For months and months I've been meaning to write a post about baby. It's a daunting blog post to try and tackle. There's so, so much I could share. But in the interest of writing something rather than nothing for another few weeks, I'm going to tackle some soft-ball questions about mostly superficial stuff. Start it out easy.
What follows are my answers to many of the ongoing "You're Expecting?!" type questions.
Are you going to find out if it's a boy or girl?
Absolutely, ASAP. In this case, since I'm of advanced maternal age, when they drew my blood at about 9 weeks they could determine the sex of the baby via our DNA. Joe and I kind of assumed we'd have a girl. Make it even - two big boys, two little girls. Pop the top on our house and put in double Jack n Jill (or Jack n Jack and Jill n Jill) bed/bathrooms. Ba-da-bing, ba-da-boom. BUT...we were surprised to hear we're "back to boy" with our final baby.
At first I was little sad thinking Wren wouldn't have a sister. And I really quickly got over it and decided for our family, it's really awesome to get another boy. Wren - although not a princess by any stretch of the imagination - will be our only girl and there's just something incredibly special about that. She will be so sweet and strong. Everyone says she'll be so protected by her brother's. That's the truth. AND. There's always an and. She'll also become very strong because of her brothers. They're not exactly gentle per se. They are very loving and caring, but they are rowdy and loud and wild. And Wren will have the opportunity every day to embrace being a girl while surrounded by boys. So when she's a teenager (or god forbid, before then) I hope she'll be totally innoculated to boy antics, will have seen it all, and will be unimpressed and call BS on anything but really genuine, well-intentioned boys.
And the boys...well, I've always said I feel like a boy mom. And Joe is a total "guy's guy." So our fourth and final will fit right in at our house. Mostly, I am thrilled that I will not have another girl's head of hair to contend with. Joe and I have vowed that, unlike Max and Otto's hair, baby brother's hair will never grow to touch his shoulders.
How are you feeling?
This pregnancy is definitely the worst of the four. For the first trimester I was natious and exhausted the entire time. The thought of any veggies (until I discovered canned green beans, or if you count french fries and ketchup) made me ill. And so did thinking about baby clothes, nursery planning...all the things that brought me joy the first few pregnancies. More on this in a separate post because this is the un-superficial, real stuff, that worries me. The, oh my god, we were just leaving the baby stage and counting the days till all kids were in full day kindergarten, and now we're back to the baby-stage type worries.
Physically, the best way to describe how I was feeling for much of the pregnancy was "not like myself." I had a bunch of minor illnesses just frequent and strong enough to mess with me. First trimester stuff. Followed by a bladder infection. And Influenza Type A. Then a sty in my eye. A planter's wort on my foot. All things I have never had and suddenly I'm being hit monthly with an illness or irritant just enough to remind me that maybe I'm not in control of my body right now.
Do you have cravings?
The typical pregnancy ones of salt and vinegar. Returning from Costco with about 10 pounds of assorted pickled peppers, olive muffuletta, hot sauces and such, pretty much confirmed my hunch I was pregnant. Well, actually it was when I walked in the front door carrying this stuff and scowled "What's that smell?" to some benign smell that I never would have noticed previously. Joe looked at me and gave me the "Oh Shit, do you see what you're carrying and did you hear what you just said????" freak out look (all the kids were around us so he wasn't going to blurt out "You're pregnant!").
What are you most excited about?This is another question that requires it's own blog entry. At first I was mostly freaked out. Because I was like "We can't go back to where we were three years ago when Wren was born." It was such hard work. We were six feet under. In a baby and toddler fog.
But I've had months to get excited and I am. Mostly because I know it's going to be so vastly different having a newborn now, than if it were the typical 20-23 month gap between kids like when Max, Otto & Wren were all just born.
So...just some of the things I'm excited about.
Max's enthusiasm. OMG. He's legitimately in love with his baby brother already. He talks to my belly, rubs my belly, reads books to my belly and believes that when he's talking to my belly and baby starts kicking, that baby brother is "talking" back to him. He gushes "I love you baby brother" and "I hope you'll love me too, baby brother" as he hugs my belly. He loves looking at baby clothes I've started to dig out for baby brother. I ordered baby outfits for a friend who just had a baby boy and Max insists we need to keep it for our baby because "It's just too cute Mom!!" Max is genuinely going to be helpful with baby. I think Otto & Wren will stick together...they are not the "big kid" that Max is and they're definitely not "babies" like baby brother will be. Max and baby brother will likely bond and Otto and Wren will continue to be two peas in a pod playing together.
Social media. I wasn't even on Facebook when Max was born. I didn't get on Pinterest til just before Wren was born, and Instagram after Wren was born. I "knew" Max, Otto and Wren before I ever started "socially" posting photos of them. I didn't have to "create" a hashtag for each of them (#mymax, #biglittlebrother, #wrennie), I knew who they were and what their nickname was before hash-tagging a photo of them with it. I'm so curious to see what #fourthandfinal is like (he'll get a new hashtag, I'm sure of it). And look out folks, because I'm pretty much addicted to Instagram and use it as my daily blog/baby book. I have a feeling I might be over-gramming once baby brother's here.
Selfie Stick. Yes, you heard that right. I am excited to put the Schuster family selfie stick to use. I am not a big selfie person, but a few weeks ago was talking with Max, Otto & Wren and asking if they thought we could manage getting a weekly picture of all four kids together for the first year of baby brother's life. For every kid's first year I've always taken a weekly "chair picture" (picture of the baby in a specific chair holding a clipboard where I jotted down a couple highlights of what we did/baby did so if I fell behind on blogging/baby booking I'd at least have the weekly chairs pics to capture each of their 1st years). I'll do that again with #fourthandfinal, but also would like it of all four kids together. Max said, why not get a weekly picture of the whole family - you, dad and all the kids? I started to say, that seems unrealistic. We don't have anyone to take our picture, etc. Max said, "I know, we can just take a selfie of all of us!" I started to respond that I don't think our arms are long enough to get six people in a selfie...and the lightbulb went off. I googled an image of a selfie stick, shared it with the kids and by the wonders of Amazon Prime, we are the proud owners of a selfie stick. No excuses. Weekly Schuster family photos in 2015 :)
A few things. Things that require a longer post. So, quite simply, the age gap between #4 and the first three kids makes me really nervous.
And his name. We have no idea what his name should be and it's freaking me out. We decided on Max, Otto and Wren early in my previous pregnancies and ended up getting plenty of "signs" that each of the names we chose was "right" as we waited to meet each baby. So far we don't have any front runner names and I'm not getting any signs.
