Hellobee

I recently was worried I might be pregnant again. For the last few weeks I have been utterly exhausted, which was odd to me since Juliet had finally started to sleep through the night (about a month now). During the week around 3 – 4 o’clock I could feel myself dragging, and on the weekends as soon as Juliet would take a nap I would lay down too since Mr. Chocolate was home to take care of Drake. I have also been breaking out like crazy (ugh) and have been overly emotional and moody to the point that I even noticed it. At first I didn’t think much of it but after staring down my 3rd zit, I started to wonder what was happening. Then the thought about being pregnant floated into my head.

I have been breastfeeding Juliet since birth, so 8 1/2 months to date.  Since Juliet has weight gain issues, I have slowly dropped my day feedings as she took to the bottle more and more. Now she only nurses twice a day, first thing in the morning and last thing before bed with the occasional nursing to nap and middle of the night wakings. I realized that now that I was nursing less, there was a chance my period would be returning soon, as well as the fact that I had no idea if I was ovulating. While these signs could all point to my period returning as well, I couldn’t rule out pregnancy either since we haven’t been particularly careful as of late.

After mentioning my fear to Mr. Chocolate one night, I was startled to hear him say he wouldn’t mind us being pregnant again. While this wasn’t his ideal time line, since we do want one more child, it didn’t matter to him when that next child decided to come. In Mr. Chocolate’s mind we were ready; we have a 4 bedroom house (we bought it specifically with the idea of 3 children) and bought a car with a third row specifically in anticipation of one day having three children in car seats.  Ideally he said he would liked to have waited another 5-6 months to have another one, but we would be welcome a new baby into the home again now.

For a few days I fretted and imagined what life would be like if were pregnant; how Juliet would barely 18 months old before the next one arrived, how to manage  3 under 4. Then I finally broke down and took a pregnancy test since I had to know. I took the test first thing in the morning and then before the results were done, I went to get Juliet who was awake. I nursed her in her room like I do every morning, rocking back and forth wondering about how I would feel if I did indeed see the words pregnant on the test. While I certainly would be happy, I knew I also felt like I would be sad at losing out time with the baby I was still nursing in my arms.

When Juliet was done, I went to check on the test and saw the words “Not Pregnant,” ending the questioning and worries swirling in my mind.

So where do we go from here?

After going through these mixed emotions for the last few weeks I have come to the conclusion that I am not ready to be pregnant again. Of course had I been pregnant I would have welcomed that baby with just as much love and desire as I did my first two. But since I am not pregnant (that I know of since it is hard to know when to test when you don’t have a period to work off of), I realized that I simply don’t feel ready to add another person to our family just yet. I decided most importantly it would be nice to make a list of goals, similar to Mrs Hopscotch’s post, and things I would like to complete before having another child.  So here is my list of things I want to accomplish and do before trying for another one:

• I want Juliet to be close to two years of age before I get pregnant and to celebrate her 2nd birthday before the baby arrives.  Juliet will eventually become the middle child and while it’s hard for me to imagine her not being the baby, it will happen if we have another child. With Juliet being the second child I already feel like I don’t dedicate enough time to her, especially with one on one attention since she always has to share with Drake. Because of all this I want to give her at least a few years where she is still baby. Drake had 3 whole years of sole attention before Juliet was born, so I want to give her at least two years of being the baby since once she is the middle child, she might get even less attention moving forward.
• I want to work on our budget so I can stay at home with all three of the kids for longer.
• I want to grow more in my photography. I wanted to attempt Juliet’s newborn photos and that ended disastrously, so this time I really want to be ready since this will most likely be the last baby and I don’t want to miss a moment.  I would like to take at least a few more classes to help build my photography skills as well.
• I want to complete both Drake and Juliet’s rooms so when I am pregnant we can work solely on the nursery.
• I want to make a list of books I want to read and attempt that again since reading always takes a hiatus when I have babies, and I haven’t touched a book since shortly before Juliet was born.
• To take a family vacation together as a family of four.
• To buy a bike and start working on getting more into shape since I never exercise.