Archive for February, 2008

Taking after Daddy

Published on February 29, 2008 in Aidan, Parenting and Toddlerhood. 2 Comments

My husband LOVES golf.  He loves Tiger Woods.  Last weekend, before his nap, Aidan watched about 15 minutes of golf with Brandon.  Aidan loves his play golf set.  He is actually quite a good shot already.  Aidan was thoroughly intrigued by the televised golf.  Me…I have never quite understood the appeal of televised golf, so I will leave that to my boys. 

Aidan was instantly enthralled with Tiger Woods.  By the time he went down for his nap, he was hitting golf balls and saying “Like Tiger Woods!”  Needless to say, my husband was beaming.

I took Aidan to Costco on Monday to get some things and the first thing you see when you come in the door is a huge display of big screen televisions.  I am not paying much attention to them, and I hear Aidan saying, “Mama, there Tiger Woods!”  Sure enough, an advertisement for this season’s PGA tour was playing on all the televisions.  I had an instant longing for Brandon to have witnessed this moment.  Later, when he came home from work, I told him he needed to ask Aidan about what he saw at Costco today. 

The following is THE cutest conversation I have ever heard.

Daddy:  “Mommy told me you saw something at Costco today.  What did you see?”

Mommy:  (whispers in Aidan’s ear)  “Who did you see on TV at Costco?”

Aidan:  “Tiger Woods on TV!”

Daddy:  “Wow!  What was he doing?”

Aidan:  “Tiger playing golf!”

Daddy:  “Was he doing a good job?”

Aidan:  “Tiger hit golf ball with clubby.”

My husband was literally beaming!  This was one of many precious moments I have witnessed in our 2 1/2 years with our son.  Aidan has had a lot of words for a while now.  He is pretty consistently stringing 4,5, and sometimes 6 word sentences together.  But this is the first “conversation” I have heard him have.  Where he answers 3 questions in a row with 3 responses!

To say I am proud would be a gigantic understatement. 

I sense many future Saturdays in my future where I watch my boys leave the house in the morning, both in their golf caps, heading out for some father/son time on the golf course.  It warms my heart.  I love seeing what a bond these two have and how it deepens every day.

Check out his skills!  At the end of the video, you can hear him say “Nice Velveteen Rabbit” as he passes by his current favorite book.

The measure of a mother

Published on February 28, 2008 in Pregnancy and Rants. 3 Comments

Now that I have been in the blogosphere for a while, I have had the opportunity to stumble across a lot of different blogs.  One blog I like links to another blog and so on.  I have read a fair number of blogs recently that are authored by midwives or mothers who are anti-cesarean and pro natural childbirth.  Mostly these blogs talk about a more natural approach to childbirth.  No problem there.  I think a more natural approach is a wonderful goal.  I had that goal myself. 

I have two major objections to some of what I have been reading.  The first is the idea that all cesarean sections can be avoided. 

The cesarean rate in the US is too high at nearly 31%.  I doubt I could even find anybody that would dispute that.  I am not even sure there is a way to figure out what an expected cesarean rate would be if only medically necessary cesareans were performed.  I guess a rudimentary place to start would be to begin with the fact that 1 of 8 babies born in the US is premature.  I wonder how many of those babies were medically necessary cesareans.  Half?  A lot of preemie moms I know went into labor that could not be stopped.  But I also know a lot who developed severe pre-e progressing to eclampsia or HELLP.  And mothers whose babies were in severe fetal distress and needed immediate delivery.

In my case, my death and my son’s death without a cesarean on the night he was born was not only a possibility but a certainty.  I had developed Class I HELLP syndrome.  My liver was enlarged and threatening rupture.  Aidan was starting to have some decelerations.  The lab tests run on my blood even after Aidan was born were alarming…my liver values were through the roof and my platelets were all but nonexistent.  This is a classic case of a necessary cesarean.  I was only 28 weeks pregnant and waiting for an induction of labor would have killed us both.

