Thursday, February 19, 2009

Reality checks

Well, my brother and SIL are doing fairly well with the new baby, and I'm so thrilled for them. It seems as if breastfeeding is coming much easier to her than it did to me, and Baby O. is putting weight on.

She's a typical newborn, though, in that she's not sleeping for long periods, and it's wearing on the new parents. SIL's mom is staying with them and helping out as much as possible, and they're trying to let my brother get sleep at night since he commutes every day, but the baby likes to be held most of the time and I think the exhaustion is setting in.

I think they're doing much better than they realize, to be truthful, and I know from recent experience that it will get better, of course. But, it's made me re-think a lot of my thinking lately.

N. is nearly 10 months old. When my brother was 10 months old, my mom was pregnant with me. Granted, she didn't have any morning sickness, but even the most perfect pregnancy is tiring. I keep thinking about this because we do want more kids, but aren't sure when to have them.

I like the idea of the ~2 year spacing, which would mean being pregnant by the time N. is 15 months old. I also think that if we're going to space them close, we should probably have them while we're down here in the US. That way, they can all be dual citizens, rather than having children in different citizenship situations. I'm also quite happy with the maternity hospital down here, and do see advantages over the Canadian system (in terms of natural vs C-section, etc.). I don't like the shorter mat leave (a full year is standard in Canada) but we made it work this time.

So, between all of that, plus a new niece and a best friend due in July, I've got babies on the brain. I don't want to be sick again, but it was manageable with the unisom/B6, and I now know to take it ahead of time (ie before the sickness starts).

Which is why I keep hoping to get more and more emails and phone calls from my brother. Every time I talk to him, I think to myself, I know the newborn time passes faster than you can possibly imagine, but I'll be damned if I want to be that exhausted again right now.

For me, it turns out other people's babies provide a suitable form of birth control ;-)

Ask me again in two or three months, though. My answer might change.

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