Adding up to Three

I suppose the best place to start is at the beginning.

As I was waking up on the morning of Friday, February 23, 2012, before my mind even struck consciousness, the tiniest whisper of a thought crossed my awareness: "you will have a third son when this one is two years old".

My belly was almost 28 weeks round with baby A, whom I was content to have be my last.  Two and done.  But suddenly the door I had hoped to close was lodged decidedly and firmly open.  My first conscious thought in response was "you've gotta be kiddin' me!"

I've long held out hope for a March baby.  A fish of our own!  So, when June 2013 came along, I got all weird and thoughtful and "is this our 'when'?".  We weren't anywhere near ready and decided it wasn't.  And then, I actually felt it.  A push.  A big push.  From our #3.  But since A had only barely turned a year old and I had just stopped pumping, I was all "give me just a minute!" By which, I meant "wait until October," obviously.

Two short months later, M came to me saying he had felt the push.  Baby gave up on me, and went to him, I guess.  And so, we finally paid attention and got two pink lines in early September.

I was finally done slogging through the first trimester affliction when we got news that something was wrong with our baby.  I quickly realized the second trimester couldn't save me now; I would never feel "safe".

It started the day I found out our supposed "he" was actually a "she".  Not a third son, an only girl.  "But," I thought - and then later gained the courage to say out loud to M -"it was supposed to be a son. . . does that mean we're going to lose this girl?"   I've worried every day since about something happening to this baby girl.  I've prayed, I've hoped, I've decided that it's not the first time I've been confused about revelation.  Gradually, that giant fear shrank, even if a little, and I was able to push it to the background.

But when someone - a specialist - gives voice and reason to your deepest, darkest fear, it rushes forth from the shadowlands of your heart and mind and sits firmly in the light for you to examine in all its frightening ugliness.

That happened last Friday.  What I had finally set aside as something I myself had manufactured in my mother-worry now became a harrowingly real possibility.  It cracked my psyche and I still haven't recovered. 

This past weekend, in trying to plan for how to dress this little one, whose arms and legs will be immovable (at first) and oddly positioned - meaning no onesies, no pants, no shoes - I decided to sew some tiny dresses.  I pulled out my fabric, printed and cut out the patterns, and matched them all up.  Then, I stopped.  I thought about that awful, unthinkable "what if" (again) and decided my fragile psyche would surely crumble apart at the sight of completed baby girl dresses that might never be worn.

This experience has already changed me in many ways.  I wonder often about being equal to the task of being the mother/advocate/caretaker for a special needs child.  I wonder about the alternative: never having that opportunity. 

And I think about my boys.  Yesterday, I realized how this has even permeated my interactions with them.  I find myself being more patient with them, and then silently thinking "See?"

Yesterday, I was praying about a lot of things, including this baby, and I uttered for the first time a truth I didn't even know existed about those "See?" moments...

I'm trying to prove that I'm worthy of her.

I'm trying to show I can do it.  That I am good enough to have her here with me.

And I suppose part of that is conquering the unspeakable fear.

So, today, I'm going to sew those dresses.  

~Nichole