The Countdown

All of them sleeping before 10pm is a rare occasion in my life.

Elia, my oldest has always been a night owl since birth - sleeps solid straight through the night but will go all day without a nap and be navigating in the dark till midnight if you haven't worn her out. She's smart - that mind never shuts off - I mean, at 11 months old she would wait till we slept and somehow unlock our phones and download apps and games and the only way you knew she had been in there at 1 am the prior night was from her selfie record in your photo camera roll...

Kana'i is opposite - needs routine and consistent schedules to function healthy or its tantrums and colds. He is too honest and expressive to hide his secret plots (unlike quiet sis). He was always an early bird like his Daddy, up at 5am starving for meat - one of his first words was bacon for gods sake. He needs the nap in the day and the cuddling to fall asleep (unlike sister who pushes your arm away and sleeps alone fine) and lately, since he's talking up a storm now, he holds out his hand at the end of our nightly routine of eat, bath, brushteeth and hang-out time and says, "Mom (or dad), come. Hold me. Read story. Snuggle. Nigh Nigh. Say waoove you, Kana'i." Talk about a heart melt. This boy is so sensual with hugs and gently rubbing your leg and uses "Miss you," with puppy eyes at any sign of loosing chance... 

And here I'm about to get an entirely new personality in the mix. Another pull away from any moment of being able to pee in bliss or shower more than 3 minutes or have a phone call without screams for "MMAAAAMMMAAAA"...

Its not really the dilated at 1 cm that is the "oh ha," but the cervix lining being effaced over halfway that caught me. The cervix usually takes awhile to soften and thin down for labor to begin and that didn't happen on its own with my first - and was not this fast with my second either. But I hear the more you have, the faster they come. And it sure feels like I've had a hand sticking outta my crouch for a good couple weeks already. Lemme know if you see fingers. 

It's been heat cramping for a day. I guess thats the closest to the pre-labor cramping that I can remember. Everyone tells it different but I really didn't feel any "cramping" like people described to me with my first. I just notice some liquids escaping a few days before I was due without any real big moment - yet walked into my over-due-date appointment and they told me I was unknowingly contracting and loosing all my water. With my second, there was some heated pressing into my hips and groin now and then for a couple days and then boom, I woke up in the morning bleeding. And so now?

Tiger Balm. Icy Hot. Its like those muscle heat creams on fire with a thick handed man is squeezing your hips and pressing their thumbs into where your leg and groin meets for a few seconds at a time.

Pepper on your Tail bone. Like a warm drip straight in-between your cheeks started loosening your hips away from your spine - that was last night for a good ten minutes. 

This morning I had that urge to finish all the last pieces of the baby ready list - I had prepped baby powder (homemade - click here for recipie) and diaper rash ointment (homemade spray - see recipe to come) and stalked a few newborn diapers, burp cloths, swaddle blankets, mittens and socks into a basket. We set up the crib and playpen last week; I washed all the crib sheets. I bought a few breastpads (since I had a huge milk load that overflowed all day long with the first two) and made myself a recovery spray safe for those parts (see recipe to come). 

Today was the car - which I wish I could have video taped of my watermelon self having to rearrange things in slow motion and move legs around my belly constantly since I couldn't reach around this 45 pound belly nor see whats under it. And since we have a tighter garage space now, I had to drive and reverse in and out of the garage constantly in order to just get out of the car with a belly and hips (that don't hold tight at the moment) to be able to access the vacuum and outlet. Of course, Makani helped me finish once he got home but I was determined - which means it is close... that urge to HAVE to finish prepping, cleaning, buying for baby is REAL. It's a thing. And so thats what I'm doing now... up at ten pm when my body is at its max capacity with no naps on weekends when children are with me all day and having to use the bathroom every hour and then eat again while telling kids, no they can't have more snacks even though mommy can ... I am writing because I HAVE to - I HAVE to say that I finally feel like I can let go... 

Letting go. That's most of the battle right there. Letting yourself be slow, be less ambitious, be tired, be hungry, be big and balloony and be messy... Pregnancy is all of that. It's a force of nature beyond your control alone - anyone who has been pregnant knows its much more than it looks and that you are not prepared for the FEELINGS that come with it - whether during or post pardem ... Well, third time around, you know it's coming. Hence, I wasn't excited. But, slowly this baby has been accepted in my heart and mind and I have friends who have made it more exciting for me - thank you - telling me all the positive, the blessings, the comparisons that do make your mom days seem brighter. 

Ha'ea is all I've gotten so far. I saw a mountain range with meadows and sunshine and cool air. A happy place, with views and comfortable weather and plenty of room to grow - a free place. And then Makani saw it too one day - just caught in a daydream he saw a similar vision and called me saying, "you said it and I see it too - its her..." 

Ha - means breathe or breath

Ea - Soverign or Life itself 

Before I forget these days I had to  write down that its been ... bittersweet. Like, In the few days after finally getting most unpacked in the new house (moving in your last 6 weeks pregnant is a killer), I found myself listening to Adele over and over and crying quiet tears - somehow not sad tears but like you are watching the end of a romance movie kind of tears. Between the two, Moving and Having a New Baby, I definitely said goodbye to the "old loves" and filtered out my life - of worn out handbags and heels (4 inch strappys are my weakness), old work files and financial records, of expired medicines and cosmetics (and of course, the sale of all our major furniture) ... but most interestingly, I found myself reading through old diaries and poetry i wrote throughout the years and saw how unsatisfied I was until now... how much work it took to trust in love and family and believe in myself even though I always believed in others ... I was able to throw out items that acted like emotional insurance policies - those just-in-case-things-fall-apart-sentiments ... And so even though, yes, having kids back to back indeed dooms you for the heating-fire and especially a third unplanned and with the many changes it forces on you, your homelife, your finances, your romantic relationship, your family relationships, your self-esteem, your career, your physical health, your physical looks, your emotional control, your mentality... Sometimes fire purges and refines whatever is left into gold. 

So Ha'ea, I'm just trusting you are bringing me into the best of myself. Trusting that you will take me to that untouched mountain meadow and keep sunshine in my hardest days. That through the burning hours that you rip my hips from my back (coming anytime now), that I'll be in that better place with you - that we can indeed change, recover, grew and renew again and again... that cool air and free space will bring us all back to the true, simple beauty in having a breath of life. 

Amen