When I was pregnant with Elly, I worried frequently about how Evie would handle life with a sibling. How we would ever have enough time to spend time with both girls? A part of me feared that we were ruining Evie's life by bringing another little person into it. Another part dreamed of the close friends they would become, of their precious giggles as they splashed in the bath, and the joyful racket on Christmas with both girls tearing into presents.
I'm sure most parents struggle with similar back and forth when they add to their family. A mixture of joy and guilt. I completely understand why so many choose to have just one child. It's hard to struggle with a decision that's not just going to affect you and your husband. But affect other little lives. Forever. Think how much different one will grow up...an only child. One child of two. Or maybe one child of many. Each is a dramatically different life path.
I didn't always know if I wanted kids. And when I had Evie I loved her so much I didn't know whether or not I wanted more. Didn't know how I could love someone else the way I loved my Evie. How I could love someone else as much as I loved my Evie. When Elly came along I found I was partially right...I didn't love her the same way I loved Evie. I don't think you can love any two people in the SAME way. Evie will always have a special love. Just as Elly will always have a special love.
Our first six months was incredibly hard. I think it always is when your life changes so dramatically. With Elly sick, then jaundiced, then colicky...and Evie still not talking. Life was incredibly difficult. And during that time we swore off having any more kids. Simply couldn't imagine putting all of us through that again.
But I have always been told that when you're done...you just KNOW. You have that second baby and life is complete. Or you have that first baby and life is complete.
And recently, I've come to the realization that the gosh awful baby phase, the one full of sleepless nights and spit up and poopy diapers, it doesn't last very long. A year of Elly's life has flown by in an instant. Nearly three years of Evie's life have passed in the blink of an eye. The days will come far too soon when my babies aren't dragging me out of bed in the morning, and instead it is me dragging them. It won't be very long before my Friday nights are not spent refereeing an argument over who gets to sit on my lap while we watch Cinderella. So it seems awfully unfair to make a lifelong decision based on a miserable 6 months.
Watching the girls play in the living room floor, I feel like someone is missing. Just maybe.
No, I do not have baby fever. I don't look at pregnant women and dream about returning to that state of swollen ankles and not being able to wear my clothes. I don't glimpse families toting ginormous infant carriers and long to have those days back. Nor do I see darling babies and miss the bottles and the burping and the days of a little being that has minimal personality and does nothing but eat and sleep. If I could somehow skip the first six months of having a third child I might just sign right up. Maybe.
Children are an amazing, wonderful, impossible blessing.
There are moments when I look at my two girls and wonder how on earth I could want anything more. How unbelievably greedy of me. And there are moments when the very idea of adding another voice to the chaos of yelling and crying and screaming makes me feel like I should have a drink and then check myself into the closest mental health facility.
In closing let me state, quite conclusively, that there will NOT be an addition to the family any time soon. I am not pregnant now. And do not intend to be pregnant soon. And I don't know that we will have a third one. It is quite a hefty decision. No permanent decisions have been made. But who knows. Maybe once the girls are off to school and things have settled down. Or maybe by then I will be far too attached to sleeping through the night to worry about that missing person.
Showing posts with label sibling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sibling. Show all posts
Friday, April 13, 2012
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Is it fair to add to the family tree?
At the beginning of my pregnancy I worried that there was something wrong with me because I just didn't feel the same about this baby as I did my first. When I found out I was pregnant with Evie I was immediately attached and overjoyed. I was infatuated with her from the moment I first saw the plus sign on the pee stick while she was just a cluster of cells without even so much as a heartbeat to distinguish her.
Weeks later seeing her on the ultrasound monitor, watching that teeny tiny heart pump away, I cried. I was overwhelmed with excitement and love for this little person, which now had a heartbeat, but still looked more like a sea monkey than a person with its flippers and tail. When she was born she looked almost exactly as I had pictured, except she was a blonde and I had imagined her brunette.
With Elly, I didn't get that immediate love. I was excited to be having a second child. I was also afraid, apprehensive, worried, overwhelmed...well, you get the idea. When I found out I was pregnant I had a nine month old in the next room. Not only was I worried about how I would manage two babies at once. I was worried about how this would effect Evie. She had only been with us for nine months. And now, even though her sibling wasn't due until February, already our time and affections would be split between her, my sweet baby girl, and this unknown little person. I would have to start going to doctor's appointments and soon I would start showing and wouldn't be able to do as much with Evie as I wanted. We would need to plan a nursery for the new baby and start preparing our home for a second child. So even though we had some time before she had to really start sharing her home with a new baby, her life was being affected early on by the pregnancy.
I felt so torn about adding a new baby to our home while my baby was still...well, a baby. It just seemed so unfair to Evie. And those are feelings I've dealt with a lot of the last 36 weeks. As I've gotten bigger and bigger I am less and less able to do things with Evie that I'd like to do. I certainly can't chase her up and down the halls like I did seven months ago. Getting up and down from the floor takes a lot longer than it should and sometimes I'm super snappy because I'm tired and hormonal.
Of course, I am excited about having a second child now. But sometimes at night I still lie awake and wonder how this is all going to affect Evie. Whether or not this is the right thing for her or fair to her. I worry about how upset she's going to be when we bring a new baby home from the hospital. If it will hurt her feelings that I will be changing someone else's diapers, teaching someone else how to eat and sleep and sit up and crawl, taking care of another baby. No longer would she and I have so much Mommy and Evie time because now there would also be little sister with us. And although I talk to her about it, I know that she's just a baby and simply cannot truly understand how much her life is getting ready to change.
