motherhood - my journey
It’s Mother’s Day. I am about to get sappy folks, so strap in.
Birth announcement
My husband and I tried for years to get pregnant. Those close enough to me knew this, the rest received my “happy” face I donned to get through another failed IVF cycle or in too many cases, another miscarriage. That face even had to make an appearance at my 40th birthday party. Right before we were to cut the cake, we got the phone call I was dreading, my little blastocyst, that had made it all the way to heartbeat this time, would not survive. I hid away for a few minutes with my husband in the basement family room of my parents’ house. We held onto each other and looked into each other’s eyes gathering our strength. Then, like any “good” Irish-American, I sucked it up, put on my happy face and blew out my candles.
Even so, it was a great birthday to celebrate. I had made it to 40 years old. Though in IVF terms this threw me into a category of “advanced maternal age”, not long ago there was a question of whether I would make it to 40. I suffered a mid-back spinal cord injury (SCI) resulting in partial paralysis when I was 28 years old, making my future murky at best. The chances of not just surviving but thriving could be bleak. Plus, I was suddenly in a subset of a subset of people - those who’d suffered a SCI and a woman who’d survived a SCI. A minority of 1%.
Miraculously, I found a great guy to love me. Not that I’m not loveable, but remember the subset of subset? Well, there’s only a subset of men confident enough in themselves and willing to look past the wheelchair to see the person who was sitting in it. To top it off, I’m an aggressive A-type. Though this trait helped me climb back from the despair of my initial injury, allowed me to power through the worst of rehabilitation, and allowed me to move on with my life, not all men are as modern nor appreciate that personality trait.
So as an A-type, my desire to have a baby would not be put off by age or disability. After finishing rehabilitation, founding a nonprofit, going to graduate school, starting a new job and finally getting married in 2009, we decided to try. And try we did, for four years. Four years of painful treatments, doctor visits too numerous to count, and too many of those dreaded phone calls. But in November 2013, a miracle. We were giving it “one last try” because I just could not face another round of drugs, hospital visits, and ultimately agonizing disappointment. Nor could I put my dear husband through this again, for whom the losses were equally as painful.
Loving the tum
The first month of waiting was agonizing, but we received good phone calls, not the dreaded. I didn’t sleep at all, clutching to my last bit of hope, but dare I? We’d had to push past Christmas without telling anyone our news, but as we proceeded into the second and third month, I did dare to hope. When those first little kicks became apparent at the 5 month mark, the love I felt bloomed in a way I could not have predicted. I imagine I was the most annoying pregnant woman, since my hand never left my belly except to push my wheelchair. I felt protective of this little peanut growing inside.
The ultrasound when we finally got to see his face pass by on the screen, a choked sob escaped my mouth from deep within me. Again, like a good Irish lady, I apologized to the technician who simply chuckled, having likely heard that happy sob regularly.
Over the following months, I talked to my belly-son, made future plans with him, and sang songs I made up for us. Always underlying was the ever-present fear, so I also begged him to be ok and be born so I could meet him, hold him, hug him, and kiss him.
Love at first sight
At 38 weeks I developed pre-eclampsia and my regular doctor visit suddenly became my delivery visit. I was assured the baby was fine and ready to be born as we waited for the doctor and delivery room to be available. During the wait, I rubbed my belly continually, knowing this would be the last time I would ever have this beautiful sensation and that we would ever be this close. I would miss never not being alone.
Baby and Mama
Since I had a cesarean, I couldn’t see my son being born, but I heard him, that sweet little voice cry out at the suddenness of the world. My husband, bless his heart, recorded the sound for us. In the background, you can hear me through tears of joy “that is the best sound I ever heard”. How true that was and only the sound of his beautiful chatter every day outweighs that pure, unadulterated joy I felt at that moment.
