outings, my niece, and reproductive things.

I am all excited because I am going to go to Kroger as soon as the baby wakes up and I have fed her! Yes, folks, that is what my life is all about these days. I am as excited about going to the grocery store by myself as I used to be by going out on dates. The weird thing is that I am a self-admitted anti-social sort of person, and I didn't expect to get stir-crazy from not leaving the house. It turns out that sitting at home all week being able to do anything or go anywhere you want if you take a notion to is very different than sitting at home being utterly dependent upon the whims of a being that doesn't even know what her hands are for to even shower, much less go somewhere. I really haven't taken her anywhere by myself since the first few trips. Mainly, I am lazy and still a bit nervous, but my mom comes down about once a week and we tend to go somewhere, and then M and I go places on the weekend, so I don't really bother with it. M is encouraging me to start taking her places by myself.. which is, of course, easy for him to say since he's not the one who is contemplating taking her somewhere alone. ;) To that end, I am sort of planning to take her to meet M for lunch on Thursday or Friday, though, and that counts as a big outing because M works half an hour from here. Will I ever get comfortable driving alone with her in a rear-facing seat? When M is with me, one of us--typically me--sits beside her in the back. I am afraid she'll choke, not that she has ever really gotten choked when she's not eating. My niece, who was a pretty fussy baby, once made herself so mad that she started choking and couldn't catch her breath and, as I was sitting beside her in the back seat at the time, it's kind of hard to forget. Of course she was fine anyway but still.

Speaking of my niece, she's coming down with my mom tomorrow because I have my six-week check-up, though technically only five weeks out from delivery. My mom comes about once a week, so I asked her to come tomorrow so she could babysit for me. Other than the birth control issue--which I must say, infertility is working for us so far on that one--is there anything in particular I should talk to him about? I don't particularly want to talk about birth control, actually, but it seems like doctors tend to bring it up at this visit, judging from other new moms. By the way, we are not actually planning on relying on infertility as a method of birth control, but I enjoy the idea. Three things might have happened by giving birth, actually. One, my reproductive system remains unchanged, and my punk ass ovaries will require a lot of effort if we want them to work again. Two, things have actually gotten worse, and either we would need more help than before or it will just never happen again. Or, three, which is the favorite of all assvice ancedotes, which is that I will suddenly be as fertile as a bunny. It's not that it doesn't happen. It's just that for every story you hear where that happens, there are ten other people for whom that doesn't work, but you just don't hear about them because it's not a good story, you know? Infertility surprise pregnancies are some of my very favorite things to hear about, but it's not something you can plan for. Mainly, the reason I don't want to talk to them about birth control is just that I don't want to be on the pill right now, owing to the fact that the last one I was on made me cry all the time, and the one before that wasn't so fantastic in all ways either. I am sick of my hormones being tampered with, and at a certain point, we may want to allow for a happy surprise to actually occur anyway.

Which brings me to something else I was going to mention. M and I were talking this weekend about how we can actually see ourselves possibly wanting to have another baby someday. (Not anytime soon, of course.) It's just that in the hazy days following delivery, I wasn't so sure that I would ever be able to adjust myself to the one that we already had, much less go through delivery again. I knew that the feeling would fade.. everyone always says that it does, and you forget, and things get easier, etc. I was just surprised that I could already imagine doing it all again someday already!

But anyway, my niece. I have seen her much more often in the last few months than I was seeing her before, which I am really enjoying. Her mom (my brother's widow, if you've forgotten) doesn't really spend time with my family anymore, of course.. they have their own little family, and so Whitley doesn't typically get to hang around for the routine family days all that often. She spends time with my parents but since we're only able to come up every now and then, it didn't work out that often that we got to see her, but lately, we have. She is so, so excited about the baby. She cried when she saw her the first time, and I found out just last week that she also cried when Mom came out to tell them I was heading for surgery... because she knew just how much that's not what I wanted. She's a really sensitive kid, and she's turning out to be such a neat person. She's so witty, just like my brother was, and she cares so much about everyone's feelings. I mean, of course she's not perfect and she has quirks like any kid but she's always been so much more mature than her age. A few years ago, we left some event and M and my parents and I were all talking about how awful the kids were, when I realized that she was sitting there very quietly with a bit of a sad expression on her face. The real shock was for us, though, because it honestly had not occurred to any of us that she was one of the kids, because she just doesn't act like a little brat. (I believe she enjoyed hearing that, though. She was probably about eight or nine at the time... she's twelve now.)

Still not awake! I think it's time to get myself dressed for going out and then wake up a little girl. She's been sleeping all day anyway (fell asleep twice more in the sling--it is definitely seeming that the sling is a success now! Yay! I can do stuff while I hold her!)