The second objection to some of what I have been reading is the ridiculous notion that having a cesarean section means you didn’t give birth.  A quote taken from a blog I recently read stated the following, “Cesarean section surgery (notice I do not call it “birth”) is the number one surgery performed in the United States, and that number is growing. ”

I felt hurt and angry as I read this and other similar statements on other blogs.  What on earth is the purpose of saying something like this?  Is it to give some women a “wake-up call” regarding unnecessary cesareans?  If it is…I am not sure it will really do the trick.  You see, I think any woman who has an unnecessary cesarean is either uninformed or coerced.  I am not sure you fix either situation by guilting a mother regarding the way her baby came into the world.  Most women would be more persuaded by hard data, such as the fact that lung issues are more prevalent in cesarean babies.

What you have done for sure when you make such a ludicrous statement as “a cesarean is not birth” is to further damage the psyche of women who really needed cesareans.  I think the thought that really stuck in my head as I read these ridiculous statements was this:

Why do other women feel the need to marginalize the birth of my son?  Or the birth of any child?

Is it a superiority complex?  Do these women really believe that the way our children came into the world reflects on our mothering abilities?  Is it the feeling of being supermom because they had an all natural birth?  I would like to believe they just never stopped to consider the feelings of mothers in situations such as mine. 

I applaud any woman who has the strength (and good fortune not to have a medical need for a cesarean) to give birth to a child with little to no intervention.  But, ladies, birth is only a snapshot in the lives of our children.  We have countless opportunities to don our supermom capes throughout our children’s lives.  I didn’t get to be supermom by having a natural birth.  I had a much more medicalized birth than I ever would have dreamed possible for myself.  My child had a much more medicalized beginning.  I have had countless other opportunities to prove what I am made of.  I supported my son through a 105 day NICU stay.  I protected his fragile health when he came home.  I pumped day and night for 9 months to get my son breastmilk.  I took him to physical therapy to watch over his development, to the pulmonologist to get the best care for his lungs, I quit my job to stay at home.  I could go on and on. 

I measure myself as a mother not by the WAY  my child came into the world, but the fact that he is here and thriving.  He is a boy full of laughter and curiosity.  He is fiercely attached to both Brandon and me.  We have had complete strangers comment on his love for us.  He amazes me each and every day of his life.  We didn’t get a normal or optimal birth experience.  But if I have learned anything in the last 2 1/2 years it is that there was never a truer cliche in my life than this:  “It’s not what happens to you, it’s what you do about it.”

Of course I gave birth to my son.  I prepared my body to sustain his existence.  I took immaculate care of myself.  I carried him to viability when many women with my condition miscarry.  I listened to my body and approached my doctors when things didn’t feel right.  I dismissed every moment of discomfort I had on hospital bedrest to provide more time for my son to gestate.  I sacrificed for him up until the moment of his birth.  I was willing to allow myself to get sicker and sicker so long as it provided him more time in my womb. 

I have every right to be proud of the birth of my son.  When I talk to him about the day of his birth it will not be with regret and shame.  I have nothing to be ashamed of.  I did everything humanly possible for the well being of my child.  I do this every day.  This is the measure of a mother…..not just the birth experience. 

Blame the mom

Published on February 26, 2008 in HELLP, PIH/Preeclampsia, Prematurity and Rants. 14 Comments

I stumbled across a claim on another blog recently that got my blood boiling.  Not much sends me into hyperactive research mode now that I am a stay at home mom.  But I haven’t forgotten how to do it. 

There is a diet that claims to prevent 100% of preeclampsia and HELLP.  My sniffer went into overdrive.  100%?  There is almost nothing in medicine that can accurately have the word 100% attached to it.  I did some reading about this diet and started becoming enraged.  I found many sites that spout the claim found on the diet’s website.  Their claim follows in blue…word for word from the homepage of the site.

“Toxemia. Pre-Eclampsia. HELLP Syndrome. Premature birth.
Low birth weight. Intrauterine growth retardation.

It’s not genetics. It’s not random. The cause is NOT unknown. Toxemia CAN be stopped. PreeclampsiaA-toxic-condition-developing-in-late-pre... CAN be stopped. Best of all, YOU can stop it!

HOW? All the scientific research being done on toxemia and preeclampsia these days is focusing on treatment, and none of it is promising. But the research has already been done, many times and many ways in the past 50+ years, and we know that you can PREVENT this from happening to you in the first place, no matter what your personal history may be. The simple answer? GOOD NUTRITION.”

 

Oh, gosh!  Why the hell didn’t I think of that?  Good nutrition?  Guess it is my fault my son was a preemie! 

