January Birthday

 
  The first weekend of May in 2010 started off as a normal Saturday morning, when it occurred to me that I hadn't had a period in over a month.  The previous fall during my annual doctors appointment my doctor asked if we were done having kids.  Our kids were 8 and 5 so it was a local assumption, but I hadn't really thought it through.  After several months of discussions, we decided that we didn't want to be done because we had always planned to have more but the timing was never right.  So I stopped my birth control.  With my first 2 pregnancies, I conceived within a month of trying.  Therefore after more than 5 months of being off birth control, I had stopped expecting to get pregnant.  My first thought when I discovered that I was actually pregnant was please don't let this be a December baby.  Over the years, I had heard all the struggles and problems with having a birthday near Christmas and I really didn't want to deal with that.  I was very relieved to find out my due date was January 23rd.
     I had my first child when I was 24 and would be 33 when I delivered my 3rd.  It may seem obvious but a pregnancy at 33 is a lot harder on the body than one in your mid 20's.  By December of that year I was more than done with it, but I held to my convictions that if I could just wait until January then life would be much easier every following year.  I had the baby on January 12th.  Those 12 days seemed like months.
     Unfortunately January 12 is just 18 days from December 25th.  It is the equivalent of having a birthday on December 7th!  Although if the birthday was December 7th, everyone would be much more understanding when they came over for a party and the house was decorated for Christmas.  Then there is the problem of gifts. My child just received an overwhelming amount of gifts for Christmas and before I have even found a way to stuff them all into her room, people are asking me what she wants for her birthday.  I am about ready to look into having her birthday officially moved to July.

And that is why I hate January.