Pregnant Plus a Babe

... or, What I Wanted to Read When I was Pregnant Plus a Babe

1. Yes, you can get pregnant while exclusively breastfeeding, even if you are following all the rules of Lactational Amenorrhea. Don't use this method of birth control unless you know you wouldn't have a heart attack (or worse) if you got pregnant again.
1a. If you are nursing when you get pregnant, you probably will notice some decrease in milk production, and may or may not be able to continue breastfeeding full time. If you have to supplement or wean altogether, don't feel guilty, it's not a competition and your baby will be just fine. If, on the other hand, you find that you can continue to breastfeed, go right ahead. you won't hurt the baby in your belly. (Ask your doctor and/or LC, just to make sure its safe in your particular situation.)

2. If you thought you were tired during pregnancy without a babe, just wait till you are pregnant plus a babe. Most people who have two under two got pregnant when their babes were between three and twelve months old. If you have never lived with a child between the ages of three and twelve months, it may be hard to understand why being very tired would be a problem. You might think, 'Babies just sleep all the time anyway.' All I can say to that is hahahahahahahaha!

3. You might have very mixed feelings about having another baby. You might think, "But I don't want any other baby, I just want my baby,' and that's perfectly okay and normal. The babe in your belly won't know you ever thought that, and once he (or she) arrives, you won't be able to understand how you ever felt that way. Or you might not think that at all, preferring instead to focus on the joy of another blessing, and that's okay too.

4. Morning sickness + Small child = even worse than you think it will be. Hopefully you will be too busy to notice, but probably you won't. I'm sorry.

5. Morning sickness + Small child + poopy diaper = try not to think about this. Don't torture yourself.

6. It is okay to feed your infant the same thing day after day, so long as its halfway nutritious. There will be days when your baby is a year or so old, and you are very pregnant (or deep in the throes of morning sickness) and you will find yourself allowing the child to eat cookies for breakfast, just to make them be quiet. This is okay so long as it doesn't happen more than five or six times a week. It's better if the cookies have peanut butter or something in them so you don't feel quite so guilty. (Forget all the rules about potential food allergies... you are pregnant plus a babe, so they don't apply.) On days where cookies comprise one meal, make sure the other two, plus snacks, are as healthy as possible. Ketchup counts as a vegetable. Gravy does not.

7. Pray that your second child is of the same gender as your first. This makes your life so much easier. Instead of storing your older child's stuff in the basement or whatever, just wash it, fold it, and put it in a box under the crib. Then it;s right there for you when the next baby needs it, in just a few months. While you are praying they are the same gender, also pray they are born around the same time of year.
7a. If your babies are not the same gender, try to get all of your prep done before 30 weeks of pregnancy, because you will not want to try to buy an entire wardrobe, plus a new car seat and any other essentials, while very pregnant plus toting a baby. Not fun.

8. Make sure you have a place for the new baby to sleep that is up high. Bouncy seats are definitely out. Your older baby will do his or her best to kill the smaller one. They can't help it, it's survival of the species. Get a very sturdy crib or one of those pack -n- plays with a bassinet. A regular bassinet could tip when the bigger kid tries to climb in it (which they will.)

9. Don't worry about how your current baby will adjust to the arrival of the new one. The fact is, the bigger baby will most certainly try to kill the younger one, and you cannot escape this. (Usually the bigger baby will disguise this homicidal instinct as "love" or "kisses.") I am told that eventually they will love each other. I can tell you that within a couple weeks, the novelty of injuring the new baby will wear off and the older one will find better things to do with his or her time, such as redecorating the bathroom with toothpaste or digging everything out of the trash because you recently threw away that delicacy, onion skins with curdled milk.

10. Don't spend your pregnancy worried about how you will cope with two babies at once. Either you will cope or the children will mutiny, but most likely you will cope. Instead of wasting antepartum energy on worry, save it for postpartum, when you really, really need it.