Stages

Isn't it interesting to see people go through the stages of life? Especially when you've already been there, done that- meaning that you can recognize the things they are experiencing, but you can see it in a whole new light?
*side note* it's only 25% light outside, and the cardinal is going to town and I LOVE IT. I WANT SPRING TO BE HERE.

Where was I?I'm lucky enough to be surrounded by people who are already at The Next Stage, so instead of judging how they are doing with it, I'm taking notes fast and furious because I see how that there are things that we all DO go through, as we move through them.

But part of me is still irritated. Who MADE these the stages and why do we all keep following along? Who the hell said "get a boyfriend. get married. get pregnant. Live your life. Go." and we all were like YES! YES! OKAY! I know, part of it is that we're wired. Even people without husbands or boyfriends or who have girlfriends get The Urge to reproduce. I know all this. I still just think it's a silly way to box ourselves in.

So here is my take on the stages.

1. The Boyfriend. WHOOO HOOO! Who doesn't love a new boyfriend or girlfriend? Everything is new and fabulous and you just can't wait to get kissed.
2. The First Few Boyfriend Fights: The stuff that makes it or breaks it. You haven't invested A LOT of time, so breaking up is relatively painless, and you can make a solid decision one way or another (as can he). Who wants to walk away from all the great sex? (someday, looking back, you'll wonder if you did anything besides eat food, sleep and have great sex).
3. Getting Serious: You either move in with him or he with you. Now the fights start getting a little more serious, and either more frequent, or less frequent as you start really figuring out how to "get along". More opportunities to break up or grow stronger. Still lots of great sex.
4. He's Proposed! Congratulations! What girl doesn't want to plan her wedding? I am, of course, a big poop about this too, since I've already done it. I get that we all want to feel like Cinderella, and go ahead and get dressed up, but I would suggest spending as little money as possible on it. 50% at LEAST of marriages don't work out, you have no idea what you're saying up there (no, really, you don't. It's not a slam. We all have done it.). It will be your first experience of what pregnancy is like: a whole lot of work for months and months and months and then BAM- over. Wedding will be done. Real life resumes.
5. First Wedded Fight: Now, I'm not saying that weddings are BAD- I do have my own idea about marriage, but it ain't gonna stop anyone from wanting to do it, or doing it. And there is something comforting about knowing someone is going to be there, calling them your husband, and all the Great Sex you'll have now as husband and wife (without children). But you will also have your first wedded fight- and these fights felt a little different to me. Did they to you (you marrieds?)? Things seemed to matter just a little bit more. Just breaking up isn't an option so much anymore. But let's get on with it! You're MARRIED NOW!!! You live together and everything! Clearly, the next step is to RECREATE!!!
6. I'm PREGNANT! (not me....no uterus, have 4, do daycare, NOT ME. YOU!)I have to be careful here so I don't write a book. Ya'll know I could go on and on about it. Maybe you will have issues getting pregnant---that in itself could take up 2 pages. You don't want to know how it feels to have to try really hard, you don't want to know what it's like to miscarry, or have to make choices about IUI and IVF or adoption. You also don't want to know how that can affect your marriage since all that Great Sex you're having is at the very root of this. Unless you've been there (and I have a very very special place in my heart for those who have, I love you, and I'm sorry, so sorry when it's hard), you really don't want to know. But we'll say that you're still having all that Great Sex, and bam, you get pregnant. It's the most amazing feeling in the world. Again, I can write a book- I loved it. Maybe not so much the first time- I loved being pregnant but GOD was I sick. So you're pukey and tired (and if you haven't been pregnant, again, these words don't mean anything because you can't even imagine the feeling of pregnant pukey or pregnant tired). At the very least you'll be dead ass tired. It's pass out wherever you are tired. Cannot wake up in the morning or stay away tired. We'll talk when you get there if you haven't been there yet, because there are really good spots along the way, but guess what. Your adorable husband, who is thrilled you are pregnant, cannot even begin to sympathize with you. Welcome aboard, Momma. Every man has his limit. Your life has stopped in many ways for a little while, and he cannot guess as to how you feel because he has never, and will never do anything that resembles this even just a little. 2nd tri- sometimes the tiredness lifts. Your belly is showing some. The world might guess that you're pregnant. There are men out in the world who LOVE pregnant women and will dote on you simply for that reason. Eat it up. It's the best!!!! Sometimes, hormones kick in and sex is going to be Out Of This World. You haven't had good sex until you've had it on these pregnancy hormones. Holy cats! And it's weird because you can feel your entire bigger uterus contracting during orgasms. Sometimes it's the opposite and sex is like one of the foods that made you puke just thinking about it, if you were a puker. You never know what you're going to get, and it can differ between pregnancies also.
Anyways- it goes without saying that the 3rd tri gets so horribly uncomfortable that you wish for the worst pain you've ever known, just to get it over with.
And then you fall in love, a love so much bigger than anything you've ever known before.
7. Welcome to having a newborn. Nothing will ever look the same again. When you come out on the other side of this, and you WILL, the world will look even better. You didn't realize you gave birth to the whole world, but you did. All kids are now your children. You feel everything bigger. Now you have to remember Who You Were/Are, and incorporate your new role as Mother On Duty 24/7 again. Your husband's life returns to "normal" fairly quickly. He'll go back to work. Yours will never be the same. I'm not saying he doesn't love the baby. He does. He did not gain 25-50 pounds being pregnant, he doesn't have the leftovers of that, and his body is not making milk- if you choose not to use your milk, you have to go through the drying up process (and that's hormone laden also). Your milk comes down when the baby cries, when someone elses baby cries, when you think too hard about feeding the baby, and when you have an orgasm. Awesome. You smell chronically of spit up, and breast milk for a little while. And then, your darling husband, who loves you to pieces, is going to want to make love again. Good luck with that. :) We all make it through, but it takes a little getting used to. And it is not uncommon after first babies for it to NOT be enjoyable for us for the first ____ times. It will get better. But this might be the first time when you actually think "OMG. I don't think I can do this right now. I'd rather be dead in a coffin getting some *sleep*." ;) You are officially in the Mommy Club.
You also might start resenting hubby sometimes, for how normal his life appears, while you are up feeding the baby all night long (he has to go to work in the morning). If you choose to go back to work at 6 weeks, your in for a round of tears, hormonal awful mommy guilt tears. I tell you, you have NEVER loved like you love this creature before.
See? A book. I'm not even close to covering what all happens with newborns. We haven't talked about teething, acid reflux, colick...none of that yet. I'll skip it. Let's just say that suddenly you realize ALL that was important to you before was eating, sleeping and having sex. Life was a PARTY beforehand and you did not realize it.
8. At some point, a New Normal appears. Life still revolves around feedings, naps, trying to get sleep yourself, but there is a new normal. You might start to realize there's another human living with you. Reintroduce yourself.
I'll stop doing this in mini steps because I'm pretty sure you get the point.
9. A couple of kids later, your challenges are a MILLION times different than they were a few years ago. You deal with discipline, making money to support this family, finding time to enjoy husband and wife time. If you're really smart and really lucky, you will make this a priority. Your relationship looks a LOT different now. There's so many more things that go into it. Lots of people divorce. LOTS. Especially after kids. This is a real thing. Your man still needs attention even if you're totally tapped out at the end of the day. The smart man will know that you still need to be recognized as YOU, not just the mother of his children. The best is when he honors you as the mother of his children AND as you, 2 seperate but intertwined entities. And like I said, he needs attention to. Men go creeping all the time to find someone who will give them attention. As do women. Mommies go creeping all the time (intentionally or not, on both counts) looking for someone to escape to, someone they don't need to remind 50 times to do a thing, someone who wants nothing from them except Who They Are. It happens. Constantly.
10. If we're lucky, our kids make it to teenage years. Now we deal with them doing the things that we did, that we wish we hadn't. Or maybe we had a BLAST but we see how not cool it actually was. They do it all anyway. I'm not here yet. I'm taking notes from my sister in law who is.
EVENTUALLY we, if we make it through it together, end up alone again, but in a different way. Our kids go and come home and leave. Our hearts still break with theirs, we'll still cry over them, rejoice, but we can relate to them differently. And to our husbands/significant other in a different way.

