There is now less than five weeks until Kerry’s due date. By this point last time we had a maternity bag all ready for the off, a fully decorated and equipped nursery, and had made so many trial runs to the hospital we had worn our own grove in the roads. In fact all through Kerry’s first pregnancy we lived in a state of constant awareness about our unborn child. We measured the pregnancy in days not weeks, and there was rarely a time when we didn’t have a baby book to hand. We attended antenatal classes, watched numerous television programs about birth on Discovery Health, and each visit to the midwife was analysed and dissected afterwards with surgical precision.
This time round we have no maternity bag, a nursery that is around as baby friendly as a bunch of exposed electrical wires, and my plan for getting to the hospital is basically drive towards my friend Craig’s house but miss. Obviously we’ve still got time yet, and we are in the process of getting all this stuff sorted out, but if Kerry goes into labour tonight we’d be caught on the back foot a little bit.
For me at least I don’t think the fact has sunk in that we’re going to be parents again. Of course logically I know we are, but I don’t have that impending sense of excitement/impatience/dread that I did last time. Kerry has the regular sensation of her unborn child playing bongos on her kidney to remind her that child number two is on it’s way. All I have is the fact that my wife is getting a little rounder and she’s started to sleep with about twenty pillows strategically placed around her.
Still, I’m sure it will all hit home eventually, I probably had the same sort of feelings before Amy was born. You tend to forget these things.
To be fair we have made a start on the nursery. Or rather we have paid someone else to make a start on the nursery. Yesterday our friend Greg came round and began the mammoth task of redecorating both Amy’s and the new baby’s rooms. Amy warmed to him straight away, and was very enthusiastic about “helping†him. We made pains to point out to her that she’s only allowed to rip wallpaper off when Greg’s here, but judging by how much she seemed to enjoy it I can envisage disaster in the near future.
Amy is very excited about the impending arrival of her brother; there are times when she talks of little else. Every time we walk past the baby isle at the supermarket she insists on filling her arms with various products and demanding that we buy them for “my baby brother Evanâ€, Her favourite items appear to be bibs. I hope this level of enthusiasm will continue after the baby is born.
You have a wonderful adventure of you, Dan. It’ll be both much easier and much more challenging than last time. And even though you know this child will be different (well, duh, since it’s a boy), you’ll be surprised just how much a second baby can be different than your first.
I think the biggest adjustment for us was that we didn’t realize until Julia came along that not all babies upchuck all over you about every day. That was Allie’s trademark.
I like the “much easier” bit, not so sure about the “much more challenging” part though.
here’s an additional bonus! your second child need never learn to speak until they enter school because your first will have an uncany ability to decipher every incomprehendable syllable coming from their little drooling mouth.
If you are anything like Neil and I were when Lydia arrived as a little sister for Joseph, you will feel less ‘run over with a truck’ than first time around. You’ll still be knackered but the big difference is that you know the day will come when your baby will sleep through and you’ll feel a bit like your normal self again! We’re at 33 weeks(ish) now and have no new travel system, no moses basket and Neil just started this week sorting out the nursery (thankfully it’s Lidsy’s old room so doesn’t need too much doing to it). But compared to when I was expecting Joseph, when I had his cot made up by 30 weeks, then I am in a state of deep disarray. Best of luck!
By golly! Hello Rachael.
I’ll have to make sure I don’t make any derogatory comments about old Fishface now
Less of the old, he’s younger than me you scoundrel! (He looks older though.)