Two is Enough! Two is Enough!
For new readers out there, I am going to recap my pregnancies.
First there was Mike. During his pregnancy, I developed high-blood pressure – like stroke-level high-blood pressure. And then? Then, Mike repositioned himself so that his forehead was resting against a bunch of open nerve endings at the base of my spine, which essentially left me a parapalegic for the last month of my pregnancy. I had to crawl, CRAWL, to go to the bathroom, which I did approximately every twelve minutes. And one day, when I couldn’t take it anymore and just had to leave my house, we went to Costco. And because I couldn’t walk, I had to ride in an Amigo.
An Amigo with an orange flag flying behind me.
A couple of days after my Amigo adventure, my doctor induced labor due to the high blood pressure. Which meant that they shoved a balloon up my vagina and inflated it. The next morning, they stuck an IV in my arm and started pumping me full of a synthetic hormone to get labor going. Labor without synthetic hormones is not exactly what I would call a walk in the park. But labor with synthetic hormones? Just imagine someone taking you by the feet and the head and twisting you as if they were wringing you out like a sponge. You also have no control over your pushing during a synthetic-labor induced birth. As a result, I had 17 stitches in my vagina. Let me repeat that for emphasis: 17 stitches in my VAGINA.
And that was Mike.
The fun started earlier with Peter. When I was three months pregnant with Peter, I noticed something funny. When I got up to pee in the middle of the night, I couldn’t pee. Not because I didn’t have to go, but because something was blocking my ability to go. That something was Peter. When I reclined, he slid around and crushed my urethra – blocking my pee – blocking it so much that I had to go to the emergency room and get catheterized. Twice.
It only took two catheterizations (and a lot of middle-of-the-night gymnastics to reposition that baby) for me to learn my lesson. After the second catheterization, I slept sitting up, in an upright position. For the next six months.
During my 40th week of pregnancy, I had what I first thought was a heart attack. After rushing to the ER and being told that it was possibly a pulmonary embolism, they discovered that it was a gall bladder attack. In fact, my gall bladder had dozens and dozens of stones in it – which are often caused by the hormones that women secrete during pregnancy.
So after I had recovered from having Peter and my uterus had shrunk back to normal, I got to go to the hospital again and have my gall bladder removed. Let me say this again for emphasis: I had AN ORGAN removed. Thanks Peter.
This is to say nothing of all of the regular pregnancy stuff, like constant nausea, complete and utter exhaustion, sleeplessness, discomfort, emotions that rage out of control, and the swelling of everything on your body. Oh, and I nearly forgot to mention the 14 months of post-partum depression that I suffered through after the birth of EACH child – that’s almost two-and-a-half years of depression in case you’re keeping score. Which I am.
Needless to say, after my last pregnancy, I told Brent: NEVER EVER AGAIN. Under no circumstance would I ever have another baby. The pushing of large babies out of my vagina? That doesn’t really bother me in the least. I did it twice without so much as taking a Tylenol – even with the synthetic hormone induced birth. The getting up seven times a night to breastfeed a screaming baby? I won’t say it’s fun, but you get used to it. The going back to work six weeks to the day after giving birth when you’re so tired that when a person asks your name at a work event, you honestly have to stop and think about it for a minute? Well, those babies start sleeping through the night eventually and then you get rested up.
But the pregnancy part of having a baby? No thank you. I cannot, will not, absolutely refuse to endure another nine months of torture. No more babies for me.
In fact, a friend of mine who is in her first trimester of pregnancy right now (for the third time) said to me after complaining about her nausea, “Well, if we could remember how bad it was from pregnancy to pregnancy, we’d never have another kid.”
Exactly.
So, finally, FINALLY, Brent has got his surgery scheduled and I decided to spend some time in the basement going through baby clothes to sell.
The first bin wasn’t so bad – it was full of receiving blankets and burp rags and little onesies. And then there was this cute little sleeper, 0 – 3 month size, and I held it up and I just thought – is it possible that my 30 pound 20 month-old was small enough to wear this? Were his feet ever tiny enough to fit into these little tiny, itty-bitty, positively miniature footies?
And then I found Peter’s little Guido outfit, which made him look like he should be wearing gold chains and living in Cicero, IL. And then I found the outfit Mikey wore for our first plane ride – the one where I had to sedate myself in order to get on the plane because I was sure he would be so bad that we would have to make an emergency landing in Minnesota. But it turned out he was absolutely perfect and complete strangers helped me do everything from reach my connecting gate to changing my poopy baby and it made me believe in the goodness of people again.
Then I found Peter’s little sunsuit – the delicate one with the fish hand-embroidered on the front – the one my bruiser was wearing when he tackled his much larger older brother before Peter could even walk prompting a friend of ours to announce that Mike would grow up to be a lawyer or a great orator and Peter would grow up to be a star in the World Wrestling Federation.
And I found Peter’s snowboots – the ones with the fur trim and it brought back memories of bundling and wrapping and zipping and velcroing him into his snowsuit and boots and hat and mittens and scarf so he could ride in awed silence in his little wooden sled and point to the stars and the moon.
