Before I had kids I always thought it was cheesy to hear someone say that the best gift they had ever received was their children. Now that I am a mom I understand the sentiment. Yesterday made me reflect on my kids and how much joy they bring into my life and I started thinking about how they came to be.
Growing up I never wanted kids. I wasn’t the little girl who planned her wedding down to the place cards or had names picked out for 2.3 kids I planned on having. I just wasn’t that kind of girl. I was the kind that enjoyed playing in the mud and searching for bugs out in the woods. I remember people telling me I would change my mind when I got older and I also remember being irritated that they didn’t know me very well if they believed that.
What irritates me now is that they must have known me better than I knew myself because they were right. All through school and even through my first major relationship, I detested the idea of having a kid. Why would I want something that never sleeps and demands all of my time? I took great precautions to not have children including using a birth control method that made me gain 40 pounds and lose 2 cup sizes in my bra, but neither of those mattered to me nearly as much as not having a kid. I would have given my arm at that point to not have a child especially not with that person.
After my relationship ended, I began to think about things in my life ditfferently, but I still held true to not wanting kids. I had moved on and met someone new and we were enjoying the beginning stages of our relationship. He had two children already and for the first time it didn’t send me into a panic to think about being a mom to a child even if it was only as a stepmom to his kids.
About a year after we moved in together I went to my lady doctor to have everything checked out. He was updating some missing info on my chart and asked me how long I had been using the birth control I was on. It turns out I had been on it for just over 6 years. After telling him this, he left the room and then came back a few minutes later with several large books. He would look in one and then turn to a section in one of the others and go back and forth. This went on for about 10 minutes before he said that he wanted to take me off of the medication because this particular birth control could make it difficult to get pregnant if you take it for more than three years. He said the damage may have already been done given that I had been on it for 6 years, but he felt it was best to try something else and see how things went. I was about to tell him that I didn’t care if the medication made me lose the ability to have kids because I had no intention of having them and then I felt all the air whoosh out of me. In that moment I realized that my fiancée’s kids were not enough for me. I wanted to have kids myself.
The doctor and I decided that the shot I had been given just 2 weeks ago would be my last one and since he wanted to run some tests after the birth control wore off, my fiancée and I would use condoms to prevent pregnancy. After doing the math, my doctor told me I should start using the alternate form of birth control at the beginning of November and we would begin testing after the new year. In January I was having some blood work done for something else and they asked me if I could be pregnant. I said I doubt it, but since they needed to know for whatever it was they were doing, they ran a test. Then I got excited because I figured out I was a week late. I knew I shouldn’t have because my cycles would be very irregular for the first 6 months or more, but I couldn’t help it. The nurse who drew my blood said they would know by 10am and she would call me and let me know. By 10:05 I had not heard from her. At 10:10am I couldn’t take it and I called the lab result phone number. The lady looked it up and said they never ran a pregnancy test so she couldn’t tell me if it was positive or not. I was crushed and began babbling about how they said they had to know so they were going to add it to my labs and then I just kind of trailed off and I think I may have said thanks for your help. I was about to hang up the phone when I realized she was saying something about added labs being in a different part of the screen so she would check and yep there it was and “oh honey, I am sorry. Your test came back positive.” I don’t remember my exact reaction, but I know I was crying and I think I may have done a double back flip triple axel combo. I could hardly wait to tell Mack and considered leaving work right then and there to tell him, but I settled for a phone call during my lunch break.
It seems so silly now to think that I was ever worried about it since we didn’t even know if there was a problem and there apparently wasn’t seeing how my doctor figured I got pregnant about a month after the birth control was out of my system. In fact, when I got pregnant with my second child it was very soon after stopping birth control. Maybe I was meant to have these kids or maybe the chemistry between my husband and I works very well. Whatever it was, I have two perfect and beautiful children to show for it. Sure they have their moments when I am so desperate to sell them to first gypsy I find I cannot see straight, but they are my babies. I wouldn’t trade them for anything in the world and they are THE BEST gift I have ever received.
My daughter and her first diaper change
My son right before we left for the hospital
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