Adjustment

I spent July afflicted by seemingly never ending food poisoning combined with an acute case of cystitis that was never even vaguely cured by antibiotics. In August I clued in that something was up and peed on a stick. Immediately a deep pink line appeared, darker than the control line, telling me I wasn’t just a little bit knocked up, I was well and truly preggers.

I did what any completely sane and rational person would do upon finding this out. I said “FUCK!” loud enough for the neighbours to hear, ran into the bedroom slamming the door behind me, shoved my head under the pillow and burst into tears.

I love my children, I love having them in my life, but I was just coming around to the idea of sticking with the two boys. We would be great with a standard car, a three bedroom home would suit us just fine and the odds were even, there were two parents and two children, minimising the amount of kid juggling we had to do – we had our little routine for getting in and out of the car completely down and I was starting to like it that way and forget my plans for a third child.

Then some super hormone defying sperm managed to break through my protections and ruin all my future plans for family game nights involving four players.

I went to the first ultrasound to date the fetus and hoped it was just a false alarm, a fake positive on the test… and all the other tests, and maybe my blood got mixed up with someone elses at the doctors, and it was them that was pregnant, not me. Instead I found out I was due on the 19th of March, exactly a month after my eldest’s third birthday.

Then came my first OB appointment at 15 weeks, she couldn’t find the heartbeat on the doppler, suddenly it was obvious, it had all been a mix up! The blood work was incorrect, the sonographer had been wrong, the growing belly was just too much KFC, our fridge wasn’t cool enough which was why I STILL seemed to have food poisoning every other day and the fact that sneezing in the wrong way would lead to an emotional breakdown was just proof that my zoloft needed to be upped.

I laughed as she left to room and joked about how silly it was that I’d been thinking I was pregnant, until the OB returned with an ultrasound machine, squirted the cold blue goo onto my belly and didn’t discover a three piece meal with the Colonel’s secret spices, but a fifteen week feotus, hanging out and waving at us.

I went back to the car and cried.

I’m now just over 18 weeks pregnant and I’ve only just started adjusting to the idea of having a third child. I thought it would hit me all of a sudden, one morning I would just wake up and would be thrilled about the prospect of a third child, that hasn’t been the case, it’s been a slow process where I take a leap forward followed by a step back.

I’ve spent a lot of the time since August angry. I’m angry at the powers that be for putting me in this position.  I’m angry that our life, the lives of the boys, is going to be turned upside down by a tiny being.  I’m angry that no one seems to understand why I’m not elated. I’m angry at myself for not being elated and angry that I’m not grateful that I can even conceive in the first place when so many of my friends are struggling to conceive their second or even first child.

Somewhere in the background is fear. I will be the first to accept I’m not mentally stable, so I’m scared of the effects of having another child on my emotional state. I have a condition that causes my membranes to rupture prematurely which cannot be prevented in anyway, my waters broke at 37 weeks with Declan, then 34 weeks with Connor and I was told that with each consecutive pregnancy it’s likely to get earlier. One of the things that is said to raise the chance of this is having less than three years between deliveries. I’m very lucky that this won’t lead to my baby arriving prematurely, but I have to lay in a hospital bed leaking fluid until I hit 36weeks when the feotus is developed enough to be induced, not exactly how I want to be spending a few weeks.

We went for the anatomy scan last week, and it was like acceptance just washed over me. I have no idea what it was, but something hit me whilst I was laying on my back with a stranger ramming a mushroom shaped zappy thing into my belly button. Something just washed over me, and it wasn’t acceptance, it was more than that, it was excitement. For the first time I felt more than fear and anger at this blob of cells inside me, I felt excitement at the future ahead, about giving birth, nursing a newborn instead of a wriggly toddler and about adding another member to our little family, welcoming them with open arms instead of frustration and tears.

It took a while, the adjustment that I never thought would happen has happened, I am now an expectant mother with a spring in her step and a baby in her belly, instead of fear I am excited about what is in store for us. I never thought it would happen, but now that it has I feel wonderful, and that is the best feeling ever.