Except….except that it’s not my fault.  You see I followed this diet.  I clicked on their sample diet and I can tell you….that is what I was eating.  Yet, I still developed Class I HELLP. 

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I believe nutrition and protein intake play a huge role in pregnancy.  It is this idea that pre-e and HELLP would go away if we all followed the diet.  But it won’t.  You see, preeclampsia is a syndrome.  (ie. a disease that may be triggered by several independent factors that leads to a common situation (compromised placenta)   In my particular case, I was in ridiculously good shape going into pregnancy.  My resting heart rate was in the low 60’s, my baseline BP was 105/60, I worked out and taught classes at the gym 6 days a week, and (as I recently discovered) I ate this site’s recommended diet. 

When the underlying reason for your pre-e and HELLP syndrome IS actually genetic, diet manipulation can only go so far.  In my case my homozygous MTHFR c677 was my problem.  Following the diet to the letter would not have saved me from pre-e or HELLP.  Knowing prior to conception that I had this thrombophilia might have….heparin could have been given from early on.

I think there is even a bigger picture here.  It is the “Pregnancy is not a disease” movement.  For most women….it isn’t a disease.  It is a natural part of life.  But there are those of us that fly in the face of that fanciful notion.  Those of us (and our babies) who need medical intervention, sometimes drugs, and science to intervene throw a huge monkey wrench into that movement.  So what is the solution to explain us outlyers?  That the bad things that happen to us ~5% of pregnant women must be OUR fault.  That is essentially what this diet is purporting. 

This is not only grossly inaccurate but emotionally damaging to women who have done everything right and still ended up with pre-e, HELLP, and/or a premature baby.

I love it when I see that new research is uncovering more of the mystery behind pre-e and/or HELLP.  All that I ask is that before some well-meaning soul tells me about it, writes about it, etc, that you actually check to see what kind of research is being touted.   Is it peer-reviewed? Randomized?  Double blind?  Placebo controlled?  Prospective or retrospective?  The answers to these questions matter.  You see this is the benchmark to which I was held every day of my professional life.  I worked for a pharmaceutical company and whenever I presented a study to a physician these were the criteria they asked about.  When a “study” didn’t meet all of these criteria, it was treated with great skepticism.  I have searched extensively for studies done on this “diet” that meet the above criteria.  Surprise!  ;-)   There are none.

This theory makes me angry.  It makes me sad.  I wonder how many former pre-e or HELLP sufferers have read information about this “miracle diet” and felt their heart sink and then blamed themselves.  It is this kind of misinformation that further damages already traumatized women.

There is a wonderful thread I found on the Preeclampia Forum website that has numerous links to peer-reviewed studies that will dispel the notion that “Mommy could have prevented it.”

http://www.preeclampsia.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=9742&whichpage=1&SearchTerms=%2Cbrewer%27s%2Cdiet

 I also wanted to send a shout-out to my MTHFR/HELLP/preemie mom pal Kathy, who I just discovered as I was editing this post, wrote about this very issue.  She makes some excellent points as well.

I think moms spend enough time playing the guilt game in their own heads without adding unsubstantiated fuel to the fire. 

The best belly laugh ever

Published on February 25, 2008 in Aidan, Parenting and Toddlerhood. 1 Comment

I was sifting through some videos we have taken of Aidan, and came across a gem.  It was taken last July when we were eating out at Red Robin.  You can hear Brandon in the background making a “pop-ing” kind of noise.  He is imitating a toy Aidan loved that had 4 colored pegs that look like crayons that pop out of their holder when pushed.  At the end Aidan pretends to do the very same thing with his Red Robin crayons.

 Check out the belly laugh on this kiddo.  Especially if you’re having a bad day.  I think I can safely say it will put a smile on your face….if only for a little while.

The two year molars

Published on February 19, 2008 in Aidan and Toddlerhood. 1 Comment

Hmmm…are they called two year molars because they erupt around age 2 or because it seems like the eruption/teething phase of these buggers TAKES 2 years?  Kidding, of course.  But gosh, these buggers are giving Aidan a run for his money!  He is trying to gnaw on everything in sight.  He is using food, sippy cups, toys, blankets, stuffed animals, you name it…all in an effort to ease his pain.  As I run my fingers along his bulging gums, I can tell that he is getting the worst of it.  All 4 are threatening at once.  I just looked up eruption patterns of primary teeth, and verified that he is right in the window of having all 4 erupt at once since he is 27 months old adjusted. 

