The things you think about…

**Disclaimer: this is pure babble.

When I was in the depths of my freakout the other morning, and by depths, I mean calmly walking to the basement to dig through an old purse to find a maxi pad, and grabbing paper towels and ziplock bags in case I needed to retrieve tissue, I said to myself over and over again “Please let them be ok. Please let them be ok. Please PLEASE let them be ok.” I wouldn’t call it a prayer, as much as it was a mantra, but saying it helped to keep me even, and calm.

Once we were at the hospital, and things were getting real, and especially after Ed had to leave to get the kids to school, I started thinking thoughts of “What will I do if this was all for nothing?”

It’s not a secret that I was conflicted, first about being pregnant, when all I’ve said for years is that I wanted just one more. When faced with it though, the very first thing I thought was that things are good the way they are. I cried.  I processed. And after a few days, I was good.  Better than good.  So happy to be adding to our family. Really.  And then we found out that it was 2 babies, and my husband was so excited he was pretty much dancing on the ceiling, and my only emotion was shock. Pure and unadulterated shock. And it took me a few days of processing, pacing, not sleeping and not eating to make myself be ok with it.  Not that I ever had any questions about whether or not I would love a baby, or 2 babies, or even 7 babies because of course I would, and already did on some level, BUT because if ever there was a time for a major freakout, if ever I knew that our lives would be in a complete upheaval, I knew this was it.  And I do not deal with upheaval very well.  By nature, I am calm, even and smooth.  I hate surprises.  HATE. This was anything but calm and unsurprising.  I’m babbling, I know, but the point is that it took me a few days to settle and process the new information and move forward with a plan and to really be ok and believe that 2 babies and 5 kids in total was the way it was supposed to be.

And then after that, I comforted myself with thoughts along the lines of “this is the last time I ever have to…” You know, have nausea, feel the round ligament pain, feel the belly stretching in general, I can finally get this umbilical hernia repaired, soon I can take good drugs again and forever after. The usual, I suppose.  The point being that I knew without a doubt that this was my very last pregnancy.  There was no more uncertainty that our family would not be complete, that anyone would be missing.  We would be done.  We would all be here.  We would take permanent measures to ensure that would be true. I knew for certain that babymaking and growing, and incubation, the Incubation Nation as it were, would be OVER.

So then we had Monday and it left me with thoughts along the lines of “What will I do if I lose these babies?” And seriously, what would I do? Be done? Just give up, and be content with our family as it is today? I’d already made peace with never being pregnant again.  If the end result of said pregnancy happened to be no babies, would I be willing to risk it all and try again? AND lets say I did try again, and we had one baby, would I want to have a 5th since I now have 5 stuck in my head as “our number”? I have no idea.  No idea no idea no idea.  I had a hard time reconciling that ll the sickness and pregnancy bullshit could have possibly been for nothing, which was why, along with the fact that I finally realized, FINALLY(!) that I am so attached to these babies, I kept going with my mantra of “Please let them be ok. Please let them be ok. Please PLEASE let them be ok.” I didn’t know what else to do.

And so now we are here, with things seeming to be fine. 2 healthy babies and the end of our first trimester. And I want to be happy and calm and a chill as I ever was, but I’ve sort of transformed into this girl on edge.  I’ve only had the slightest scare. Nothing happened.  But what if it gets worse?  What will we do then? I’m pretty sure that I won’t take a true deep and calm breath until these babies are here and healthy.  And then what? Worry for the rest of their lives of course. Or the rest of my life anyway.

What if? What If? WHAT IF? Seriously, I just don’t know.  These are the times that I hate that life does not have a road map, I hate not knowing and I hate that I have been shaken and that I’m struggling to be calm through all of this and live a normal life when inside I am screaming “OMG WHAT IF”.

Seriously.  OMG, WHAT IF.