March 19, 2006

I Just Can’t

My Lil C is 5.5 months old; and I can not bring myself to move her from the cradle beside my bed to her crib, where she desperately needs to be. She needs to be there because she is a loooonnnngggg baby. She is off the charts when it comes to length and she literally has about a quarter inch from the top of her head to the top of the cradle with her toes grazing the bottom of the cradle. I know she’d probably be more comfortable in her room, in her crib. She takes naps there and I can deal with that. But the whole night, in a different room? I’m seriously having some issues with this.

Big I slept in our bed for just about the first two years of her life. She was not a great sleeper and liked to wake up for feedings often. So for me, it was an issue of "do I want to get any sleep or not?" So, she slept with my husband and me and it was fine. She went to her own bed and room when she was just about two and has been doing so since. (She actually sleeps in a loft bed now which was a whole other issue for me to deal with!) With Big I, there were no issues regarding the whole co-sleeping thing; although there were certain well-meaning family members and other people who had issues with it and weren’t shy about letting us know. My husband and I did with it what we do with other well-meaning advice. . . considered it briefly and then decided to promptly dismiss it.

Before I had Lil C, my husband and I bought a new bed, bigger and softer. The bigger part is good for a new baby, but the softer part is not so good. So Lil C slept in our bed, but in a co-sleeping infant bed that fit inside our bed. That worked for a while but then the little munchkin got so long so fast that we had to move her to the cradle. That was tough for me too, but bearable because she was still in our room.

I think the hardest part about moving her out of our room is that there is really no going back once I move her out. We’ll need to establish a routine; and then I have to really disconnect the umbilical cord. It’s so hard to do. What’s making it harder is that I always wanted to have three kids. After the pregnancy with Lil C, the gestational diabetes, the non-stress tests, the endless finger sticks, the glyburide which gave me low blood sugars and made me feel like I had heart-burn constantly, the ridiculous diet that limited carbs and sugars (how dare they do such a thing to a pregnant woman, for God’s sake?), I don’t know if a third is in the cards for us.

For any other person, maybe it wouldn’t be an issue. I gave birth to two perfectly healthy, full term babies. What’s a little gestational diabetes, right? Wrong. In my family there is a strong history of diabetes. My mother is a type 1 who was diagnosed with gestational during her second pregnancy and then it never went away. Although mine appears to have been a true gestational diabetes, who’s to say that it wouldn’t come back and stay? Is that a risk worth taking to have another child? And then there’s that whole thing about it taking over a year to get Lil C on her way into this world. I’m not getting any younger; and I like that my girls are 4.5 years apart.

If the experience of giving birth to Lil C wasn’t so amazing, I think I would be able to accept not having another child. In fact, throughout the pregnancy, I swore this was it because I would not go through all these ridiculous tests and finger sticks and stress EVER again. However, I had a wonderful midwife deliver Lil C and it was a truly beautiful experience. I was actually able to reach under her arms and deliver her myself. There was no i.v., no drugs (besides a miso to get labor going), and no knees-to-your-ears-counting-bright lights-pushing either. We even went home the same day I gave birth. She came into this world in such a relaxed way, which is why we think she is such a mellow and easy to care for baby.

It’s just hard to say that I won’t be doing that again. It’s hard to get rid of the 0-3 month clothes (which is why I don’t). It’s hard to accept that the giving birth part of my life might be done; so for now. . . I won’t.

Lil C is sleeping in her cradle tonight.