During Charlotte's first month on the outside with us, I've not been able to blog as much as I ordinarily would but I'm okay with that as I've been busy snuggling our cutie patootie. If I had spent more time blogging I wouldn't have noticed the way her dark violet blue eyes are seeming to get lighter. They are still dark blue but not as purple now that she she is four weeks old. Or I wouldn't have observed how red her skin gets when she's fussing up a storm yet how pale she turns when she is perfectly relaxed. Her skin is almost a translucent white when she is calm and content as she naps. I wouldn't have enjoyed seeing how alert she has become in the last month and how from an early age, she has held up her head and turns to see what is above her prompting me to call her "overachiever" and her Uncle Patrick to say it's #themeganway. LOL! I wouldn't have been able to laugh at Adam's calling her the "Milk Monster" over her eager consumption of it. While on that subject, it's okay to call her the "Milk Monster" but not an "Overachiever"??! Humpf! In all seriousness though, here are some random thoughts I was able to jot down over the last four weeks between diaper changes, feedings, cuddling, some tears (both baby's and mama's), doctor appointments, naps, fighting of infections/a bad cold (Mom's), visits from family and friends, and just generally trying to get used to this new "normal":
- Be grateful for whom we have. Charlotte IS enough. She is more than enough as we’re promised
nothing in this world.
- Adam is sad too and had to give up his dreams of teaching a
son things. He is more even keeled than
I am though. As a side note, recently I said to him, "Well, I guess God knew
what He was doing when He put us together, huh?" meaning that Adam has
the temperament to roll with the punches and deal with my ever changing
roller coaster of emotions to which he said, "Either that, or He thought
this should be fun" gesturing randomly putting us together...ah gotta
love that hubby of mine!
- At least we know the
number of children we will ever have. We aren’t struggling with
infertility or wondering why we aren’t getting pregnant again because we know
the number and there should be some solace in that.
- Why did I have all the practice and experience with my niece
and nephews and other children I babysat if we were only going to have
one?? Maybe precisely because of
that. Or maybe it was to help Adam who
had zero experience.
- I would have tried to enjoy the pregnancy all the more had I
realized it was the only time we would get to experience it…maybe have
maternity photos with Adam taken? Relish
it a bit more toward the end instead of focusing on how uncomfortable I was.
- 3 weeks old on
Monday, 03/28: In the last week,
Charlotte has started grabbing onto fingers, especially as she feeds, which is
really cute. She is also lifting her
head and really alert taking everything in around her visually. I love the way she is soaking up everything
around her! We also bought a bookshelf
for Charlotte’s room this past week. It is mint green with flowers on it. I saw it in an online yard sale in the Moms
group I’m a part of on Facebook and was so glad to acquire this shelf as it
goes beautifully with the nature and floral theme we have going on in the St.
Francis room. I can just imagine
Charlotte using this beautiful bookcase as she gets older and hope she likes
it!
As for me, it seems like each week, there is something
different going on with me. This week,
it is the pooping. Diahrrea will come
with no warning and I’m left trying to get to a bathroom on time. This is making me not want to eat and afraid
to venture too far from the restroom. I’m
getting close to the end of my stool softener meds so I wonder what will happen
once I finish that particular medication.
I also read last night that problems with the bowels are common with
c-sections. Oh joy! While I didn't exactly have a c-section, I did have a surgery that resulted in a similar scar and similar symptoms.
The best piece of advice I heard this past week came from
the second person to deliver us a meal.
She said that baby changes his or her schedule every two weeks so there
is no point in worrying or fussing over something baby-related because chances
are that within two weeks, it will change anyhow. She said this in response to my wondering
aloud how Adam and I would tackle the late night wake-ups once I return to work
in August. For now, Adam starts with the
earlier shifts but then I take over during the later shifts during the work
week due to Adam working and my being off from work at the moment. However, once I return to work, I, too, will
be needing to get more rest/sleep due to having work the next day. However, Chrissy reminded me that Charlotte
will be on a different schedule/routine at that point so no need to
wonder/worry now. I like that advice!!
