Times five

Sunday marked the fifth anniversary of losing our first baby. The day came and went without much fanfare. I feel sad, but that lessens as time passes. I drafted this tonight for the N*P*R segment "This*I*believe." I'm not sure I'll submit it -- just seemed a good opportunity to reflect on where we've been...now to figure out where we're going!


I believe that my quest to have a child has taught me patience, compassion and humility.

What I can’t believe is that five years have passed since I lost my first pregnancy at nearly five months. A baby girl, perfect in everyway, yet too small to make it on her own. The doctor’s labeled my cervix incompetent. What does one say to that?

We soldiered on, hoping that one day we would grow our family. A year passed and I was pregnant again. I lost the pregnancy at eight weeks. There were two of them -- twins. The year between losing our baby girl and getting pregnant again seemed torturous. In retrospect, it probably saved me. Enough time had passed that I didn’t completely fall apart as I scheduled the operating room visit necessary to complete my miscarriage.

Another year passed. We still were desperate to be pregnant. We weren’t. I had to schedule another operating room visit, this time to remove an ovarian cyst.

When I think back to those days my memories feel heavy and dark. We lived our lives. We traveled. We loved each other. But we were pretty beat-up from our losses.

And then I was pregnant again.

At 13 weeks my doctor sewed my cervix shut with what is called a cerclage -- we called it “operation baby jail.” I expected to be on bedrest starting during the 16th week in my pregnancy; instead I worked up until the day I was admitted to the hospital – one week past my due date.

We are finally parents. Our son is a precocious and amazing little boy who just turned two.

I can’t help but wonder what life would be like as the mother of an almost five-year-old, or the mother of three-year-old twins. What I do know is that my life would be dramatically different, but I can’t imagine it being any better.

Most of all, I believe that the weight of our two-year-old son sleeping upon my chest, blond curls tickling my face, could replace the heaviness I still feel about our losses. But I don’t think that would be fair – our history is our history. It has made us the family we are.

Two sides of two

Spencer just turned two and we had a great celebration for him. Who am I kidding? It was for us. We had a swimming party with a taco truck, beer, wine and water of course -- and the obligatory cake and ice cream. Really it was a good excuse to have a fun end of summer party and much to my delight, people respected our request to not bring gifts.

It is great fun being the mother of a two-year-old. Spencer is starting to develop a sense of humor and tease. We used to sing together "the only thing I eat that's blue are..." and he would fill in "blueberries." Now he says tomatoes. And yes, he knows they aren't blue which is what makes it funny. Hilarious even -- he's very amused by his own cleverness.

He counts and knows colors in English and Spanish, knows some shapes and knows his alphabet in Spanish (if I was at all competitive with the nanny I'd work on English -- but isn't that what kindergarten is for?) and just started playing hide-and-seek with stuffed animals and pretends he's a baby or a cow or dog or cat. He gives great hugs, sticky kisses and is a good eater. At his recent well baby check he told his doctor he likes "broccoli, and ICE CREAM. Special treat. Ice cream." In the same appointment he declared "naked running, like it!" But really, who doesn't?

So he's adorable, sweet, amazing and two. With two comes a whole host of challenges. In no particular order:
1. He hits. For no real reason. His friends, his parents, the dog. It makes me nuts and we haven't been successful in stopping him. We reason, redirect, etc. and to let us know he's heard us loud and clear he hits again.
2. He insists on pushing the stroller and to be honest, he's a terrible driver.
3. He throws tantrums and food and shoes. Last night he threw a bite of salmon that stuck to the wall. We try not to react -- but that was funny. He also takes his shoes off in the car and throws them into the front seat. One landed directly on my shoulder the other day. That was funny too.
4. He's brutally honest. He tells people he doesn't like them (including his cousin and grandma) and we walked into a party on Saturday and he announced "go home now." Which were my sentiments exactly but instead I made nice with the people in renaissance dress (and no, it was not a costume party -- but tell that to the dude in the yellow dress).

And he's perfect just the way he is. Happy Birthday my boy.