Wednesday September 18, 2013
Dear Shelby and Dalton,
It's been a while since I wrote your blog. It's been a while because I was a complete idiot who forgot my password. I've been forgetful and sad and lonely and feeling incompetent and.... in short, pretty much a complete emotional wreck. I think I realized it's because we are in the midst of the two year anniversary of the far too brief period of time when I was pregnant in 2011. We found out September 6 or 7 that there were actually 2 of you (after having a successful pregnancy test confirmed on August 18). Your Daddy and I both remember with surprising clarity viewing the two tiny little heartbeats on the ultrasound monitor that day. In that instant, it dawned on me "I am going to be someone's mother." and then my next thought was probably "We won't have an only child.".
I remember keeping the secret, looking forward to October 11, when the first trimester would be over and we could begin telling more people. We were so blissfully ignorant, thinking we only had to make it through the first trimester to avoid risk of miscarriage, risk of losing you. We were so naive to think that getting through that time period would allow us to expect nothing less than a full term pregnancy. I was clueless about the dangers of pre-term labor. It's just really not talked about, until you walk in the shoes of those whose children have died because of extreme prematurity. Even after our ultrasound with the high-risk specialist, when he was detailing the risks of pre-term labor, it didn't seem like something we needed to worry about as my cervix was long and I had no high-blood pressure. Two weeks later, our world came crashing down.
The worst thing is that we continue down the road of infertility. We will never replace the two of you, we know that and we will always have part of our family missing no matter how many children we may have. I sit at home daily, stuck in a rut, when I should be mothering the two of you. I don't want to return to work in the outside world. I want my work to be as the stay at home mother to twins and the loving wife to your father. But, as Michelle said to me this weekend, I've got to make my own happiness. I can't think that I'll only be happy because I have a child. I have moments of happiness without you, without being a parent. It's just rather bizarre because before we had you I wasn't really one of those women who was being driven crazy by the thunderous clamoring of the ticking of my biological clock. But now, that you made me a mom with no daily mothering tasks, my soul is empty.
Maybe we need to return to the attitude and thoughts I had before we got pregnant. Maybe we need to say "This is it, this is the only shot, whatever happens happens, but we are not trying again.". Instead of trying to be all positive and will a positive result, maybe I just need to take on a que sera sera attitude.
Two years and nothing has happened. Two years of eating organically (ok, like 90% of the time), forgoing fast food for the most part, reducing the amount of soda I drink, trying to exercise and lose weight. Yet all around me, I observe pregnant women who drink caffeinated soda by the bucketful, consume all kinds of nasty processed fast food and low-quality frozen "chicken" nuggets by the truckload, work full time while being overweight, and their babies are born full term with no complications.
Perhaps it is time, to paraphrase one of your dear great-grandmother Betty's favorite sayings and just say "Aw, the hell with it.". Generally, I think she preferred "Aw, the hell with them.", applying it to people she deemed unworthy of her attention. But maybe we need to start saying "Aw, the hell with it.". I think I'm going to try that. The path I've been on obviously hasn't been working.
Signing off for now my sweet children, my loves.
Momma
