Someone at work made a comment to me the other day that I was making 'baby bunching' look easy peas-y. I had to stop for a second and ask my co-worker, "what the heck is baby bunching"?? Turns out, its the new term for two years of pregnancies and back-to-back infants and toddlers. And it appears to be the new trend or thing to do as more and more couples are having children later in life and are trying to beat the clock (thank you Google for clarifying all this for me...hahaha).
I've always been majorly Type A. The over-achiever, who would rather stay in on a Friday night and get a major project out of the way so I can thoroughly enjoy the rest of the weekend without a looming deadline. My husband always makes fun of me for being such a perfectionist. Personally, it makes sense to me,
why would you put it off until Sunday evening at midnight? So it should come to no surprise to most that I approached pregnancy in the same fashion right?
“Wow!” “Congrats!” “We are so happy for you!” These are statements my husband and I heard over and over again when we told people we were pregnant with first child. A year later, when announcing our 2nd pregnancy not long after Noah's 1st birthday, the reaction was just a little different. Most people thought we were joking. Some said, “Really?” and “No way.” Others even said, “you couldn't possibly have planned it this way?"
So how did we end up expecting 2 under 2?
Well I think it would be awesome to have a built-in best friend. My sister and I are 7 years apart, and Tim and his younger sister also have 7 years between them, and 4 years between him and his older sister. To be honest, it's just too many years. Neither of us had that awesome bond growing up with our siblings (thankfully we do now, but that took many years!). We were never able to play together, and never had similar interests until we were well into our 20's.
Also, we waited until almost our 30’s to have kids. We’d been responsible and held off as everyone had instructed us to do, we let loose and had fun, established careers and travelled together. But then I started hearing more and more about the difficulties of getting pregnant after 30, about people that we knew who were our age and struggling. There was never going to be that "perfect" time to have a child. There was always going to be one more trip we wanted to take, one more reason to put it off another year. So having kids well into my 30's just wasn't a risk I was willing to take.
Granted, there are many things we didn't think of...
1. The difficulty of carrying around one baby while pregnant with another - Noah was a slow walker and just started being mobile in the past month or so. It's also the middle of Canadian winter here, which means snowstorm after snowstorm which baby can't meddle through and lots and lots of heavy bulky clothing. Mommy is winded...all the time!
2. The toddler years - Noah has just entered the toddler phase. The tantrums and meltdowns, and the short naps. Some days Tim and I look at each other and think, we are going to have TWO going through this phase at once? How are we going to survive? The diaper changes, screaming tantrums times two, sleep disruptions, potty training and double strollers. Just running simple errands will be a major feat with two under two.
3. Financial situations - money isn't everything, but it certainly helps to be finically stable before adding another child to the mix. We'll be paying for 2 kids in daycare at the same time for at least 2.5 years. Not to mention diapers! I am still trying to pay off my LOC from being off on mat leave with Noah since I just returned to work 3 months ago. Lucky for us, I get a year's mat leave with a great top-up from my company enabling us to essentially retain our dual-incomes for more than half of my maternity leave. Time to start saving up once again!
But the positives, they far outweigh those 'minor' oversights on our part...
1. Noah has been sleeping through the night since 8 months, and although he wakes for the day at 6am, I am not complaining about the full 12 hours of sleep he has been giving us the past 7 months. I will enter the newborn feeding stage with at least 10 months of uninterrupted sleep (fingers crossed).
2. I had no morning sickness with baby #2 - Can you imagine changing those STINKY diapers of a solid-food eating child while nauseated?? I have a whole lot of respect for those mama's that somehow manage not to toss their cookies all over their child.
3. I took the time to get my body back to where it was pre-pregnancy. Yes, it may not look the same, and it never will. However, I set a goal and worked towards that all year and finally got back to my pre-pregnancy weight and felt just as strong 10 months after having Noah as I did before I got pregnant.
4. We have still our wits about us - Well kind of? We're still fresh in the baby knowledge area, and can now successfully apply all that trial and error to baby #2. And absolutely nothing has changed in the 18 months since we welcomed our first. The same products are still on the market, the same clothing is being worn, talk about efficiency at its finest (here comes by Type A once again...)
5. I can sit back and relax while everyone else is getting pregnant - Ok well this is a lie, obviously I won't be relaxing. But since hubby says this baby will be our last, I can celebrate not just the birth of our 2nd child - but the return of MY life as a person who will never be hormonal/pregnant/ragey again. Hard to believe in the span of 18 months I could have given birth to both my first and LAST child.
6. I am SO much easier on myself this time around - chasing around a 15 month old toddler will do that to you I suppose. Having been through this before, I can maintain a better perspective. I eat more cold-cut sandwiches, I don't worry and stress about weight gain, I forget to take my pre-natal vitamin for a few days and don't have a panic attack, and I'll most certainly know this time around when I am in "real" labour.
So all that being said, I am trying so hard to slow down this pregnancy and enjoy each and every moment. I try not to worry about what I am doing to my oldest and wonder if I am taking away his babyhood by bringing another baby into our family. Instead, I think I am giving him a best friend for life. And that my friends, is how I feel about "baby bunching".
