When Graham and I took our prenatal classes back in September last year, one of the things that the instructor talked about was how important it is for new moms to get support. Support in the way of family, friends, and especially from other new moms in our community.

“Your friends who had their babies months ago?” she said. “Forget them. You need to meet other women who are going through the same stages you are at the same time.”

We were given a list of mom and baby groups that are free of charge to check out once our kids were born. I remained skeptical, but I tucked it away for future reference.

In the first few months after Nate was born, we were in survival mode. Joining a structured group that met at a certain time every week would have been a real challenge for me, and it was one I wasn’t willing to meet yet. A lactation consultant asked me once if Nate and I were getting out every day. EVERY DAY, she asked. At that point it was a miracle that I managed to get dressed every day.

To me, the whole idea of joining a mom and baby group sounded really intimidating. After all, it isn’t as easy to make friends as adult women. I guess I just don’t feel like forcing the issue is the way to go. Maybe my reluctance to reach out to women has something to do with the experiences I had as a kid, maybe not, I don’t know. What I do know is that meeting and making friends with new women isn’t that easy for me.

Fortunately, I have several friends who were also pregnant or had had babies in recent months, so we did was seemed logical: we formed our own mom and baby group.

Nate with his future girlfriend, Sophie. (In case you’re wondering, those awesome wooden blocks are from The Land of Nod.)

For months now, my friend Kelly and I have been getting together on a weekly basis with the kiddos…we take turns hosting in our homes every week. We’ve invited other mom friends to come along, too, but so far it’s just been the two of us. We talk mostly about babies and motherhood, but we talk about other stuff, too. And I think we can be more open, more candid, more honest about the experience of motherhood than we could be with a group of relative strangers. Knowing that we have that guaranteed chance to get out of the house with our baby in tow is so great. And seeing a slightly older baby grow and develop is really fun, too. It’s like a sneak peek at how Nate will be changing in the coming months.

A friend of mine had her baby just ten days after Nate was born. Another woman I know just had her baby girl, and our other friend is due in June. Our group is sure to grow!

Nate with his BFF, Xander. These two don’t even know what good buddies they’re going to be someday. Moms can hope.

Do you belong to any mom and baby groups? Did you form your own? What’s your experience with them been like?

It’s official; I’ve joined the ranks of stay-at-home moms. At least, for the next thirteen months or so. True, the baby isn’t actually here yet, but Friday was my last day at work so that made me a stay-at-home mom as of, oh…11:41 Friday morning.

You might be wondering why thirteen months? Seems very specific, doesn’t it?

I get to take that much time away from my full-time job to learn my new full-time job (duh, being a mom) because I have two weeks of 2009 vacation time tacked on at the beginning of my leave and four weeks of 2010 vacation time tacked on at the end. That’s right, upon my return to work next year my company is obligated to pretend like I never left, vacation and benefits-wise, so I will be entitled to take my 2010 vacation before the end of the calendar year. This puts my first official day back to work next year at December 23. HA. Like anybody will be doing any work the week of Christmas. As my supervisor put it, “So basically, we’ll see you January 2, 2011.” From my home office.

During my leave I will be collecting government assistance in the form of employment insurance as income. I do not for one moment feel guilty about this. I’ve been paying into employment insurance in this country since I was fifteen years old. The fact that I’ll be getting some of that back as income to earn while I parent our child is phenomenal. What is even more phenomenal is that my company will be topping up that amount to 95% of my full-time salary for the first 17 weeks I’m off. That takes us pretty much into March without much of a change in salary for me, even though I won’t be working.

I would just like to take a moment to say that I know how awesome this is. I know how fortunate Graham and I are that I will be able to take more than an entire year off from work to stay at home with our son. I appreciate that there are women out there who barely have a chance to heal physically before being required by their employers, the laws of their country or their financial circumstances, to return to working full-time after giving birth. It’s a shame that more countries (cough, cough, ahem, our neighbours to the SOUTH) don’t treat the most important job there is, MOTHERHOOD, with as much respect as Canada does.

“Oh, you’re starting to look chubby!” she said, and gave my belly a little poke.

I actually minded the poking a lot less than I minded the word she used to describe my swelling middle.

CHUBBY.

“You don’t tell a pregnant woman she looks chubby,” I commented to my friend as the other woman walked away.

Weight gain in pregnancy is such a contentious issue…I really had no idea.  Pregnant women know they’re supposed to gain weight.  We expect it.  After all, the combination of baby, fluids, breast tissue and fat stores adds up to about 30 pounds.

