I must start this post by stating that this whole 'work' thing is a real hindrance to my creative side! While I am enjoying the paycheck and it's certainly wonderful to feel like 'me' again, I find that working so many hours seems to suck the creative life right out of me. By the time that I leave work, stop at the grocery store, make dinner, help with bath, breastfeed, and tend to my husband and babe, I'm looking at the clock and thinking, "Where did the day go?" I'm lucky if I check my e-mail some days.
So what do I do with ALL my leftover time, you ask? I start thinking about whether or not it's time to try for 'Thing 2'. I know, it's a little ridiculous. One interesting fact about me: The more I have on my plate, the hungrier I get. I thrive under pressure.
I've been thinking about this age-spacing thing for a while now. For the first 10 months of Gabe's life I swore up and down that he would be an only child. The responses were typical, "Oh honey, you'll forget how hard this is." I would stand as firm as a soldier and state, "NO! I will NOT forget what this is like. I'm exhausted. No one told how much being a mother sucks!" The tears that usually followed that statement often made whomever I was talking to actually agree that one child was probably all I could handle.
Well, Gabe just turned 1 and guess what? I haven't forgotten how difficult it was, but the memory IS slowly fading. While my little guy is still not sleeping through the night, he's made enough improvement for me to reinstate his previously lost 'sibling privileges'.
You'd think that I'd know better than to try to plan the spacing of my children. After all, the title of my blog... Expecting without Expectations... was supposed to teach me to let go of expecting anything when it comes to pregnancy and parenthood. Um, let's just forget that tiny little factoid for a few. Okay?
I've been keenly observing mothers with more than one child for about 3 months now. I see them in the grocery store, visiting the park, at the doctor's office. I have no qualms about asking them if they like the age differences between their children. In fact, I met one of my good friends that way.
There has been extensive research done on the topic of optimal birth spacing. I've read a good bit of it. Do you want to know how I would summarize it all?
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS OPTIMAL BIRTH SPACING.
There are pros and cons to having children closer together AND there are pros and cons to giving yourself a little breather and spacing them out a bit.
So, where does that leave me?? This parenthood thing has been wonderful and I adore my son. However, it's also kicked me in the ass. I'm afraid that if I wait until he gets a bit more independent I may get a taste of my own Independence back and say 'Screw it, I'm done'. I'm still full force in baby-mode and my sleeping is spotty, at best. So, why not just continue this fun all at once?
At the same time, I feel guilty about taking time away from my first born to do this. He's still happily breastfeeding and that will likely need to stop if I get pregnant (due to pre-term contractions with my first). I'm not entirely certain that my body has recovered completely. Despite the fact that I eat amazingly healthy, I'm not sure that my nutritional stores are enough to grow as strong and healthy a baby as I'd like.
Well, here's to letting go of all expectations... and just seeing what happens, playing it by ear, flying by the seat of my pants. I've been incredibly blessed in my life thus far and I have every reason to believe that the 'timing' is already set. My second angel will know just when it's time to make his or her appearance.
