Thoughts on a second pregnancy

I originally wrote this back on August 16. I saved it in my drafts, vacillating on whether or not to actually publish it. My emotions have tempered somewhat since the initial writing (perhaps due in part to the catharsis of actually writing it out), and I'm feeling better in general, but I'll save that for another entry sometime in the next few weeks. In the end I decided to go ahead and publish this because I really feel strongly that there needs to be more dialogue on the subject, and by not sharing, I'm contributing to the very isolation that I've felt.

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I hesitate to write this entry. For one thing, it's not news or updates, like usual, but rather some very personal thoughts and emotions. Second, I know that I might come across as ungrateful and/or cold-hearted, thought I'm not. There's another reason, but it won't make sense until after I share my thoughts.

For so long, Ben and I joked that we could never have another child. Julie was so easy-going and low-maintenance, that any other experience would only be downhill from her. However, we knew that our family wasn't complete with just one child. Neither of us have had that feeling of "there's one more waiting," but we weren't comfortable stopping at one.

Now I'm pregnant with my second. This pregnancy was planned, and was in no way an accident, even in the timing. I'm having a girl. When people find out, they ask if I'm excited. My answer is usually non-committal. Then they ask if I'd wanted a boy. Not necessarily.

At first I thought I just wasn't as excited about this baby as I was about my first, because the first is so magical -- all the new experiences and emotions. The second is, well, a repeat. Each pregnancy and each baby are different, but the 40-week process is -- basically -- the same each time. Just like with my first pregnancy, I haven't experienced morning sickness or nausea. My energy is lower than usual, I have some lower back pain, and sleep is becoming more burdensome. I do have to pee more this pregnancy than with my first.

But really, that's about all I have to complain about with my pregnancies. I consider myself blessed. Ben jokes that I don't really experience pregnancy, at least not traditionally. Julie was born via C-section, and I'll be having another C-section with Robyn, so I don't even experience traditional birth.

Some women feel a bond with their babies as soon as they get a positive test. Others it's a few weeks in. With my first pregnancy, I had an anatomy ultrasound at 20 weeks. Three days later, I felt the first kicking movements. The following week I finally started needing to wear maternity clothes, but only barely. Right around then is when it started to feel "real" to me, and I began to connect. I had an actual name by which I could refer to the baby (which less and less felt simply like a fetus), and I could feel her alive inside me.

So at first I just thought that this pregnancy seemed less magical, by mere virtue of its not being the first. I found out at 19 weeks that I'm having a girl. I started wearing maternity clothes around 14 weeks. About a week after that, I felt the first stirrings and contractions. Then I started to feel lots of baby movement, and instead of being excited as before, and wishing Ben could feel it, I find myself annoyed. She'll kick and move hard for 10-15 minutes at a time, then calm down for an hour. Each time she gets going, I get irritated. I'm glad that she's healthy and thriving, but the sensations are just nuisance-like to me.

I figured that once things started to sink in a little more (it's a girl...she's healthy...etc.), that I'd connect more and become more excited, like last time. But that hasn't happened. I'm 26 weeks today, and heading into my third trimester now. Each time someone asks me if I'm excited (whether referring to having a girl, or just in general), I find it hard to fake a "yes." So I started saying, "I'm getting there," but that also feels disingenuous.

I finally figured out what my problem is. I think I made the joke often enough that it sunk in a little too deep for me. I really think I could have been happy and satisfied with just one child, and not had any more. I don't not want this baby. I don't feel resentful. I just am not really very excited. At all.

I have many friends, some very close, some more like acquaintances, who are unable to have children of their own, or for whom it is very difficult. To them I'm sure I sound ungrateful. To those who have large families, I probably sound selfish, and maybe there's a bit of truth to that.

The other reason I hesitate to share all this is because I worry that someday, when Robyn reads it, that she'll feel that she wasn't wanted. I want to repeat that this was a planned pregnancy, and I wouldn't change anything about it. Ben tells me that I had more of a disconnect than I remember when it came to Julie's birth. He said it took me a week or so before I really felt a strong connection and embraced my newly found motherhood. He expects that my current discouragement will dissipate in much the same manner. I hope he's right.

I shared some of these personal thoughts and feelings a few weeks ago with a couple of girlfriends, each of whom are mothers to two already. They each told me that they've known other women who have expressed similar sentiments. I never have. I feel very alone in this, and that's hard. I'm glad to know that there are others out there, but I imagine that many of them are also hesitant to talk about these feelings, as I am. And so for that reason, despite what may be better judgment, I am sharing this. Women who may feel like this need to know that they're not alone in it. And despite what I -- and others -- may feel right now, I need to keep telling myself that eventually I'll come around.