My Laissez-Faire Pregnancy (and a Poll)

**We find out if Baby #2 is a boy or a girl tomorrow (assuming the Little One cooperates, of course). I know this is a little last-minute for a poll, but I'll be back Thursday or Friday with the verdict. Until then, feel free to cast your vote!**

Whenever I think about my next blog post, my mind seems to go everywhere but to the little baby in my belly. I'm cooking yummy food, having fun adventures with Patrick and Cambrie, dabbling in potty training, playing around on the piano, and pushing my way forward toward a cleaner, more organized home. I could write about any of these things. For some reason, the fact that, oh, I don't know, I'm growing a child from scratch seems to slip my mind.

I kinda guessed it would be this way to some degree. After all, I've already got one little one to chase after. But I feel a little sheepish at how far this has gone. With Cambrie, I was counting down each week to the new update on Babycenter--I always had to know what size fruit she compared to. Okay, maybe that does sound a little obsessive, but still--with my current little freeloader, I've only checked three or four times.

As more evidence to my, uh, laissez-faire attitude toward this pregnancy, my first doctor's appointment was at about 15 weeks along. When I called to make the appointment, the nurse was trying to see when in the next few days I could come in.

"Oh, well, whatever works best for you guys--I can do next week or later, too."

"Well, technically, your first appointment should have been about two months ago. So it's okay, we can get you in this week."

Oops. I guess my laid-back let-my-body-do-its-thing attitude doesn't exactly mesh with modern medicine. *shrug* It was nice, though, to hear Little One's heartbeat. And to see Cambrie's reaction. I'm pretty excited to see how the whole sibling thing plays out with her and our impending arrival.

Here's a possible contributor to my lack of obsession and focus: now that I'm well into trimester numero dos, all of my most severe symptoms from the beginning have faded. (Read: I am no longer housing a voracious monster in my stomach that is constantly starving but impossible to satiate.) I know that other moms have a much harder time with their pregnancies, and I feel very grateful; I certainly don't wish I had it harder. However, not having a constant reminder of Little One (other than more achiness than I had with Cambrie and a drastically lowered tolerance for annoying things) makes me a little more absent-minded.

Case in point: I was recently talking to someone who was asking if she might be able to start her daughter on piano lessons after her eighth birthday, in June.

"Oh, sure," I replied. "That's in the summer when I have fewer students, so that would be perfect timing."

...Wait, isn't there something else happening in early June? Like having a baby?

Though I do feel, as I said, a little sheepish about how little attention I'm paying to this pregnancy, I don't necessarily feel bad. I've been blessed to be a fairly healthy person, and so far my pregnancies have gone very smoothly (another way I've been blessed--knock on wood). I feel pretty confident in my body's ability to take charge, as long as I do things like exercise and eat relatively well to help it along. Instead of stressing and living in a suspended, anxious bubble, I've felt relaxed and confident.

The biggest milestone I'm counting down to right now is the big gender reveal--we'll find out tomorrow! From there on out I feel like I'll be much more mentally involved in this little baby. It seems easier to me when I'm not dancing around with gender-neutral descriptives and when I'll be able to think of names, colors, and sibling relationships in a more concrete way.

So hopefully this forgetful, "live and let live/grow/develop" will slowly slip away into a mentally engaged excitement. I do hope I'm still able to maintain confidence in this natural process--to trust my body to do what it does best, my doctors to offer suggestions, advice, and direct assistance when necessary, and myself to manage the balance between the two.