Sometimes life doesn't go quite as planned but most of the time, when I look back at the end of it all, the detour took me somewhere amazing. I had been divorced for over a year and suddenly realized that I was really ready to start again. No more dating people that I know are not for me before I even meet them. Dating was this complex maze of scheduling. I was determined that my kids not be around anyone I was dating unless I knew he was "the one". My ex husband was and still is, well.... how he is and as a result I have them most of them time. This made getting to know someone very complicated. There were several guys who gave up before I could even fit in a second date. This wasn't something I was willing to budge on. I met a parade of men and women growing up that weren't my mom or dad's s/o for more than a minute so I know how that feels.
Mostly as a joke, I posted an ad that said, "Lets skip the dating part and go right to forever" I didn't realize how many other people out there wanted a complete life that was full of unwavering and unconditional commitment and wasn't interested in frivolous dating with people that they didn't miss after they were gone.
One reply came that touched my heart. I knew as I replied that I needed this person and he needed me and the hope would be that once he didn't need me anymore, we still liked each other. I knew that starting this type of relationship was playing with fire and that the potential for two people to get hurt was really high. I guess I have the its better to have loved and lost then never to have loved at all so I went for it.
You know the instant I saw him, I knew he was the one for me and I mean I knew. I argued with myself. I told me that he was unavailable and that it was too soon and that my loneliness was playing tricks on me but almost two years later, I suppose my intuition, like normal, knew what it was talking about. :)
We began squeezing as much time in with each other as we could and in a shorter time than I would like to admit, I caved and introduced him and his kids to mine. We went to the park together. I was really impressed with how easy our family blending seemed to be. Of course every day since then has not been sunshine and roses but at least, there has been an every day since then and my kids have not had to experience the loss of a boyfriend.
We talked about whether we wanted more children. I had 2 girls and a boy and he had 2 boys. This seemed like a full house to me. (pun intended) We both decided that we were full and began with making long-term birth control plans. Who would have guessed that in spite of our best efforts, we would find ourselves pregnant.
Another thing I hate to admit is, I was mortified. The thought of having more children in our household seemed overwhelming and expensive and exhausting and I just couldn't quite come to terms with the fact that there would be another.
Then shocker number 2: At the first ultrasound, I looked at the screen and saw two little circles side by side. Now I know it had been a long time since my last ultrasound, but I was pretty sure this wasn't right. Seriously???? There were two in there????? Seriously?
Now I know there are those of you who will condemn that. You will think that I should have been overjoyed at the prospect of having twins or any babies for that matter, no matter what the circumstance. That's fine. You can think I am lacking maternal instincts or that I am a horrible person but that wont change the fact that every part of my being was determined to protect those little babies growing inside of me and regardless of whether I wanted them or not, they were going to get here as safely as possible. There would be nothing going into my body or around my body that could be detrimental to them and they would listen to me sing them and talk to them and their sisters and brothers as well.
It continued to get complicated from there because of course if something is hard it must get harder. Does anyone know why this is? Towards the end of my first trimester, my daughters came home from school with 5th disease and of course I couldn't have been one of the majority of people who had already had it so I caught it. This was very scary to me. It could mean serious ramifications for my little babies :( I was also concerned with the fact that they have to monitor the babies regularly to watch for signs that they have contracted it from me. If in fact they did, the mortality rate is really high and the best chance to save them would be to catch it sooner rather than later. It seems that so many ultrasounds must not be good for my babies but when I weighed this against the alternative that they would die if they contracted it and became anemic and were untreated.
Thankfully, they did not contract it. :) Next I got Whooping cough which wasn't dangerous to my precious babes but not something you want to do while pregnant. I promise. Then I got the flu. Would you believe that I never get sick. Never catch anything from my kids. Suddenly I am hit with three things in three months. So life goes.
Then at 16 weeks, I started having contractions to add to the bleeding I had the whole time. I was sure I was gonna lose them and suddenly I realized that I loved them, needed them and wanted them and had for sometime. Who would have thought that my plans could change so dramatically. What was important to me could be modified. What I needed and wanted could be altered so drastically from just a few weeks before. I began bed rest which I followed! I did nothing. It was hard to lay on the couch while someone else cooked for my kids. Someone else tucked them into bed. Someone else cleaned my bathtub.
I couldn't imagine doing that for 20 more weeks. I hated it. I knew that if there was any chance of keeping those babes in there, that it would require rest and hydration so I tried my best to accomplish this. The sad fact is that looking back I wish I could have had 20 weeks of bed rest. I would even settle for 15. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts; my water broke at 29 weeks and that was all she wrote. They tried their best at the hospital to stop my labor. Everyone knew that it was way too early. We weren't prepared for that and hadn't even had the steroid shots to strengthen their lungs. Ultimately, ready or not, here they come.
Rosabella was born weighing in at 2 pounds 12 ounces and her younger brother Bryson came into this world at 3 pounds. We have many things to be thankful for. Given the gestation and the lack of any help to these babies, they did remarkably well and were amazingly healthy. Don't let me confuse you. We did our time at the NICU but that is part of a different chapter of our story. This is the end of chapter one because now our household has become some crazy, noisy, fun, interesting, modern day form of the Brady Bunch with Devan, Christopher, Logan, Brenna-Leigh, Sadie, Rosabella and Bryson.
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