Two bright pink lines.
For some, the initial reaction is shock, others it's joy, and still others fear. Some women try to get two pink lines for months or years with no success. It's usually not just one emotion that startles through your heart when the test comes back positive, but rather a bundle (see what I did there?) of various emotions. I've now had the privilege of going through this experience twice and of course, sitting here now with my one week old using my breast as a pillow and my 18 month old sitting on the little lap I have remaining, I wouldn't change a single thing. But here's where I am about to get painfully honest.
I wasn't ready to have another child. When I got the second positive test, my heart sank. I couldn't breathe. I felt my head spin. And at last the tears came and fell down my cheeks at a startling rate. I managed to wipe them away before talking to anyone. I told my mother first...fearfully. How would she react? In a shaking voice, "Mom, um...I think I'm pregnant again."
She looked at the test and hugged me. We immediately went to get a digital test to confirm. Sure enough, in big bold letters PREGNANT. I texted my husband, "I'm pregnant." And he was instantly overjoyed. I'm pretty sure he made a joke about already having all the baby stuff we needed anyway, so now was as good a time as any. I didn't laugh, for the record.
And that night, laying in bed after putting my 11 month old to bed, the tears came again. I wept for my son and for the relationship I was sure I had destroyed by getting pregnant again. I wept for the time we would never spend again just the two of us. He was barely walking and still nursing on demand and here I was, giving him a sibling. What was wrong with me? I would consider myself a relatively responsible, intelligent adult woman - I clearly know how one conceives a child. But still, HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?
It only got harder. The effect on my relationship with my son was immediate and painfully obvious. My milk dried up by week 8 and so ended the beloved breastfeeding journey we had started only 12 short months earlier. I had been planning on letting him nurse until he decided to quit, surely sometime after 2 years old. But there I was, breastfeeding advocate, with a weaned, toddler-baby at just a year old. Again, my heart broke. When I went in for my dating ultrasound, a woman in the office (pretty sure she worked in billing) told my child, who thankfully couldn't understand, that his daddy and I didn't think this through before adding another child. That we had robbed him of his childhood because he would never remember time with us, without his would-be sibling. She ruined that day for me. The first day I heard my second child's heartbeat and saw his little shrimpy looking body on the ultrasound. Again, I wept on the way home. She was out of line, yes. But she had only spoken the words that were in my heart that I was too chicken to say aloud to anyone, even myself.
Weeks turned into months. I went through the motions of preparing for a new baby. I took belly pictures. I planned a nursery. I speculated with girlfriends and family whether I would have another boy or if it would be a girl. And then the day came that we found out we were expecting a brother for my son. Another baby boy. Finding out that I was expecting another boy actually lifted my spirits initially. Once he started kicking, I laid my son's hand on my growing belly and taught him to say baby. I included him in the belly pictures. I tried to picture us as a family of four instead of a family of three. But my heart was still heavy. And as the end of my pregnancy approached, I would find myself wondering at bed time if it would be the last time I would put my son to bed as his mother only. I would cry softly into his hair as I rocked him to sleep and tell him that I was sorry for robbing him of memories with his only dad and I that he would never have now because he would have to share us with his brother.
My due date came and I went into labor naturally. I delivered my new son naturally without pain medication. I got the water birth that I had so hoped for. My newborn son was finally placed in my arms and there again, just as with my older son, I cried and shouted "I can't believe I just did that!" I was instantly in love with this tiny human that I had met mere moments before. I started to believe that everything would be okay. But the moment of truth was still coming. How would my older son react? What would he think? Say? Do? Would he hate me? Would he hate his brother?
He came the next day to the hospital with my mom. He smiled from the stroller at me sitting in the hospital bed. My husband picked him up and pointed in the direction of my younger son. My older son shouted, "BABY" with a huge grin from ear to ear. He wanted to pet him, wanted to keep looking at him. And he even gave me a hug and a kiss.
Since we have been home, I can't keep him away from his brother. He always wants to hold him, lay on him, hug him, kiss him. He is absolutely crazy about him. Things have not been super between the two of us, but we are working on it. He seems to be very distant in my direction right now but slowly warms up a little more every day. Selfishly, I cry because he doesn't want me. But in reality, now that I have them both, I am just thankful that my older son loves the younger so much. He will forgive me in time, perhaps but he now has a forever friend that is only 18 months his junior that will hopefully be there for him for all time. As they get older, their age gap will seem even smaller and they will both have my head spinning and my heart full. I have also realized that all the while that I was weeping for my older son, I was doing my younger an injustice. I couldn't adjust to the idea of being a mother to two the entire time I was pregnant, when in reality, I was already the mother of two.
I am so blessed to be the mother of these two amazing boys. Nothing in my life has ever completed me the way they do. They are my pride and joy. Here we are, one week in and totally winning at this family of four thing. I hope that I can do them justice in this life by being the best mother I can be. I pray that they grow up to be amazing, strong young men who treat people with respect and tolerance. I hope that they are so happy in their lives. I brought them both here, and I definitely feel as though I am the lucky one.
This wasn't easy to write, I know it won't be easy to read. Ending on a good note, here are my wonderful little loves.
He came the next day to the hospital with my mom. He smiled from the stroller at me sitting in the hospital bed. My husband picked him up and pointed in the direction of my younger son. My older son shouted, "BABY" with a huge grin from ear to ear. He wanted to pet him, wanted to keep looking at him. And he even gave me a hug and a kiss.
Since we have been home, I can't keep him away from his brother. He always wants to hold him, lay on him, hug him, kiss him. He is absolutely crazy about him. Things have not been super between the two of us, but we are working on it. He seems to be very distant in my direction right now but slowly warms up a little more every day. Selfishly, I cry because he doesn't want me. But in reality, now that I have them both, I am just thankful that my older son loves the younger so much. He will forgive me in time, perhaps but he now has a forever friend that is only 18 months his junior that will hopefully be there for him for all time. As they get older, their age gap will seem even smaller and they will both have my head spinning and my heart full. I have also realized that all the while that I was weeping for my older son, I was doing my younger an injustice. I couldn't adjust to the idea of being a mother to two the entire time I was pregnant, when in reality, I was already the mother of two.
I am so blessed to be the mother of these two amazing boys. Nothing in my life has ever completed me the way they do. They are my pride and joy. Here we are, one week in and totally winning at this family of four thing. I hope that I can do them justice in this life by being the best mother I can be. I pray that they grow up to be amazing, strong young men who treat people with respect and tolerance. I hope that they are so happy in their lives. I brought them both here, and I definitely feel as though I am the lucky one.
This wasn't easy to write, I know it won't be easy to read. Ending on a good note, here are my wonderful little loves.