I want it all back…I want who I was before when the
possibility of having a large family was endless and the questions that went through out minds were how
many children and how soon? Last night, I was struck by the sadness of how expectant and full of hope we were during our honeymoon in Williamsburg, VA. That entire week was full of promise and joy as we wondered if we might have conceived. During our courtship and in the months leading up to the wedding, especially as Adam moved to the East Coast and we were able to be in the same town, it was so hard remaining chaste until our wedding night but we did it. We wanted to offer each other that gift of total self giving in only the way a bride and groom can. Last night, I cried for the loss of that hope and expectant waiting in wondering if we would be blessed with another life after that act of unity with my husband in the future and I thought of how fleeting those moments actually were with marrying in late May and finding out in early July we were well on our way. I thought of how I want my old life
back to go back to those feelings…but then we wouldn’t have dear precious Charlotte and I would never want to wish that away ever. So, my brain and heart are learning to accept that we will have those feelings again but in a different way. They will come in the form of wonder and hope and waiting for other things as God wills it.
Then I think if I had realized that this would have been the only time I
would carry a child, I wonder if I would have embraced pregnancy all the
more even though in hindsight, I did try to relish the moments. Then again, hindsight is 20/20 and I wish I would have taken more
pictures especially toward the end of the pregnancy as I wasn’t feeling
particularly attractive by the 8th and 9th months. However, if I had realized it was going to be
the only time of looking that way and being able to feel all the movements and
flutters within me, I wonder if I would have taken the time to really embrace
and hold on to it all the more rather than looking forward to the day when I
would no longer be pregnant for the time being. I remember,
toward the end, being so excited to finally meet this little one but also a
small part of me was looking forward to not having this extra weight, to
limiting myself to sleeping only on my side, to being SO slow moving….
Yesterday was exactly four weeks since everything
happened. Monday nights, between 7 and
9pm, are when it hits me the hardest. I
am taken right back to that evening on March 7th and the whole night
unfolds in my mind like a movie on a continuous loop that I keep replaying in
my head over and over no matter what I do to try to stop thinking of it. I imagine what it must have been like for my
parents and for Adam to sit in the waiting room in the hospital. I think of how it must have felt for the
doctor to ask Adam, “How many children did you and Megan plan to have?” as the
opening line in the conversation that led to her telling him they needed to
perform a hysterectomy to save my life.
I think of what it must have been like for Adam to sit there on the hard
windowsill next to the tiny doctor who was telling him such big news…the weight
of it all and then to have to walk into the operating room dressed in scrubs to
watch the doctor deliver that same news to his wife and then needing to be the pillar of strength he was (and has been since). I
imagine what it must have been like for little Charlotte, only hours
old, to be in the nursery or at the nursing station instead of cradled in her
mom’s or her dad’s arms at that very moment.
I think of how tired the doctors and other medical staff must have been
from a full day’s work and then to be conducting an unplanned surgery on a
young new mother. I think of all the
folks who incredulously said that evening and in the days following, “Wait you mean to say you delivered your first
baby today without meds and vaginally and now you’re undergoing surgery?” and
then shook their heads in amazement. I
think of my brothers expressing anger and disbelief over the phone lines as my
parents filled them in on what was happening.
I think of what one of my sisters-in-law in CA said about feeling so
helpless being so far away but how they were happy to hear that my parents were
able to be there and provide Adam with the support he needed during that long
night. I think of the constant prayers and thoughts of all those, near and far, who sustained us through all that has happened in the last month. All these things play through my
mind like scenes from a movie as I relive this scenario most especially on
Monday nights. This is a carousel I don’t
want to be on as I don’t want to
go round and round thinking these thoughts over and over stuck in the cycle of grief…I don’t want to think
of the fact that the only option other than to take the uterus was to let me
bleed to death that night. I don’t want to think of
Adam as being a single dad or of Charlotte being without a mom. Fortunately, that isn’t the case thanks to
the quick acting and quick thinking medical staff and lots of prayers.
