I began to greatly desire my second baby not long after my first turned a year. My husband did too(or even before that). So we let go of protection and began trying. Little did I know that it would not be as easy as with our first. With our first, we weren't even trying. Rather, we were just not careful enough, and she popped in on her own terms. To follow suit, she also come out on her own terms, at almost 2 weeks post-'guess-date'. She came flying out on the waves of her own waters. But this second baby, and her journey, was just a bit different.
It took probably around 8 tries, so several months, before we conceived. I didn't realize how emotional that journey would be for me. How impatient I'd be, and how important I'd made it to myself to become pregnant. But nothing really prepares you for it, you just have to go with the flow(pun intended). Every month when my flow would show up, I felt as if my body had failed me. Obviously now I know that it hadn't, but it was hard to tell myself that at the time. My husband was much more patient than I was.
Finally, one week around the first week or two in June, I was extra emotional, weepy actually... A few days later, upon taking a pregnancy test, I was surprised to see that I was pregnant. I then kept it a secret for a full week until Father's Day, when I completely surprised my husband by putting three little strip tests inside his Father's Day card! It was the best.
My baby girl is 9 months old and I haven't figured out how to begin her birth story. I started to try to write it this past summer and I got stuck. Then, panic attacks(or something like it) hit me. To be honest I'm not sure that I'm even done with panic attacks yet. Whether it's from the difficulty of this move, or from those involved in the details of my birth, or from another stressor, I'm not sure.
Tovah's birth in and of itself, was beautiful. Peaceful, if fact. I've thought about it many times since, and time and time again I'm really grateful that it went as it did. Even though plans changed in the end, I felt like I really tuned into my intuition and made the right decision to go from home to hospital to receive more help. Even though I had planned to have her at home if everything was going well, and for awhile it was.
It's difficult even now, several months later, to describe the details of that time. Because it wasn't just about Tovah's birth, but so much more going on. My husband lost his job a week before Thanksgiving. That was when I was going into my third trimester. We started a long winter not knowing what he'd find for work, and if he could even find work locally. Long story short on that front, he didn't....we ended up deciding to do an 8-hour move later, an exhausting process of a decision. It was his only job offer. I remember one particular beautiful snowy night that we went cross-country skiing to talk over this decision (yes, I skiid...more like trudged, while quite pregnant). Anyways, this whole life upheaval took over the last few months of my pregnancy. We faced a giant move. My husband was technically going to start the job in my 'due' month, via travel. I actually could not agree to the move until I went down with my husband to check out this area. And that is an interesting story: as I himmed & hawed about it back in our little Duluth home, I was not feeling well that day. I almost called it all quits. But somehow we managed to still pack up and drive down. And when we left the house, I started feeling well again!... a God-thing. And, another somehow-from-God, I felt some type of remarkable peace when we got down here.
So, when we decided that we'd take the job and do the move, at first we didn't even know where we'd have the baby. We met with a midwife down here just to prepare. But then as I entered my 'full-term' window, we decided with our Duluth midwife that I should stay put in our little Duluth home for awhile. I had quite a few uncomfortable issues in the last several weeks, that made me feel the need to stay around home: sciatica, pelvis/hip pain discomfort, something like acid reflux/indigestion, and insomnia from about 3 a.m. for a few hours! Oh, and high fasting blood sugar just during the night probably from my wacky sleep issues! It was all very challenging to say the least. And another memory that sticks out is the day that we had no water, right after getting a snowstorm, when I was 38/39 weeks, and I wasn't in a condition to shovel. So while my front street was getting ripped up by the city department and fireman workers to fix the underground pipes, my sweet ex-Navy neighbor snow-blowed my sidewalks for me! It was incredible. I was able to leave the house that day after all, and baby didn't come yet!
To Be Continued...