I’m discovering the ever changing and evolving nature of motherhood. Now at 10 months old, the best sound is his little baby babbles as he strings together the da-da, ma-ma, ah-bas. It’s also the anticipation that ma-ma will soon become Mama. It is the wondrous journey of ever changing “best” things. Seeing the light in their eyes for everything from being presented with a new toy to the sheer joy when you bust out the Cheerios box. It is having him sleep on my shoulder, coo when he breastfeeds, seeing the first smile, and making him laugh. It is missing him as soon as I put him down to sleep for the night. It is the freedom to release the trivial for what matters to me the most.
I’ve never been so tired, I’ve never cried so much, I’ve never felt fear this way, I’ve never felt so needed and wanted, I’ve never felt such unconditional love, I never understood what being a mother is until I became one and for that I’ve never felt so lucky.
Happy Mother’s Day!
Fast forward to 2021
Always watching me get ready
My kid, not a baby anymore, is a precocious 6. “No mom, I’m 6 and a half,” followed by a little eye roll because he somehow thinks I’ve forgotten his age. All the phases have been so good, bad, tough, infuriating, wonderful. When it’s a bad stage, like 3 year old temper tantrums, you think will never end, he’s suddenly in another stage or phase. The phases are different but not always easier. There’s a great comic on parenting called “Fowl Language” and in it a family of ducks manage the ups and downs of life with parents and two ducklings. One comic that hit home for me shows the father duck flipping off his kids behind their back with the caption, “I’d never hit my kids, but I’ve been known to flip them off behind their back.” When you’re little is born, you never think that they could make you that angry, but man can they ever push buttons you never thought existed. The flip side is, they make you laugh and smile in your heart like you never thought you could.
Will we have more kids you wonder? No. Definitively.
My sweet
After the struggle of getting pregnant, we didn’t think we could, until one day a few years back, I was. It was awful and frightening and wonderful. Awful because I love my relationship with my son and didn’t want that to change. Awful because we were knee deep in crippling daycare payments. Also, my disability made it difficult to get Parker in his car seat. How would I manage two? Frightening because I had horrific swelling which caused carpal tunnel syndrome so extreme, I couldn’t hold a steering wheel or dress myself towards the end of my pregnancy. Frightening because I ended up having undiagnosed pre-eclampsia and nearly died. Frightening because my very advanced maternal age made it possible for a large variety of issues to go wrong over the pregnancy. Wonderful because I was pregnant, on our own.
Soon after the ultrasound showed no heartbeat, so a miscarriage was forth coming. Of course, we were sad, but somehow relieved too, a little. Only a little. I continued to work and started bleeding at work during an all-staff meeting. Not something I could leave, but I figured I have plenty of miscarriages. How bad could it be? Bad.
Michael was working nights at that point and I was alone with my toddler. The cramping and blood gushes soon became overwhelming. I quickly called my mother and begged her to come down to help manage my son. I physically couldn’t do it and worried that I may need to go to the ER based on the level of blood I was losing. In the end, I was able to remain home and get through the worst of it with my mother helping, but it was so much worse than I’d ever experienced when I’d had the IVF-related miscarriages. The amount of blood was simply frightening.
So no, no more babies. For us, it’s not worth so many risks for me or the baby and it’s not worth crippling the family with debt. It was hard to let go of that desire and hope, but as a mother to our son, it seems infinitely more selfish to not be able to give him a financially secure life.
And boy, do we love our life. Even COVID has brought us closer as a family. Though remote work and school are a burden in many ways, the joy of being together every day has been truly wonderful. Because my husband and I both work full-time with a significant commute we never would have been able to spend this much time with our son and it’s been a blessing. I recognize that we are lucky and privileged for this as well. That said, I face the future with trepidation and happiness because I want COVID to stop taking lives and preventing people from actively working. For us though, we will miss all the togetherness it’s lent us this past 14 months. As any mother watches her child so quickly grow, I want to stop time, maybe not during a pandemic, but I want that little voice, that little body I can hug close to stay as it is, as long as possible.
On top of that, I get to celebrate Mother’s Day with my mom this year. Something we couldn’t do in 2020.
For all you rockin’ moms out there: Happy Mother’s Day 2021!
