When I did a recent call for guest posts on Facebook and Twitter, I was delighted — as I usually am — to meet Jeanine Spano. Jeanine tweets and has a passion for writing, but she’s at the beginning of things. I relate with that. I remember that. And I encouraged her to send me her post idea.
What she sent could have been written FOR ME. Though she writes about a babymoon that’s for her first son, I sit here, 28 weeks along in my third pregnancy, possibly forgetting what’s ahead of me. It is with that anticipation in mind that I share this with you, humbly and gratefully. Enjoy!
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Six weeks ago I was still pregnant with our first child. I was at the end of the LONGEST nine months of my life, waking up every day wondering if “this was it.” I had a rough third trimester.
Truth be told, I had a rough pregnancy. I got “morning” sickness the day after conception and it continued in some small form throughout the entire pregnancy. At about six weeks along I developed some horrible itchy pregnancy-related rash. I started swelling at about eight weeks along and the swelling just increased.
By the end of the pregnancy I no longer had ankles; we called my tree trunk legs, thankles. They went straight down from my thighs to my feet with no differentiation.
The worst part? At 32 weeks along I failed, miserably, the one hour glucose test and was diagnosed with gestational diabetes. That meant that the corn dog craving I’d been having all day was not going to get filled during the pregnancy. In fact, only one of my cravings could be filled for the remainder of the pregnancy (no carbs in hot wings, hooray!).
Oh, that horrible pregnancy-related rash? It came back. Another couple of weeks of no sleep from massive itchiness! And labor and delivery? Oh, I won’t even get started on those!
I mention all these trials of my pregnancy for one reason: to show that they didn’t matter, that nothing could be so hard as to not make it worth it to have had this wonderful, perfect little boy, this little person who, at almost six weeks old, looks up at me with these big eyes that tell me how much he depends on me. And not just for food and diaper changes either.
He’s looking at me and I realize just how much responsibility we have for him; not just financial, emotional, and educational responsibility, but the responsibility to teach him about our faith and to share with him the love we have for the Holy Trinity and the Blessed Mother. To teach him the prayers that we love to say together, and develop in him a love for the Liturgy of the Hours and the Rosary as his dad and I have. To explain about the different vocations and states of life there are. His options are limitless at this point, but right now we’re still working on getting more than two hours of sleep at a time throughout the night.
