It's all temporary.

I keep reminding myself that all the things that feel challenging and hard right now are just temporary. Morning sickness. Toddler tantrums. Husband being out of town for two weeks. Being in the "not telling people" that we are pregnant yet. The massive amounts of rain we have been receiving.

The morning sickness (all day sickness!) comes and goes. Thankfully Friday I had a good day and I even hosted friends for dinner and cooked a rather involved meal that had lots of flavors and smells to it. Then Saturday I was feeling so ill again, I hardly got out of bed until the mid-afternoon (thank goodness Mr.P was home and kindly managed the kids needs). At lunch time I came downstairs and just the smell of the leftovers from Friday sent me running from the room. I think we are saving a lot on groceries these days - between Mr.P traveling for work and me hardly being able to stomach grocery shopping, I've managed to run in and get just what we need. I try to avoid the deli and meat areas of the store as the smells are too much. There's a lot of mouth breathing involved in my grocery shopping. The past few days the only things I have craved and been able to stomach are chicken strips and cookies and cream ice cream (and I'm allergic to milk but can't seem to get enough dairy!)

Sunday and today have been better, I don't feel as nauseous but I have been so tired. Like, taking two naps a day tired. Today I put P5 on the school bus and then came in the house and laid down. I had an hour before I needed to pick up M2 from her school, and I fell asleep on the couch. Thankfully I woke up with just enough time to drive over to her school to get her. I will gladly take exhaustion over nausea any day.

Last week in my mom's group the question our leader posed to us was, "What is it that you want to say 'God, don't ask me to do this?'" We talked about how sometimes we feel God may be sending us a message or nudging us to do something that we don't want to do. In the back of my mind I instantly thought, "God, don't ask me to mother twins."

I have a really intense fear of twins. I know that many people want twins and yes, twins are a special blessing. But, I come at it from the perspective that I am a twin and I know all the challenges surrounding twins. Since my twin and I are fraternal, there is a chance that the gene for hyper ovulation could run on the female side of my family...and since I'm "advanced maternal age" the odds of twins increases even more. I am terrified of having twins. In 9 days I'll have my first ultrasound and I just want to see one small baby blob on the screen. The other day when I was telling one of my nurse friends about how awful my morning sickness has been this time, she said, "Maybe you're having twins! Symptoms are worse with twins." I just don't think I could handle it.

Part of me is selfish too....I feel like with my first two being so close together I didn't really get to enjoy the baby phase. With my first having feeding issues and her being my first so I was already totally neurotic, the baby phase was very hard. With my second being born a year later, I was so overwhelmed with a very colicky newborn and a one year old I wasn't able to really enjoy the baby phase. This time, knowing this is definitely my last and my other two are older and easier in a lot of ways, I want to really enjoy the baby phase. I am older, wiser, more relaxed at my parenting abilities.

All my anxiety, that too is temporary (so I keep telling myself).