acceptance and love

The last two months have been rough. And I finally feel like we're coming out of a deep and heavy fog.

I was having a really hard time with the fourth baby. I loved Delta and wanted her, but I really didn't want the fourth baby. I didn't want the stress, the cost, the responsibility, the worry, all of the "extra" that each baby brings, I didn't want that. I simply did not want the fourth child. And I was having a very hard time reconciling that with wanting and loving Delta. And the guilt that came along with that was enormous.

I felt like I was losing my grip on reality. Like I was spiralling into a dark hole. I was not a happy person and was not pleasant to be around. Getting one kid breakfast was some days more than I could handle. Thank goodness that Matthew is a teacher as was off for the summer and could shoulder a lot of the responsibility.

Then came Thomas day. And I'm not sure what changed that day.
After we let the duckies go down the river and the kids had their rest times we went to my parents for dinner. My mom was shockingly well-behaved. She was calm and good with the kids and good with me. So much so that I even shared that it was Thomas day. This is not normally and are of my life I let her in. She was wonderful with it and didn't make it about her and her losses. The kids ate supper and were really well-behaved throughout dinner. They gave me huge hugs when we left them there for an overnight and nobody cried.

Then Matt and I went to a neighbourhood block party and just visited with people and it was nice. It got us out of our heads and was a lot of fun. We came home, put Lucy to bed, and then just chilled for a while before going to bed.

I felt.... un-phase-able. Like the world was calm and peaceful and OK.
And as Delta drifted off to sleep in my arms I looked at her and something in me broke. My fear, my pain, my misgivings, my panic, my guilt, all of it. And I looked at her and I knew she was a huge blessing. And I am blessed to be a mom to 4 beautiful perfect children on earth. And you know what? I WANT four kids. I WANT the love and the joy and everything else that comes along with that fourth child, even the tough parts.

Since that day the fog lifted.

Thomas continues to change me. I though I was changed by him as much as I could be, but he continues to surprise me. And on our second Thomas Day I became a real mom to Delta.

A sibling for Thomas

Delta is here at last! One of the bigger shocks is that she's, we'll, a she.
Delta has come with so many surprises. Her being here, her being a girl, her giving Thomas a sibling.

After deltas whirlwind of a birth (I think I preferred my 32 hour labour with Bravo over my rocket ship labour with delta) the placenta came out. And then the second placenta came out.

My suspicions were confirmed. The heavy bleeding and cramping very very very early in the pregnancy was another twin loss. The placenta for her twin developed, but the baby did not.

I'm still unsure how I feel about this. The emotions of losing this twin are very very different than losing Thomas. I think in large part that is because of timing. I have ultrasound photos of Thomas' tiny body while Charlie nuzzles into him. He was a fully formed and perfect little baby. Deltas twin, it's different.

Life seems so unfair though. Why did I conceive twins twice just to lose one both times? Why was my body not sufficient to carry those little lives? Why do I have 2 babies growing up without their twin? It's just not fair. Other people get the excitement of twins. I get the loss.

Shortly after delta was born, Matt went to get us some breakfast. While he was gone I was alone with delta. I started thinking about her as I snuggled her tiny body and smelled her perfect head. My thoughts drifted to the news of her twin and then settled on Thomas. Big moments in my life often have my thoughts drifting back to Thomas. I stared out the 3 floor window of my hospital room and watched as the sun was coming up. O

Out of nowhere two white birds came up from the ground, swirled and danced and intertwined around each other and flew up into the sky, twirling and dancing round each other until they were out of sight. And at that moment peace filled my heart. My two twin spirits were together, safe, dancing and happy. Delta lost her twin and Thomas has a sibling. Hoooo. Here come the tears.

Goodbye, my two perfect angels. Look after each other. And if you can, look out for us. And one day, when I meet you, I will hold you and squeeze you and give you a whole lifetime of love in one moment. You are my babies, and I love you with each and every beat of my heart, down to the depths of my soul.

The next chapter

I am so ready to welcome this little baby into my arms and into this world.
I am so ready to start the next chapter.

This pregnancy has been hard. It started unexpectedly, nearly didn't make it, almost started pre-term labour, and is now overdue. The emotions of this pregnancy have been beyond overwhelming. After losing Thomas my optimism has been shaken. I used to sit in the baby room and dream. I now sit in the baby room and fight back tears, working very hard to convince myself that I WILL bring home a healthy baby.

I am looking forward to the next chapter because in this part the baby will always be wanted. I feel sad that the child was not planned. That when I found out I was not happy. I feel sad that I cried for 15 weeks about being pregnant. It hurts my heart that I couldn't and didn't cherish every second I knew about this sweet child.
In the next chapter, from the second it arrives, it will be wanted and loved and cherished. Delta will know nothing else.

