Yesterday I had some painful cramping, and it crossed my mind that having a miscarriage would not be 100% bad. Today when I have felt even queasier than usual all day, and the twins have seemed especially baby-like and difficult to manage emotionally and logistically, and the pregnancy stretches long before me with all its impending discomforts (“Oh, that ‘can’t breathe’ feeling–I forgot that’s coming up soon”), it crosses my mind again. Then I feel worse, imagining how I’ll feel later, when the dear, dear baby is born and irreplaceable, and I’m looking down at it thinking, “I thought a miscarriage might in some ways be welcome.”

It’s such a neverending feeling of “doing it wrong,” this parenting thing. I remember back when I was pregnant with my first, thinking things like, “Maybe this whole thing was a bad idea. Maybe we should have gone with the other plan, the one where we have cats and tulips and money and we spend weekends at Barnes & Noble.” When I was pregnant with my second, I was thinking, “The spacing is all wrong. We should have gone with the other plan, the one where we waited until Robert was in kindergarten, or until he was 3-1/2, or until NEVER.” When I was pregnant with the twins, I was thinking, “We should have stopped at two. Something will go wrong, and everyone will say, ‘You just HAD to keep going, you just COULDN’T be happy with the national average.’ Also, now we can’t have a sedan, we’re going to have to get a minivan.”

Now I’m pregnant for a fourth time, and I didn’t mean to be, and that raises even more of these feelings and thoughts. Thoughts like, “This baby wasn’t supposed to happen.” Thoughts like, “Maybe we’ve wrecked our Exactly Right family, and we’ll always think so, and always wish we hadn’t.”

Fortunately these thoughts are balanced by other thoughts, thoughts from the part of me that isn’t under siege by hormones that attack with barfing and emotions. Thoughts from my usual self, the self that says, “These things usually work out fine in the end, after a brief panicky adjustment period” and “One day in the future, you’ll look back and won’t be able to believe you didn’t know this baby was coming all along” and “Oooh goodie, a BABY!!”

Do you have a song you’re embarrassed to have an emotional reaction to, but you can’t help it? Mine is Martina McBride’s “This One’s For the Girls.” I hear it in the car from time to time, and I lose it every time. Extra losing it if I’m driving, music-video-style, past first a group of teenaged girls, then an older woman walking briskly, then a middle-aged woman with her dog. It makes me feel all connected to all those other “girls,” even the teenaged ones who usually grate on my nerves by shrieking and shoving as they walk along, giving sidelong glances toward the road to make sure everyone’s watching.

I just watched the new(ish) Adam Sandler movie Click. It’s about a guy who gets a remote that lets him fast-forward or pause parts of his life. He uses it to fast-forward the plodding time until his promotion, and of course discovers that this means he lost time with his family, too. The problem gets worse and worse until he’s missed practically his whole life, and also he’s lost his wife, missed his kids’ childhoods, missed the death of a parent, etc. Looking back, he realizes he’s done none of the important things and all of the stupid things, and he’s wasted his entire life.

Is there any movie more likely to strike a parent’s heart with fear and anxiety? Already I worry that while I’m “taking a break from the kids,” what I’m really doing is spending time with the computer that I’ll look back on later as a colossal waste of time that took me away from my dear, dear children. Okay, so they’re driving me nuts now and if I don’t get away from them the yelling is going to start, but what if one of them DIES? And then I’ll think back and I’ll remember all the times I said, “Not now, honey, just let Mommy check her email.” OH MY GOD.

And what about all the times I hope for things to be over? I hope for potty-training to be over, for the tantrum stage to be over, for the back-talking thing to be over. But then I’ll be old, and the house will be quiet and I’ll have nothing to do, and my children will be far away and will think I’m foolish and old, and I’ll pine for these days! I’ll want nothing more than to wipe up pee drops from the floor around the toilet again! I’ll have to beg one of my grown sons to come over and miss the bowl! I’m wasting my whole life!

I’ve been hoping for the morning sickness to hurry up and go away, but later I’ll imagine this pregnancy in a glow of morning sunshine, when everything was beautiful and full of hope, and there were things to look forward to.

What is the matter with our brains, that they have to screw with us like this? We shouldn’t have to feel as if we’re missing things if we’re not enjoying every single not-always-enjoyable second. This parenting thing is the best ever, but it can also be the worst ever, and it is a huge pain in the ass to realize that later on I’m going to be wishing I’d spent more time doing it. Right now I want to spend some time writing, or reading, or eating some Kit Kat Bites I don’t have to share, but later on that won’t seem important at all, and I’ll be beating myself up for the hours I didn’t spend cuddling the babies and playing games with my older kids. That sucks!

One reason I keep a journal (not this blog, but an actual physical journal) is that it lets me feel like I’m storing things up for later. I can’t enjoy this deluge of parenting right now, while I’m drowning in it, but I can put some of it in a book and take it out later on and enjoy it then. I take too many photos for the same reason: if I take photos, I’m storing little bits of time. I can’t see it now, when I’m so tired and barfy and just want to go to a store by myself, but I can see it later. Through TEARS, probably. URG.

And speaking of tears, I cried so hard during that movie I nearly barfed. Pregnancy hormones + pregnancy nausea + huge sentimental moment with the rain pouring down and declarations of love with music to match = sobbing + gagging.

I have first-haircut photos for each of my first two kids, and both of them are under a year old in those photos. Robert was about 11 months old, and I gave him a trim before his one-year photo. William was more like 10 months old, and he got a haircut because his hair was so shaggy.

