This blog has been unusually quiet these last few months–particularly after I declared regular blog writing as an intention for 2021. I told myself that this was my year of celebration, my year of defiant joy and celebration. We’ve survived the worst of it, I told myself. It’s got to get easier from here.
Early in January I wasn’t feeling like myself. I had a terrible headache one day and my stomach was topsy-turvy over the course of a weekend. I’d been exhausted all week, falling asleep on the couch. “This is it,” I said to myself, recalling my neighbor’s similar symptoms and positive diagnosis the month prior. During lunchtime I ran to the nearby clinic for a COVID-19 test.
I came home twenty minutes later, untested thanks to a glitch in their computer scheduling system. I was feeling crummy, but why did it feel so familiar? Rummaging through my medicine cabinet, I grabbed a lone pregnancy test, without it’s box and surely at least a couple of years old. “Might as well just rule this out,” I said to myself, thinking I still wouldn’t know if I was COVID positive for several more days.
Well, the test was positive. The pregnancy test that is.
I’m 17 weeks along now and it has been rough. I’ve been much sicker this time than with my previous pregnancies. My energy level has been extremely low, buoyed by the frigid, gray weather. And yet the mental struggle has been just as difficult as the physical.
We were done. D-O-N-E. We half-joked that our parenting style was a “man to man defense, not a zone defense.” I gave Josie lots of extra snuggles as my last baby, but looked forward to her future. I donated all of my maternity clothes a year ago. We gave away or lent out much of our infant gear.
A third baby was not on our radar.
While most couples would be celebrating and eagerly sharing the news, we were just in shock. I could see our dreams and expectations for the next few years shatter as I looked into my husband’s eyes. The baby phase is HARD and we thought we could see a light at the end of the tunnel. Everyone in this house (usually) sleeps through the night! And this was further complicated by strains of guilt–what kind of parents weren’t excited about a new baby??
We kept up our daily routines, but honestly I think we were rather numb. I wanted the extremes–for this all to be a dream or to suddenly be overwhelmed with joy and contagious excitement. Neither happened. Instead, we sat with the news for awhile. We leaned on our support system, reached out to close friends and just tried to acknowledge whatever emotion we had at the time. We bonded with new friends who’d had similar experiences and knew exactly how we were feeling. I learned that guilt is a byproduct of expectations not emotions. Rumi’s poem, The Guest House, was so helpful to me as I processed.
Party of Five
Every week, I seem to discover a new way that I’m still processing this. I told a friend recently how this baby marks such a different chapter in our lives. My late father and grandmother didn’t live long enough to meet Josie, but they knew I was pregnant with her. This baby has none of that connection. Lucy and Josie (in utero) were part of our life in Akron as well as here in Toledo, and this baby is just from here. My first two pregnancies involved significant transitions: while pregnant with Lucy I left a toxic work situation for what turned out to be a dream job. With Josie, we moved across the state. It sounds silly, but there are a million little (and yet significant) ways that this child is already different. And maybe a million little ways that we are different parents now, too.
We’ve finally crossed the threshold of sharing our news widely. And even that has been difficult. I held off telling Lucy for a long time, partly because I had no idea how she’d respond, and partly because if I didn’t tell her, then it was that much less real. And when we finally told her? It was not a big deal at all! She chewed her dinner thoughtfully and just said, “Okay!” and went on with her meal.
I’ve rewritten this blog post easily a half dozen times. What’s worth sharing? What’s too much? I’m not sure, honestly. It was such a relief to me when I would find friends or neighbors who instantly knew how I was feeling because they too had walked this road–the surprise, the sadness, the guilt, the lost expectation, the resentment, the processing, the unsteady peace. My hope is that our story too might be that relief, that comfort, to another couple on this road. One of the best things anyone said to us was an old friend who said something to the effect of, “Wow! You guys are SUCH great parents, I’m not surprised God gave you another child. You have SO much love to give! This child is so lucky.” Where’s the crying face emoji?? So friend, if no one has said it to you yet, you are SUCH a great parent, you have SO much love to give, and your child(ren) are so lucky <3
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