I'm looking forward to the next chapter, knowing that delta will complete our family. I am thrilled to see how the older three react to the new one. I am beyond excited to watch them grow up together. I'm excited to have a newborn to snuggle ONE MORE TIME and then excited to leave the baby stage behind us.

I am SO excited to not ever be pregnant again.

So Delta, come on out. Please. I love you and can't wait to meet you and snuggle you. And you're late.

So bring on the baby, and say goodbye to the belly.

Breaking the expectations

I’m not sure what I was expecting of this pregnancy. I mean, I wasn’t expecting the pregnancy, so how can I expect anything out of it? Or rather, how would I know what to expect out of my brain when I wasn’t planning this. I like planning. I’m a planner. I need to know what’s going on. And this has become more important to me since bravo and his allergies and since Thomas. Those two very unplanned things really threw (and continue to throw) me for big giant brain-breaking loops. So I really try to keep everything else orderly (as orderly as it can be with 3 very small kids) and planned and keep my life tidy. I don’t know why I haven’t accepted yet that life just isn’t tidy.

Add in another unplanned loop (baby icicle) and no wonder I feel like I’m going crazy.

I knew more or less what to expect with other pregnancies. I would get pregnant, have a baby, be unprepared (yes, I planned to be unprepared- see my problem??), land on my feet, repeat 2 more times.

And then the plan was to have an 18 month old and 3 year old and 4.5 year old for the summer and go to the beach and get on with life and find freedom that comes with no infants.

And then my plan was changed and I have since been knocked off my feet and am still struggling to get back on them. I don’t deal well with plans being changed for me. If I have some notice, fine. But with no notice…. I go a little crazy. Er.

I’ve been working the last bit at changing my expectations.

This baby was not expected.

This new family dynamic wasn’t expected.

Being pregnant with 3 other kids (which, by the way, is for the birds- what does that even mean??) was not expected.

(side note- how many idioms do I use in a day that I really don’t know why I use them or where they came from? I like idioms. They make things funny.)

So how do I be OK with this? I mean, I have no choice. But maybe it’s OK that I’m not doing cartwheels (metaphorical, not literal, I would land in bone breaking and uncomfortable positions if I attempted that right now and my pelvis may actually snap in half) over this pregnancy. Maybe it’s OK that I don’t know what to expect from this child and from my family. Maybe it’s OK that my life is not going according to plan (has it ever, though??) and that I am thrown for a loop with this.

Maybe it’s OK, maybe I should encourage myself even, to let go of expectations for this pregnancy and for this child and just feel what I’m going to feel and then get on with life. Because feeling guilt over not meeting my expectations for this pregnancy as I did for the previous ones is eating me up. And I’ve had just about enough of guilt. Now, it seems to not have enough of me, but maybe I can kick it to the curb for this pregnancy and baby and let myself revel in whatever experience this is shaping out to be. This is my LAST baby, so I would like to start enjoying the pregnancy (even the miseries of it- like peeing my pants because the 4 year old trumps the pregnant woman’s need for the toilet) despite not being prepared for it.

This baby was a surprise. And I have a feeling that the baby itself is going to be a surprise. Wait, I just repeated myself, didn’t I? I mean the existence of the baby was a shock, and maybe the whole parenting experience is just going to be a surprise with this one. The first 3 are radically different little people, so this one I’m sure is going to keep me guessing.

I have no idea anymore what this post is about.

So much for planning.

Taking a deep breath now.

And working on welcoming baby Delta to our crazy family.

We had our 20 week ultrasound on Friday. I had no idea just HOW worried I was about it until it was over. I’ve always heard that pregnancy after loss is hard. Harder than normal. I had a miscarriage between Alpha and bravo at 5 weeks, and it really didn’t affect me that much. I mean, I was sad, and it sucked, but I right away got pregnant with Bravo and without that miscarriage I just wouldn’t have bravo. And it really didn’t take long to get past my miscarriage point. Only a week after I found out. I was kind of on pins and needles until second trimester, but that’s pretty much every pregnant woman who has ever existed.

This time though, this time. Ugh. It’s not that I thought the same thing would happen. It was just knowing that terrible things happen to pregnancies every single day and knowing that I am not exempt from this. And getting to the 20 week ultrasound this time was terrifying because that’s when everything went pear shaped. (pear-shaped- what does that even mean, anyway??)

We got to the ultrasound and actually didn’t have to wait for an unreasonable amount of time like every single other time I’ve ever gone. Which at this point is a lot. Matthew came with me. He will never again miss another ultrasound. He was there for Alpha’s and not there for Bravos. He was only there for Charlie and Thomas’ because he hadn’t yet started the school year (it was August 26^th – a Thursday.) I don’t know how I would have gotten through that day if he wasn’t there. How do you call your husband to tell him news that your baby is dead? That one baby is in rough shape and the other, that you didn’t even know you had, was lying dead beside your living baby. I shudder just thinking of him not being there, of going by myself like I had with bravo. So now Matthew will cancel all plans and make it to every single ultrasound.

