Every kid is different

Or so I'd been told. They're not going to be the same. This one might be really mellow and sleep really well. I didn't listen to the first part of the message because the last part of the message was too much to risk hoping for. This kid could sleep as poorly as A did. And be as colicky.

As for that first part, though. A was 2 weeks early, and this little one is now one week late. And although it should feel like I've only been waiting one week over my due date, actually, most things have been packed, collected, settled and paid since March 10th (this kid's 2 week early date). So it feels more like 3 weeks.

This feeling of waiting, of having time to think again if we are ready, to do one more thing, but also to spend one more hour with A, playing a bit more consciously, is new to me. To us. As is the feeling of getting really big. I thought I was just not the kind of woman who gets stretchmarks (new ones from pregnancy at least - I've had them from my growth spurt in puberty), but it turns out I get them just fine. Big, dark and red, as my belly gets bigger. We're still coming to terms, they and I, but we'll get there eventually. And I have about 2 hours of up time before I need to lay down and rest so my back stays loose and feeling okay. If I'm walking, it is 1 hour or less. Making dinner feels like a triumph.

And I wake up every day around 5:30 or 6am. So I've been ready for this time shift in Europe for two weeks now. I'm the only one in the house that isn't going to suffer the hour-earlier wake ups. Although I might miss my quiet morning time.

I've realized how many meanings words like "pregnancy", "labor", and "breastfeeding" can take on, just talking to other moms these last few weeks, hearing their stories, having their advice about any phase. And in now having such a different end of my pregnancy. And I've been wanting to put that into visual information somehow, this notion of the huge variations included under the umbrella of a single term. For myself, first of all, as a reminder to not compare myself to others and their process, but also for other women, to see how different the experience can be. So in these early morning wake-ups, I've started putting together in informal survey, on SurveyMonkey.com, about these experiences, and maybe if enough women who've been pregnant answer it, I'll have some data to try to flesh out these words. To make their meanings more subtle. And something that looks nice (once I have some data, then it is time to find someone who really knows how to pull out the most striking features and visualize them well).

So, since I'm only up 30min. before the rest of the household needs to be today, I'm off to make a few tweaks.