Utter Sadness...I will never have a baby again.

I just nursed baby Katie off to sleep. Jack was lying in the bed on the other side. When I got up, I felt my stomach rise up to my throat and the tears began to fall as I looked down at Katie's fat chubby baby legs and her little infant head thrown back in sleep, at Jack's long lashes spread out so innocently over his sleeping little boy eyes, and his long legs that were once just as round and fat as Katie's.....these are my children. Right now they are mine. I am their Mommy. I am everything to them and they to me. Before Jack was born...I had no idea about what life was. Jack made me a Mommy...and now I am overwhelmed with feelings of thankfulness for being allowed to knwo this sort of love. It is amazing and larger than anything that I could have imagined before I had children. Thank you God for blessing me with the most precious gifts.


Since I am now 43, I know that Katie is my last baby. Thus, every milestone she achieves has become a marker of the end of her babyhood...and our last baby. I don't know if I am going to be able to express the way that I have been feeling for the last 7 months in words....but these feelings have been haunting me since Katie was born.

I will never be pregnant again. I will never again give birth. I will never again hold my own newborn baby. I will never have an itsy bitsy baby of my own again. I will never again have a baby that is so utterly dependent on me for everything. I will never again see the heartbeat of my baby on an ultrasound for the first time. I will never again see my baby's first smile...or revel in my baby's first bath, or first tooth. I will never have a baby again.....and my heart is breaking.

I know this sounds so ungrateful and selfish. I love my children more than anything and everything. I cannot identify the feelings that are making me feel so utterly sad...but they are there...rising to the surface again and again over and over... Sometimes I feel almost sick about it.

I really don't want to have another child....I am so in love with my two and they are more than I could have ever dreamed of. My two babies are the most perfect things I have ever seen. But realizing that I will never ever ever have anotehr baby makes me sad...so sad.

I LOVED being pregnant with both of my children. It was so hard to get pregnant that the thrill of being pregnant never wore off for me. I loved finding out that I was pregnanat, I loved walking around knowing that I had a little life inside of me. I loved dreaming about the baby that I was carrying, preparing for his/her arrival, and feeling blessed by God for giving me such a special gift. To know that I will never be able to feel those feelings again has brought tears to my eyes again and again. I have been meaning to write about these feelings since Katie was just a month old...but even writing about them makes me recognize and acknowledge the feelings again....so here I sit crying...crying for the passing of an era for me.

A house is such a happy place when there is a baby int hat house. Life is good and you realize that life is good when there is a baby in your life. Babies mean that life will go on....beginnings. I cannot imagine never having a baby again. I know that Mary Katherine is only 71/2 months old....but each day as she grows and changes my heart breaks a bit knwoing that this is our last bit of baby...our last one...it is overwhelming at times.

I never had these feelings after having Jack. I guess, while I never was cerain that we would have another child, I always assumed that we would...or that the option was there. So now with each milestone that Katie reaches, with each tiny sweater that I put away for her children someday, with each piece of baby equipment that we fold up and put away for the last time....my heart breaks just a bit more...and the tears fall as the bits and pieces of the babyhood of our last slowly fall away.

I love you so much Jack & Katie...thank you for making me a Mommy. I will always be grateful for that. You both have given me the greatest gift. I love you both more than you will ever know.

Love,
Mommy

Perfect EEG Results!

We are so relieved! Katie's EEG was perfectly normal! She is fine!! We are so happy. We love you so much our little Boo!

EEG, & Months Old & Crawling

Yesterday we went for Katie's EEG. It was horrible! They bundled her up in a papoos so that she couldn't move her arms or legs even slightly (her littel fists were all balled up trying to move and her feet were struggling to free her legs from the straigh-jacket like thing). She was crying hysterically. Then they proceeded to measure and mark all over her head with a red grease pencil (and I will say that they were very rough.) They made me hold her head down as they measured and wrote all over her little head marking it where the electrodes were to be placed. Then they scrubbed and rubbed each of the marks with an abrasive that "exfoliated" away the first layer of her skin.


My poor baby was in pain and hysterical. She was choking on her own saliva, crying so hard she could barely breathe, and all of the while looking up at me with her dark little eyes asking me why I wasn't helping her and why was I letting people hurt her like this.


It was a terrible experience...I don't even like to think about it because it upsets me so much. Her looking at me like that and me not being allowed to help her when she needed me just makes me sick. They said she wouldn't remember this...but I will always remember having her looking at me...wanting me to help her...and feeling like I had betrayed her.


We will have the results in 7-10 days....so until then we will be praying that she has a perfect baby brain.

NOTE: She turned 7 months old on July 2nd. She weighs just over 18 lbs now and as of this morning July, 10th, she is crawling!!! This seems so early to me (7 months 8 days old). Also, on July 2 (her 7 month old birthday) her 3rd tooth came through (the topright....and today, the top left is coming through!

EEG Scheduled

We had an appointment with our pediatrician who examined Katie and talked to us about her spasm-like behavior. She does not believe that Katie has infantile spasms. (Thank you to each of you who wrote with reassuring words of wisdom and just good thoughts). The pediatrican believes that Katie is having a reaction to acid reflux (although in my research this was indicated as one of the things that people often mistake infantile spasms as) or an imature nervous system.



She did schedule her for an EEG for THIS Monday at 8:30 am. to be sure that there really is nothing wrong with her little brain. So until that time we will be praying for our baby. Again, thank you all for your kind thoughts and reassurance....we are feeling a lot better today than we were two days ago.

Infantile Spasms

We are very scared.  About two months ago, I told Paul that right before Katie would fall alseep while nursing she would, every once in a while, kind of tense up.  I told him that it seemed almost seizure-like...but only lasted a second or two.  We didn't really worry about it...until lately.  Now that we are watching her closely, it seems that she will tense up for a second or two....shrugging her sholdurs up to her ears and tightening her arm muscles and hands.  Then she relaxes.  She seems to have these episodes in clusters...sometimes clenching 10 times in a row with a few seconds to a minute in between.  She also tends to shiver...which can be another sign of this condition.  These "episodes" tend to occur when she is tired. 

We thought she was trying to go to the bathroom or to swallow...but after doing some internet research we are terrified.  It sounds a lot like Infantile Spasms...or West Syndrome.  This is a terrible condition where the prognosis is bad.  Mental retardation is almost certain.  We are sick and scared.  Please pray for our sweet baby.  We have an appointment with our pediatrician tomorrow morning.  (when I explained her behaviors to the nurse she said, "we need to see her right away." )  Please, God let her be okay...........please...