And I found Mike’s big rig shirt, which he wore so much that you could only see the faint outline of a big rig left on the front of it, and it reminded me of how one of Mike’s very first words was “Truccccccckkkkk.”
And so I wept and sniffled and wiped hard at tears as I found little sweatshirts and little tiny shoes with monkeys on them and a sleeper with cowboys and horses on it and Mikey’s black cowboy hat and the anarchy hat and the pair of blue and white polka dot pants with a bunny, complete with ears, sewn on the back and miniature flannel shirts and Levi’s, which only made both of my babies little diaper butts look all the cuter, and all of a sudden I wanted another baby. I positively ached with wanting.
I practically ran up the stairs and said to Brent, “Call that doctor right now and let’s get down to business because I am not ready to be done. I want more! I can’t believe I ever thought two was enough! I want seven. In fact, make it ten! I want to hold onto a little tiny floppy-headed baby! I want to smell their sweet breast-milky breath. I want to examine little tiny hands with fingers so small, it is almost as if you can see through them. I want to watch another little toothless mouth as it yawns or smiles or laughs. I want to have another baby who nuzzles up against me in the middle of the night, who sleeps contentedly in my arms, whose little face scrunches up so amazingly when he is unhappy. I want to marvel at delicate, miniature features – those pink little lips, the faint trace of an eyebrow, the wrinkly feet and hands.”
But when I said this to Brent, (o.k. so I didn’t really say all of this), he said, “Oh, that’s right. We should have more. Because you were such a happy and healthy pregnant woman. Everyone would benefit so from having you incapacitated by weird health issues and yet another year of postpartum depression that you’re right – maybe we should have ten babies. Let’s get to it.”
Since he put it like that, it made me realize that maybe wanting another baby really wasn’t the best idea for me, for Brent, and especially for those other two children of mine – the ones I already have and whose little bodies and minds I have marveled at consistently since their births. That maybe I should just count my lucky stars that I have two healthy boys, both of whom are now big enough to wrap their arms around me and one who is old enough to sing, “Mom is so great! She’s really, really great! I love my mom!” (I only taught him the words; I don’t force him to sing it.)
And I am lucky, so lucky. But still. Still. Little tiny perfect amazing babies. Children, lots of children, who amaze, astound, and overwhelm you with their giant personalities and their funny stories and their capacity to give, accept, love, and wonder.
If you don’t have one, go have one. Have a bunch. Enjoy it. Love it. Love them.
But if you’re me, re-read those pregnancy stories from above. And stop reconsidering.
For new readers out there, I am going to recap my pregnancies.
First there was Mike. During his pregnancy, I developed high-blood pressure – like stroke-level high-blood pressure. And then? Then, Mike repositioned himself so that his forehead was resting against a bunch of open nerve endings at the base of my spine, which essentially left me a parapalegic for the last month of my pregnancy. I had to crawl, CRAWL, to go to the bathroom, which I did approximately every twelve minutes. And one day, when I couldn’t take it anymore and just had to leave my house, we went to Costco. And because I couldn’t walk, I had to ride in an Amigo.
An Amigo with an orange flag flying behind me.
A couple of days after my Amigo adventure, my doctor induced labor due to the high blood pressure. Which meant that they shoved a balloon up my vagina and inflated it. The next morning, they stuck an IV in my arm and started pumping me full of a synthetic hormone to get labor going. Labor without synthetic hormones is not exactly what I would call a walk in the park. But labor with synthetic hormones? Just imagine someone taking you by the feet and the head and twisting you as if they were wringing you out like a sponge. You also have no control over your pushing during a synthetic-labor induced birth. As a result, I had 17 stitches in my vagina. Let me repeat that for emphasis: 17 stitches in my VAGINA.
And that was Mike.
The fun started earlier with Peter. When I was three months pregnant with Peter, I noticed something funny. When I got up to pee in the middle of the night, I couldn’t pee. Not because I didn’t have to go, but because something was blocking my ability to go. That something was Peter. When I reclined, he slid around and crushed my urethra – blocking my pee – blocking it so much that I had to go to the emergency room and get catheterized. Twice.
It only took two catheterizations (and a lot of middle-of-the-night gymnastics to reposition that baby) for me to learn my lesson. After the second catheterization, I slept sitting up, in an upright position. For the next six months.
During my 40th week of pregnancy, I had what I first thought was a heart attack. After rushing to the ER and being told that it was possibly a pulmonary embolism, they discovered that it was a gall bladder attack. In fact, my gall bladder had dozens and dozens of stones in it – which are often caused by the hormones that women secrete during pregnancy.
So after I had recovered from having Peter and my uterus had shrunk back to normal, I got to go to the hospital again and have my gall bladder removed. Let me say this again for emphasis: I had AN ORGAN removed. Thanks Peter.
This is to say nothing of all of the regular pregnancy stuff, like constant nausea, complete and utter exhaustion, sleeplessness, discomfort, emotions that rage out of control, and the swelling of everything on your body. Oh, and I nearly forgot to mention the 14 months of post-partum depression that I suffered through after the birth of EACH child – that’s almost two-and-a-half years of depression in case you’re keeping score. Which I am.
