I Got More Than Lei’d in Maui

Little-known fact:  Maui is Hawaiian for “Let’s chuck the condoms and just see what happens…!”

Yeah, so, we think Baby #2 — aka Trouble Maker — was whipped up, as the obstetric professionals say, on our Hawaiian vacation to celebrate my birthday.  Damn those sneaky Hawaiians, seducing us into procreating with their intoxicating Mai Tais and oh-so-romantic pig roasts!  My lifelong plan was to have one child, to enjoy parenthood with some semblance of balance, but, well, you know what they say about the best laid plans — throw in some rum, a warm Hawaiian breeze, and a sappy video celebrating your daughter’s first year of life making you all weepy-eyed for more babies, and BOOM!  You’re pregnant.

A liberal interpretation of Robert Burns’ poem, but you get the point.

I am both delighted and terrified about introducing another baby into our now nice daily routine, a routine in which Miss Skye consistently sleeps until at least 8 a.m. — a slice of heaven I don’t take for granted.  I mean, 8 a.m.!  Why on earth are we f*cking with that?  I am so bummed by the thought of having to wake up every few hours with a crying baby again, and likely disrupting Skye’s sleep schedule as a result, that I often wake up at 5 a.m. fretting about it and unable to go back to sleep.  I think it goes without saying that I have gone completely insane.

I’m hoping I’ll be able to focus more on the delight of a new baby, less on the terror, once my round-the-clock “morning sickness” subsides.  Morning sickness.  Hmpf.  A term clearly coined by a male doctor who never hugged his toilet in the middle of the afternoon while his 15-month-old tried to ride his back like a horse (yeah, I lied… that was NOT the stomach flu) or catch his vomit with her sippy cup.  All true stories.

Only 13 weeks along and this little one has already stirred up Lindsay Lohan-sized trouble, causing me to throw up pretty much nonstop until the doctor was forced to put me on anti-nausea medication usually reserved for cancer patients. “The strong nausea means a healthy pregnancy — strong hormones!” the doctor assured me as I struggled (unsuccessfully) to keep down my daily diet of water and a saltine.

I had lost seven pounds in seven days, become dehydrated and gone into starvation mode (making my body produce high levels of a substance called ketones, which is not so great for the baby) — and that was just the fun part! Luckily, the medication was nothing short of a miracle and now that I’m entering my second trimester, my tummy is SLOWLY recovering.  But it is still not entirely pleased with me, rejecting the roasted chicken I dared to eat last night and producing scary rumbling noises that make the cats hide under the bed.  It has been even worse than the Jell-O Shot Overdose Incident of ’99.

Yup. We’re going to have our hands full with this little one, all right.

If it’s a boy, my nine-year-old cousin thinks I should name him Freedom.  DONE.  (Hey, don’t look at me like that.  That’s what Freedom gets for making me sprout chin hairs!)