Beauty and the Beast...

So here I am about 500 years later.  Sorry to keep you all waiting, but I figure that with the advent of Facebook and Twitter, you all already know that all the previous baby hocus pocus was indeed correct!  

A little GIRL will be our newest addition in February!  I must admit I am pretty darn happy and excited - the thought of not having to go out and buy anything has me absolutely giddy.  

No pushchairs, no carseats...I am ready for this! Bring it on!!

Well, hold up a minute.  I THOUGHT I was ready.

Four magical years ago, I was pregnant with Olivia.  It was seriously just that. MAGICAL. 
I loved every single second of it. There was not a complication, a niggle, nothing to make me say "Dear Christ, what the heck is going on!?".  No morning sickness.  No strange cravings or aversions.  I gained about 4 pounds.  I felt like a fairy goddess and wore heels every single day with no water retention or pain.  Later in the pregnancy as it was the height of summer, I was a bit sweaty and just generally shiny all the time, but I was still one of those pregnant ladies that people love to hate.  So imagine my surprsie when my expectations of "Same thing: Round two" didn't quite work out that way. 

Glam-Mamma Round 1

It started from the moment that peed-on stick told me I was pregnant.  Like my body didn't know it was meant to be in complete upheavel until my eyes had confirmed it.  I was also quite a ways into the second month that the test may as well have screamed at me that I was pregnant.  I'm almost sure that if I would have merely breathed on it, it would have come up positive.  This was after some time of trying - and then we gave up "trying" as it were.  And then it happened! Yay! Positive! 

About 42 seconds after seeing the magical two lines, the morning sickness began.  Morning sickness, not so much, it was all day sickness.  Within a couple of weeks, it was as intense as being on an endless deep sea fishing excursion...the nausea woke me up in the middle of the night. I was so hungry but then as soon as I started eating I wanted to stop.  It was pretty icky.   

Once it finally passed, I was ready to be that pregnant fairy goddess once more.  Well, not so fast there Mrs. Hart.  I broke out like a teenager. Where the hell was my glowing skin!?  I washed and scrubbed, convinced that maybe the nausea had affected my skin routine and that it would just bounce back.  Nope. 

With Livvy, my lovely dark mane was insane...it was so shiny and soft, like a Pantene commercial. I would just get out of bed and shake my bonce and it would fall into the perfect style - no brushing needed. This mop on my head resembles - well - a mop. It is unruly, there are bits that curl one way and then the other. I brush it and it goes all mental. The only way it can be tamed is by my hairdresser, and although I have no baby cothes to buy, I figure that spending a few days a week in Alice's chair may well bankrupt us. So the public gets my messy top knot.  And sometimes, if they are lucky they can witness the beauty of that awesome second head of hair that grows in when pregnant - it's like my halo, as it casts a mystifying glow around my angelic head.  

That is me Round 2 - the miserable old cow.

Then, the rhinitis.  Now THAT just sounds like the unattractive icing on the cake.  I have mystery allergies that started when I moved here to Italy. After an entire year of tests and things being prodded up my nose, the diagnosis was that I am allergic to the climate and there is nothing I can do. See ya later.  I have a spray that keeps the symptoms at bay, but when Livvy was baking in the Mommy Oven, the annoying symptoms all disappeared completely. This was definitely top of my list for things that excited me about being pregnant...until they started even stronger than before.  And with no medication, the sneezing and the stuffiness just gets worse and worse....combine this with a very low-lying baby (seriously I think my uterus may be in my legs these days...) and it is a recipe for disaster.  I used to always make fun of my mom for sneezing and having to actively think about holding in the pee (after 5 kids, who can blame her).  But now, I may actually be in a family first-place for the wet-pants award.  

TMI?  

Tough crap kiddoes - if I start on a sneezing fit you better get out the Niagra Falls rain ponchos and head for higher ground.

But at the end of the day when baby girl #1 has given out her goodnight kisses and is snuggled up in bed, and I get my moments with baby girl #2 who is having her nightly rave in my lower abdomen, I can't help but think that doing it all over again is worth every bit of the sneezing, wheezing, weeing, stuffiness and complaining.  These temporary imperfections will certainly be forgotten the moment I see the perfection that we have made. 
Seriously so giddy for February I could just pee...and I probably just did.

xoxo sjkh