So last night I did what most parents/friends/books tell you to not do. I picked up my child, comfortably sleeping sound in his own bed, and brought him into mine.
I needed to be able to hold him. To snuggle him. To kiss him. To trace his features with my finger while he slept. To tell him how much he means to me. To just love him.
For quite a few months I've been following some bloggers that are linked up to one of my friends whose child was diagnosed with a CHD. I don't know why, but last night reading one really got to me. And when I say got to me, I mean it really shook my core. Maybe because I saw so much of my own son in hers. Maybe because her postings about life and death really spoke to me. For whatever reason, it affected me. I did what this mother couldn't do with her own son. And so, yes, I took my son, out of his own bed, and put him into mine for a major mommy-needed-snuggle-session. Selfish, yah, probably. But do I really care? No, not really.
Shaun has told me numerous times throughout our relationship that I live my life waiting for that other shoe to drop. I don't know why I do it, but its not something that has passed me by without notice over the years, or my life really.
With Sullivan it was no different. Early on in Shaun and I's relationship I told him I didn't know how easy it would be for me to have children - I think that even then I knew. Its never been a secret that my mom had struggled for years with her own infertility and that fertility issues flank both sides of my family.
It took us 3 years to get pregnant with Sullivan, the last year of which we actively pursued with vitamins, medication and monthly charting. My entire pregnancy I was anxious. I remember spotting late in my first trimester and almost having a damn near panic attack. (It obviously worked out.) But that fear that I might lose him after trying for so long never left.
I can't explain to people who get pregnant easily or by mistake what its like to not be able to. I spent a long, long time feeling wrecked with guilt about our infertility (since Shaun came back with a clear bill of health) and the amount of stress it had placed on both of us. Right before I became pregnant with Sullivan, I made peace with whatever the situation was going to let itself be. I decided that short of us doing what we already were, it was out of our hands, and if we were meant to be parents by this path, we would be. But that fear, that fear that it was all just too good to be true, it never left. In some ways it still hasn't.
But I also guess thats the risk you run when you become a parent. You become vulnerable in a way that you never have before, because you love in a way you never have before. And to love, I mean really, truly, love - we have to be willing to accept all the risks that come attached with that love.
I carried Sullivan for 9 months, and for 9 months I held my breath. I told Shaun I wasn't going to be able to breathe again until he was here. And now, well - now. Now I still find myself holding my breath and I'm realizing I can't live my life that way. My wise husband told me the other night that living with this kind of trepidation isn't always the worst thing, by recognizing it I open myself to live each day to the fullest, because I don't take our son for granted, like so many people tend to do sometimes. That I understand life is not a guarantee. That it is not a promise. But that we have the guarantee and promise to live each day to our full capability, and love with it as well.
I wonder if he even realizes the things that come out of his mouth sometimes. I'm thankful he's able to take my jumbled and quite often irrational ramblings and make sense out of them. Make me feel better and not so, well - like that bat shit crazy mom who make her son wear a helmet and bubble wrap everywhere he goes.
I guess I'm learning that living with fear just comes with the territory of learning to become a parent. I worry that he'll fall down the stairs when he insists walking down them instead of crawling. I worry about the food he puts in his mouth, immunizations, that he watches TV, is allergic to grass, bites or that he thinks he's a dog. (I mean he really thinks he's an actual dog.) I worry that he'll fail a class or think I'm a horrible parent - that he'll drive his car too fast or get his heart broken one day. I worry. But I guess as a parent thats just part of the job description that I signed on for.
But I can't let that define my life, or his. Theres not enough bubble wrap in the world to protect him from everything I want to anyways.
I guess we'll just take our chances.
My heart aches for these parents, because I get it. I get what its like to love somebody so much that you can't imagine your life without them, to feel like your world will cease to be if they aren't there. And I can't imagine what is must be like to walk in their shoes and I am so unbelievably disheartened that any parent would ever have to experience that. I guess I felt like I owed it to them, to myself, to hold on a little bit tighter to my son last night, sing to him a little bit longer, to love him a little bit deeper.
My girlfriends son is preparing to go in for surgery in the next couple of days. Shaun and I were talking it. My husband is a man of few words, he's not the type of guy that lives with his heart on his sleeve. But its affected him too. I'm not sure if I'm more surprised by that fact or the fact that I'm surprised at all. I shouldn't be. He knows what its like too to have that fear of loss, he's suffered a taste of it himself. He told me this whole situation has made him try and look at things a little different, and that he's working on being more understanding with Sully and less stern. I thought it was really sweet, and made me a little choked up. He gets it too.
He also told me not to feel bad about putting Sully in bed with us. I laughed and said I thought he would get pissed that I did it. (Our son sleeps like he's practicing Kung Fu and somebody usually ends up with some bruised ribs or black eye in the morning.) "No way." He said sometimes, you just got to snuggle with your baby. That and I "read way too many books about how other people think we should be raising our son."
I was sitting on the floor while we were talking about it, and out of nowhere Sully walked over and gave me the biggest kiss on the mouth, then wrapped his arms around my neck and squeezed the crap out of me and said "Mama, Mama, Mama!" then walked away and went back to putting all of his trucks in a row.
I cried. (And I'd like to clarify I'm not a crier but damn if I haven't shed some major tears this past year.) Because I love him. Because he's made me vulnerable. Because that little boy is my world. Because he teaches me everyday. Because Sully Kisses squash trepidation out any day.
Because this is my life. This is our life. And I must have done something right to deserve all this.
And I'll live it with my full capability.
I'll live it with love.
