s on his right medicine, he’s like a seven year old puppy, like running around and jumping and doing things.
That’s been a little bit of stress because when we have a baby, you need to focus on the baby. I’ll focus on Rocky. Nobody’s willing to watch him. Like, for the delivery, we’re checking him into an animal hospital for medical boarding so they can watch him all the time. He’ll be here for when the baby’s born and then his birthday is mid October. We would prefer Rocky just pass on his own, not in pain, instead of us having to go in and say it’s time to put him down. I don’t know that he’ll make another Christmas after this year. And she’s told me for a year, she’s like, “if you want to put him down, I’m not going to judge you. I’ve seen people put dogs down for other things.”
But then Josh and I are like, “no, we want him to meet his baby sister.” And then I’m like, “are we selfish because we want this for us?” So I’ve got a quality of life thing that we check off every couple of weeks. Like, has anything changed in his quality of life? So it is kind of tricky. It’s like having two kids, except one kid is very disabled because he can’t open the door. He’s in a diaper now.
I was thinking I was going to have to put him down before the baby came on the 24th. And my mom’s like, “you have a whole week you took off.” I’m going to tear up. She’s like, “spend it with him.” But now it’s like he was years ago. As long as he’s not in pain, if I can give him his little pain medicine, so hopefully he won’t decide that that’s the time he’s going to go.
{Do you feel ready for this big change?}
It’s exciting. My sister had a baby, so I’ve been around, like, kind of seen the progression of baby stuff and tummy time and standing up… She actually came over two weeks ago and just set up my entire nursery, diapers, wipes, everything. I was like, just do it. You don’t even have to explain it to me. We’re rocking and rolling.
{What are your thoughts on the birth process?}
I am 100% pro epidural. I don’t even know how long I will wait until I say I want the epidural. And I say that because Heather, my sister, was funny and she was like, “I just wanted to feel a little bit of the pain just so I could know what it was.” I was like, “yeah, I don’t know if that’s going to be me.” I don’t know at all.
Because when they checked to see if I was dilated today, I was like, “oh, this is not comfortable.” That’s not comfortable at all. And that’s 1 CM. So I don’t know that I’m going to be able to hang with anything more than 1 CM without an epidural. I’m not into the birthing plan. I trust the doctors. My doctor’s great. You can watch videos. You can kind of be prepared. Women have been doing it for a long time. I’m not special, so I’m just going to go in and see what happens.
{What are your plans for the postpartum time?}
My mom is numero uno baby caretaker. She stayed with my sister for two weeks after delivery and then she had to go back to work after six weeks. And then my mom came over every day until my nephew was six months old.
[She] said, “I’ll stay with you as long as you want.” And of course, ours is a little different because we do have the Rocky variable. Josh can handle it, but Rocky is too smart. He eats around pills. My mom’s going to possibly have to give the dog his medicine for those first couple of weeks. I get 13 weeks off for my maternity leave, so she’ll come back when I go back into the office. We already have daycare. She’s the first on the waiting list. It’s in the neighborhood. It’s four minutes away. We got super lucky with that. I get to work from home two days a week. Husband gets to work from home three days a week.
So my mom will still be coming over even though we’re working from home. Because I think all of the moms know you can’t really work from home and take care of a baby. So we’ll be rotating and it works out because I work upstairs. My husband works downstairs. We have a pack and play downstairs. The bassinet and the baby crib are upstairs. So wherever somebody’s working. My mom will just be on the other floor with the baby.
{Is there anything you are worried about?}
Dealing with Rocky, I didn’t know he was in pain for a year. Maybe he was an earache sometimes because there would be some nights he’d sleep, some nights he wouldn’t. That’s the biggest fear with the baby- because it’s a baby, it’s not an animal. I’m like, “how often do I just rush her to the ER? Like every time she’s got a runny nose?”
It’s a little bit of the mom guilt that I got from Rocky of, “okay, I let him be in pain for a year.” Babies can’t talk just like dogs can’t talk. So that’s kind of my nervous thing. Is she’s sick or doesn’t feel good and I don’t know what to do? Yes, but I also don’t want to be a hypochondriac and take my baby in for every single thing, because babies do need to get sick. That’s how they get their antibodies. It’s an odd spot to be in.
{What are your thoughts on who she will be? And how do you think you and your husband will handle this transition?}
So I talk to her and I tell her how much fun we’re going to have. But I mean, at three months old, I don’t know that babies are really having fun. They’re just trying to survive. That’s kind of the unknown. I’m not trying to raise, like, a Harvard graduate PhD student. I just want her to be happy, healthy, and do whatever… she wants to be a plumber? I’m like, “do it.” Be a plumber, because we need it.
