A Direct Message (sort of stalker-y) to Far Superior Blogger - and Playing with Links

Hi Modg!
Just to warn you, I can't offer you anything listed in your "reasons to contact" (well I lie, I have a baby and a picture of a penguin, so I guess I could if I wanted to) but I still think this is something you need to hear (or I need to write).  I imagine you get a lot of emails thanking you for what you do, and it's just like the labor and delivery nurse, or just as important, the bartender at your wedding - that they do it everyday and it's just a job, but it's super important to you (you, as in me) and can make or break one of the biggest experiences of your life.  I'll keep it short (FAIL already).
In January 2011, I was about 4 months pregnant and having dinner in total public with a friend -actually one of my favorite little angels who often seems to give me exactly what I need- and as I teared up for the millionth time that day, I explained to her that I didn't like being pregnant and was overcome with the guilt of it all.  She - interestingly enough a single girl whose babies were her crazy social calendar, successful career, new house and pets among other things - mentioned a blog she loved - ModgBlog.  She said it was a new mom who ate her placenta - SOLD! By some stroke of universal intervention, I remembered the name of the blog she mentioned when I got home (by which time I had already puked up my dinner and peed myself in the car).
When I started reading I liked that you had done Hypnobabies (I started it at 13 weeks - neurotic much?), the tone was on par with my own wedding blog , you cloth diapered (as I was planning and ultimately loved) and I had a friend-crush (in a platonic way, not a Women's Studies way). I was entertained by you.  Then I had my baby...
A planned, natural, Hypnobabies birth turned into a series of decisions that even I could have been better prepared for - and despite a mom, sister-in-law, and other friends who have all had c-sections, my thoughts while getting prepped were honestly, "Modg did it."
When my new little person started spewing un-explainable things from her ass and not gaining weight I found myself on an elimination diet that you had made light of, and when everyone nearly insisted I just give up breastfeeding, I knew there was someone who had made it through (C is 10 months tomorrow, I'm still breastfeeding, and I can eat whatever I want).
And when you came up with names for the shelf that resides over vag, well - my respect for you only grew (and my husband's was created).

gratuitous cuteness to reduce creepy-ness

I follow you on Pinterest and when you started posting ideas for a nursery, I got excited for the news that I knew would follow - and excited for you to do it all months before me again, and basically write my guide. Your most recent post was the awesome straw that broke the Thank You Camel's back.  At my 6 week appointment, my doctor said I was a prime candidate for a VBAC, and I poked her eyes out for even suggesting I would do this all again.  Then a family member who also happens to be an older, east coast surgeon asked me why I would EVER consider a VBAC as it makes for FULK (&*$%ed up looking kids). Mind you, he does gallbladder surgeries.  As the sparks of the baby-fever flame start to flicker again, I have been researching this, talking to every doula, and consulting all the available information I can.  And I came to the same conclusion that you did.  People roll their eyes, and will say and do worse when I actually am pregnant again (no time soon, other readers who do know me- all 4 of you!).  I am the ultimate information gatherer - and I found the stats you did.  I look forward to hearing your journey - as I realize on some level that you are a real person having this real experience, and not just for my benefit - and thank you.

I Want to Take a Picture of Confidence

I take a lot of pictures of C (duh!) - I'm guessing the cyber-world has a gigantic stadium piled high with digital pictures of adorable babies.  How did our parents even  pick just the few to fit in the albums?! One thing I can't preserver (mush starts HERE) and wish with everything in me that I could, is how much this little girl loves herself.  We walk by a wall that has an engagement picture of Mr. and I looking childless and rested under which there are baby pictures of Mr., myself, and C.  She gets this look on her face and it is obvious that she is just enamored with the baby she sees in her picture - even more than the two other babies, so it's not just a "baby" thing.  When we're getting ready for bath time, she checks herself out in the mirror and she's thrilled to see that baby again.  She smiles when the baby smiles, looks the baby up and down and looks genuinely impressed with everything about that person in the mirror (more so than the same old mommy or daddy in the mirror).  She pats her tummy with pride often throughout the day.  She loves the look and movement and taste of her hands and feet.  She feels completely free (and totally unedited) to express herself.  She isn't embarrassed to be the loudest one in the room.
More likely than not, this unconditional self-love will be gone before she even has a memory of it and that totally breaks my heart in a million different pieces.
When I found out I was having a girl I was a little stunned - mostly because I recall myself, and how difficult I was from age 12 through...well, I'll let you know when it goes away.  At first I thought how difficult it was for my parents...emotions that couldn't be named or explained, but were nonetheless spilling out of me. An unpredictable swinging pendulum that could take out a grown man in the blink of an eye.  And a sudden awareness - nay, INSISTENCE -  of everything real and imagined that was wrong with me, my looks in particular.  But now that she's here and I want perfection for her life, I remember how much it royally sucked for me too.  By junior high I could stare into a mirror and criticize what I saw endlessly - in high school, it got worse despite the fact that photographic evidence proves quite the contrary.  AND it's STILL going...it's really a big cluster &%$# because crazy hormones when you're young add to it, but then aging adds to it, then pregnancy and crazy body changes, and finally menopause.  As a friend of mine once said, "as men age, they start looking more like Sean Connery, but as women age they start to look more like...Sean Connery."  He's an ass.  But he's not totally wrong.  Despite this fact, I want to break this cycle...
As I had one of my not-rare-enough, exhaustion and guilt fueled, mini breakdowns the other evening (probably a Wednesday - those suck) I blabbered to wide-eyed mister, "I'm not saying this so that you'll try to make me feel better like 'one of THOSE girls' but sometimes I really feel like I suck at everything and am so uuuuugggggllllyyy <sniff, sniff>"  To which he responded, "'so should I not tell you that you aren't or...."  I then calmed down and explained that I need to change ME (as in my thought patterns, not plastic surgery).  If not FOR me, then for C - because neither of us want to find out in 12 years that she has posted her picture on the world wide web asking total pervy strangers if she "Hot or Not."

Totally Confident Katie

Not-so-confident Katie

So this is going to be my way of trying to preserve C's self-love...being a good example (balls! that always takes work!)