Needless to say, after my last pregnancy, I told Brent: NEVER EVER AGAIN. Under no circumstance would I ever have another baby. The pushing of large babies out of my vagina? That doesn’t really bother me in the least. I did it twice without so much as taking a Tylenol – even with the synthetic hormone induced birth. The getting up seven times a night to breastfeed a screaming baby? I won’t say it’s fun, but you get used to it. The going back to work six weeks to the day after giving birth when you’re so tired that when a person asks your name at a work event, you honestly have to stop and think about it for a minute? Well, those babies start sleeping through the night eventually and then you get rested up.
But the pregnancy part of having a baby? No thank you. I cannot, will not, absolutely refuse to endure another nine months of torture. No more babies for me.
In fact, a friend of mine who is in her first trimester of pregnancy right now (for the third time) said to me after complaining about her nausea, “Well, if we could remember how bad it was from pregnancy to pregnancy, we’d never have another kid.”
Exactly.
So, finally, FINALLY, Brent has got his surgery scheduled and I decided to spend some time in the basement going through baby clothes to sell.
The first bin wasn’t so bad – it was full of receiving blankets and burp rags and little onesies. And then there was this cute little sleeper, 0 – 3 month size, and I held it up and I just thought – is it possible that my 30 pound 20 month-old was small enough to wear this? Were his feet ever tiny enough to fit into these little tiny, itty-bitty, positively miniature footies?
And then I found Peter’s little Guido outfit, which made him look like he should be wearing gold chains and living in Cicero, IL. And then I found the outfit Mikey wore for our first plane ride – the one where I had to sedate myself in order to get on the plane because I was sure he would be so bad that we would have to make an emergency landing in Minnesota. But it turned out he was absolutely perfect and complete strangers helped me do everything from reach my connecting gate to changing my poopy baby and it made me believe in the goodness of people again.
Then I found Peter’s little sunsuit – the delicate one with the fish hand-embroidered on the front – the one my bruiser was wearing when he tackled his much larger older brother before Peter could even walk prompting a friend of ours to announce that Mike would grow up to be a lawyer or a great orator and Peter would grow up to be a star in the World Wrestling Federation.
And I found Peter’s snowboots – the ones with the fur trim and it brought back memories of bundling and wrapping and zipping and velcroing him into his snowsuit and boots and hat and mittens and scarf so he could ride in awed silence in his little wooden sled and point to the stars and the moon.
And I found Mike’s big rig shirt, which he wore so much that you could only see the faint outline of a big rig left on the front of it, and it reminded me of how one of Mike’s very first words was “Truccccccckkkkk.”
And so I wept and sniffled and wiped hard at tears as I found little sweatshirts and little tiny shoes with monkeys on them and a sleeper with cowboys and horses on it and Mikey’s black cowboy hat and the anarchy hat and the pair of blue and white polka dot pants with a bunny, complete with ears, sewn on the back and miniature flannel shirts and Levi’s, which only made both of my babies little diaper butts look all the cuter, and all of a sudden I wanted another baby. I positively ached with wanting.
I practically ran up the stairs and said to Brent, “Call that doctor right now and let’s get down to business because I am not ready to be done. I want more! I can’t believe I ever thought two was enough! I want seven. In fact, make it ten! I want to hold onto a little tiny floppy-headed baby! I want to smell their sweet breast-milky breath. I want to examine little tiny hands with fingers so small, it is almost as if you can see through them. I want to watch another little toothless mouth as it yawns or smiles or laughs. I want to have another baby who nuzzles up against me in the middle of the night, who sleeps contentedly in my arms, whose little face scrunches up so amazingly when he is unhappy. I want to marvel at delicate, miniature features – those pink little lips, the faint trace of an eyebrow, the wrinkly feet and hands.”
But when I said this to Brent, (o.k. so I didn’t really say all of this), he said, “Oh, that’s right. We should have more. Because you were such a happy and healthy pregnant woman. Everyone would benefit so from having you incapacitated by weird health issues and yet another year of postpartum depression that you’re right – maybe we should have ten babies. Let’s get to it.”
Since he put it like that, it made me realize that maybe wanting another baby really wasn’t the best idea for me, for Brent, and especially for those other two children of mine – the ones I already have and whose little bodies and minds I have marveled at consistently since their births. That maybe I should just count my lucky stars that I have two healthy boys, both of whom are now big enough to wrap their arms around me and one who is old enough to sing, “Mom is so great! She’s really, really great! I love my mom!” (I only taught him the words; I don’t force him to sing it.)
And I am lucky, so lucky. But still. Still. Little tiny perfect amazing babies. Children, lots of children, who amaze, astound, and overwhelm you with their giant personalities and their funny stories and their capacity to give, accept, love, and wonder.
If you don’t have one, go have one. Have a bunch. Enjoy it. Love it. Love them.
But if you’re me, re-read those pregnancy stories from above. And stop reconsidering.
posted by Sara @ 3:51 PM