 I have been giving him Tylenol before naps and bedtime to help him out.  But I am unsure of what else to do for him.  Obviously traditional teething devices used for babies are out, since he would likely just puncture them!

 I caught a picture of him sleeping soundly the other day when he wanted to lay down with me for his nap.  He generally sleeps in his own bed for naps, but I always make exceptions for illness, pain, or nightmares.  Check out how long this child is!  Maybe he has a future in the NBA?  ;-)

Dead to the worldHoly long toddler Batman!

A couple of other cute pictures taken recently.  Brandon and I have really noticed his face especially starting to shed the baby/toddler look and take on a little boy look.  Sigh.  Bittersweet.  :-)

Mommy says I look like a 4 year old in this oneGoofing with Mom

The evolution of love

Published on February 14, 2008 in Family, Marriage and Parenting. 4 Comments

I feel I must issue a warning….this post of long and full of sappy sentiment.  But I really wanted to get it “written” down and I thought I’d share it with you.  I know many of you who read my blog have been down a difficult parenting journey and that it is easy to take our partner for granted.  It is easy sometimes not to see that the love in our relationship has not withered, but rather changed and become enriched.  So, if you feel so inclined, feel free to read on.  I wrote this mostly as a way of thanking my husband for all he does.

I’ve been thinking about how our definition of love changes as we get older and our relationship with our partner matures.  Brandon and I met in November of 1999.  Our first Valentine’s Day together was in 2000.  We were already crazy for each other and discussing marriage.  Brandon planned a lovely series of events to commemorate our first V Day.  I arrived home in my apartment after a business trip, dog-tired from an east coast-west coast non-stop flight.  A huge bouquet of roses greeted with a card and instructions not to make any plans for the Valentine’s weekend.

Brandon took me up to a lovely bed and breakfast that weekend. We snowboarded, had lingering breakfasts and dinners, and he showed himself to be a very romantic soul. I love this man. I love the man that planned romantic dinners and getaways. I love the man who was involved in everything. It seemed that every night there was something happening. Whether it was playing in a basketball league, cooking dinner together, meeting friends out, etc, we were always doing something. I love the man who would surprise me each and every year on V Day with something I didn’t expect.

don's bdayAt the ballgamewaileagolfcourseB & L HaleakalaB & L parasailing gearStanding By Carriage

In February 2004, I was feeling dejected about a trip to Italy that we were planning for that July.  I had been planning on using some frequent flier miles for our tickets to allow us to have the cash we had put aside over the winter for all of the other trip expenses.  I had not really planned ahead far enough for the flights and all the reward seats were full.  I just knew that we didn’t have the money to pay for the tickets and all of the other expenses.  I arrived home on V Day 2004 to a lovely card and a letter he had written about the kind of wife I was.  In it he thanked me for how well I take care of myself and for putting my body into amazing shape to carry the baby we would be planning to start trying for later that year.  He talked about having balance in life.  That it is important to save, to plan, and to spend wisely.  He said it is also important to grab some of life’s moments when you have the chance.  The letter went on to read that soon we would have a curious toddler running around the house and our chance to go to Italy on our own was now or years away.  He didn’t want to wait 20 years to hold my hand as we walked through the Roman ruins or to kiss me on a gondola in Venice.  He wanted to create those memories now.  The letter instructed me to look under our DVD player.  In an envelope under the DVD player was an envelope with enough cash to buy our tickets.  He had cashed in a small amount of stock and decided he wanted this trip for me and for us. 

Brandon in RomeUs in Rome

Us on a bridge in VeniceKissing on a gondola

These are just a few examples of the reasons I fell in love with my husband.  And all of those reasons are important.  But love grows, changes, and deepens.  The true measure of the man I married has really been revealed in the last 2 1/2 years.

We had the pregnancy that started great and ended with an extremely premature baby.  We endured a 15 week NICU stay that was trying in every way possible.

On the day I was released from the hospital (5 days after Aidan’s birth–I was fairly sick and needed a few extra days of monitoring) my post-partum hormones were in full surge.  I knew I was leaving the hospital without my baby and Aidan’s condition (while it has stabilized) was still tenuous.  We had a wonderful primary nurse that arranged for me to hold Aidan for the first time that day.  I will never forget it. 

