Baby Thoughts

I realize I just dropped the baby bomb a couple weeks ago and haven’t said much about it since.  Getting through the early stages of pregnancy was tough–it seemed that the nausea was worse this time around and thus everything slowed down quite a bit.  Like get-the-kids-breakfast-then-put-on-a-movie-and-go-back-to-bed-for-2-hours slowed down.  Of course you may have noticed the blog has slowed down as well.  And that’s fine.  While I’m feeling a lot better, the first trimester sorta set the pace for our lives right now.  Besides, it’s summa’ time.  Life is supposed to slow down.

Being in my second trimester and having 2 other children I find myself not actually thinking that much about being pregnant.  I was a little worried about feeling so disconnected to this baby, but I’ve heard from a couple of friends that they felt the same way with their 3rd as life was just busier.  Both friends also said that when we find out the gender (which we should be finding out soon!) I’ll have more of a connection.  I agree.  But that’s all normal pregnancy stuff.  Let’s address what I imagine some of you must be wondering.

Am I nervous?  Am I scared?  While Lamp is an amazing little girl and I thank God (literally) every day for the gift of her presence in our family, pregnancy and the initial news of her differences during that pregnancy was pretty tough.  So yes.  I was nervous and I was scared.

Because of our history we’ve already had a level 2 ultrasound.  (Technically speaking I can’t really explain what a level 2 ultrasound is, but I know it’s a more detailed and accurate ultrasound than your average ultrasound.  It works just the same as a regular ultrasound and from my untrained eye looks much the same as well–so honestly unless you’re a professional I don’t think you’d really notice a difference).  It’s funny because going into it B and I had different concerns but didn’t really realize that until it was over.  He was more concerned about a reoccurrence of limb issues while I was more concerned about something new and different cropping up.  Limbs differences I know and they don’t really worry me.  However, remembering that unknown feeling and that no-idea-what-the-future-holds feeling from Lamp’s pregnancy does scare me a little.  At least it did.

We had the ultrasound and so far so good.  At the time the baby was still very early and the only real thing we would have been able to tell would be general anatomy–and again, so far so good.  Right before the scan we were joking, C’mon Doc… just give us one hand!  In our world if you have at least one hand you can do anything!  After the ultrasound we sat down with the Doc and that’s when we talked about our worries and fears.  The Dr. reassured us that everything was looking good so far and that we (I) really shouldn’t worry about anything else.  He reminded us that our chances for complications are very low.  The worrying part of my brain was like, But, but… you’re not God, you can’t give me any guarantees… and I wanted to go right on ahead worrying.  You see, worrying is one of my defense mechanisms.  If I worry enough about it now, then it won’t sting so much when the bad things actually happens.  Luckily reason and sanity won out.  Sometimes it’s hard for me to step away from my good friend worry, but I’ve come to realize that the things I’ve worried about the most haven’t ever actually happened.  And if they did happen, worry doesn’t actually protect me from any of the hurt or pain–it simply robs me of my joy now.  Not only that, but one of the most remarkable lessons I learned from my pregnancy with Lamp was that I didn’t not react the way I thought I would have.  You really don’t know how you will react to something until it actually happens to you.  For better or for worse.  In Lamp’s case, it was mostly for the better.

And then I thought about all my spotlight-ees.  And I remembered everything I’ve learned from my fellow special needs families.  And I remembered the love.  And I know that no matter what, things will be OK.  Even when OK looks different from what we thought it would be.

Kids are still kids and love is still love and life is still life.
Regardless of how this pregnancy turns out I’ll still have trials and blessings, good and bad, ups and downs.  Lindsay Lohans and Audrey Hepburns.  You know what I’m saying.
 
The truth is none of us have any guarantees of anything in this life.
That thought used to terrify me, but now I’m trying to let it set me free.

*****
ps.  The girls are thrilled!  So far the general feeling is that it’s a boy, although Lamp did express some concern about it being a crocodile.  Personally I’m not feeling strongly either way.  What do you think it is?  It would be fun to hear your guesses.