Pregnant bellies and babies are in the air.

Friends, coworkers, yoga buddies…everyone!

As Gray’s second birthday looms near (HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?), our decision long ago that we wanted two kids is forever swimming through my brain.

I bring up the idea, and timing, of Bundle 2.0 (should we be so lucky) often to Jackson, and am more often than not met with a nod (that’s it).

I don’t mean to portray Jackson as an insensitive jerk, because he’s not at ALL. He’s the most caring, thoughtful, loving person I know (besides Gray). He just doesn’t launch into the thousands of questions and thoughts that I have, yet.

And then the other day I had an epiphany…thinking about a baby is so, so, so different for the mom than it is for the dad.

To the dad, it means having a baby. To the mom, it means being PREGNANT…and THEN having a baby, and breastfeeding and co-sleeping and diaper subscriptions, and cracked nipples and pumping and on and on.

For Jackson, thinking about having another baby means deciding to try, and then welcoming a new Bundle months down the road. Sure, his wife’s circumference will drastically increase and he’ll have less room in the bed, but not much else changes for the dad other than having a designated driver if he has a drink with dinner.

But for me, for the woman, our worlds change course the millisecond we decide we’re ready to get pregnant. Having a baby begins the moment you decide to try, and you start to mentally, emotionally and physically prepare and process what a huge change those ten pregnant months will be, long before the baby ever shows up.

I can honestly say that I loved being pregnant. I loved every second of it (though those early beer gut days before my bump arrived were a bit humiliating, hence the title of this blog) and can’t wait to experience that rounded belly and those kicks to the ribs again. But it’s so much to take in, so much change that happens to your body when you’re the one carrying the baby.

Not only is it a shift in your eating and drinking habits (for me, that meant no crazy cheeses, no caffeine and no alcohol, but to each her own), but it’s this wholehearted selfless giving of yourself to someone else. Suddenly your body is no longer your own. You have zero control over what’s happening, and you have to roll with everything that comes your way.

Aside from hearing about these changes from me, that’s the extent that they really affected Jackson when I was pregnant with Bundle, so of course he wouldn’t think of having a baby/getting pregnant the same way I do.

So it makes sense that even if we’re a month, a year, two years, whatever away from trying again, to me it’s forefront in my mind because it’s my body. And to Jackson, it’s a baby down the road.

And that’s okay, especially now that I’ve realized why it’s so different for us both. As long as we’re on the same page about when and why, we’re good. Plus I’ll get to cash in on almost a year of mandatory foot massages, which will make up for all the mental energy I expended thinking about it when he got to just nod.