Earlier this year, just a few days after Nicholas' birthday I took yet another pregnancy test. I was 100% certain the day before that I had started my period. It was shocking and disappointing. I was sooo bummed out because I was just sure that we had been successful this month. I complained to my TTC group that nasty aunt flow was once again here to visit and it was just soooo unfair. They disagreed and told me to hold my horses and wait another day to make sure. I spent the previous month doing positive visualization, lighting a fertility candle, wearing fertility jewelry, praying, charting, thinking positively, and of course doing the baby dance until my husband probably dreaded coming home at night lol. Maybe TMI but it's true. I visited my sister in the hospital the day she delivered a precious baby girl and my step mother told me basically to keep the faith. It wasn't to late this month, God could do whatever He wanted. That was the end of January. The morning of Feb 11th I woke up to find that aunt flow was no longer present. Maybe I hadn't started my period after all??? Maybe I should listen to the ladies in my pregnancy pact group and pee on a stick one more time. I only had one stick, a digital test. It was far less sensitive than the tests I had been using but I figure what the hell. I did my thing and laid it on the counter top while I turned on the shower and got undressed. I was bending over removing my undies and my eyes fell on the test just as it stopped flashing and the word PREGNANT popped up in the little window. 0_0 OMG! I almost fell over on my face. LoL. I instantly burst into tears, and they weren't entirely the happy kind. On one hand I was ecstatic whooo I was pregnant at last... errr again. And there it is, the word "Again". Pregnant again for the X time in 9 months. Was this the one? Was it going to happen again, was mother nature going to punk me AGAIN? Could I handle it? I didn't know. I hid the test (yeah like a dork) and jumped in the shower still crying. I got out and got ready to go out for the day (we had a little family road trip planned) and didn't breath a word to my husband. How could I? I was pretty broken up after the last loss so I didn't want to tell him or anyone else for that matter in case it happened again. A little voice in the back of my mind though kept telling me this was the one. Never before had I been "pregnant enough" for the result to show up on a digital test. Nicholas' result showed up on a digi test as well and he was born. Maybe this was really happening and this was the one. I tortured myself testing and re-testing for days before I finally fessed up to my husband on Valentines day. I am the sentimental (or maybe just mental) type so I wrapped up a new digital test that I had just taken along with a regular first response test and two of the little amazon pee sticks in a box wrote a little poem on a piece of paper and taped it to the box for him to open when he got home from work. He was surprised for sure and cautiously excited once he got over the shock. We were both cautious actually. Nobody wanted to get their hopes up and we decided to keep quiet about the whole thing for three months. We had our first appointment at the doctor a few days later. Actually funny enough the appointment was on Feb 24th which was Nicholas' due date two years earlier, I kind of thought maybe it was a sign lol. I went through all the indignities ones goes through at a visit to the OB/GYN and finally we got to the ultrasound bit. My husband almost fainted when as soon as the probe was in we could see a little dark blob that was to be our new little one. I held really still and peered at the screen hard and.... yup there it was.. a HEARTBEAT! Like I said we kept quiet for three months about the whole thing not wanting to jinx anything. When we finally did tell family, over Easter, we only told them that we were expecting in October. We did not share the exact due date because lets face it not many babies have a calender app in the womb so dates don't matter to them AND I got sick and tired of hearing how so and so's birthday was such and such day and I should have the baby then when I was preggo with Nicholas. I wasn't eager to repeat that experience so the due date we kept to ourselves. We also kept the gender to ourselves as well as the baby's name. Again it was because of various annoyances we endured while pregnant with Nicholas so I just didn't tell anyone :P Drove my family nuts !!!! Hahahaha.
The next 7 months were spent holding my breath hoping nothing would go wrong and being determined that nothing would. Mind over matter don't ya know. I honestly believed it worked. Nicholas' pregnancy was a little complicated, 8 months of morning sickness hell, and hypertension and eventually pre-eclampsia and a rather traumatic c-section. I didn't escape the morning sickness this time and suffered with it right up until the day baby "Tater Tot" as we called him was born but I did forgo the other issues. I researched (way ahead of time actually) natural birth and was determined to have an unmedicated VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean) because that was what I figured was best for myself and the baby. I was TERRIFIED of another c-section delivery, traumatized as I was by the first one, and was willing to give birth in my back yard if necessary to avoid it a second time. I picked a doctor that I had vetted pretty well and found to be supportive of natural birth and of VBAC and hired a doula to attend our birth and basically did everything I could think of to shift the odds as much in my favor as I could. To be honest on the doctor thing I picked the doctor my husband insisted on since he was pretty against a midwife for some very good reasons and eventually I agreed with him. I liked Dr. E right up until the day we delivered at which time she wasn't my most favorite person in the whole wide world but she wasn't exactly at the top of my shit list either. Anyway like I said I did everything I could to get the birth I wanted. There is a saying, "Man plans, God Laughs" and so it was with my birth. One big practical joke, pranked by the baby gods once again. Ha, story of my life really. Still the end result was what mattered when it was all said and done and we had a healthy happy baby to show for our efforts. :) Stayed tuned for the birth story.