As we drove away from the hospital later that day I was feeling beaten.  My body felt beaten and my soul felt beaten.  We were driving home without our baby.  This was certainly not how I had planned it.  Everyone’s dream is to come home with their bundle of joy, greeted with bouquets and gifts from well-wishers, and revel in being new parents home with their beautiful baby.  What was there to celebrate about this day for me I wondered.  The answer I came up with was nothing.  What on earth had I done that was worthy of celebration?

I was overcome with emotion when Brandon drove around the first curve into our neighborhood and there it was.  A neighbor had helped him completely deck out the front yard in celebration of the arrival of Aidan.  I was stunned.  I am sure more than one passerby stopped in their tracks (and maybe even backed up to have a second look) when they read the birthweight on that sign.  But that didn’t matter to me.  Somebody (the most important somebody—my husband) was announcing his pride and joy to the world.  He showed me true love at that moment.  I felt like an immense failure, yet he wanted to show me that all I had done to get Aidan to be viable and strong was something he was proud of. 

Aidan has arrived!It's a boy!

On Valentine’s Day 2006, Aidan had been home for about 2 months.  I had done a lot of soul searching about the issue of returning to work.  The conclusion I had come to internally was that I desperately didn’t want to.  On that night, I finally shared with Brandon that I didn’t want to put Aidan in anyone else’s care.  That I thought with his early start that he needed me.  (Not very fair of me to decide to broach this on V Day, huh?  :-) )  I explained the ideas I had come up with to supplement our income while we transitioned to bringing in less money.  The major one involved me cashing in the stock options from the company I worked for.  To my surprise, he said yes.  He said that all my reasons were good ones and that if it was that important to me we needed to try to do it.  He expressed that part of a good partner’s job is to try to help your partner achieve their goals and dreams.  

Brandon never planned to have a SAHM for a wife.  Heck, I never planned it.  I always thought I wouldn’t be good at it, wouldn’t like it.  Brandon has made numerous financial sacrifices along the way, paring back activities such as golfing in order to help us make our budget.  He went back to a very harsh work environment in February of 2006 because it was important to keep me home.  Later that spring, he found a job he was excited about and it came with a raise. 

My husband thinks it is very important for me to have a break, so he always makes time to get me out of the house by myself once a week.  He gladly takes Aidan for the day and they have a grand time together while I unwind and refocus. 

My husband works hard.  When he arrives in the door at 6 from a long day, I know he would love to just go  put his feet up.  He never does.  Ever.  I am sure a bigger part of him would love to be doing what we used to do after work…activities, dinners, sports, etc.  Instead he walks through the door, plants a kiss on me, and scoops Aidan up into his arms with tons of hugs and kisses.  He devotes the next 2 hours to our family.  He entertains Aidan (who has missed him all day) while I put the finishing touches on dinner.  Most nights he takes Aidan duty during dinner…helping Aidan get his food cut up, etc so I can have a break from doing that and enjoy a hot dinner.  He never complains about this.  He takes turns with me every other night reading Aidan bedtime stories and getting him settled into bed.  I admit to many times turning up the monitor just a bit so I can hear the two of them.  Brandon making Aidan giggle and vice versa.  The two of them talking and sharing stories.  Brandon giving Aidan kisses and whispering how much he loves him. 

At least once on the weekend, Brandon wakes up with Aidan and tries to get me some extra rest.  Many times he will be the one to respond in the middle of the night if Aidan needs us.

 The boys are passed out together

THIS is the stuff that men are made of.  This is love.  Not that I don’t love the romance.  I still do.  And Brandon still finds lots of ways to be romantic, but it is tougher once the kids arrive.  The word spontaneous all but ceases to exist.  In truth, romance is so much easier than the daily affirmations of love that my husband performs each and every day of our lives.  I am sure there are times people have thought I don’t deserve him, myself included. 

Deserving or not, I am grateful.  I got lucky.  Sure I chose carefully.  I chose a good looking, athletic, fun-loving, romantic guy.  I got so much more.  So much that is important that is not always on the checklist.  Brandon is loyal, optimistic, supportive, hard working, and most importantly completely in love with his wife and child.  He deeply loves his family and everything he does is part of the bigger plan for our happiness as a family.

