The Other Baby Story Part One

A long time back, I wrote about the baby story of Thing One.  Thing Two has been most irritated that I have not written about her yet.  There is a reason for this.  A lot of that story is filled with OH THE HORROR but I will try to recall it for her sake.

Look how happy and stylish she looks. I did not look like this ever.

Once we had Thing One a few years, we figured we pretty much had this parenting thing down.  I wanted another one, because I had STUPID which makes one think BABIEZZ all the time.  My husband was thinking more about diapers and money and our tiny house, but I was much more practical.  I thought BABIEZZ.  When we didn’t agree, I wrote a diary entry whining about how incredibly unfair life was.  I also told several other people at a marriage retreat about my sob story.  At this point, I was already pregnant, which people greatly enjoyed pointing out to me later.  Ha ha.

I took the pregnancy test and bang I got just what I wanted so obviously I started to PANIC like crazy.   What were we going to do?  We couldn’t afford a baby!  We had no idea what we were doing with Thing One!  When in danger, when in doubt, run in terror, scream and shout.  There was an entry in the baby book that asked what you first thought when you found out you were expecting the bundle of joy.  Terror did not seem like a nice thing to put in a baby book.

Expressions like “OMG” are not generally expected in memory books.

My husband, in typical fashion, just took it in stride like he always does.  Oh, a baby.  Okay.  Well, I have anxiety and depression, and combine that with pregnancy hormones and boy do you have a whale of a lot of fun.  Speaking of whales, I didn’t show in my pregnancy with Thing One until well into my 5th month.  With Thing Two, I was showing as soon as the stick turned pink.  I tried on my old maternity clothes and they were already too small.  Not a good sign.

In keeping with the animal theme, I was also sick as a dog, again, something I had conveniently forgotten about it.  Only this time, I got to take care of a three-year-old at the same time.  A three-year-old who had not yet potty-trained because hey, someone would change her diaper right?  This is a theme that continues with Thing One. Why do it when someone else will eventually get around to doing it for you?  Smart kid.  For instance, she had a great way of letting us know she’ d like some juice, please.

Duuuuuuuuuuice!

We had a slight communication problem going on because, as it turned out, Thing One had a verbal delay.  Her Sunday School teacher informed me about this, saying that by now she should be speaking in complete sentences.  My husband and I just thought we were really lucky to have a quiet kid.  Parenting Fail.  So I took her to a school and had her tested and found out she was way behind in a lot of areas, at least according to them.  “Hums herself to sleep as an infant” was not on their list.  I thought their list sucked, but more on that in another post.

The plus side of this was that they were willing to take her in a preschool program without her being potty-trained.  Hallelujah!  Just one problem.  I was so sick at this point that I couldn’t venture far without my good pal, bucket.  Many times I was in debt to my mother, who drove 15 miles to take Thing One to school when I was too green to climb out of bed.

Bucket, my erstwhile friend . . .

I was also a big, whiny lump.  While pregnant with Thing One I managed to teach two graduate classes while also taking two graduate classes.  She was born less than a month after I finished my studies.  With Thing Two I was lucky to be able to walk from one side of the house to the other without either bawling or puking or some combination of both.  Thing One was either blissfully unaware most of the time or she was ignoring me, it was kind of hard to tell at that point.

Once I got past the worst of the morning sickness, I thought, hey, maybe I can make it.  We got a sonogram done, and I was anxious to find out what the gender was.  The technician told me confidently that she had never not been able to tell the gender of a baby.  She tried to get a lock on Thing Two, not knowing that my obgyn had tried that earlier and couldn’t even get a heartbeat because as soon as her stethescope touched me, Thing Two kicked her off and moved, then did it again, and again.  Thing Two had attitude from conception, I’m fairly certain.

Hi Mommy I’m going to use your uterus as my personal trampoline!

She kept her knees together stubbornly.  The tech was determined though, and got her to turn over in my stomach. She did, keeping her legs together the entire time.  Finally the tech gave up, concluding that it must be a girl because the boys liked to show off their, um, parts early on while the girls were more demure.  Yes, demure, that sooo describes my Thing Two.

What I didn’t know at that time, was that they were also taking measurements and they found one they didn’t like.  So I went back the next month, and later was told something absolutely terrifying.  There was a possibility Thing Two might have down syndrome or possibly fluid on her brain.  The doctor was new, and just told me this casually in her office.  How would I find out?  Oh, I could see a specialist.  IN TWO WEEKS.

To be continued . . . but not in two weeks, promise.