Sunday, January 22, 2012

On being pregnant again

If you haven't already read the news over on my other site, I am sharing it with you all now...I'm pregnant! It's been a long time coming - both to get my heart around the idea of having another, and to get my body to cooperate once my heart was ready. And now we couldn't be happier.

Okay, well, that isn't really the truth. Let me explain.

I'm extremely nervous this time around. Worried about the pregnancy remaining viable (thanks to previous miscarriages), worried about carrying to full-term (thanks to pre-term labor with both boys) and worried about the gazillion things that could potentially go wrong - birth defects, syndromes, health issues for both me and the baby. Obviously the last one is a result of having a child with Apert Syndrome and having been slapped in the face with that diagnosis at the minute we were supposed to be celebrating a perfectly healthy baby boy being brought into the world.

Not only did it rob us of the joyful experience and happy memories usually associated with a child's birth, it has also left behind shards of glass so deep in our heart that they will be felt in all aspects of our life for years to come. And it is now, during this pregnancy, that we carefully tiptoe through each day trying not to let the shards cut our hearts any deeper.

When I got pregnant with my first, Ethan (who turns 5 in March), it happened quickly, I enjoyed being pregnant and I was blissfully unaware just how much had to go right to have a perfectly healthy baby. I had the normal discomforts towards the end and did experience pre-term labor, but the end result was exactly what every new mom expects - a healthy, thriving child.

Ethan was 3 months old when I got pregnant with Aiden (who will turn 4 in February). I had a very similar pregnancy the second time around except that he came prematurely at 34.5 weeks. And then, of course, that is where the similarities abruptly halt and our lives were changed by Apert Syndrome.

We have spent almost 4 years removing the large chunks of glass that threatened to tear our hearts apart forever. But those shards, they are too small, too embedded to extract. I am trying not to let the past affect the future. It is just so hard.

My heart remains in tact despite the shards inside. Just having Aiden in my life - his smile, his strength, his full-of-life personality - has patched up the gaping holes and helped me to move on. My fears no longer reside in the challenges he will continue to face. They lie, however, in not knowing what other blows might come in the future that may damage my heart beyond repair.

To get through, I tell myself everyday that lightening very rarely strikes twice and that stress is not good for mom or baby. I am taking each day as it comes. I hope to enjoy this pregnancy as much as possible without letting the fear of what I can't control inhibit this experience.


3 comments:

  1. Beautifully honest and poignant, and yet hopeful. I loved it, Taryn.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Taryn, I hate being pregnant. It isn't because of the physical aspect of it. It's the million "what if"s that keep my heart in pieces. Praying for peace and health for you and that sweet baby. <3

    ReplyDelete

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