As they prepped me for surgery when C. was born, a time so very frightening and dramatic, I recall murmuring to my husband, “Well, I guess we’ll probably only have two children, no matter how things work out, now… “
I don’t know for sure what was going through my head just then, but I imagine it was tied to the idea that we had always been one of those couples who wanted “two or three” kids. At that wild moment in time, I figured that one of two things was bound to happen: 1) this 24-week baby would survive and would have significant needs, thus making it difficult/impractical to have another child to care for OR 2) this baby wouldn’t survive and my possible third pregnancy would result in two living children.
Morbid? Perhaps, but it was a very intense, emotional time. This is just a peek into the wild thoughts that raced and swirled through my mind. I went into the OR fully expecting that I would wind up as a mother of two. One way or another, that was my “goal” at that point.
But C. made it. And beat a heck of a lot of odds. While it’s true that we brought her home on oxygen, an apnea monitor, and a feeding tube… while it’s true that she’s always received therapies and needed vision correction… realistically, by the time she was a year old, parenting her wasn’t all that different from any “typical” child. It certainly wasn’t terribly draining or time-consuming.
And I realized I wanted another baby.
Not too long after that, I was able to go off the anti-depressants and also the mini-Pill. I made quick work of dropping the weight I’d gained on those silly pills and felt oh-so much better about myself. I was neither “trying” nor “not trying” and, well, the result was that I did not get pregnant during 2007. And, really, I was fine with that. I was busy with my two little ones and feeling healthy and happy.
In 2008, I started blogging! I also started having issues with a lump that needed to be investigated. I wrote a lot more about that right here and, as you already know, I was unable to have the surgery upon which we had decided. Instead of laparoscopic surgery, I found out I would be getting a baby.
Awesome trade, in my opinion.
16 weeks pregnant with G.
Of course, because I had given birth at 24 weeks, I was never to be blessed with a cheerful, worry-free pregnancy again. Happy? Oh, yes. Yes, I was. But also, I was scared. I desperately wanted to make it further in this pregnancy. I feared going into preterm labor again, and since they simply had no idea what had caused it with C., there was really nothing I could do to even try to avoid it. I just had to hope. And pray.
That would have been stressful enough, to be honest. But, as I’ll tell you next week, I was about to have even more thrown on my plate… and the panic was about to set it.
Thank you so much for taking the time to write for us! Mondays are rough around here, but with your weekly installment and a hot cup of coffee, things are a lot brighter. -E.
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