thinking 'bout babies...

well, i'm not pregnant! :b

i've been having weirdo symptoms for the last week. (insomnia, cramps, increased cm, not being able to concentrate are just a few...oh, and the cat WOULD NOT leave me alone!) it's amazing how easy it is to convince yourself that you are pg. but i'm not. so why am i having these issues??? i think it's hormonal, something to add to the list of subjects when i have my annual physical next month.

i haven't really felt like doing much. i'm just so blah these days. that's one reason i haven't been popping onto my usual message boards lately.

bought some groceries this am. out of the corner of my eye i could see the cashier do a double take when she rang up the pgy tests. then a few minutes later she asked how old the kids were...i'm sure that btwn my sweats & tshirt and having 2 young children, she thought i was on the welfare train. i noticed that she closely checked my signature against my credit card signature. :/ i've thought about when to add baby #3. i know that our family does not feel like it's finished yet. rob & i both want to have another baby. ideally i'd like to wait until cade is 3 before baby #3 is born (meaning, born after july 2007). by then reese would be 5 and in kindergarten. but then cade would get no alone time with me at all...however, i think that's probably a good thing. he's already a momma's boy, to the point where he cries if he can't get to me. i think if we let him think he's the baby of the family, he'll have a harder time accepting this new addition to the family.

and then there's rob's work to consider. he's going to back to sea duty in march of '07 and that will be 2 or 2.5 years that he'll be attached to a submarine...working 10+ hours a day and weekends, not able to take more than a few days of leave at a time...and those were just the conditions on his last boat as a weapons officer. in '07 he'll be the executive officer (which is navy talk for the commander's bitch :/)...i'm thinking he'll be gone a lot more than he was as a weapons officer. sigh.

so, do i want to be pg while he's the XO of a boat, with no family and not many friends to count on for help? or do i want to have a baby before he gets to be XO of a boat and then freak out when he's not around to help much. ugh. it makes sense to just have the next baby soon, i think that would be best for rob's work, for cade to accept the new baby, and to just get the baby stuff OVER WITH!

but then there's me to consider. i think i may have had more than just the baby blues with cade, however, i wasn't comfortable taking medicine for it. so there's a chance of that happening again (or maybe even being worse this time). and what if i'm not ready to have another baby yet? i'm really enjoying watching cade grow. he's only 14 months now, is it fair to him to add another baby to the mix? (was it fair for reese to deal with it too? she was 18 months when i got pg with cade, had just turned 2 when he was born.) and what if we go ahead & have baby #3 soon...and then 4 years down the road i just feel like we're still not done, but rob feels just the opposite?

can my body handle another pregnancy? both of my previous ones went smoothly, no complications at all, but i'm still carrying around about 30 lbs of babyweight. am i pushing my luck if i try to have another healthy baby with no complications? sigh.

i don't quite have baby fever yet. when i see newborns in stores, i get the mushy 'awwwww' feeling and remember what emotions i went through as a new mom. but i'm not to the point where i'm thinking, "hey! i want one too!" i think i'll wait another 5-6 months and revisit my thoughts on this.