I lost weight in the beginning of my pregnancy, mostly due to the gall bladder attack I had and the dietary restrictions that accompanied it.  Not eating fat for about a month meant no cheese, little dairy, and even easy on the meat.  I ended up losing seven pounds in that month of healing.  The crazy women on the pregnancy and baby boards wouldn’t like to hear about that.  Now that I’m eating a fairly normal diet again and the baby is really starting to grow, my shape is beginning to transform in  a substantial way.

My mom asked me a couple of days ago how I felt about my changing body.  This is something I’ve given some thought to over the last few weeks.  For the most part, I really love my little baby belly.  It’s been described as “cute” on more than one occasion, which is nice, I guess, but sometimes feels a little bit condescending.  It’s just so unnerving to suddenly have a part of my body, a part that was never given a second thought before, was never noticed or highlighted in any way, be so obviously different.

When I approach tables at the restaurant where I work now, the eyes of the customers sitting there dart first to my belly, then my face.  When I catch my reflection in the mirror, I am taken aback by what I see.  Other days I stand in front of the mirror and rub the spot where I imagine the baby’s little bum is, and give my belly a little hug.  I figure that is no more nutty than reading to the baby or playing music for it before it’s born.  In utero hugging is the next trend in baby therapy, I’m telling you…

Then there are the moments when the glimpse of my growing belly is slightly terrifying.  There’s no pretending now that I’m not getting bigger.  The baby only weighs about a pound at this point.  What am I going to look like when the baby weighs seven or eight or *gulp* nine pounds?  Will I ever get my body back after he or she is born?  Will I still feel like myself?  Will I still look like the person I was before I became a mother?  I have a sneaking suspicion that the answer, whether sadly or gloriously (I haven’t yet decided), is no.

And I guess that’s why the word “chubby” got to me.  I’m not chubby.  I’m just becoming a mom.

I recently spent a few weeks participating on a rather well-known pregnancy message board. Then one day I read a post a woman had written about how, at 22 weeks she had found out that her baby had a very rare genetic condition which meant that her baby would either be stillborn or would probably not survive longer than a couple of days. I think she used the phrase, “This totally sucks.”  Now there’s an understatement.  Her post was followed by a lot of messages from fellow board members who wrote things like, “You will be in my prayers,” “I’m so sorry you’re going through this,” and various other canned messages of condolence.  After I read that message I began to worry that there would be something wrong with our baby. Then I realized how irrational a thought that was, closed my laptop and walked away from the message board for good.

Although I enjoyed some of the discussion threads about silly things like food cravings and bizarre dreams, I found that the overall tone of the site was a lot more negative than I had originally hoped. There seemed to be a lot of unwritten rules that I had to follow, and I felt as though I was constantly censoring myself in this rather conservative community of pregnant woman. It was clear that this wasn’t the case for everyone there…some very close friendships had developed between some of the women. In general though, if members didn’t conform to the accepted set of practices, they were ostracized by the existing members of the forum.  I found this to be very ironic, since presumably everyone came to the board for a sense of community and support.  I know a lot of women get a lot of positivity from sites like the one I tried out.  It just wasn’t for me.  I get a lot more out of my day-to-day experience with my blog friends, women I know from the internet who are already moms, who have shown more care and support to one another and to me, than I believe I could ever find in a somewhat anonymous forum.  Cheers to you, ladies.

So if you’re pregnant, and considering joining one of the many pregnancy-related communities that are out there on the web, you might want to consider the following before stepping in.

1. Don’t discuss your weight. You should neither complain about gaining too much weight or, conversely, voice any concerns over not yet having gained enough weight.  It just “bums out everyone” else on the forum.

2. Flaming is to be expected, and in many cases, is even encouraged.

3. It’s cool to talk about your cervical mucus. (I personally could have lived my whole life quite happily having never been acquainted with the phrase, “snail trail.”)

4. It’s okay to talk about food. A lot. Daily threads about what’s being eaten for lunch are to be expected.

5. There are an alarming number of acronyms to learn, including DH, DD, DS, AW, AE, NBR, PSA, just to name a few. Don’t ask anyone what these stand for, though. You’ll have to figure them out for yourself.

6. It’s cool to admit you drink coffee, pop, enjoy an occasional sip/glass of wine and/or beer, sit in a hot tub, go four-wheeling, eat deli meats and all other manner of activities considered generally inadvisable for pregnant women.

7. Don’t ask a question that’s already been asked by some other pregnant woman at some point in time in the history of the site. See number two, above.

8. Expect to see a lot of web “bling” at the bottom of every post within a thread.  Bring your glasses.

(On that note, Eden and Alice have launched their new site, “Let’s Panic about Babies!“  It couldn’t have come at a better time.)

Today I have just one little thought to share.

I’ve spent sixteen years trying not to get pregnant.  Now I wouldn’t mind it so much.  It’s a very bizarre concept to wrap my head around, this virtual 360°.