This is the story of my unplanned, planned pregnancy. Yes, you read that right.
My story begins in 2003 when I married my Husband; we had discussed up until that time, and settled on only having 2 children. Our main reasoning was nothing more than it sounded like a good number and easily affordable and manageable. The thought never occurred to me that I would feel any other way.
When we finally settled on trying to start with a family after a fair amount of convincing on my part, even throwing in the old “Oh don’t worry, they say it can take anything up to 6 months or a year to fall pregnant the first time” we fell pregnant on the 2nd cycle and had the perfect pregnancy and then in 2006 welcomed our first born a baby girl. She was a very easy baby and we actually had it really good but I struggled with P.N.D due to failed breastfeeding and other things. So after a period of adjustment and healing the hormones were raging again and I was ready to try for number two.
My husband on the other hand wasn’t as eager. The entire time was not easy on my husband and he was very concerned that if she started trying to soon it would be fast like before and we would have very close age gaps and that I wouldn’t cope. After some more convincing and valid attempts on my part he settled on the idea and said oh ok. It was heart-wrenching when we realized after the first year of trying for number 2 that our chances were becoming slimmer and slimmer and so we opted for some fertility treatment. 18 months had passed by the stage I fell pregnant with our second and we were completely elated.
We had opted to know the sex of our first child and decided the same for our second so by the time we were at a position that the doctor could confidently tell us the sex he let us know that this baby would be a second girl. It was reconfirmed at a second visit and we were pretty happy with that if not slightly disappointed that we would not ever have a pigeon pair.
We went on with life and started preparing for our new darling girl, I bonded with her from the get go within my tummy and sang to her by name, Mila: we had chosen the name Mila Nicole and she had clothes and a room and a place in my heart. I even had her baby shower and people had blessed us with so many new beautiful things for her and we were getting very excited. I talked to her all the time and she responded with kicks and turns.
We entered into the holiday season; she was due in April. I was due for my 30 week visit after the holiday and in early January we went to see the doctor to get a 3D glimpse of our daughter. And then out of nowhere, our doctor very nonchalantly said “Oh, I hope you weren’t too settled on having a girl?” I said come again? He said “It seems I was wrong; these things are very difficult to tell you know!” He was quite defensive.” You are actually having a boy”! My husband and I were silent and then as if shock took over we giggled like little school kids and said, oh ok that’s fine, as long as he is healthy and went on with the scan.
It was only after about 3 weeks of me waking up at night crying from in my sleep that I realized I was actually mourning the loss of this baby girl I would never hold and it’s almost as if a connection was lost that I felt no more with this boy child we were rather getting. I stopped talking to my baby and continued to mourn my daughter, I am not sure if my husband knew this then but I knew my daughter was still waiting for me somewhere and that she would come to me again. Now I am sure there are plenty of parents out there that would be offended by that thought and that I had not truly experienced a loss of a child but on some level I did even though I still got a beautiful healthy baby at the end for which I am eternally great-full.
We went through the motions of returning things, buying new things, re-doing necessary things to the nursery and picking out a new name. We finally settled on name that we liked Reece which means “Enthusiasm” but I wasn’t truly bothered really, I didn’t mind what name we chose.
In March 2009 I went into labor at 36.5 weeks and Reece-Daniel was born at 37 weeks by Caesarean. When they took him out they said there were breathing issues and that they needed to remove him to the NICU. My husband went in tow and I didn’t see them again for another 2 hours while I waited for someone to find an orderly to move me back into my room. I did not know if my new son was alive or dead but there and then I realized he was mine and even if at any stage before then I had felt no connection there truly was one and the thought that he was possibly gone ate me up inside. When I finally got to my son I put him instantly to my breast and he latched immediately and I just cried and cried and berated myself for ever thinking he should have been someone else.
It turns out my boy had had no real breathing trouble: apparently the pediatrician was just in a hurry to leave, it seemed, and used it as an excuse to get out of theatre. When I held my boy for the first time and looked into his eyes I was just so thankful that he was alive and in my arms but I knew he was mine and I loved him. I continued to mourn my daughter though.
We had a very rough ride with him, colic, constant screaming and some reflux plus another child in the mix. The whole situation and time was really rough and although our kids were beautiful and we had settled into life as a family of four and managed ok eventually, it really didn’t fare well with my husband when I kept saying to him that I really didn’t feel finished at 2, and that I really felt we were truly meant to have 3 children. He said outright no, that was not what we had planned and he wasn’t on the same page as me.