Things have gotten pretty interesting since Tater's arrival and as it happens the nickname Tate stuck haha, ooops. After so long not calling the baby by the name we had picked out in order to keep the gender to ourselves we ended up putting Tate in the name. I'm sure that amused a few people and didn't amuse a few others but whatever. Our baby, our name, our choice. So there! :P Nicholas has adjusted to having a little brother pretty well. He's not always thrilled when it's time to feed or change the baby and he wants mommy's attention instead but we manage it. We did what we could to prepare him but really what to you tell a mostly non verbal two year old about a new baby's imminent arrival? I took him to every doctor's appointment and we talked about the baby or "tater" a lot. In fact the day before baby was born Nicholas grabbed the remote to our Wii system pulled up my shirt and pretended to use the remote like a Doppler just like the doctor to listen to the heartbeat. Then he put my shirt back down, patted my tummy, and said "There ya go" :) Even after Tater was born Nicholas would still pat my belly and say" baaaay beee" (baby). I wasn't sure how to explain to him that the baby in my arms was the one who used to be in my belly. He eventually stopped that. He was absolutely fascinated by the act of breastfeeding (YES! I am breastfeeding again!) and pumping. Maybe a little awkward but we explained that babies eat milk from mommies and when he saw me pumping he wanted to see the milk that had been collected and said over and over again "Milk, Milk". When he saw the baby eating he would point and say, "Milk or He Eating" Yup little buddy baby is eating :) He's stopped doing that now for the most part but he does understand what is going on. Some people say that their toddler's want to sample the milk or try and return to breastfeeding. That hasn't been the case here. Not once has Nicholas expressed so much as a hint of interest. The other day we attempted to offer Tater a bottle and Nicholas instantly knew what it was, (I guess he remembers bottles?), and said, "that's baby's". He also tried to feed the bottle to Tater which didn't work out. As it turns out I have a problem with my frozen milk stash, it tastes like plastic or soap so the baby won't drink it. :( That SUCKS!!! Whatever he's drinking straight from the tap just fine and growing. Breast feeding is going MUCH better this time around but more on that later. Suffice it to say we clearly don't have another failure to thrive baby.
As for me I am adjusting OK. It's a big change for serious but one I couldn't be happier about and I feel as if I've come into my own as a mother. It's a world of difference to how things were when I gave birth to Nicholas two years ago. I am much more secure in myself as a mother and my choices. I know who I am and who I want to be as a mother. I know how I want to parent and I know what the right path is. All things I thought I knew but seriously struggled with the first time around. I don't care if I have support or not this time, I feel like I know what I'm doing! :) I am not fighting the AP parenting style like I did with Nicholas and began doing skin to skin in the hospital and co sleeping and baby wearing almost as soon as we got home. Baby cries mommy or daddy answers simple as that and I don't have well meaning friends and family trying to give the opposite advice. I do believe that they have accepted the fact that I am (in their minds) crazy and spoiling my kids and they will leave me to it. That or they've seen how Nicholas has blossomed and have decided maybe I'm not all bad at this mother thing :P Either way they clearly don't think I need their advice and understand that I am going to do this my way. I am also not struggling this time with depression which makes things a whole lot easier for sure! I really think that has a lot to do with the facts that this baby WASN'T a surprise and I wanted it to badly for so long. Nicholas was a HUGE shock and I wasn't sure I wanted kids haha. I also credit the great support I received from the doula I hired. She was super awesome and I honestly think having somebody to talk to who wasn't a family member and who could actually come to the house and see how I was handling the baby was a giant help. She went out of her way to be supportive and helpful and that was the best defense against being ultra over whelmed with all the changes in my life both before and after the baby's birth. Even on days she wasn't coming to see me she would text me and check to see that we were A-OK and often checked in to ask how doctors appointments and such had gone or how breastfeeding was going. She even brought a local lactation counselor out to my house one evening to help me with a latch problem we had at about a week old. To be perfectly frank that act probably saved our breastfeeding. Had we not gotten help we probably wouldn't have known what the problem was and would have resorted to bottles and likely formula. Our new pediatrician certainly was all for bottles, both of them in fact, so the LC and the doula were all that stood between us and them so to speak. I'm so very very grateful for them both and my happily nursing and thriving baby. :) I would highly recommend anyone having a baby to hire a labor and/or post postpartum doula for sure! It's well worth the expense I assure you and seriously we all know what a cheap-o I am! :P I haven't quite gathered the courage to take both kids out in public or to Wal-Mart by myself just yet but I have been able to take them to doctors appointments on my own. I'm not 100% comfortable with my ability to keep Nicholas out of trouble while keeping Tate safe and cared for just yet BUT I am getting there. Each day is a little better and I count the small little victories and revel in them.
So here we stand at the start of a brand new adventure in life. I'm excited to see what the future holds (maybe it will even hold baby # 3) and where life takes us. With two growing boys the journey should be interesting if nothing else lol!
