“Muffin, you’re having those thoughts again!” he said to me after I threw out there that getting pregnant at this point wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. I hadn’t spent any time considering what I said, it just came out in conversation. Notice I didn’t say it would be like winning the lottery or finding a piece of chocolate at the bottom of your purse. I said “wouldn’t be the worst”. The worst would be like walking barefoot through a steaming pile of cow dung. That would be THE WORST (Trust me. I’ve done it. stinkity. stink. stank.). Getting pregnant at this moment would be better than that. A step or two above cowpoo toe jam. That’s all I said! And he looked at me, laughed and knew that I was having those thoughts again. I didn’t even know I was having them. In fact I don’t know if I’m having them. My hormones are screwing with me big time! My hormones are having them.
I wondered a few times after that if he was right. I found myself going through all the old pictures of when the kids were brand new and wondered, but decided it meant nothing. I got a little too sentimental about putting away clothes Naomi had outgrown and wondered, but decided it probably wasn’t any more than usual and that I was just over-thinking it. Then it happened. The clue that made me say, “Darn it! I AM NOT having those thoughts!” The thing that made it clear to me that in the battle between logic and hormones, the hormones were already doing their victory dance! They had won before I even knew the game was on! There they were in the end zone, shaking their groove thing in my face as logic screamed “YOU CRAZY, STUPID WOMAN! WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO DO THAT TO YOURSELF AGAIN ALREADY!?” And when it happened, I smiled. In all my craziness, I smiled. Because I knew, I had lost. And in some sick, twisted way, I was glad.
sick.
Now, onto the moment. There I was, searching through the archives of our lives (my external hard drive with all my photos on it) and I ran across a photo of myself in the very advanced stages of being pregnant with Lawson. Now, up until that moment, I’d have looked at that photo and had any number of these thoughts before quickly clicking to the next shot: “Wow. My butt was huge.” or “SO glad I’m not pregnant right now.” or just simply “not. cute.” But this time, I stared at the giant round belly in the photograph and had a moment of longing and jealousy towards my former knocked-up self. And that is exactly what happened a few months before I found myself pregnant with Naomi. Hormones won.
Now, let me put out this fire before it gets blazing and my phone starts ringing off the hook. First of all, this does not mean I’m on a mission to get pregnant right now. Not in the least. Logic is a poor, poor loser and right now logic is calling for a rematch! Logic is jumping up and down and pretty sure I’ve gone and lost it! Hormones are having a really good time messing with me! They’ve even gone and made my straight hair curly in the past couple months (!!!!). They are taking a woman who should be perfectly satisfied with her obnoxiously perfect set-up with a boy and a girl and making her want more. They are making her baby-hungry even as she breastfeeds her almost eight month old BABY. Yes, baby. They are making a woman who has to inject herself twice a day while she’s pregnant want to go through the pharmacy drive through to get refills on the anti-coagulant. They are making a woman who endured 32 hours of hard, natural labor want to do it all over again.
Okay, so even creepily addressing the situation in the third person is not helping me to turn that nagging voice off. It’s there. I’m working on finding a mute button. Wish me luck. And let’s hope when I find it that it doesn’t mute the logic instead!
