I had Danielle, who snapped the fabulous photos of our girls, go outside of her normal repertoire and capture Eric and I for our 10 years together in February. We took these in the Boonies on a rather chilly Saturday afternoon in May.

It was a chance for us to remember that long before marriage and houses and babies, there was just us. And always will be.

Thanks, Danielle. Visit her at 40piggies Photography.

Introduction and Part 1 available here.

February.

I’m nervous, so I’m sweaty, and that’s making the annoying and loud paper covering the exam table stick to my skin.

I’m in every woman’s least favourite but most necessary position in the world: Flat on my back, legs in stirrups, dreaded speculum down there.

Dr. M peers over the top of my knee.

“Well,” she says, clearing her throat, and I think Shit, this can’t be good, “I think everything is fine. But I’m not an expert on female anatomy, you understand. I’m a GP. I know generally where everything is supposed to be.”

She points a latex gloved hand to the spot that’s troubling me.

“And I’m not sure what that is.”

She hands me a referral to the obstetrician who delivered Lucy in 2006 (the woman who delivered Alice is a regular doctor who delivers babies).

“I want you to see someone with surgical capabilities,” Dr. M says. The appointment is not until June.

I go hot and cold all at once. My hands are shaking as I strap a screaming Alice into her carseat, and I’m fighting back tears. This is not what I wanted to hear. This is the second medical professional that has mentioned surgery to me in the past three months.

How can this be happening? I am healthy. I had two normal deliveries, neither of which had prolonged pushing (Lucy for just over an hour, Alice 12 MINUTES) or major trauma. I was pretty active during both pregnancies. I hadn’t, however, really done kegels at all in the past four years of pregnancy and post-partum living. Was I ever kicking myself for that now.

Who knew I had such a weak pelvic floor? Sure, I’d have the odd pee leak if my bladder was full and I sneezed. And jumping on a trampoline? Forget it.

But there was no indication that anything like this would happen. I remember reading about the importance of a strong pelvic floor during and after pregnancy, but it was never hammered into me the way I now believe it should for every woman — having babies or not.

There is nothing wrong with the way things are functioning, as can be a big problem when you have a suspected prolapse. I’m going to the washroom fine. I’m not in pain. I just feel like something is there. All up up (down?) in my space. In the morning, it’s not so bad. But at the end of long days lifting my girls, chasing my girls, walking and cooking and standing, I feel like something is going to fall out of me.

A few weeks later, I am in a local walk-in clinic with Alice, who has a gooey, crusty green eye, when a bright yellow brochure catches my attention.

It’s targeted to older women with incontinence issues, but also talks about pelvic floor strengthening, learning proper kegels, lifestyle changes. “You don’t have to live this way” it says, and my hands tighten on the paper in hope.

Vicki is a registered physiotherapist specializing in this area. I never even knew such a person existed.

I make an appointment right away.

We spent the better part of an hour together, discussing my symptoms, my babies, my daily routine. Had anyone mentioned a less invasive approach? Taught you how to exercise? All I’d been told so far was to do kegels (no, no one explained how — I looked it up online), wait a year or until I was done breastfeeding, hope for the best, and maybe have surgery if I couldn’t live with “the best.”

“It is shameful in our country the lack of understand and support the medical community gives,” she says shaking her head in frustration. “I see women all ages, and many your age.”

Relief washes over me. I don’t feel so alone or afraid now.

Vicki says she can’t guarantee everything will go back to normal (“Nothing is ‘normal’ after childbirth,” she says with a smile, and we snicker) but she promises it will get better.

“On a scale of 1-10, how much would it bother you if everything stayed exactly how it is right now?” she asks, pen poised over a chart.

For a long while, I can’t answer. The number is stuck in the back of my throat, and the tears slip silently down my cheeks. I watch as they form dark circles on my jeans, and feel Vicki watching me.

“Eleven,” I whisper. “I feel broken. I hate this. I don’t want to be afraid of sex. I want to run and skip after my girls. I want to live without thinking about this with every step I take.”

Vicki’s hand is on my arm, and she hands me a tissue box.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “We’ll get there.”

To be continued…

I have been too scared to write this post.

Yet I need to write it. For myself and you and every woman out there dealing with this and its related issues, in my continuing quest to give voice to the personal, embarrassing, challenging and emotional side of pregnancy and parenting that we as women don’t talk enough about.

I wish I had access to another mom’s personal story while going through…this, so in turn, I write it for us.

(Like when I almost hurt Alice and had to get help, a post and your comments that I’m grateful for every day.)

It’s also written for my girls, so a) one day they’ll know they’re not alone, and b) one day they’ll know what their growing little in utero selves did to me, adding another guilt trip I can whip out in an argument when they want to borrow the car.

