Feeling Manic

I genuinely enjoy the everyday musings at work. Working for the Office of Maternal, Child and Health, I am constantly surrounded by personal pregnancy horror stories and heaps of old wives tales. I discretely laugh in the face of those who insist that the reason why I'm having so much heartburn is because my child will have a lot of hair when he is born. I've said this many times before... but if that were true, I must be giving birth to a monkey... because heartburn introduced itself from day 1 of the pregnancy and hasn't left me since.

The email system is not impervious to all this banter, and every once in a while I get forwarded chain letters that concern babies, rainbows and all that sappy stuff. Predisposed to most junk mail that start with "FWD", I tend to miss out on a lot of the ones actually worth reading, but for some reason, there was this particular one called "Before I was a Mom" that stuck out and left a mark with me. After reading it, my first instinct was to do exactly what I judge other people in doing... which is to forward it to someone else. And so I fought my partiality and forwarded it to my mom and Mama Mary.

Mama Mary emailed me back with something along the lines of taking the baby and leaving me with the dirty laundry. Conversely, I am willing to bet my whole paycheck that my mom hasn't even read the email yet. Growing up with the typewriter generation (and I sincerely and truthfully say that without a hint of sarcasm), she just doesn't correspond well using the internet. In fact, when I spent a year deployed in Bosnia, I considered myself lucky to have gotten ONE email from her throughout the entire time. But that's beside my today's rant...

I'm saddened by the fact that I can't share this whole pregnancy experience with my mom. Not the way I had imagined I would anyway. We talk on the phone.. she would try to convince me to fly back to California and have the baby there instead. And still, every once in a while, she would joke about sending the baby to California to live with her until Mike and I decide to go back there. Rumor has it that she's been collecting little baby stuff and saving it for when she comes in January when I'm expected to deliver. But the phone calls are very few, far and between.. and unless it's initiated by me, there probably won't be any communication at all. Beyond my already unstable hormones and emotional outbursts, I try to comprehend her reasoning behind the lack of intrest (or at least that's what it presents itself to be)... but I'm almost too afraid to ask.

I'm sure I've discretely brought it up on more than once occasion, and every time she would come back with "you shouldn't have moved away" -- which not only makes me feel like a big pile of shit (like I've deprived my family of the experience of seeing me blow up like a balloon and having a little one to spoil), it also makes me feel.. well.... extremely lonely.

I try to convince myself that I'm just being overly needy for attention, but I genuinely don't think I am. I dread that my baby won't recognize my family since flying between here and there costs about an arm and a leg. But I guess the reality of it is that we don't know if we'll ever have the convenience of it all.

Right now, I'll take all the attention I can get...


For those who want to read the forward.. here goes:

Before I was a Mom

Before I was a Mom I never tripped over toys or forgot words to a lullaby.
I didn't worry whether or not my plants were poisonous.
I never thought about immunizations.
Before I was a Mom - I had never been puked on.
Pooped on.
Chewed on.
Peed on.
I had complete control of my mind and my thoughts.
I slept all night.
Before I was a Mom I never held down a screaming child so doctors could do tests.
Or give shots.
I never looked into teary eyes and cried.
I never got gloriously happy over a simple grin.
I never sat up late hours at night watching a baby sleep.
Before I was a Mom I never held a sleeping baby just because I didn't want to put it down.
I never felt my heart break into a million pieces when I couldn't stop the hurt.
I never knew that something so small could affect my life so much.
I never knew that I could love someone so much.
I never knew I would love being a Mom.
Before I was a Mom - I didn't know the feeling of having my heart outside my body.
I didn't know how special it could feel to feed a hungry baby.
I didn't know that bond between a mother and her child.
I didn't know that something so small could make me feel so important and happy.
Before I was a Mom - I had never gotten up in the middle of the night every 10 minutes to make sure all was okay.
I had never known the warmth, The joy, The love, The heartache, The wonderment or the satisfaction of being a Mom.
I didn't know I was capable of feeling so much before I was a Mom.
And before I was a Grandma, I didn't know that all those "Mom" feelings more than doubled when you see that little bundle being held by "your baby"...
Send this to someone who you think is a special Mom or Grandma. I just did.
And remember that behind every successful mother... Is a basket of dirty laundry