The whole family outside Safeco FieldHeading out to Tosoni's restaurantThe family down at the Kirkland waterfrontDad loves Mom

But I definitely got lucky.  I am lucky.

Happy Valentine’s Day Brandon.  I love and appreciate you more than you could know.

Only You

Published on February 11, 2008 in Aidan, Family, HELLP, Marriage, PIH/Preeclampsia, Parenting and Prematurity. 4 Comments

Recently I participated in an online discussion on a preemie group I belong to regarding having a clotting disorder during pregnancy.  The discussion began with a woman asking a question about a subchorionic hemorrhage she had in early pregnancy.  A couple of us advised her to ask her perinatologist about having a thrombophilia panel done since she had had a preemie just a couple of years ago and now this early bleed in her second pregnancy. 

I, too, had a subchorionic hemorrhage in very early pregnancy with Aidan.  About the 6th week along.  It was absorbed by the next ultrasound and was not thought of again until that day in the hospital when I was diagnosed with homozygous Methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase gene mutations, better known as MTHFR.  (For those of you wondering at home, high risk OBs, perinatologists, and antepartum nurses do use *that* word it looks like to describe it.  Sorry have to keep this G-rated.  :-)   Hmmm…I wonder if that early bleed was a sign? 

Anyway…the discussion led to me pointing out that any future pregnancies for me would include daily shots of heparin or lovenox in my stomach.  Ugh.  I know…it isn’t great, folks.  It friggin hurts.  I literally still had bruises on my abdomen 3 months later from those shots.  And I only endured it for the last 2 weeks of my pregnancy once we knew about my disorder.  But I would gladly do it again for another baby…the whole nine months.

Except….that Aidan is our one and only.  How did we come to this decision?  Not lightly.  Not without a lot of soul searching, a lot of tears, and finally a lot of gratitude.

When Brandon and I were starting to talk about children seriously, we discussed how many, spacing, etc and we both stated that we may indeed decide we are happy with only one. 

This disorder makes the decision for us…or rather, the HELLP syndrome that resulted probably was more of a deciding factor.  There is too much that happened that is so scary and so painful, that the idea of repeating it is torturous even to consider.  The first time we found out at 21 weeks that his growth was not on track anymore, but lagging significantly.  The PIH at 24 weeks.  Then the hospitalization at 26 weeks.  The MTHFR diagnosis.  The physically grueling hospital bedrest accompanied by twice daily heparin injections, high flow oxygen, blood pressure meds, so much protein that when I saw my meal tray I thought I would vomit to have to take in so much food, and the 1.5 gallons of water I had to ingest each day.  The daily biophysical profile.  Holding our breath and hoping the umbilical cord flow had not reached reverse diastolic flow.  The 4 c-section scares before it actually happened.  Listening to the fetal monitor and hearing occasional decels.  The night of delivery.  Knowing my liver was about to rupture and wondering if I would ever see Aidan alive since I was going under general anesthesia.  Having to say goodbye to my husband as they wheeled me down the hall to the OR, frightened beyond measure.  Learning later that I bled out—a lot.  That I very nearly died.  And that my husband waited for 40 minutes alone in the hallway not knowing the fate of his family. 

The wondering of the next couple of years was just as difficult.  Will Aidan meet his milestones?  Will he have disabilities and what will they be? 

This kind of thing is also hard on a marriage.  Most people don’t talk about this.  And honestly, I think a lot of people who know us would be surprised to learn that all of this stress strained our marriage immensely.  But it did.  We each had our own personal brand of grief and PTSD we dealt with and we lived a lot of the first 2 years of Aidan’s life in a kind of survivor mode.  Don’t get me wrong, we have had wonderful times as a family.  But it is just recently that we have both started to let our guard down and take inventory of what an experience as scary as this was does to you.  Brandon and I are in a wonderful place again in our relationship and the idea of putting our relationship through that again makes me shiver.

Do we ever want another child?  Sometimes.  We love being parents.  Aidan is amazing.  So far, he has no significant problems lingering today from his premature beginning.  That doesn’t mean we couldn’t see some issues like ADHD surface later as it is about twice as common in preemies. 

