Reflections

I can't believe it's over. This pregnancy was so unplanned and unwanted at first, and now I look at my beautiful baby boy and I can't believe I ever felt that way. I can't believe how fast the whole thing flew by.

I had initially planned to paint my belly like a pumpkin, but when October rolled around and I was so unbelievably uncomfortable, it didn't sound good anymore. I saw other people's bellies painted like pumpkins and I was just, ugh. I didn't want to do it. Now I sort of wish I had.

I miss my pregnant belly though. I miss feeling him move around in there, and the anticipation, and the quiet moments at night when he'd get hiccups and poke me with his skinny, bony little feet.

I miss wondering when he'd come. I miss planning for him, and buying little baby things, and setting things up for him. I miss daydreaming about him. I miss the trips to Yolanda's office, and her soft hands feeling my precious unborn baby. I miss waiting.

Last night I had a weird dream. I dreamed I had two babies. Ean, and another baby boy. They looked the same, pretty much, and they were both dressed in white onesies with white socks, with those scrawny red little legs and that sweet little chin-dimple. I was holding Ean and nursing him but I couldn't get to my other baby boy. I was reaching and reaching for him but I couldn't get to him, and I was so distressed. He just kept moving away from me into empty space. I don't remember if I was crying in the dream but when I woke up I just started bawling and missing my other baby. I cuddled Ean and rubbed his impossibly tiny little head, and longed for his brother. It came to me that maybe Ean had initially been a twin, and his brother had been lost before we even knew he existed. I don't know if it's true, but it sure feels like it. I ache, like there is another baby supposed to be here too.

This has been the weirdest experience of my life, truly. This is the most surreal thing that has ever happened to me, from beginning to end. I don't know how to move forward from here. I don't know how to do it. I don't really know how to adjust and be a mom of a newborn again.

This birth, in all it's beauty, is also the closing of a chapter in my life. The Hub had a vasectomy in March, so there will never again be another little person hiding deep inside me. I will never again agonize over a late period, or feel a mix of glee and dread over a second line on a pregnancy test, or spend months in a morning sickness fog. I'll never do any of this again. It's bittersweet and part of me really want him to go have his vasectomy reversed. Part of me doesn't want it to be over.

What a strange, strange journey this has been.