Expectations

My husband often tells me I need to manage my expectations. He says I am too hard on people. Maybe set the bar a little too high for most. But in my own head, I set the bar no higher for anyone else than I do for myself. Therein lies the problem. In my own head.

I am a control freak. I will be the first to admit it. So when my life doesn't go according to my plans, well...there's fret indeed. So far nothing about baby number 4 has been predicable or controlled. At the first ultrasound, there was no baby. At the second ultrasound there was a little seahorse who had yet to sprout arms and legs, but had a wonderfully strong heartbeat. But the doctor let us know there was a bleed. Not a large one, and it had shrunk from the first ultrasound, but it was there and we needed to be aware of it. At the third ultrasound, everything had healed and a little person with a heartbeat of 169 was already kicking at the ultrasound machine. Is it too early to say I think I saw a tongue being stuck out at me too?

Fret has become a constant already with this kid. So has the learning (and the morning, noon, and night sickness). I didn't know how scared I could be to lose something I didn't know I wanted so badly. I didn't know how much I could love someone just by seeing their heartbeat. I also think I realize that I control very little in life. I have put off letting the world in on our little creation for fear it will somehow be taken away. But my pants don't fit anymore and the lady at the bank is starting to look at me with the wondering eye of "is she gaining weight or is she pregnant." Having faith in the world and people around me needs to play a larger role in my life. That's what baby number 4 has already taught me. There are surely more to come when we meet in the spring.

Breathless

Dear 2020,

I have been catching glimpses of you for a while now. We have talked often of what you might bring and of how we might evolve into you. I have found it easier to look backward than to project forward. I have memories stored that have left me breathless, but to project into them is something I believed impossible.

I hold close the memory of when my sweet little curly haired girl became helpless to the virus within her and had to be hospitalized at 9 months old. I remember so clearly the paramedics whisking away her limp, naked, little body in her car seat strapped to a stretcher. I wanted time to stop. I wanted to go back and redo whatever I could have done to prevent that moment from happening. At the hospital I believed that if I just held her the whole night instead of placing her in the metal crib I could will her better on my own. That I alone could take away her pain and make her breathe. That I could protect her and keep her safe from the world.

Last night my sweet little curly haired girl sat on a bench crying and coughing. I rushed over to her to see if she could breathe. Instinctively, I began the firm pats on the back between her shoulder blades, to which she squirmed away from me slightly and said she was fine. I asked her why she was crying. She said she was sad. She said Fiona's kiss couldn't save Schreck and he died. She told me Fiona loved Schreck but she couldn't save him and that wasn't fair. And suddenly it was me who couldn't breathe.

2020, I know you could be the year that some boy comes along and breaks my little girl's heart. You could be the year she learns love sometimes isn't enough to save us. That we can't will things to be simply by loving them. It will be a moment I will want to go back and redo whatever I can to keep that reality from her a little bit longer, take away her pain, protect her, and keep her safe from the world. By then she will be too big to hold through the night. Yet I will still attempt to will away her heartache.

Until then I will prepare her. I will show her that love saves us from more than anyone is capable of believing.