From there on in I basically kept at it and kept at it like a real nag and went into a kind of depression until he eventually gave in albeit very much not what he really wanted. Truly I think though he had realized by then that this was what I really needed. Before I fell pregnant I often dreamt about her, often seeing me being pregnant with her again, even her birth.
We started trying for our third but just as before it was a year or more with no success and so it was with a really heavy heart and the beginnings of strained relationship with my family and work that I decided and accepted that it was all for nothing and that it was not truly meant to be. I have never cried so much in my life, not even when my Dad died.
In that time my own father had been diagnosed with a stage 4 cancer that was very aggressive and it wasn’t long before he passed away. It was a whirlwind time and we had totally settled back into the notion that we would only have 2 children when, on our wedding anniversary in 2011 I wondered when last I had had a period and truly couldn’t remember. I had lost all track of everything since my Dad had gotten sick and passed on. I didn’t feel out of sorts at all, there was no give away but I took a test anyway and it was positive. You could have struck me over the head with a hammer!
After all this time of trying and heartache and mourning and then making peace with the fact that it would never be, I was pregnant again. So the pregnancy was an unplanned, planned pregnancy if that makes sense?
The pregnancy was good and easy and we started feeling more and more that it was a miracle but we didn’t seem to be able to get into it at all and on any level. We just went on with life as normal. I went to my visits and all was well. We weren’t even particularly phased as to what sex this baby would be, in-fact we had decided we would rather not know in fear of the same thing happening and also that we really didn’t care. This baby was coming and he/she was ours regardless.
It was only in the last few weeks that I even started sorting our unisex clothes and making a space in our room for a cot. It was just a really weird time in my life. When we had had to exchange all the pink girly things for boy clothes before I just couldn’t get rid of it all and kept a particular piece of clothing that I had bought. I don’t know for what but keepsake nonetheless and I ended up popping it into my hospital bag along with the unisex clothing I had planned to take with. It was as if I knew all along that she was coming home with me.
In May 2012 we went in for the birth as planned at 39 weeks and I was just so nervous of going through the same as I did with my son that I had even arranged a Doula to be by my side so that I wasn’t alone in case my husband needed to go off with the baby. It was time, they took the baby out and when they did knowing we didn’t know the sex they asked my husband to be the first to see and he looked and he shouted “It’s a girl, it’s a girl and I responded it’s my Mila, she just wasn’t ready till today and she was our Miracle just like the name Mila means and perfect in every way.
So now we have 3 children so what now? We had not really thought too much about all the pros and cons of having 3 children. I come from a family of 2 kids and my husband has 2 brothers. He had always said how great it was and that he never felt left out even though he was much younger. My sister and I on the other had were always fighting and competing to some degree.
When we were waiting to fall pregnant initially we had talked about how nice it sounded to actually have 3 kids, how they look out for each other and of big family get-togethers when they are older and the many grandkids and then reality hits and you have 3. The main con of that is cost of course but that aside, the mere fact that you are only two adults with 3 kids where in the past one could take one kid and the other could take the next. Now you have 3 and they need equal amounts of love and attention and things need to get done. In my experience what ends up happening is the eldest of the 3 children is expected to grow up a whole lot faster and that opens a whole other can of worms. Throw regular business travelling into the mix for my husband and oh boy, you really get to see what you are made of.
That being said, having three children has taught me so much about myself, it has taught me an unimaginable amount about how strong the relationship is between my husband and I and it has taught me gratitude, to take each moment as it comes and to know that everything is perfect in its time. It has taught me a love like I have never ever known before and It has taught me acceptance and patience and plus whole lot of other things. Most of all it has taught me kindness to myself. I have had to make a conscious decision every-day to be kind to myself not to hate myself for things left unsaid or undone or visa- versa because these things I cannot change and we can’t go back. We can only go forward now.
My three children are exactly all 3 years and 2 months apart between siblings and they are the light of our lives, they each have extremely different personalities and traits but they are ours, each and every bit of them and they are all right where they are meant to be.
Content written By: Celeste Booysen from My Friend Thinks I’m Supermom Blog, read about Celeste Here or go the website Http://www.Myfriendthinksimsupermomblog.co.za
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