So, here goes…

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Our bed is up against a window, and the soothing patter of rain woke me at 4:22 a.m. Within minutes, Alice was awake. Hungry, chilly, a squirming worm in Eric’s arms, anxious to burrow against my belly and nuzzle into my breast.

This happens often. Some unseen force nudges me out of open-mouthed slumber; a gentle hand on my shoulder, and I’m awake, listening, before there is a need to. It’s happened with both my girls, at all ages.

For a few seconds each time I open my eyes, when the mind is a blank canvas before life is instantly painted on, I forget. I feel like…me. Just Carly. My body, my interests, my own thoughts, with no one else to consider.

And then I blink, and this life seeps into my skin.

_____

Do you ever look around at the world you have created for yourself and wonder how it happened?

There are days when I feel like I’m out of my own body. Pregnancy, so visceral and consuming when you are living it, seems like eons ago — if it happened at all — yet here before my eyes are two beautiful and healthy little girls. That I helped create. That came out of me.

_____

“I just LOVE Mumma!”

Lucy, my sensitive, emotional soul, says this out of the blue frequently. My heart tightens, elongates, lodges in my throat each and every time. I can’t cry because it upsets her.

“Oh, Baby Goose. I love you, too.”

“Mumma, I’m not a baby.”

“I know you’re not, Lucy. But that is my name for you.”

“You tell me to, ‘Stop growin’, Lucy!’”

“I do. Stop it. Right now!”

“Mumma, I will go to school soon.”

“I know, Honey. Not for another whole year, but very soon.”

“I won’t need you when I go to school.”

I pause, wondering how to handle this — inane toddler conversations can spin wildly toward the significant in an instant.  Lucy is suddenly very interested in her school, which is down the street. We have explained that school is only for girls and boys to go to, and not Mummies and Daddies.

“Well, you might not need me when you’re at school, but I think I should still stick around.”

She throws her arms around my neck, and gives me a “seximo” kiss (rubbing noses together).

“Mumma,” she whispers into my ear. “I will always need you.”

_____

I don’t think you can regret your children.

Sure, you can yearn for the time before they catapulted into your life, changing every aspect of it forever. I wish, daily, for more hours in the day. I want to reach back into time and shake the old me who had endless stretches of emptiness in her lap. I want to sleep more, hating 6:15 a.m. when Lucy and Alice are simultaneously whining from their rooms and Eric and I poke each other under the warm sheets to try and force the other out.

But would I ever not have them, in order to secure these things? Never. Would I change anything about how they came to be? Never.

_____

In those late afternoon/early evening hours, when the TV is blaring, Spencer is barking at the wind, and Lucy is clinging to my knees, Alice is on my hip, and I’m stirring a pot with flushed cheeks, time stands still. So often I clock watch, counting the minutes until Eric comes home and I can disentangle myself.

But others, I close my eyes and inhale. I try to burn the chaos to memory. I want to remember it all, this feeling of being needed every single moment.

Soon enough, like the past life I occasionally miss, this time will be over.

One Monday a month, Eric and all the other geeks builders in the local International Plastic Modellers Society get together for a night of debauchery.

(You had to read that line twice, didn’t you? Once to re-read IPMS, and a second to snort at debauchery, right?)

Actually, they do just what you think they do: Pack up the planes/tanks/dudes etc. they’re working on, meet in a community centre, trade tips, gossip and mingle. There is much manly hand shaking involved.

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I’ve lost friends since having children.

Wait. Scrap that.

I’m no longer friends with some people since having kids. Because if they were true friends, they would have adapted along with me, and we both would have put the effort in. Often you can drift apart quite naturally.

I think your true friends are really shown when you go through life transitions. I found this with starting university and getting married, too.

Here is a great letter from a woman who wants to know “what stay-at-home moms do all day.” It’s hard to know if I’d have written the same letter pre-kids (especially since I was the first of all my friends and family to procreate and had no point of reference), but reading it now just makes my jaw drop.

The answer, though, is what made it snap up in a hoot, because hahaha, oh the snark. And truth!

(Sorry for the photo — it’s how I received this via email — click it to increase and read)

I can still remember the physical torture of those early weeks of parenthood, when merely raising your arms over your head while taking a shower hurt. Your back and shoulders ache from carrying a newborn. Your eyes burn from being open so damn much. If breastfeeding, your nipples feel like a beaver was using them for training practice.

Add in a busy toddler, and it’s a wonder the four of us survived unscathed after Alice was born.

