A Moment of Weakness

I do have to say that Katie has enjoyed her pregnancy and has taken the many physical changes that have occurred with stride…until last week.

Mother's you know what I am referring to: that one moment when you have had enough!

Enough, protruding belly, enough not being able to bend over, enough not being able to sleep on your stomach, enough peeing every 15 minutes. Do I need to go on?

Katie had her moment last Friday morning … about 6:00am. She woke up that morning with her feet so swollen she could barely walk. She called me about 6:30am crying.

When my cell phone rang and I saw it was Katie I was a little alarmed. Trying to hide my anxiety I answered the phone with a chipper "Hey! Good morning! Is everything okay?" I was answered by muffled sobbing.

After a couple seconds I realized she was okay. Physically, okay but had reached that emotional moment of just plain being DONE!

I let her talk and cry and explain to me how her whole life was being dictated to her by this enormous belly. She felt guilty for wanting Cole to just come- to be done with the pregnancy thing. She just wanted to see her feet again, to sleep on her stomach, to feel normal.

I didn't have the heart to tell her that she would never feel normal again. That the conflicted feelings were just now beginning. As a mom we are constantly juggling our own wants and needs with the needs of our children, and on those occasions we do put ourselves first we are riddled with guilt. She'll figure that out on her own.

What I did tell her was that all of those feelings and frustrations that she is feeling right now are perfectly normal. Even with a loving supportive husband pregnancy is overwhelming at times.

I told her that I too had those feelings in the last few weeks of pregnancy. That is why I thought it was a perfectly sane and good idea to drink a bottle of castor oil when I was 39 weeks pregnant with Rebekah. I had had enough! I drank the castor oil- then I threw up and had diarrhea. Nothin' not even a ting of labor pains. Rebekah was born exactly 9 days later, when she was ready, not a moment sooner!! Thanks Rebekah! Anyway, I never tried that again with the other girls- I just soaked in the bathtub and cried- lesson learned!