All I know is this: marriage ain't NO JOKE. Especially once you have kids. You do NOT love your significant other without condition. You don't. Say you do all you want to, talk to me in 10 years and a kid or two later. Even just one kid. Give birth, and then tell me that it's not a completely different love. It just so is- which means that it's easier to see the other as expendable when you've had enough of their going on, enough of them criticizing you for not keeping up on the housework the way they think you should, enough of them drinking, enough of them working horrible hours, enough of them avoiding responsibilities, enough of them not owning their issues, WHATEVER. Take your pick. Enough of their getting their love and attention somewhere else? Whatever- a million different things. It's no joke.

So- no matter where we are in the steps, it's good to know it's going to pass. And if we make it through together, the best stuff is after all that. The very best stuff comes in little moments, in small increments that will keep you going.
And of course, this is all through my eyes. There will be women who sail through pregnancy, women who have no identy crisis afterwords, husbands who will insist on getting up 6 times a night to bottle feed the baby while you sleep peacefully, husbands who massage your feet and don't want sex for 10 weeks after the baby comes, women who want sex 4 weeks after giving birth (CJ was the hardest for me, but I did fall into that second category with #2, 3 and 4). There will be men who lose their patience with their wives much sooner than some, and women who find their way faster than others through it all. Women who love going to work, women who love staying home, families that do with less to accomodate a change of ideas. If you can both make it through, I tell you, some things do get better.

Nothing stays the same, that's the awesome (?) thing. We're in for a new stage. All the time. The smartest thing we can do is KNOW THAT. Nothing is going to stay the same. You can take notes, too. You can commit to doing something you see happening differently. You can commit to try to keep something the same. You'll find out that there's a common thread that is unchangeable. Some things are simply unstoppable. And when you find that out, if you listen really closely, you'll hear the rest of us whispering "Welcome to the club."
And we mean it.