Eight weeks ago, I had a baby. Early. Again. But you probably already knew that because it seems that everyone does. At least, the food dropped off on my porch with notes signed by names I don't recognize indicates that everyone does. I am so grateful to these friends and strangers for their thoughtfulness though....and also the food. It doesn't bother me that they know about the baby, but I cant help but wonder how those conversations go. Does how irresponsible it was come up every single time? When we discovered we were expecting this fourth little one, there were a lot of things I was afraid of happening. So far, every single one of those fears has been realized. Every single fear I had ever feared...and some I had not thought of... has come true. I have not quite figured out how to be okay with that. Mostly, for now, I am learning to be okay with not being okay with that. I think that might be the first step. A lot of people have reached out and said that they did not even know I was pregnant. That makes sense because I never really made any sort of announcement. Even though I knew from the very beginning, I never got used to the idea of being pregnant again. I kept not telling anyone until it "felt real"... and it never felt real so I just kept not telling anyone. I told a person here and a person there and finally spilled the beans to family after we knew for sure that it was a boy. I wrote about coming to terms with not having a daughter for the local mom blog I am a contributor for and that is as close as I came to any official announcement. I guess now I know who actually cares about what I write, hm? (This is a joke. The "serious" tone of this post makes me believe I need to be specific about that.) I was not pregnant very long really. I only have a single photo of my belly; a blurry photograph in a dirty mirror I snapped before I climbed in the shower. One that can never hang on the nursery wall or be put in a baby book. In the days I was bed-bound prior to delivery, I spent a lot of time with my eyes closed, trying to memorize the feeling of a tiny human moving inside me because I will never feel it again and I hardly had a chance to feel it at all. It was really quick and life was busy. Any time we had a minute, we sort of sat around stunned at the idea of a baby instead of actually preparing for the inevitable arrival of the actual baby. Because.....we were done. We were out of the business of creating new human beings. The idea of being done was too hard to examine closely... so I would pretend like maybe, possibly, in the future, if the stars aligned, in some way, some day we might have another baby ....but we were really, really, really done. I knew exactly how done we were the instant I saw a positive pregnancy test. I could not even say the words out loud for weeks but only sort of whisper them vaguely in Ryan's direction while he nodded slowly and the conversation always ended with, "But....what are we going to do?" And my body does not keep babies safe. My body actively tries to hurt the babies it so readily creates. Well...that isn't really fair. Really, my body just tries to stay alive to the detriment of the babies it so readily creates....but I am still in the phase where my body feels like the enemy and I hate it so you are just going to have to give me a minute. And also kids are expensive. And they eat a lot. And also a four bedroom house is starting to feel really small. And also we have Rory. Rory is our baby. We don't know if Rory will ever not be our baby...and how can we make room for another one? And what if adding another one diminishes the quality of Rory's life because we are distracted and cannot give him the attention he needs to thrive? And how will we ever give the big ones the life they deserve with a baby and a Rory? The answer is we can't and they will inevitably suffer so congrats on failing them. And what if something happens and this baby has special needs also? I know, for a fact, that I will crumble if put under the pressure of two special needs children. I just can't do it. And do we even remember what to do with a newborn? I am pretty sure the answer is no. And these are all the horrible things that can happen if everything goes right, so now let's think about all the things that could go horrifically wrong..... So, there is a small peek into my brain at any given minute of the day. Isn't it a trip? There is so much to be grateful for in an experience like this and everyone likes to remind you of that....including your own guilty conscious. You find yourself angry that feelings other than gratitude for your life and that of your baby keep welling up inside of you. But if there is one lesson that this life keeps trying to teach me over and over and over again... it is that things can be painful and beautiful all at the same time. Things are usually painful and beautiful at exactly the same time. You don't have to feel better about the things that are bad to acknowledge the things that are good. Gratitude and disappointment are not mutually exclusive. You can mourn for what you are losing and treasure what you have and probably that is what you are doing most of the time anyway.... it is just that big life experiences tend to get more scrutiny. It is okay to be scared. It is okay to be angry. It is okay to be sad. You can also be brave and calm and happy. You can be so many things. You are human. Humans are complicated. Sometimes, this can cause problems...but it also means you can do really neat things like feel many things at exactly the same time! And in the middle of it all, is this sweet baby. This sweet baby that feels like such a mystery to me. Who are you? Why did you come?
They came into my room and told me they were taking him. And I cried because this is not my first rodeo and I knew I would not get to meet him...and if I did not get to meet him, I could not make him real. I really, really needed him to be real. Finding out he was coming was shocking and overwhelming and I needed that experience to not end with me splayed open on a table, womb and arms empty. Except that it did. So, I kept my eyes closed while they prepped me for surgery, wheeled me down the hall, explained everything to me, put in an epidural, took my baby, wheeled me to recovery, put me in a room and for almost every single one of the 26 hours I had to wait until I got to meet him.... I kept my eyes closed and focused all my energy on these words: Please stay with me, Little Stranger. And it did not look like I hoped it would look but.... I think that maybe....he did. At least for now.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
WHO AM I?
I am Michelle: a wannabe hippie in love with a bonafide geek. We also spawned. I spend my days with our four wild, beautiful boy children and I overshare about our life online because I am a Millennial and that is what we do.
|