The circle goes on.
My mom sent me a few pictures of me, my parents and my grandparents this week. It is amazing to see such old pictures, and to see the love my mom and dad had for each other, before they had kids. They were all smiles, and hand holding, the things young lovers do in pictures. My mom looked so young it shocked me, and truthfully, I was a bit jealous. She looked much more carefree than I ever felt, but I also know that was the illusion she was projecting for the camera, my mom has never been “carefree”.
Seriously though, looking at all the old pictures really put me in a reflective place. I can see my kids in my grandparents, see resemblance's of distant family, and most shocking of all was seeing pictures of me when I was 2 1/2 which is my daughters age, we could have been twins.
So this leads to what do I wish for my kids. I wish them a happy life. I want my son to grow tall like his daddy, but be more driven like me. I wish for my daughter that she get’s her fathers legs and my hair. That she is independant like me, and rebellious. She is a risk taker, and as much as I think that should scare me, it thrills me.
She has such a rough start, I’m not sure if I have blogged about this, but both of my kids were preemies. My daughter was the sicker of the two by far.
She was 15 inches long, and weighed 2lbs 5.60z and spent 8 weeks in the NICU..she came home on an apnea monitor, oxygen 24 hours a day for 6 months, under the care of a pediatric cardiologist. She was very sick and frail, but at the same time, my little tiny baby girl was a fighter beyond fighters.
I look at her now with her curly blond hair, and spunky blue eyes, and I often think, she has no fear, she has already beat the odds, she knows this in her soul. She is not scared of life, she revels in it. She likes to get dirty, she is a tomboy like me, I have always been a tomboy. Sure I like some girly things, but give me my levi’s a comfy pair of Keens, and a great cotton sweater and I’m all set.
It’s fun to see my baby girl as a fearless child who has the strength and tenacity to move herself so far in such a short time.
My son was a preemie as well, he was 3lbs, and spent 27 days in the NICU. He had a much easier go of it, he wasn’t sick like my daughter was, he just needed to grow and coordinate his body systems, we took him home from the hospital before he was 4lbs.
But looking back, I was so much more frightened with my son. I felt like someone dropped me off in the twilight zone. Add a first preemie baby, and the death of my beloved father in 6 months, and it added up to one super overwhelmed mamma. I didn’t put my son down for probably 6 months. I slept with him on my chest in our recliner.
With my daughter, even though the actual situation was much worse, I was so much sicker myself, she was so much sicker.
The NICU was 100 miles from our home, and we ended up camping in our trailer for 2 months because I couldn’t leave her, and add on top of that a two year old who still needed us. But this situation was much easier actually. I wasn’t as scared. I knew what went on in the NICU. I knew the language, the procedures. I wasn’t as confused.
I made it through less scarred than with my son, as well as having a stronger sense of myself as a mother who knew what she was doing. I had to argue myself silly with her doctors because I didn’t agree with what they were saying. I insisted on nursing her, even though they told me it would be harder on her, (it wasn’t, it was easier for her), I went round and round with the Dr’s and Nurses, grateful I was an older mother who could hold my own in a stressful situation. I felt bad for the young teen mothers in there who had no idea what to do, and just took for granted what the doctors told them.
So it boils down to this I think.
My son, is so like me because he is an emotional feeler, he is a noticer, he is smart smart smart. He loves to cuddle, and wants to still crawl in bed with me.
My daughter, she is tenacious, she is strong, bold and outgoing. She takes life on her own terms, and will boldly go where her brother has not.
I managed to bear the two most beautiful kids ever. But then, they have a lot of history they have yet to learn.
Peace,
OC
Don't they though? I still remember the first night home from the hospital, me perched on the arm of the couch like a stressed out cat and when my milk came in. She cried, I sat straight up in bed and gushed. :) I called her my miracle baby because I had a fibroid tumor in my womb at the same time she was in there. I ended up having surgery when I was six months pregnant.
ReplyDeleteGood going! Great post.
Like Zirelda, I feel as if Liv was a miracle. I was 41 when she was born and a mother against all the odds.
ReplyDeleteShe wasn't a preemie, was a full 7 lbs, 7 ozs, but I was terrified. I honestly felt like getting our new fridge, I at least had an instruction booklet. With her, I was scared out of my head constantly. I went back to work full time and brought her to daycare at my office and my first day back at work, even though she was right down the hall, you would have thought that I had left her with a blind beggar woman on the street, I was sneaking into my bathroom to weep, missing her so much.
I always wanted another child, but I am now 49 and have a partner who has zilch interest in raising another child with me.
Aren't we lucky ducks, though?