I decided to venture down the Oregon Trail again today. I was so cocky when I sat down with that game– clicking the HAGGLE like mad when I talked to people, stroking my invisible beard as I determined what was most important for my virtual survival. You’ll trade me 20 eggs for 1 pair of winter boots? No, I THINK NOT. I will buy your chicken from you and keep the boots. 10 dollars? HAGGLE HAGGLE HAGGLE. Yes, I agree with 3. Thank you for your business, random pioneer.

My first cart couldn’t even leave the town; it was so jam-packed with everything I could afford. My initial family was us– Jason, Eli, Addie, and I. I bought multiple outfits for each of us. We needed hats, pants, dresses, gloves, socks, shoes, boots. In the game, your clothes weigh like 4 pounds a piece, too. I bought every farm animal available, and then a back-up just in case. I bought medicine by the pound. I bought an iron stove (why? I can’t even tell you), horses, oxen, a mule, various spices, dried fruit, ham, blankets, rope, replacement wheels, rifles, gunpowder, bullets, a fishing pole, a fishing spear, a fishing net– fish: I am COMING FOR YOU. Heh. My adventurer guide was like, “Not even happening. Dump 2,000 pounds before you go anywhere.” 2,000 pounds of my hard-haggled goods. So I just started a new game.

In this game, I was a guy named Shaun traveling with two other guys. This wagon finally made it out of Independence, but I made a mistake early on that cost me a lot. Listen. Don’t try to ford a river; particularly when there is a ferry there that costs $2. You will lose 400 pounds of food and a cow, and probably your fishing goods and hunting supplies, so you are wet and hungry and the other Oregon Trailers click their tongue at you as they pass by on the ferry.

While I was writing this, I got an email from Jenny. Jenny is Dan’s wife, Dan is Jason’s best friend– just in case you’re new or want catch-up. Dan and Jason have been friends since 6th grade. Seriously. I mentioned several months ago that one of our friends was having a baby, but they were keeping it quiet. They wanted to make it past the Danger Zone and the invasive test stage, make sure everything came back fine. It did, so– as I’m sure you guessed, unless you are terrible at foreshadowing (as terrible as I am at fording rivers)– that Dan and Jenny are having their first child. It’s a little boy! AHHH! I ran down the steps to tell Jason. And the name is Caleb Ethan, which I love. “DAN IS GOING TO BE A DAD AND HIS SON IS GOING TO BE NAMED CALEB,” I told J in big capslocks from the staircase. Having a gender and a name makes it so much more real, somehow. Like, Dan and Jenny aren’t just having the concept of a future baby. They are making an actual family story– someday there will be a picture over a fireplace of Caleb, Dan and Jenny posed at a high school graduation. It’s incredible.

Speaking of families, mine is doing a little better. They finished one bout of antibiotics today. I’m sending E back to school tomorrow– I let him take two days off just to make sure the drugs were working, and because PE was today and I know he would’ve found a way to play and pass out. Addie took a nap all afternoon, in her underwear on the couch (yeah, that’s how we do it over here), and Eli hung out in bed with me playing on laptops. He did ‘I Spy’, and I did ‘Warcraft’. I got to talk to Val online in-game. We made tentative plans to hang out next weekend, and go baby shopping for another pregnant friend.

So many babies.

I get caught up in it a lot, because I really do love infants. I love their little digits, I love their flabbergasted expressions, I love all their bizarre gear like socks on their hands so they don’t claw their own skin. (Babies are crazy, dude.) I like the way they smell and sound and the way they feel against your chest– downy and dreamy, delicate, new. And, in truth, I really didn’t mind most of the newborn stage. Here is what I hated: being 10 months pregnant, and the month AFTER being pregnant. The beginning is all honeymoon glow and yeah, you’re throwing up, but you know it’s going to be over soon (or you pray it is), and then suddenly you have this little belly and you’re a rock star and you can eat anything you want and it doesn’t show. You can rest plates ON your belly for easier access. And people don’t care. You can take their seat from them on the bus. You are PREGNANT. Being late second trimester pregnant, if I can draw this full circle, is like a HAGGLE button on life. Oh, you’re going out? How about you go to Taco Bell, then? And bring me something? 1 taco? 2 tacos? 1 taco? 1 taco? 3 tacos? 6 tacos? HAGGLE HAGGLE HAGGLE. Yes, 5 tacos and a foot massage. Thank you for your business, Jason.

The very end, though, you feel like you will be pregnant for the rest of your life. Really. It sounds dramatic, but I know there are hundreds of moms who will read this and nod knowingly. You will die pregnant. You will be buried in a maternity shirt, because your baby will be the one baby in history that chose not to be born, EVER. And then suddenly you’re in labor, and you’re like WHAT I’M NOT READY KEEP IT IN!, and then ohhh the baby, look at what you did, you’re a rock star again– and then your whole body is out of whack. You’re not exactly pregnant, but you’re not yourself fully, either. Your hormones are still out of sync, you’re feeding a kid with your breasts, which are– creepily huge. Your stomach isn’t back muscle-wise to where it used to be. Honestly, if I could skip weeks 38 through 4 (allowing 6 hours in the middle to cuddle the baby at the hospital), I’d want a gazillion kids. A GAZILLION. You heard it.

It’s just hard to be on the other side of it; especially when I jumped onboard so early. I mean, I was 20 when I had Eli. 20. Most of my other buddies were college sophomores. Audrey and Shelly were just getting out of high school. Then, two years later, we had Addie. It’ll be seven years soon since the day I first found out I was having a baby. SEVEN YEARS. That is an immensely long time. I mean, this summer, I’ll have a 4 and 6 year old. So now, when most of my friends are just starting their families or starting to think about starting their families, I feel like, “Yes! Babies! We can finally all have kids together!” And then I realize that I am so out of that stage. I don’t even know if I want to go back. I mean; honestly, realistically. I’m finally at that time of life I always dreamed of when I had babies. I would think, at 2 in the morning when an infant was screaming, Someday they will be older and sleep through the night and not nurse and I can have a normal-sized purse and my body will be back and I won’t have to lug a baby carrier around and strollers and no more diapers, and what a fine day that will be. Bittersweet to be on the sidelines for all these births, though. I used to be in the game. Sigh.

I don’t think this will be a huge surprise to anyone, the decision to stop at two– I’ve talked about it here and there at length. I feel like I finally know why it’s been bothering me, though. I don’t think there was a desire for a third as much as there was a desire to share that experience with people I love.

On a totally unrelated note– totally unrelated– I read several passages of my novel aloud to Jason last night, the fresh stuff I’d been working on with my new direction. He genuinely liked it. Jason does not like anything– he barely liked me when we first met. Heh. So I was over the moon. Particularly since it was the boy stuff; lots of fighting and romantic scenes from a male point of view. God, I just love this story so much, seriously– it’s been such fun to write and so– I don’t know. I love it. I’m going to get back to it right now, actually. That’s my new baby. (Longest gestation ever.)