I just ate a Baby Ruth at 9:18 am.  Must be the day after Halloween.

Halloween brings out the “wistful” in parents, I think, perhaps more than any other holiday.  Last night, we wandered through our mostly-retired-folks neighborhood with a sweaty, mask-less Spiderman and a speeding little Batman (thrilled by the flap of his own cape), and the constant refrain was “I miss those days!”  “Enjoy this, they’re so precious at this age!”  And I do, I do.

The funk has largely lifted.  God knows how – it’s getting dark early and light later, and in between the days are often gloomy . . . yet it’s still kind of oppressively warm outside, in that salty, sticky, Gulf Coast way.  I have reached the “lumbering and uncomfortable” stage of pregnancy, with my back in a constant state of Charley-Horse-clenching-pain, and a return of morning sickness (albeit a milder and less constant version, with only occasional actual hoarking).  I’ve also got a couple of ailments new to me this time around – a collection of little skin tags all up and down my neck (I look like a warty old toad from chin to chestbone), and leg cramps like you wouldn’t believe.  And the contractions have begun – nothing frightening or dangerous, but painful and present enough to be draining.  We’ve had our first parent-teacher conference discussing the ongoing issue of Jack’s processing struggles, a meeting that made it clear that getting this kid through high school is going to be an endless battle of advocacy plus a huge amount of money spent on individual therapies.  In addition, we’ve confirmed he has a major food allergy.  Which is, like, totally stressful, man.

And yet, despite all of these factors pressing down on my well-being, I’m happier with life than I was last month.  The kids remain irritatingly tyrannical, as kids tend to be, and yet I can face their quirks with my usual equanimity, and not the weeping despair that a simple far-flung dirty sock could bring on last month.  Our house is a total chaotic mess because I can no longer bend over to pick up all the detritus that these children constantly leave in their wake, and I don’t mind.  Halloween, fun as it was, came and went with very little fanfare in our house, which is very unusual for me – I didn’t even dress up.  And that’s cool.  There’s always next year.  (Thinking of Huey, Dewey, and Louie for the three boys!  Or the Three Musketeers?  I must capitalize on this three boys thing.)

As I enter trimester three of this pregnancy, I have this feeling of gentle winding down, like a clockworks that is running itself out.  A ritardando, for you music majors out there.  I managed to average a 42 hour work week last month despite taking off 4 days for our Disney trip – and if you can believe it, that is a sign that I am shifting into a lower gear at work.  Taking on less, billing less, handing over items.  I don’t go to after-hours bar events anymore.  I decline lunch meetings.  If they fire me, they fire me – I’m just not capable of the same frenetic pace that I was before the pregnancy, and although I care about my job, I don’t care enough to battle the obvious signs my body is giving me – that it’s time to dial it down, that it’s time to start focusing on sleeping, eating well, and minimizing everything besides those two tasks.  In a lot of the working world, the pressure is on the pregnant woman and young mother to prove that she belongs there, that she can do as much as the man with the stay-at-home wife (a category of worker that is phasing out, anyway, as fewer and fewer women can afford to stay home, even if they may want to).  One of my feminist goals is to be able to honestly admit that, for this few months, I cannot – and yet I am worth the investment of keeping on.  After all, we all go through periods when we aren’t performing at our best.  Half the men at my firm are divorced – I’m sure when they went through their divorces they lacked focus, weren’t eating well, got sick more, had to leave constantly for meetings with the divorce lawyer and court appearances and custody battles and closing on a new bachelor pad.  One of the best lawyers we have recently broke his femur and had to be hospitalized for a considerable amount of time, and of course no one even questioned whether it was “worth it” to wait out his convalescence.  One of the judicial law clerks is guiding a five year old daughter through a traumatic bone cancer scare and major operation, and hasn’t been emotionally present at work for months (and has been physically absent a great deal as well).  The outpouring of support from both sides of the bench for this parent has been amazing.  Everybody has months of depressed productivity, of illness or family drama, months of weakness.  Pregnancy is just one of many.  I take more than I can give right now, but it’s all part of the ebb and flow.  Although for years in the workforce, pregnancy accommodation and paid maternity leave in particular has been seen as a unique drain on employer resources, the absolute truth is it’s just one of many occasions in a human life when a person is a drain.  In other, non-pregnant phases of my life, I have carried other co-workers through their down periods.  I will do that again, when I’m able.  We all belong to each other.

In the meantime, I will get to work at 7:30ish most days, and I will leave at 5:30ish most days, and that’ll be the end of it.  No night work, no weekend work, if I can possibly help it, even if that means my billables are on the low end because of it.  So it goes.  Ten hours a day is all I have to give.

In tandem with my slowing speed, I have seen an increase in two things – outlandish pregnancy dreams, and daydreams about holding this little baby.  I had a 4D ultrasound Wednesday – another freebie, from my good friend who scans me all the time because she’s awesome.  The baby was literally folded in half and sucking on his toes.  It was so cute and weird – you could see his mouth moving in a sucking motion, and his little foot bones up in there.  We didn’t get many great pictures because his feet were covering his face – his little behind poking out my left side, and his head and feet tickling the ribs on my right side, and him angrily shoving at the ultrasound wand wherever it happened to be.  I think a lot about him, all curled up and floppy and small, about holding his little rag doll body against my chest, him sound asleep and clutching my shirt, drooling heavily into my décolletage while I, exhausted and snoozing myself, drool heavily into his fuzzy hair.  One last time.  I’ve got it in me, to do this one last time, and I’m really ready for it.  And this time, I’ll have two little helpers.  Jack is always looking out for me – he puts my socks on for me when I ask, and last night while trick or treating he made sure everyone waited for me, as I occasionally lagged behind.  Liam, my barnacle-child, always stuck to my side, will have to be more carefully handled, but I think I can turn his jealous love to my advantage, and make him my Best Helper.  I’m not at all stressed about having enough love for three, or about any negative impact on these boys – this baby brother is nothing but a blessing to them as well as me and The Professor, and I absolutely know they’re going to love him.  We’ll enjoy these last few months of being a family of four, of being diaper-free, of full night sleeping, of all kids-dressing-themselves . . . and then dive back into the chaos of baby, for the third and final time.

Winter is coming.  Baby is coming.  It is a beautiful season of my life.