I'm posting on a new, local mother's forum that makes liberal use of all those little Internet acronyms. With two years (and counting) under my belt with another forum that outright bans them, it's making me shudder a little bit to read them so often...and to use one of them, myself. *hangs head in shame*
Yes, I'll admit it: my name is Cary Milkweed, and we are TTC.
That's "trying to conceive," for those of you better versed in Dostoevsky than webspeak. And though I refuse to refer to my "DH" or "DD" or insist that I am "ROTFLMAO," I must admit that I'm attracted to such a simple abbreviation for something that's kind of hard to explain.
It's funny-- I always assumed that after breaking through and actually becoming a mother, it would be easy to take that next step and decide to try for a second child. Somehow, in the backlit movies of my pre-Eva mind, I imagined myself confident, in control, and cutely pregnant at Eva's second birthday party, passing around slices of homemeade organic cake while the other mothers noted my breezy attitude, my cute hair and my pseudo-Boden maternity top.
Ha.
Turns out the decision to even start trying for another was almost as agonizing as taking that first step towards Eva. Some of my worries are the same: money, as always(alwaysalwaysalways). How I'll adapt to nursing again, for sure. And then there's (*sob!*) the effect of another pregnancy on my body, so soon after starting to feel like myself again.
Others, though, are of a completely different ilk. I think about how on earth I'm going to entertain Eva while feeling like I've been hit by the Mack truck of newborn sleeplessness. I worry about how on earth it's going to be possible to settle into a nap schedule with a busy roster of toddler activities. Is it possible to nurse a baby while keeping a two-year-old out of traffic and maintaining at least a shred of modesty? Heck, I'm not even sure how I'm going to swing the first trimester, since I can't exactly take comp time to go and nap in the break room like I did when I was expecting Eva.
Simultaneously with all of this is an impatience I didn't experience the first time around. Every month I'm not pregnant is another month apart between her and the baby in age. Every month I'm not pregnant is another bite out of the time Mr. Milkweed, with his teacher's schedule, could be around next summer to help. Every month is yet another month to be absolutely certain that the reason I'm so tired/cranky/hungry/hot/cold/whatever is because I must be pregnant, which is the mindgame I'm by far the most sick of and ready to end.
I'm totally, irrationally impatient. I'll own up to it and be a little embarrassed by it but, well...there it is. So it's there, and I'm here, as is my little forum with its IMOs and its JKs and its AFAIKs. For someone like me-- you know, a grammar Nazi and language snob for whom the use of such acronyms amounts to exhuming Strunk and White just to bury them all over again-- it takes me longer to figure out what most of those abbreviations mean than to just type the words out longhand.
"TTC," though, I've adopted. It may be hypocritical, but as we all know, Walt Whitman's bit about that in "Song of Myself" is a pretty much a Get Out of Jail Free card for even the most strident liberal WASP.
So thanks, Mr. Whitman. It gives me some comfort to know that if you were alive now, you'd probably be blowing up teh Interwebz with acronyms of your own invention, anyway(WLLITDB*? LOG**? or even BDMBFF***?)...
*"When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd"
**"Leaves of Grass
***"Bill Duckett, my best friend forever"
6 comments:
While I won't join you in using many of those acroymns, I'm happy to be on the TTC journey with someone I like ;)
Baby gates. Baby-proof a section of your home, ensure it's fully enclosed, make sure it includes a couch for you and toys for Eva, and don't feel guilty when you fall asleep with her playing. That's how you make it through the first trimester. :D
Good luck TTC. It'll happen before you know it, and until then treasure the time you have with Eva.
I love your Whitman acronyms. Awesome. And you know, I think I've said this to you before, but while it is perhaps logistically harder with your second, it is mentally so, so much easier. And being busy really does help the hard stuff fly by more quickly, during the pregnancy and in those rough early months. That's my story and I'm sticking with it (as December and number three rapidly approach for me).
Let me also add that "Peter Duckett" sounds like a name made up by the Limerick Writers Association.
Don't know much about Peter Duckett, but for my money the real love of Walt's life was Peter Doyle - this picture of them is darned cute, IMHO.
I've been trying to imagine what Louisa Emma Oakes would have posted on HER blog... .
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