Neither of the twins has yet needed a haircut, and they are 16 months old. They have short, fine, baby hair still. Elizabeth’s is a little longer than Edward’s, but only long enough for the silliest of teesy ponytails, the kind that slips out if she shakes her head. When I take the twins out in public, people often think they’re two boys.

When, oh when will I be able to style her hair in little styley ways? It was one of the main benefits of having a girl, I thought.

Here is what is bothering me (today): the “Kid delicious, Mom nutritious!”-type advertising. I understand what they’re trying to communicate: your kids will like it better than carrot sticks, and you will like it better than Pop-Tarts (for them, I mean; for yourself, you’d want the Pop-Tarts). But doesn’t it make “Mom” sound like a big old stick-in-the-mud, a sourpuss card-carrying member of the Nutrition Police? “Hey, we know you usually want your kids to eat tasteless nutritious crap, but here’s something yummy that even YOU will let them eat, you heartless old nag! For the love of pete, give the kid a break now and then, will ya?”

Personally, I groan just a much as the kids do about things like eating vegetables. I try to set a good example, and that good example is that I eat things that are good for me even though I don’t like them, not that I go around like MY mom did, saying, “Mmm-MM! These carrots are so sweet, they’re just like CANDY!”

I don’t think it does a kid any favors to hear that fruits and vegetables are more delicious than a Burger King TenderCrisp Spicy chicken sandwich with a large side of fries. This was the message at my house growing up, and the conclusions I drew were (1) that my mom was nuts and didn’t know what the heck she was talking about, and (2) that if people were supposed to find fruits and vegetables more delicious than junk, then something was wrong with me. It would have worked better on me for her to say that we can’t always eat the things our tastebuds lead us to, and that a person can learn to also like the nutritious foods they have to eat most of the time. I can go for that point of view: grapes and apples ARE yummy, as long as no one is trying to tell me they’re “dessert.” Carrot sticks CAN be satisfying, as long as no one is saying they’re a good substitute for chips.

I’d read several places that almonds were a good way to reduce pregnancy nausea. I will try anything short of crack that claims to reduce pregnancy nausea, so 24 hours and $4 later, I had a can of almonds in the house.

No dice. Not only are they ineffective at reducing nausea (for me, I mean), they’re a grainy, pasty thing to try to chew and swallow when you’re queasy. Little teeny bits cling to my mouth and throat, making me cough and then, of course, gag.

Here is something I am suddenly wondering about: If your baby is unplanned, is that something you keep a secret?

I was thinking about how, when someone tells me their baby was not planned, I always remember that little nugget of information. Even if I know they love their baby and are so glad the baby is here, I still remember that the baby was “an accident.” I wouldn’t want someone remembering that about my baby.

Most of my babies were planned. This last one wasn’t. I don’t know if I’m supposed to be keeping that a secret. I haven’t been. For one thing, it’s hard to lie about: if you have twins, and you’re due with another baby before the twins turn 2, it’s not likely you planned it that way. If you’ve gone around for years saying you wanted four children, and when you had your third and fourth together you went around saying, “Well, I guess this is the last pregnancy, then!,” and then you get pregnant again, it’s not likely you planned it that way. If you’ve mentioned to all your dear close friends that you’re just waiting for your period so you can start taking the Pill again, and then you get pregnant, it’s not likely you planned it that way. And it doesn’t really work, anyway, to say to my dear close friends, “YES! Yes, we totally planned this 100%!,” and then not be able to talk to them about my mixed feelings, or how it felt to find out, or all of the worries I have about it.

But I’m nervous that knowing he/she wasn’t planned will make this baby feel that he/she wasn’t wanted. “Unplanned” and “unwanted” are such entirely different things.

Is there anything more miserable for a nauseated pregnant woman than dealing with breakfast? Later on in the day, maybe something will appeal. But at breakfast time, the whole kitchen seems dreary, and full of gross food no one should eat. The sink area smells like last night’s dinner. The refrigerator smells like leftovers, and something sour no one else can smell. Every option seems unappealing, and there is the full knowledge that no matter what is chosen, it will not sit well on the tum. It will grudgingly dissolve in there, but it will not bring release from the nausea. And yet something must be eaten, or the situation will worsen. It is a sad, sad time of day.

I have given up trying to find something that will make me stop coughing. The OB gave me a list of medications safe to take during pregnancy, and the only one listed for coughing is “regular Robitussin,” which is an expectorant (to make you cough up gunk from your lungs) not a suppressant (to make the coughing stop). I tried it anyway, and of course it made no difference. (That taste, it reminds me of childhood. In 25 years they haven’t changed it. I still had to drink it fast so it would be down my throat before my mouth knew what had hit it.) I also tried a vaporizer, sleeping half-sitting up, breathing slowly through my nose, letting a hard candy dissolve slowly in my mouth—anything anyone said helped them to stop coughing. No good, any of it.

Here is the only thing that works: Benedryl, to knock me flat out so I don’t notice the coughing. It’s on my list for itching, allergies, and trouble sleeping, and I think this qualifies as the last one. I take two Benedryl about half an hour before bed, and I sleep almost all night.

I hate taking medicine when I’m pregnant. No matter how safe the medicine, no matter how many years pregnant women have taken it with no ill effect, I am always half-thinking that in 25 years we’ll find out it took 20 IQ points off the fetus, or that it causes the next generation to be born with flippers.