My husband wants her to be very athletic, and the selfish part of me is like, “I do not I do not want to get up at 6:00 in the morning and have to take kids to practice and to swim meets and to go out of town. That’s not it.” But we agreed, like, “hey, if they’re good at something, they’re going to do it.”
I don’t really want her to do gymnastics because I think that stunts growth and development. My mom’s like, don’t worry about it. This is not the fight to have right now. She’s not even here.
I’m really involved in a lot of my nonprofit stuff. So I’m hoping she will also enjoy it so she can do it with me and it’s not going to be like, “oh, well, Mom’s off doing her thing and I’m stuck here with dad.” I really hope she likes rodeo because we do a lot of rodeoing.
Another thing, so when we did premarital counseling with our church, we had to do an enneagram lesson. It’s really funny because separately my mom, sister and I did enneagrams and we’re all ones and my sister’s husband is a three and my husband is a three, so it’s kind of funny. Even the pastor was like, “I don’t know that I’ve ever met a family group that’s all the same number.” And growing up, we handled stress the same way, we handled everything the same way because that was innate in the way we grew up. It’s interesting to live with someone who’s not your same number and of course, we’re not going to know what she is when she’s born.
It’ll be interesting in the parent roles of how to do things. I think we talk big picture on like, “hey, we’re going to do like a family game night.” I mean, obviously you don’t do that with a six month old. But there’s big ideas that we have that we want to do. I’m super big into tradition and wanting to create our own traditions. I have what I grew up with as a child and we’re going to keep some of that. But then my sister wants to come up with stuff that she does with just her family and my family. So we’re all kind of figuring out what does that look like.
I grew up close with my grandparents and my cousins, we kind of had that as a template. Now I don’t know that my sister and I’s kids are going to go to the same elementary, junior high, high school, and all go to [the] grandparents [house] after school. But I mean, my sister and I go to the same church, so we see each other.
{What has been the weirdest thing about pregnancy?}
All of the weight I’ve gained is only in my belly, so unless I’m turning to the side, you can’t really tell I’m pregnant. But so many people at work, and not even people that I work with- just randomly in the building, I get, “Let the mama through!” [or] “You’re looking good, little mama!” It’s just people are being supportive. But it is kind of weird to have people comment on your body. You won’t just walk up to an old person and be like, “hey, you’re not walking on a walker. Woohoo!” So it’s just kind of odd.
Some people carry their baby weight all over, so they may be upset because nobody ever says, “oh, you look pregnant. How are you?” It’s both ways.
{Is there anything else you want to add?}
It’s just an interesting tidbit being on the edge of something new. We know this chapter is closing. In fact, I told my husband yesterday, I said, “let’s go to the movies. Let’s do something special that’s just us, because it will never just be just us.” And he’s like, “oh, my gosh, you’re right.” Like, in ten days, it will never be just the two of us. That’s kind of special to know. A chapter is closing, but an even more exciting chapter is beginning.
I’m super appreciative that my mom is in good health and able to help. She’s always commenting like, “how much are you weighing? Are you eating enough?” And then when I got COVID, I was so tired, I was not eating. And then all of a sudden, she’s like, “I’m just going to make you some food.” And she’s been cooking for me. I gained five pounds.
Josh couldn’t come to one of my appointments, so she came with me, and the doctor was like, “yeah, I noticed she had lost weight.” Doctor’s never been worried about it. But, like, the mom in her [was worried], so today after my doctor’s appointment we went by, and she had made a zucchini lasagna, and then she preps other food for me to eat for lunch. She’s like, “you need to eat two eggs for breakfast.”
That is cute because she’s planning on cooking for me during the first couple of weeks of [postpartum]. “This is for you and baby Grace. You guys have got to eat healthy.” And then Josh felt guilty because he’s like, does she think I’m not feeding you? I said, look, she knows I am too tired to actually make it all, and I would prefer to make it than to buy it with all the salt and other preservatives and stuff. She’s been a great help.
The other surprising thing about pregnancy, I thought I would have more wild cravings, but I’ve really kind of stuck to my regular diet. I started liking lemonade more. Drink it like, every day now. I was eating a pickle every day. I haven’t had a pickle in over a week now. We’ll see. Now that I’ve said it, I’m sure she’s going to want it.
All content and information on this blog is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Always consult your doctor for advice on your particular medical situation.
Rocky reached his 16th birthday, and as of this post he is still alive! He takes walks with his baby sister frequently.
For a PDF of a pet quality of life survey you can use to assess how your pet may be feeling near the end of their life, Click Here.
WebMd has an article called “What to Know About the Best Time to Get an Epidural” if you would like further reading on that.
To take the Enneagram test and learn more about your personality type, Enneagram Universe has one.
Do babies crave foods in utero? They can taste them, according to NPR.