Conquering My Inner Demons

I am sixteen and a half weeks pregnant. I say this because inevitably, I will forget exactly how far along I am and this way I don’t have to calculate as far. So anyhow, here I am, pregnant for the third time, in my second trimester, and I have to say, I’m a little freaked.

For one thing, we’re going to be outnumbered. We’re going to have to go from man-to-man to zone defense. Now, I realize that I have been managing two boys on my own quite a bit (putting both kids to bed whenever my husband works an evening shift), but three? C’mon, even LeBron doesn’t get triple-teamed that often. But so far, I have implemented a rule with my boys that seems to hold and seems to work well: only one fussy fellow at a time. This means that if the little one is having a fit, the older one needs to suck it up and not throw a tantrum. Oddly, the reverse also works. When my elder son is upset, his little brother will actually just focus on cheering him up. Yes, I realize this isn’t something I can really enforce, but I guess as long as the statement holds true (and I reinforce it by thanking the well-behaved one for not giving me any trouble), I can hang onto my sanity. But how will it work with three? Most likely, if one is demanding my attention, the other two will be off somewhere else brewing trouble.

But the management logistics are only part of my concern. A friend told me early in my pregnancy that it’s harder being pregnant with the third than having the third. I’ve also been told that the jump from one kid to two is harder than the jump from two to three. And right now, I believe it all. I have to. Personally, I fear that all these reassurances are less for me, and more for themselves. Perhaps parents of three kids have completely lost it and are trying to pull themselves back to some semblance of sanity by reciting these mantras over and over until they actually believe them to be true.

Another friend once claimed that with each child, she lost half her mental capacity. Now, the mother of three is functioning with a quarter of her original brainpower. That sounds about right. I mean, what else would possess me to think that letting a two year old help me cook is a good idea? Or that I am any more than a maid, cook, and chauffer. This article on salary.com determined that a stay-at-home mom should earn a salary of $90,000 based on job responsibilities, and hours worked. There’s also a survey you can fill out to determine your “net worth” as an unpaid caregiver. Interesting stuff, and also a nice way to spend some time when you’re procrastinating.

My other concern with my pregnancy has been my fear of having something go wrong. I pick my two-year old up too much, I over-exert myself, I don’t eat well enough. I know I’ve had all these same concerns before, but this time around, it seems I’m seriously freaking myself out worse than before. I’ve been feeling like this invalid, hating being treated like I have a disability but still not being willing to take any undue risk (and my risk level is now ridiculously low, beyond reasonable). Can I carry the laundry basket up two flights of stairs? Should I stand on this chair to change the light bulb? It seems that all the hyper paranoid comments my mother kept making during my last two pregnancies have ingrained themselves into me so that I’ve internalized it. Was she right? Is that why I delivered so early the first time and was on bed rest the second? Was my mother right? Blast it!

This past weekend, while we were visiting my sister in Virginia, my husband hurt his back. He just twisted it funny and it went totally stiff, rendering him in immense pain for the rest of the weekend. He was uncharacteristically inactive, forced to sit leaning against a heating pad and taking meds to remain functional. But still, on Saturday night, we decided to go out to dinner. We parked the car, walked across the lot to the restaurant, and discovered the wait would be 1½ hours. We decided to go elsewhere, and finally, after weeks of paranoia and self-doubt, I had an epiphany. I, the able-bodied one, would go pull the car around. And I have to say, it felt good.

And on Sunday, I drove most of the way back home (all but the last hour, during which I couldn’t even manage to keep my eyes open). Part of the reason I drove was so my husband could relax his back. But part of me felt like I had to meet the challenge. Back in 1998, I once drove all the way from St. Louis to Cincinnati, an eight-hour drive, despite having four other drivers in the car. Maybe I wanted to prove that I could do it again.

The nice thing about being older is having the maturity to realize and accept that I don’t have to prove anything. I could probably have driven all the way home myself. I could have gotten a can of Sprite, put on some Black Eyed Peas on the iPod, and kept myself awake the whole time (we got home after midnight). But why? Was it worth putting my family at risk in case I was wrong? Would I win some sort of award if I was right? In the end, it doesn’t matter whether I drive all the way or not, so there was no reason to try. And you know what? Even if I couldn’t do it, that’s all right by me. I don’t have to know. I am very happy having someone to share the driving responsibility.

And I look forward to many other road trips with my copilot at my side. Together we shall show our three kids the world, or at least the United States east of the Mississippi. Besides, I’ve been told that the driver’s seat, as a captain’s chair, in the Honda Odyssey, is quite comfortable and quite fun to drive.