The Future

I find myself contemplating "the future" a lot these days. This is very different than how it was when Bailey was 2 1/2 weeks old.

I have made no secret that Bailey's early days were the hardest days I have ever lived through. They were so hard that I can't go back to them in my mind very often. The guilt that I have associated and the fear and the exhaustion and the confusion make it too difficult. I got beyond it, as a woman and as a mother...but it was hard. That journey was one that I never hope to repeat. And it is the full reason that I chose not to carry another child. Now, Kelly chose to carry Connor for many reasons...but my reason for not doing it was fear of feeling that way again.

Being the "other mother" has been a very, very different experience for me. It started from a place of skepticism. I must admit that I had no idea how to be the other mother. In many ways it was like starting over again - as if I had never had a child before. Connor was foreign to me. It was odd to see this little person that I had been waiting for for so long, but who I had no knowledge of (either actual or intuitive). I knew the "things" to do to care for a child, but not how those things applied to Connor.

It was equally odd for me to see Kelly approach him so naturally. This did not surprise me, but it was odd. For a number of reasons, she has been so much more comfortable with him and his care than she ever was with Bailey. She has said that this is because she had already had a child and was just more comfortable and I would never disagree. But it is more than that, of course. She carried and birthed this child. She is more comfortable with him because he is HERS in a very, very different way than Bailey was. Not in her heart - but in her physical being.

But now, we have found our rhythm. There is a definate change in how I feel about Connor. He has become my child as completely as Bailey has ever been. What I expected to be a long process of learning him and falling in love with him happened very quickly. He knows me in a way that I didn't expect. I am the person who can always get him to sleep. He is completely relaxed with me. The only time that I don't work for him is when he is hungry and that makes sense. His "milk lady" is the only person he wants then.

So, any way, back to the original topic of my post. "The Future". I think of it in those terms. When Bailey was born, we knew that we had another infant to be born. Of course, we didn't know the time line or how it would play out. But we did know that eventually we would have another child and that the process would start all over. That had a bit of an inhibiting quality - we couldn't really think past the "having babies" phase of our life. This time, though, we know that we are not going to have any more children.

We are all done. 2 children is what we always dreamed of having and given that both of us had less than easy pregnancies and birth experiences, we are finished. Kelly will be 34 in a couple of days and by the time we were ready for a 3rd, she would be too old (I say that laughing) to carry. And I won't carry another child. So this is it for us. And THAT makes thinking about the future something different than it was with Bailey.

Suddenly, when I look at Bailey and Connor, I can see them at 4 and 6, super excited about Christmas. I can see us going camping with our kids, roasting marshmallows and going canoeing. I can envision a time when Kelly and I might actually leave them with someone overnight and spend some time alone. I see them on the playground, together, without us chasing after them. I can imagine a world without diapers. I can see them starting school, and I can see beyond all this work.

It's such an amazing thing. It's so different to see beyond this initial phase. It don't feel nearly as overwhelmed by it. I look at Connor's tiny fingers and then see Bailey's in the back of my head. I know that he will grow, that he will change. I believe that he will sleep through the night at some point and that he will need us less and less (or maybe just differently) in just a few short months. I can imagine my relationship with Kelly coming back to a point where we are both happier and more focused on each other.

I guess what I'm suggesting is that there is much less fatality and much more hope this time around. Maybe that is because I'm not post partum. Maybe it's because I have seen that I can survive early babyhood. Maybe it's because Connor is a much, much, much less intense child. Maybe it's all three and a million of other things I can't put my finger on.