10 weeks before and 30 weeks later ♥ Guest post by Santana

Is it normal or unique to be living my life worried this way every day? Don’t get me wrong, I am very happy with my life. I am grateful for everything I have. The good things, the not so good things, the easy things and the hard ones, I appreciate having them all. But every day that it gets closer I get even more scared. Not of life or reality, but of it not being real. I worry every day that it’s just some long, lucid, drawn out dream. I have had them before. Some short, some long, but always ending the same way. I am having an incredible beautiful dream of having a baby inside of me, or in my arms. I feel the true feelings of bliss and happiness from my innermost dream finally coming true. I am holding this beautiful child, smiling and laughing, or crying from happiness. But it would always end the same. The alarm is ringing and I wake up. I am ripped from that bright blissful and happy moment. I am brutally torn from my warm and happy place. The violent force into reality stings. I lay there with my eyes still closed. The warm fuzzy feeling in my heart quickly turning icy cold and heavy.  My body and my heart are sinking deeper into the bed, the only thing that still feels comforting. The feeling makes me want to stay there all day hiding from the reality of my cold cruel lonely life. Wrapped up in the safety of my blankets not having to answer to anyone or step off the sidewalk for a smiling woman pushing a stroller. It hurts, the pain burns like acid in my throat any time I think about it. It happened before, both in dreams and reality twice that gift was ripped away from me. I never fully healed from that, or healed at all for that matter. How do you? How do you get past something like that happening? Especially when it has always been the one and only thing you wanted more than anything in the world? The one thing you always felt like you were created to do. The same gift given billions of times already on this earth. The one gift I felt was never going to be given to me.

But it finally has.

I can feel his tiny body moving inside me. Rolling, kicking, punching, and stretching. I have finally worked up the courage to walk through those aisles in the store, to touch the tiny clothes, to set up the crib. But every day the pain still feels real. Every day I wake up, first thing I do is touch my belly to make sure he is still in there, he is still real, this is all still real. Every day is still the same, he’s still there and he’s still coming. But the fear never goes away. What if I go to sleep tonight and tomorrow it’s all been a dream? Another long, warm, drawn out, but painfully ending dream. Then what? I could never live with myself after that. Or what if I lost him, God forbid that happen. But then what would I do? How would I live? Why can’t I let go of this? It is finally real and I don’t know when I’m going to be able to finally accept that.

Here we are again, 30 weeks later. My beautiful baby boy Isaiah is now 20 weeks old. I’ve been through a lot since 10 weeks before. Starting at the beginning, My angel was born Sept 22, 3 days late at a healthy 7lbs 11oz 52cm long. He has a head of gorgeous black hair, a birthmark on his arm, and his Daddy’s nose. He’s more perfect than I ever could have imagined. As a matter of fact I never was able to imagine what he was going to look like, was never fully real until a few weeks in. The birth was quite traumatic and slightly complicated after 52 hours of intense labour, but he’s here so who am I to complain? I remember so vividly the first time I touched his skin, it wasn’t magical like I expected when I touched his little arm for the first time… it was actually “Woah! That’s weird I didn’t know he was going to feel so squishy!” For hours after I never took my eyes off him for a second. I was feeling euphoric and how to explain…. You know that old saying about never taking your eyes off a leprechaun? It was kinda like that. I wanted it to stay real. We gazed at each other for a long time, we could hear babies in the nearby rooms wailing, but we were both silent and together. Daddy brought my favorite lunch and more snacks than I could eat, so I could avoid that stinky hospital food, everything was perfect. That is until the first diaper changes….. The first one was unnecessary, for quite a funny and embarrassing reason. See it had only been a couple hours since I delivered and my darling has been constantly swaddled or wrapped up, so I hadn’t actually seen his bottom end naked before. Combine that with the drugs still wearing off…. And we get a first time Mom, with a biracial baby who thought peeking from the side I saw a poopy butt. Well I open it up and there’s no poop…. My son’s umm ‘jewels’? were what I saw LOL. I laughed at myself for a while for that! And diaper #2… Good Lord! I’ve changed hundreds upon hundreds of diapers in my time but that was the most difficult and horrifying of all of them! I’m not going to describe it but every mom knows!

Fast forward about 4 days. It hurts to sit down on anything, I don’t remember the last time I had a shower or brushed my hair, or had more than an hour of sleep. Wonderful friends and family dropped off some food which was a life saver, but here we are at 2am, sitting in bed, both crying. I hug him so tight but this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, and he doesn’t want let me sleep! Daddy suggests a warm bath, and after we get about 3 hours of sleep.

Fast forward about 7 weeks. We’re finally getting the hang of things, he’s started to sleep through the night usually waking only once or twice to be soothed. It’s about 8pm and Isaiah’s just woken up for what will be his last feeding of the night before bedtime. He’s still drowsy so I’m holding him in my arms waiting for him to full wake up for his feed. Then I hear some grunting and the unthinkable happens next. His face is red, his eyes roll back he’s arched his whole body and stiff as a board. He’s foaming at the mouth I start to scream for my hubby, OH MY GOD. NO THIS CAN’T HAPPEN. I hold him against my body, unusually calm when the paramedics arrive after having to give them the directions to my house while this is all happening. He slowly comes back to it about 10 minutes later and we ride in the ambulance to the Children’s hospital. Despite the near foot of snow and blizzardly conditions, Daddy’s headlights are a constant reassurance shining on us through the back window. Isaiah starts to smile at the paramedics sitting by his side, like he’s the only one here who knows everything’s going to be just fine. And it is just fine. We spend 4 days in the hospital, me never leaving that room for more than 5 minutes and only when I had to.  My brave little man was a trooper!

Fast forward about 12 weeks. The ups and downs of learning the ropes with a newborn has been quite a ride! Lots of incredible moments, and lots of “I’m emotionally losing it” moments. Do I still have those fears I had 30 weeks ago? I sure as heck do! But I always remind myself how incredibly lucky I am. The little socks in the laundry remind me, the clutter of toys and bottles reminds me, the late night wakings even remind me. But that fear and worry still hits me sometimes, it feels like such a sinful thought to think heaven forbid anything ever happen to him.

The best thing I know how to do to keep those thoughts out of my mind, remind myself how lucky I am. Make sure he constantly knows how much I love him. Hug him tight everytime I think of it. Each time I lay him down for a nap, kiss him on the forehead. “Sweet dreams, Mommy loves you forever and ever.”

Santana ♥