Where SHOULD I start?
All of those feelings, all of those emotions...ALL of that waiting to get that precious miracle here and FINALLY be able to touch him (or her). All of those tears you've cried, and the plans you've made. All of the talks with your significant other/spouse, that run into the early hours of the morning. The wonder of the first flutter, the agony of the feet that seem to be permanently hooked on the bottom of your ribs as your child dangles bat style with his elbows out. The wondrous feeling as it feels as if your little bundle of joy is literally trying to pull the plug and let the water out of your womb. All of those late night trips to the bathroom, and there at the very end, all of those can't-get-comfortable nights.
The horrible (yes, I said HOR-RI-BLE..pronounce it with me.. HOAR-IH-BULLLLLL) labor. Mine was 27 hours and 49 minutes of HELLLLLLLLL. But (buffing my nails on my shirt)...I made it through the entire labor without screaming my lungs out like the poor woman who was giving birth to a small village AND a baby water buffalo in the room next to us the entire time I was trying to sleep the night before.
It's allllllllllll worth it. Every single pain, tear, heartache, fear. It's ALL worth it. It becomes worth it the moment the doctor lays that warm little body on your tummy and you feel that baby move.
My Mom, bless her heart, had 5 kids...well, 4 kids, and a clutz.. I'm the clutz. Anyway, she always told us that the pain of the birth is forgotten once you have your child in your arms. Oddly enough, I've heard other women lament the very same thing..
I call BULLSHIT. (Yes, the use of shouty capitals while accompanied by an underline should stress to you my vehemence when I typed that.)
While it was worth it.. 31 months later, I still haven't forgotten the pain or the struggle (neither has my bottom! but that's another story that I don't think I'll share. Ever.)...
Whether you are one of the lucky ones who realized you were 5 days late and got to pee on a stick to find out that you were pregnant, or like my husband & I (and untold thousands of other couples in the country) who had to beg, plead, cry, beg, and finally realize we'd tried everything but what we should have done all along.. PRAY, to get the chance to see the positive sign on a pregnancy test, that baby was worth EVERY. SINGLE. MOMENT of the effort. We will always be so very thankful to the REACH Clinic in Charlotte, NC and it's fantastic staff of miracle workers for the miracle they helped us make, but God showed us - all in HIS time...
That baby is now 31 months old (it seems to grown up to call him 2 & a half...I need him to be a baby just a little longer!)...and he's the shining light in our lives. He teaches us things daily.. usually it's how resilient he is as he stands at the back of the couch and skydives off to the floor, face first... or it's that no matter how long we have to put him in time out for riding the dachshund like it's a shetland pony, when we tell him we love him, he replies with "all my heart". It's that 2 or 3am run across the upstairs hallway where he climbs in bed with us and tells us he's scared and asks us to hold him... or the 4am "I want a honeybun.".... He's the breath I breathe, and if someone told me today that I could keep him free from harm, hurt, heartache, and keep him alive and breathing forever, if I would give them my last breath.. I'd do it in a heartbeat.
It's been a hard 2 and a half years.. but he's only little once.. so I'll take the sleepless nights, and the terrible 2's temper tantrums.. because one of these days, all too soon, Mommy's not going to be cool enough to hang with, and my bathroom trips will once again become mine...no more "What you doin' Mom?" as I try to do my business.. :)
It's nap time on a Saturday.. so my next revelations will have to wait. Hug your babies close!
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