Sometimes when we watch Aidan play alone, we feel the urge.  We think it would be nice for him to have a playmate.  But I don’t think it is essential.  Often times when he plays alone it is because he wants some space.  Brandon and I play with him a lot.  He goes to playgroups.  Sometimes Aidan will leave what he and I are playing with and just go grab a book and ”read” to himself.  I think even toddlers sometimes want their space.

Sometimes I want vindication.  I want to carry a baby to term.  I want to get big and pregnant.  I want a baby shower.  I want my husband and I to be present during our child’s delivery.  I want to breastfeed successfully.  I will admit there are times that I want a do-over.  But there are no do-overs in this realm of parenting.  We can’t change what has been by having another.  Wanting those experiences is not the right reason to have another child.  

The idea of this possibly happening again terrifies me.  It terrifies Brandon.  There are no guarantees.  Aidan and I almost died.  Period.  The idea of having another very early preemie terrifies me.  The idea of having a baby with an outcome vastly worse than Aidan’s terrifies me.  The idea of leaving Brandon to raise Aidan alone is just too much for me to bear.  Don’t get me wrong.  He could handle it.  He would do a wonderful job.  But Aidan deserves to have us both.  And more importantly, he deserves to have us as we currently are.  Happily married.  There is no guarantee that would remain the same if we had to endure something this stressful again. 

So what am I left with?  I have been thinking about this a lot.  I am left with *gratitude*. 

  • I am grateful I didn’t die in that OR. 
  • I am grateful my son is alive. 
  • I am grateful my son is a vibrant, loving, rambunctious 2 year old boy.
  • I am grateful my marriage survived something that ends many.
  • I am grateful for my 2 “boys”.  I have more love than any woman has a right to have. 

I was thinking of an old Elvis Presley song I love and it captures how much I love both my only son and my only love.  So to both of my “boys” (Brandon and Aidan):

“For it’s true
You are my destiny.
When you hold my hand, I understand
The magic that you do,
You’re my dream come true,
My one and only you.”

My two boys...aren't they the cutestHi Mom...we've been playing with the hoseKiss for DaddyWe have lots of these days in our future son

Enjoying every snuggle

Published on February 6, 2008 in Aidan and Parenting. 1 Comment

Aidan had a bit of a head cold over the weekend.  No coughing, just congestion, a runny nose, low appetite, and occasional vomiting from a tummy upset by all the cold mucus in it.  He is on the mend now and is running me ragged like his normal self.  He was especially clingy over the few days of illness.  Not surprising, yet very sweet.  It is tiring when your child is sick.  Very little sleep for them and very little for you.  He did a bit of sleeping with us off and on over the nights he was sick.  I laid him down for a nap one of the days in his own bed and he emerged not very long thereafter.  I was laying in my bed not really sleeping but trying to at least rest if I could not catch a nap. 

 He approached the bed and while rubbing his eyes said sweetly, “Snuggle with Mama.” 

“Of course buddy.  Come snuggle in with Mama.”  I helped him scale up into bed with me, got him snuggled into me, and gave him kisses.  I whispered quietly, “Mama’s here.  Mama snuggle.”

 He smiled sweetly and melted into me.  Even though he was terribly congested, his breathing seemed to clear a bit and he was asleep in less than a minute.  He slept like a rock for the next 2 hours.  I laid there half listening to political talk on MSNBC but mostly taking him in.  The softness of his skin, feeling the whisper of his hair against my cheek and feeling his now relaxed breathing against me. 

Then it hit me.  There is going to be a day that Aidan doesn’t want or need me to do this for him.  It made me kind of sad.  Those moments with your children are what make the tantrums, sleepless nights, snotty noses, etc all worth it.  But it also made me happy.  There will be a day Aidan doesn’t need me.  Not in the current sense of the word anyway.  What more could I have hoped for when he was born so small and so early but that he would grow up and carve his own path in life?

I pulled out a poem my mother-in-law sent to me when Aidan was first born.  I read it carefully and it filled me up.  It speaks so beautifully to our purpose as parents.  It makes me proud to be his mom.  I am excited to see what kind of person he becomes and what his future holds. 

But not yet.  For now I’ll take all the snuggles I can get.

Here is the poem:

On Children
Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let our bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

IMG_0759Mommy has her boy homeRemember how small this hand once was?