And this time? It was so nice having him there. Feeling the air come back into the room as we watched our one and only in-utero healthy baby kicking around with a healthy, beating, beautiful, 4 chambered heart. Mat held my hand and we both just fought back good tears. The tech was amazing. The biggest “struggle” was deciding if I wanted to know the gender. I did, Matthew said it was up to me, but I only wanted to know to deal with the intense curiosity. So I chose not to. The only time we DID know was when Charlie was in me. And we found out because we had to know because of whatever was going on with his cysts. So NOT knowing is kind of… celebrational for us. It’s been our healthy babies that we didn’t know. So I fought every urge I had and said I didn’t want to know. Not so bad for the toughest part of an ultrasound!!!!

The tech talked me through everything (I told her about Charlie’s 20 week scan) and pointed out every single part of the baby and at the end said ‘last time the doctor probably had to come in and then we would have rushed your results, right?” I said yes and she said “well, there is no reason at all for the doctor to come in and it will take the full 7-10 days for the results to get to your midwife”. Such wonderful words to hear. Without saying “baby looks awesome” she told me that everything is just fine.

And I feel like I can breathe. Like this heaviness that has been on my chest for the past 20 weeks has been moved. And let me tell you, breathing feels awesome. It feels kind of like I’m just finding out I’m pregnant though. I didn’t realize it, but I really hadn’t accepted this pregnancy as real, or at least as something that would result in a new baby. But now… I have no reason to think otherwise. I mean, there are still terrible things that can happen, and I know that. It’s just really nice to be past the part where I lost Thomas. Because whatever happens I got further than I did last time. I suspect, like every single other pregnant woman, I won’t rest easy until this baby is in my arms nursing. Because that’s what mom’s do is worry.

It’s just nice to feel positive. I haven’t felt like this in a very long time.

So, baby Delta, Welcome to our family. I can’t wait to meet you and see who you are and look into your beautiful eyes and kiss your beautiful wrinkly little alien-head. Be who you’re going to be, and I’ll see you in a few months. Love, Mommy.

Monday- back from my brain leave

I am so done with the last few weeks. I miss my brain. I miss the emotional stability that I worked so hard for in my life- it's been snatched away by the evil first trimester gods. I shake my fist at them!

So since we told Alpha about Delta on the way, he's been so excited but also really struggling with Thomas. We have always said we didn't want the boys to remember the first time they ever heard about Thomas, we didn't want it to be a shock or a big secret or a huge discussion that they would remember. We just wanted the to always know about it. Alpha every now and then brings up Thomas with statements like "I wish Thomas was here. I wish I could hold him and play with him." I just answer "me, too, buddy" and give him a huge hug.
This last week I was playing with Alpha in his room and he had a snack of snap peas, carrots, crackers, a cheese stick, some water and a pizza pop (well, OK- it was more lunch than snack) and Alpha kept asking me if I wanted a bite of whatever food he had in his hand. If I said "no" then he would say "well, the baby really wants some, so you open your mouth and eat it and it will go into your belly and then the baby will open his mouth and eat it!" which led to a long discussion about what eventually came to be called "stomach food hoses" (the umbilical cord- duh!).

Then Alpha picked up his pizza pop. And stared at it. And looked at me. And stared at it some more. Then he said "pizza pops would make Bravo really sick, right?" I said yes. Then he said "I don't think you should eat a pizza pop because it will make the baby really really sick and then he might not come out." After some discussion he started talking about Thomas. And how he couldn't come out because he got sick and couldn't be with us. And maybe he was allergic to foods that I ate and that's what made him sick. And he didn't want this baby to get sick because he misses Thomas so much and he wants this baby to grow big and pop out.

Wow. Clearly this kid has a lot going on in that little 4 year old brain of his. When I said that it wasn't anything I did or didn't do, or did or didn't eat that made Thomas sick he sat in my lap and hugged me and said "sometimes sickness just happens and he made his own sickness and then couldn't come out, mommy?" I think all I could choke out without crying was a weak little "yup. Sometimes sickness just happens and it's nobody's fault."

Which I think is also the first time I've said (out loud OR in my head) that it isn't my fault that Thomas died.

Since then Alpha just keeps kissing my belly and saying hi to the baby and giving my belly his bear and feeding me things he thinks the baby would like from the food hose.

I'm so glad that Alpha is who he is. He's compassionate and empathetic and really deeply caring. Even if he is sometimes destructive and crazy. I hope that I can take care of the sweet gentle little heart that he has.

I really hope this baby makes it. For me, yes, for the baby, yes, but especially for Alpha. He is so excited about his new baby in mommy's belly and tells it every day to "grow, grow, grow, and then pop out in the summer!"

So Delta, if you're listening, grow grow grow and then pop out healthy in the summer, OK?