Maternity Monday: Leopard Print Sweater Dress

Hi gang – need advice. Please skip for anyone TTC who doesn’t want to read my tale of pregnancy woe!

Anyone out there have tips for coping with an accidental pregnancy? DH and I have two kids under 5 and we were very seriously considering adding a third via adoption — partially because it’s something we both really wanted to do, and partially because I hate hate hate hate HATE being pregnant. Despite our best efforts at prevention, however, I found out this weekend that I am in fact expecting for a third time. On paper, this is fine: we have all the clothes/gear/minivan etc., I have access to great healthcare, we have good jobs, yadda yadda. Except that I’m legitimately UPSET that this happened, since I really, REALLY didn’t want it to (sorry for the EllenCAPS).

A big part of me is grieving the adoption. We’re fairly far into the process but I know we can’t handle two more little kids at the same time, and I doubt we would go so far as to adopt later on — four (total) feels like too many.

I know I’m going to have to suck it up. I know that eventually I will see this as A Good Thing, since it’s not totally removed from what we were already considering (adding another child to our family). Except that right now, I’m a complete swirl of emotions, mostly negative. Of course I have guilt about that, too — because I don’t want this kid to come into the world unloved or something. Very confusing and complex. Anyone been here/done this?

I am less than 7 weeks and my tummy is already bulging out like crazy. I pulled out my Be Band for my jeans yesterday (which I know that I didn’t use until at least 13 weeks last time), and was still uncomfortable, and today my underwear, which I’m sure that I didn’t up-size on until well past 20 weeks last time, is super-tight (TMI, sorry). I’m hoping to hide until about 16 weeks (through raise time at the end of the year), but at this rate, it’s going to be hard. I guess this is just how it goes with number 2, right? Yikes!

Ladies I need some perspective. I’ve tried video-chatting with my sister twice now in the last 4 months of pregnancy, and each time has ended badly (for me). I don’t do photos of my belly to track progress, for example, and I don’t really even like the “compliments” people dish out (aka “You look great! You’re hardly showing”) because that clearly indicates you’re evaluating my figure, and that makes me uncomfortable.

After my sister asked for the “wide angle view” (her words) in our first video chat at about 6 months pregnant, I got so upset my parents had a talk with her to say, basically, you need to lay off. Little sis isn’t comfortable with that stuff. Fast forward to a week ago (I’m now full-term) and we video-chat for only the second time ever, and my sister asks again, for a belly shot. Then her kids, who are 5 and 7 (so I think old enough to really know better) started chanting about my “big belly” and “your face looks chubby!” I wound up in tears again as soon as we ended the video chat. (It didn’t help that the kids only got a mild, half-laughing scolding. Or that to take the sting out of the chubby face comment was to tell my husband who was also video chatting with me, that his face looks chubby too, but what’s his excuse?!)

Now I feel like I’m already anxious about video-chatting with my sister from the hospital to show her the new baby (when he comes) because I’m afraid of what she or the kids will say in that moment when I’ll be even more (I assume) emotionally wired. My sister lives abroad and so won’t be able to be there in person. We’re typically very close, and I really don’t know why she isn’t able to respect my need for no body commentary. Thoughts? Commiseration?