Monday, Schmonday

All my days tend to run together unless we have something planned for our weekends, which is rare. . . except for the month of October. We've had something every weekend this month and each saturday has been and is booked.

But normally, my life tends to be the best during the week when other parents and kids want to 'play'. Weekends is their family time, so we tend to get stuck in the house and have a movie day and a cleaning day. Not much fun for the girls, but it has to be done.

Today is another story, I'm still way behind and barely could drag myself out of bed. I have to say one of the huge benefits to homeschool is we set our own routine and the girls are just thriving in it. We tend to not get up till 9 or 9:30 am, which is wonderful since my inner clock is off again and I'm not hitting the land of Z's till about midnight or 1 am. We have a very laid back morning, breakfast they play for an hour and then we start school.

Lyss is flying through her curriculum, clearly she is not needing the 4-6 hours they said would be required of sit down hands on time. She completes her language arts in about an hour, math in 30 and thankfully we were able to fit the piano in here so this week we will start our daily piano lessons. I'm thankful i know how to play and my mother kept all our beginner books! It wont be so daunting to teach her, and I wont have to use part of our charter allowance to hire a teacher!

Which moves me to my next decision, i have to figure out which extra curricular activity to enroll her in. She desperately wants ballet, but is already self conscious about her larger than average belly. I don't dare put her in that, because i know it will only become a sore spot for her. She had decided on horseback riding lessons, but last weekend told me she was a little scared. So i need to find something else and i'm drawing blanks. It would be nice if i could print out a list of the approved vendors and go down the list, but today i can barely keep my eyes open let alone make that type of decision.

I'll be 8 weeks in a few days, i think. Funny how with the 4th pregnancy it's much much much more laid back. I never know exactly how far along i am, just the weekend of conception. I was cramping all saturday night and sunday and yet I didn't really become alarmed, just anxious for sleep. This time i figure what will be, will be. 10 months is an incredibly long time and i have no intentions of having any concerns or worry during them this time around since the surrogacy pregnancy was micro managed in ways i about lost my sanity.

Wednesday morning i have a meeting with a midwife. i have spent moments here and there contemplating my dilemma and trying to figure out my course of action. But in reality there is no getting around it. I am fearful of childbirth for the first time in my life. Yes, i can tuck tail and run from my fears and find an OB/GYN who would willingly schedule an elective section (not hard in our parts where the section rates are in the 30-40s). Or I can suck it up, acknowledge that I've never been scared of much of anything in my entire life, and this one is a huge one. I'm terrified beyond words of the pain of childbirth and the emotional trauma that I underwent with my surrodaughter's birth to resurface with this upcoming birth. Do i choose to spend the remainder of this pregnancy in fear? Or do i lay it out on the table with a trained professional who will be willing to give me the reigns and follow MY lead and listen to MY feelings and choices? It's a pretty darn big ledge to jump off of. I had lost all faith in midwifery and natural childbirth almost 6 months ago. But i find my heart betraying my head and turning it's way back to something that was my most loved passion aside from my family.

For almost 6 months I have felt as if i have been walking around like an amputee, something huge was missing from me. If i just pretended I was whole and normal then I'd grow use to it, I kept telling myself. But I've never played well with denial, I'm not much of a team player with that term. So here I find myself pregnant and realizing I have to face up sooner or later.

I do not believe there are any awards that go out for how you birth your child, there is no contest for the woman who's had the longest or hardest labor. There is no secret respect that is passed amongst women when they undergo the task of labor and childbirth. Instead this is a primal act that happens whether you're on board or not. But for me, childbirth has always defined parts of me that I never was able to acknowledge or redeem in front of myself. Childbirth has brought me empowerment, motherhood, forgiveness, joy, fulfillment, pain, heartache and complete loss of myself in that order. I believe God has given me hard labors, because how a woman lives is how a woman births. I am stubborn, mule headed, ornery and quick to anger. My labors have been much the same. So all i can hope is that i find the right midwife who will help me to learn how to accept myself as i am, and with that the labors that I experience. Acceptance is the ultimate gift to oneself, is it not?