Certain milestones in a child's life stand out as particularly challenging for a parent. The delivery, breastfeeding (should you choose this), sleeping through the night, learning to walk, learning to obey, and potty training all come to mind.Somehow I seem to be cramming nearly all of these into a few short months.
I'm facing the delivery of baby #4 in less than 2 months. I've had one baby with and two without an epidural (and no, I didn't get the epidural for the first one!), and definitely prefer the calm that an epidural brings to the situation. I've considered trying to do it without again, but only because it might get me discharged faster if I don't have to wait for the epidural to wear off. Since we believe the baby will get transfered to Children's within a few hours to examine his heart and stay on top of his condition, I want to do whatever I can to get discharged quickly myself. (Before anyone freaks out, I'm not going to put my own health or safety at risk. And I know how unpredictable deliveries are. Each of my three was totally different, and my recovery time for each was differnt. Calm down!)
I forgot to ask at my last OB appointment, but I'm guessing, all else being equal, that an epidural would only add an hour or two to my stay. If that is the case, I believe it to be well worth it and I'm totally going for it. I could use one now, actually. I never dreamed that a woman's pelvis could ache and burn so badly. Seven weeks to go...
Of my three other children, two still have trouble sleeping at night. The oldest has been waking up at the ungodly hour of 5am lately. We can't figure out why. She's gotten much better at laying quietly in bed until we get her up, but then she naps during school, which isn't good either. I hope it's just a short-lived phase in her recovery.
The youngest has nightmares and loses all of her highly-advanced-for-a-two-year-old communication skills when upset. So trying to calm her down and get her back to sleep can be difficult. Scott has taken this job over as we think some of it is a ploy to get mom's attention in the middle of the night. And we both agree that she needs to get used to seeing him at night instead of me.
Because I do plan to try breastfeeding the baby. And even if I don't, I will probably do a significant number of the night-time feedings since Scott does have to go sit at a computer all day. I've decided that the 6 months of pumping I did for our oldest would be suicide for a mother of four to attempt. If this baby is unable to breastfeed within a week or two of his birth, I'll just pump for comfort til my milk is gone and switch to formula. Even if I do breastfeed, I'm not sure how long I'll last with three other kids who will very quickly learn that breastfeeding means mommy can't intervene as easily.
Which leads me to another disturbing trend. Lately I've been wondering if I'm speaking English in our house. The younger two, in particular, have developed the despicable habit of completely ignoring me. I'm not sure if this developed during Elli's recent hospitalization when they had multiple caregivers, if I've gotten lax in my enforcement of the "obey the first time or you suffer consequences" policy because of all the care Elli has required and because of my utter exhaustion of late, or if this is a phase they just so happen to both be going through simultaneously. Regardless of the origin, it has made life very difficult at our house lately. The remedy is grueling work to really only say something once and then follow through with action.
Adding to the complexity of all of the above, I've taken on toilet training Little Girl. The clock is ticking and I really really don't want to have three in diapers and one with dubious bowel control at one time.(Before training a boy, I never would have understood why someone would invent disposable hand covers...)
Even though I know that the less-than-eight-weeks I have before the baby arrives is very short and she'll probably relapse when the baby finally arrives home, I want to get some good hard work in now so we can settle back into it when the dust settles.
So, for those of you who actually see me in person over the next several months, if I seem extraordinarily cranky, please don't take it personally. I've probably just cleaned up the 18th accident of the day and run out of both underwear for the kids and carpet cleaner for my new partner-in-crime, the Bissell Little Green Machine.