Let me repeat, in case it's not coming through, that I am really very excited to have a second baby. Especially a girl because I think having two girls so close together is going to be so great when they get older.
But still I worry about how fair it will be Evie when her little sister is born next week. And I wonder what her reaction to this whole thing will be. I hope and pray that she does well with it and I remind myself over and over that she's so young that she will not even remember this tumultuous transition. She won't remember a life without her sister and hopefully that will lead to an inseparable bond and a friendship that she cherishes throughout her life. I envision two curly-headed little girls, about the same size since they will be so close in age, having tea parties in their bedroom and building forts in the living room. I see them staying up late to finish a chapter in some childhood classic, camping out on the top bunk with a flashlight and huddling under a shared blanket. I know they will fight like cats and dogs but they'll also curl up on the couch together and fall asleep watching a movie. At least I hope that they snuggle, and bond and just absolutely love each other. If not it might be a long 18 years til they're out of the house. I look at pictures of my friend's two little boys, one is 22 months old and the other is 4 months old, and see how much the older adores his little brother and I'm hopeful that my girls will be the same.
As I snuggle Evie at night these last few nights where it's just us, I try to memorize what it is like with just the two of us. I know we'll have alone time again but it'll be harder to come by. And it will be different then. But I'm really glad that we have a set period of time (hopefully) that I can sit back and really savor my last few days of pregnancy and Evie time.
So on Monday our lives will all change. The countdown has begun and for better or worse our lil family of three will become a family of four. For better I believe. Our "normal" will be long gone but a new normal will be established. We'll find a new rhythm and everyone will find a new niche and life will go on. One day, we'll all get to sleep through the night again. And although our lives will be different, I think that our little addition will make us all better and happier and our family will be complete.
Weeks later seeing her on the ultrasound monitor, watching that teeny tiny heart pump away, I cried. I was overwhelmed with excitement and love for this little person, which now had a heartbeat, but still looked more like a sea monkey than a person with its flippers and tail. When she was born she looked almost exactly as I had pictured, except she was a blonde and I had imagined her brunette.
With Elly, I didn't get that immediate love. I was excited to be having a second child. I was also afraid, apprehensive, worried, overwhelmed...well, you get the idea. When I found out I was pregnant I had a nine month old in the next room. Not only was I worried about how I would manage two babies at once. I was worried about how this would effect Evie. She had only been with us for nine months. And now, even though her sibling wasn't due until February, already our time and affections would be split between her, my sweet baby girl, and this unknown little person. I would have to start going to doctor's appointments and soon I would start showing and wouldn't be able to do as much with Evie as I wanted. We would need to plan a nursery for the new baby and start preparing our home for a second child. So even though we had some time before she had to really start sharing her home with a new baby, her life was being affected early on by the pregnancy.
I felt so torn about adding a new baby to our home while my baby was still...well, a baby. It just seemed so unfair to Evie. And those are feelings I've dealt with a lot of the last 36 weeks. As I've gotten bigger and bigger I am less and less able to do things with Evie that I'd like to do. I certainly can't chase her up and down the halls like I did seven months ago. Getting up and down from the floor takes a lot longer than it should and sometimes I'm super snappy because I'm tired and hormonal.
Of course, I am excited about having a second child now. But sometimes at night I still lie awake and wonder how this is all going to affect Evie. Whether or not this is the right thing for her or fair to her. I worry about how upset she's going to be when we bring a new baby home from the hospital. If it will hurt her feelings that I will be changing someone else's diapers, teaching someone else how to eat and sleep and sit up and crawl, taking care of another baby. No longer would she and I have so much Mommy and Evie time because now there would also be little sister with us. And although I talk to her about it, I know that she's just a baby and simply cannot truly understand how much her life is getting ready to change.
Let me repeat, in case it's not coming through, that I am really very excited to have a second baby. Especially a girl because I think having two girls so close together is going to be so great when they get older.
But still I worry about how fair it will be Evie when her little sister is born next week. And I wonder what her reaction to this whole thing will be. I hope and pray that she does well with it and I remind myself over and over that she's so young that she will not even remember this tumultuous transition. She won't remember a life without her sister and hopefully that will lead to an inseparable bond and a friendship that she cherishes throughout her life. I envision two curly-headed little girls, about the same size since they will be so close in age, having tea parties in their bedroom and building forts in the living room. I see them staying up late to finish a chapter in some childhood classic, camping out on the top bunk with a flashlight and huddling under a shared blanket. I know they will fight like cats and dogs but they'll also curl up on the couch together and fall asleep watching a movie. At least I hope that they snuggle, and bond and just absolutely love each other. If not it might be a long 18 years til they're out of the house. I look at pictures of my friend's two little boys, one is 22 months old and the other is 4 months old, and see how much the older adores his little brother and I'm hopeful that my girls will be the same.
As I snuggle Evie at night these last few nights where it's just us, I try to memorize what it is like with just the two of us. I know we'll have alone time again but it'll be harder to come by. And it will be different then. But I'm really glad that we have a set period of time (hopefully) that I can sit back and really savor my last few days of pregnancy and Evie time.
So on Monday our lives will all change. The countdown has begun and for better or worse our lil family of three will become a family of four. For better I believe. Our "normal" will be long gone but a new normal will be established. We'll find a new rhythm and everyone will find a new niche and life will go on. One day, we'll all get to sleep through the night again. And although our lives will be different, I think that our little addition will make us all better and happier and our family will be complete.
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