Last night, as the tears fell during the middle of the night
feeding and I reflected on who and what all we do have (which is so very much and yes,
I’m so incredibly thankful for all of it and all that is to come as I realize
it is more than others have and what others so desperately would love to have
as well), I realized that part of what I’m grieving for is the memory of
growing up I have as a child. So much of my childhood is entrenched in and
rooted in my relationships with my siblings and to experience anything else seems to me that it would be lonely.
From playing silly made up games to experiencing vivid shared memories
of people and places from our past, my brothers are so much a part of who I am
today and I am grieving that Charlotte won’t experience that first hand with
her own brothers and sisters. Mom reminded me however, that she gets to decide what that will be for her. I should not impose my expectations of what it will be like for her on her. Just because she will be an only child doesn’t mean she won’t have a loving and beautiful childhood of her
own. It simply means it will look
different from what her Dad and I experienced and that’s okay too. She will hopefully be able to build her own
memories with her cousins and with her friends she will make. Maybe her Dad and I will be able to provide
her with siblings in another way in the future or maybe we will always be a
small family of just three (well, humans that is…there is no guarantee of the
number of furry siblings considering we already have two pups at the moment ~ ha!). As Adam gently reminded me the other week, we
always said we were open to “however many children God blessed us with” when
folks would ask us how many children we planned to have. Well, now we have our answer. We know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that
we are blessed with one beautiful miraculous little girl we get to call our own
sweet little Charlotte Ann. So what if when I said, “As
many as we’re blessed to have” that I envisioned a house busting at the seams
with noisy little children running underfoot.
So what if I took it for granted we would have at least one boy and one
girl. So what if I said one thing but
believed another. Isn’t that how it is….it’s
easy to say we are accepting of God’s will as long as that will coincides with
our own desires or wants! What a lesson
Charlotte’s birth is in accepting, or striving towards that acceptance, and moving
on with our lives for me.
Last night, when venting to Adam my frustration at the fact
that we “did everything the way we were supposed to, we were responsible, we
made sure we were prepared (or tried to anyway), and it’s not fair” when
thinking of individuals who have children in less than ideal circumstances
compared to our story and he said, but we were never promised that we would get what
we wanted if we did that. Amen to this
insight…who are we to think that we should have something or get something
simply because we want it?? When talking
with my Mom the other week, I said how it seemed so unfair that I had all those
years of helping to care for my niece and nephews, being a nanny to others, the
years and years of babysitting as a little girl myself up to in my 30s….to lead up to this…that what I had thought were
years of preparing me to have my own family of many children, that maybe God
gave me those instances because He knew I wouldn’t have those opportunities
down the line? Maybe that was specifically why I had
spent all those summers helping with my NC niece/nephews? Maybe that is why I went into the education profession? Perhaps I do what I do because it’s a way to
be spiritual mother to many (of all ages) since I can’t be physical mother to more than one and that is enough. I keep coming back to that. It is enough. Thinking back over Adam’s past, he doesn’t
have a lot of experience with the itty bitty ones but he was in a long term
relationship with a gal who had several school aged children that he helped out
with well into their teen years. Now, he’s
getting the chance to experience fatherhood in a different way through birthing
Charlotte and caring for a tender newborn.
I believe there is a fine line between the desires God places in our
hearts and us, as humans, simply wanting something for the sake of wanting
it. I think God places the desires in
our hearts but the way he fulfills those desires is what may differ from our
expectations and where some folks may struggle in accepting those differences
(myself included). We often have these
preconceived notions of what we think the outcome will look like and expect
that outcome that when the end result is different from what was expected we
struggle with it. This was the epiphany
I had last night as I cradled Charlotte in my arms and she drifted off to sleep
in the dark living room. I couldn’t see
the cross on the wall over the entryway to the dining room since it was dark
but I knew it was there. I can’t feel
God right now due to the despair, darkness, and heavy grief, but I know He’s
there. So we’re not going to have the
large family we had prayed for and Charlotte isn’t going to be the take charge
fearless leader of a large brood of kiddos but I have a feeling she is going to
make a mark on the world in her own special way anyhow. ; )
This was evident as she stirred from her afternoon nap and both
of her furry brothers lept up to her side on the living room chair where she
was cozily nestled to investigate their little sister.
