Baby On Board

I don't tend to like pictures of myself. At all. It's been this way a third of my life. I wish I had a greater reason than vanity to cite but I truly don't. So while I was pregnant, needless to say, I didn't like having pictures taken of me. Yes, the usual egotism was a culprit then too but there were several other reasons I didn't jump on the pregnancy photo shoot bandwagon.

Firstly, allow me to point out that I am definitely not a Millenial. I am way too old, by 10 years, not to mention Millennials are defined as having traits of confidence and tolerance, but also a sense of entitlement and narcissism. Personality surveys of GenerationMe have shown increasing narcissism among Millennials compared to preceding generations, when they were teens and in their twenties. So it makes way more sense that women in that age range would want to have photographic documentation of every step of their unique and awe-filled journey.

I, however, usually choose words as my way of expressing myself, most typically the written word. No surprise I chose to journal my experiences in letters to my children and personal notes to my husband and myself. The closer I came to my due date the more I just wanted to stay in with my husband and prepare ourselves, our microcosm, for the impending terminal changes that were headed our way. It wasn't because I was anti-social necessarily, although at the time I thought that was exactly why. It was more because this experience was happening to me and my husband and no one else. Sure, billions of babies have been born making there billions of mommies and daddies out there. But we had never done this and we only had one another to go through this experience with. It became sacred to me, intimate, special beyond description. I didn't want to share it with anyone else.

I felt the same way for the first year of my daughter's life. I didn't want the outside world to burst through our little bubble. She fit in so very perfectly with the two of us that it seemed as if it had always been the three of us. This was so true that I wept for her when I found out near her first birthday that she would have to share us at just 19 months old. Happily I had the same experience of feeling my second pregnancy was a miracle and a wonder and my anticipation to meet my son was just as great as it had been with my daughter. And our cocoon grew big enough to accommodate all four of us. But I still didn't want to share it with anyone else. I wanted to keep it as simple and intimate as I could for as long as I could.

When the day came for my daughter to start preschool, I struggled with the milestone. I still struggle on the first day of anything that removes them that much further from the little Utopia we had when they were babies and toddlers and we spent all of our time together in our own world. I never begrudge them stepping out into the world and asserting their independence, it is hard after all to make a great impact if you spend your life in a vacuum. Silently though, I am a little crushed each time because I know they are one step closer to first failures, disappointments, and heartbreaks. I also know that are that much closer to first major achievements, successes, and love which makes them one step closer to being an adult. Unlike when they were little and I could scoop them up and make everything all better, they start down a path where I cannot protect them from all in life.

At the end of the day I may not have a ton of pictures of my belly when I was pregnant (or any) but I I do remember every detail of both of my kids from the second I knew they were coming into the world and there is something pretty fantastic about selfishly hoarding those memories all to myself.