Part of me wants to have another child. There, I said it.
But, I want that child not because I think we can afford it or my marriage can
survive another human in our already crazy life but because I want those
hospital pictures. It sounds insane but it reminds me that I am still
recovering from having a premature baby.
I want to experience consciously leaving my older children
behind to go have the baby. I want to kiss them goodbye and tell them that the
next time they see me; our family will be one person larger. I want my family
to dress my daughter and son up and bring them to the hospital so that we can
get that one perfect picture. You know the one I am talking about; the one
where the older siblings are sitting in the hospital chair or on my bed- I am
not that particular, with their feet sticking out and their new sibling
stretched across their laps. That beautiful moment in time captured while we
are all still in the hospital.
Those moments were stolen from me because my son was born
six weeks early. I left our house frantic in the middle of the night hoping
that this was all a surreal nightmare. My son met his sister for the first time
at our house, two weeks after his birth. She wasn’t allowed to enter the special
care nursery because of her young age and his convenient arrival during the
middle of flu season. To be honest, I am not sure I would have wanted her to
visit her brother in his clear isolate surrounded by wires, beeps and hustling
nurses. I think it would have scared her.
But I have to let that dream go. I have to accept that the
sadness I feel is attached to the trauma of giving birth and raising a
premature baby. This deep ache is part of the healing process and that we are
lucky to have ended up with two healthy children and plenty of pictures of them
sitting side by side grinning at the camera with their feet sticking out. I
have two legs to sit on and two arms to squeeze with and all of them are
filled. It is enough until someone posts that perfect picture and the ache
starts all over again.