Miguelina

Rollercoaster...

So, to answer the question everyone keeps asking me: How am I doing?

Fine. Just fine.

Which doesn't mean that life with three kids isn't a roller coaster, and that I'm not barely hanging on some days, while other days I'm just coasting along, enjoying the ride.

It's...a lot. The three kids part. Kind of shocking, actually. 

And then it's not. 

I'm extremely lucky - my husband is a class-A father and partner, most of my family has come to visit and help out, even though they live in Miami and I'm up here in Boston - and my friends have been nothing short of amazing. No really, they're Amazing: Coming over with food and drinks (of the adult variety) and playing with my kids and have been nothing if not patient and wonderful, and won't you believe it! I've run out of thank you notes because people have been too kind. Even people I hardly know.

THAT my friends, is luck. And I appreciate it more than I could ever express, even though I'm supposed to be a writer.

But! The recovery from this birth has been tougher on me in so many ways. Physically (as the nurse so kindly reminded me "you've stretched your insides as far as they can take, for a third time, things won't be the same for a long time, if ever") and emotionally. I can actually feel the hormonal changes - my temperature goes up and down, I want to see people and then I don't. I cry. I laugh. I sit in silence. I lose my patience. I'm at peace. I won't shut up.

I know it's all normal. But that doesn't mean it doesn't take some getting used to.

Exhibit A of my roller coaster life: I saw a pregnant woman yesterday, AND I WAS JEALOUS OF HER. Me! Who wouldn't shut up about my big fat pregnancy and how ready I was to give birth. (Don't believe me? Reference, oh, every post on this site since about May or something.)

Exhibit B: Baby names. I'm second guessing our choice of name. Not because we don't love the name, but because random people can't say Matthias. (It's Ma-TEE-as!) I love the name. It's a very popular name...internationally. I guess it's not so much here. Oops! We know so many Matthiases, but I guess my son will be the first for many of our US friends. That makes me sad some days. Other days, I'm all "tough noogies folks!" - our family is an international family (our children have both US and EU citizenship) and it's not like we're going to name our boys Bob* to make things easier for strangers.

(Not that there's anything wrong with Bob. You know what I mean.)

(Oh, let's face it...people are going to call him Matt. Sigh.)

ANYWAYS! The boys need me. Gotta go. Stay well. I promise to do the same.

Matthias!

Meet Matthias. (His name is the Spanish/German version of Matthew. It's pronounced Ma-TEE-us.)

He's already 14 days old, but he was only an hour old when I took this picture.

He was born at 9:05 AM on October 12. It seems like he's been a part of our family all along. Isn't it funny how that works out?

Matthias has been a model baby so far. I'm exhausted, of course, but I can't really blame it on sleep deprivation - at least not yet. He's dozing peacefully in this picture, but he was born with his eyes wide open, and he's always looking around - I think he can't wait to join his very, very, VERY active brothers.

I haven't figured out the whole "life with three boys" thing - how will I get to the grocery store? What if they all want to ride in the stroller? WHAT THEN? But I guess I'll figure it out as I go along.

For now, we're enjoying being spoiled by friends and family. We're very grateful. 

In other news, I looked down today and you won't believe what I saw...MY TOES! (It's been a while.)

I'm the Rip Van Winkle of Pregnant Women

No, really.  I'm STILL pregnant. I know you've heard this one before, but I've been pregnant since January, and since it is now October, you will forgive me for being a bit repetitive.

I'm scheduled for an induction, but that's still a week away. I'm scheduled for a battery of tests, but those won't happen until the weekend. I'm starting to think that my OBGYN is running some sort of evil experiment where she is testing just how much pregnancy a female body can handle. My bones hurt, that's how heavy this belly is. My back spasms and contractions are so bad at times that we went into the hospital AGAIN...and were promptly sent home with the diagnosis of false labor. But this time they were nice enough to give me a sleeping pill because they couldn't figure out how I was going to get any rest with those contractions.

That was three days ago. I have nothing else to say about that.

October 1

And just like that, it's October.

The pumpkins are out. The spiders are in (I found one inside the baby's carseat -- eek!). It's chilly. Summer came very late, but fall is coming right on time.

Of course, this baby is taking his sweet time. Nothing to report there, other than the usual. I'm exhausted.

And because I know how lucky I am, I'll just leave it at that. I'm tired. And waiting. And doing my best to enjoy fall while I can.

The One Where I Get To Quote Betty Draper

How is it possible that today is September 21? And that the last time I posted was September 9th? If this was a job I'd be FIRED by now. Good thing I'm the boss and I play favorites. Shameless!

So, nothing new to report. I'm inching closer to my due date with nothing to show for it other than my HUGE belly, which causes a commotion so great every time we go out in public that my mild-mannered mother has started growling at strangers. Seriously. I can't walk out in public without having every third person (male or female, young or old) try to engage me in conversation. Add to that the fact that I have two other children, and that I can't walk anymore -- what I do is waddle, in the strictest sense of the word, waddle, and I'm not exaggerating for once, it's the God Honest Truth -- and well, any errand takes me three times as long as it normally would, which I guess is great preparation for the third child, but which is also is getting old fast.

The only semi-interesting thing to happen is that we had a false alarm yesterday -- I thought my water had broken, but I wasn't sure -- and I was having contractions, and they weren't all that bad, but I called the Dr. just in case, and they sent me to the hospital, just in case. Everything went so smoothly and everyone was so cheerful (and let's face it, I'm so READY) that I was just hoping that it would be the day. It was so dreamy, in fact, that the nurse and doctor who was on duty (a man who I'd never seen before in my life) both said that they hoped today would be the day because we seemed like such nice a nice couple.

(In hindsight, it CLEARLY wasn't time -- who is pleasant when giving birth? But it would have been nice.)

Anyways, I'll spare you the details, but once it was finally determined that my bag of waters was still intact and we were all standing around not sure what to do next, I said the only thing that came to mind:

"My water never breaks."

Which, of course, was only funny to my husband and me.

Then we went out for a late lunch at Petit Robert, where we sat outside and pretended we were in Paris. I had a Croque Madame and ice water and my husband had some pork and wine. We argued over baby names and flipped the pages of the same baby name book we've used in all three pregnancies. We came up with the most ridiculous names we could. We got to really have fun with this baby.

Not a bad way to spend a Sunday, now that I think about it.