The one aspect of new parenthood (again) I was most worried about was breastfeeding. While the recollection of labour pain fades so quickly, my Girls were cringing daily at the memory of learning to breastfeed with Lucy — the hours spent learning to latch, the bleeding nipples, the lingering hole she chewed on my right side, the tears of frustration as pumping brought no milk.

Discover Birth, a local group of women specializing in childbirth, breastfeeding and post-partum care, offered help. (Actually, owner Stefanie first offered us a labour doula, which I turned down. For us, having a virtual stranger in the delivery room would have been uncomfortable. Maybe if we’d met sooner? I dunno. But I do know many women who’ve used doulas while giving birth and LOVED them.)

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The past week I’ve fitted back into two pairs of In-Between Pants. Not pre-pregnancy pants, but pairs I bought, dazed and confused over the state of my post-partum body, after giving birth to Lucy the spring of 2006.

I put on the same amount of weight this time, just over 35 pounds, but because my body shape was different when I got pregnant with Alice than when I got pregnant with Lucy, I wasn’t confident I’d fit into The In-Between Pants this time around. I’ve been trying them on weekly since about three weeks after giving birth — so desperate to get the hell out of pregnancy clothes –but the hips, they’re a tad wider. Not with chub extra padding, but the bones are literally wider after Child 2.

(I’ve doubts I’ll ever get back into pre-baby clothes this time around at all, ever, because of this.)

My sweet friend Lauren is due with her second baby in April, and all my pregnancy clothes are boxed and bagged to go to her this week. There’s no better motivation than when the bulk of your wardrobe is leaving the house.

So the timing of the pants couldn’t be better. Just because one pair is held up with a hair tie — the same trick used to extend the life of non-maternity pants — doesn’t matter. They’re up. And I’m just a bit muffin-top like.

I also got my wedding rings back on, something I’m terribly excited about. Because I was pregnant through the summer heat, I had to remove them in, like, May.

Here’s Eric and I on Saturday, for the Big Night Out. We had a great time chatting with adults and not having to tell our dinner companions to stop throwing your food and no, I don’t want to see what chewed up corn looks like.

But Alice’s two night wakings on Friday, combined with two glasses of wine, meant Eric and I were both falling asleep at the table by 10 p.m. We were home by 11. Oh, the joys of early parenthood.

But we were out! Together! Without children! Hurrah!

I am done having kids.

As much as I adore my girls, I don’t want any more of them. Two is enough: Physically, emotionally, financially.

My uterus has a big blinking red sign that reads No Vacancy. Ever Again.

(How come people have such a hard time believing you when you tell them this? No matter what I say, they nod their heads knowingly. “Oh, you say that now! But you never know…” Actually, yes, I do.)

Eric and I both agree. But what we’re debating is when is the best time for him to have The Procedure (seriously, go listen to this song from Family Guy, when Lois tells Peter to have a vasectomy after a pregnancy scare. It’s hilarious).

I’m ready for him to have it tomorrow. No, make that yesterday. And have told him he’s not coming near me until it’s taken care of.

He thinks I’m joking. But I want there to be absolutely no chance for an accident, or, as Lucy says, “A big mess.”

Eric’s argument is, unfortunately, a scary and valid one: What if something happens to Alice in the next 10 months when there’s the highest risk something can? Or even to Lucy? Shouldn’t we wait — a year, he’s proposing — just in case?

(This has hit more close to home lately, too: A woman whose blog I read recently had her 4-month-old grandson die of SIDS, just before Christmas. How utterly sad and devastating. Even thought Alice is sleeping so well at night, I am still up several times checking on her.)

As valid a concern I think that is, I only want to bring two children into this world. Now that they’re here, what happens will happen. I worry I’d be replacing them, and the child would spend her/his whole life chasing a shadow.

Thoughts?

Such a classic newborn pose: The frog legs tucked up, the hand beside the face, the pouty bottom lip.

Her ample hair twists into the tinest curl right at the top of her forehead.

It’s too bad we don’t remember these early newborn weeks of bliss: Sleep, eat, poop. Innocent and completely carefree, without a single worry in the world.

She smells as good as you think she does.

_____

I have posts and posts and posts and half-started pages, but my eyes literally cross and blur if I stare at the computer too long. A side-effect of sleep deprivation, I’m sure. But I hunger for all your words and emails — you prevent that feeling of isolation and lonliness that so permeates new motherhood.

_____

Alice the Pumpkin is grunting, which means she is covering her adorable tushie with yet another yellow, seedy poop (every. single. diaper. change.), which means she will howl to be fed a few moments after. What comes out must be replaced, right?

Time to go. Please say hi. What are your plans for the weekend? Or, what did you have for lunch today?