Thursday, October 31, 2013

New Life

Wow so it's been a while since I last posted, thought I'd better get another post in before the end of the month ;)

Firstly, happy Pagan New Year to all my Northern Hemispherean friends who are today celebrating Samhain, and to my fellow Southern Hemisphereans, Blessed Beltane!  Can't believe we're back here again!

And speaking of being back here again, we have some special news - Michael and I are expecting our second child in May 2014!  It's a little sooner than we originally anticipated - we were planning on trying for our second late next year, when Lily was about to hit her 2-year mark, but this one decided s/he must exist now (!) so I'm currently 11 weeks in, making me due on the 18th May 2014.

I can't lie - I'm SUPER anxious about this pregnancy.  I think because of all the stuff we went through when I was pregnant with Lily (read here and here), I am frightened that the same thing will happen again, even though rationally I know that every pregnancy is completely different.  I've had awful dreams that I've lost the baby, that we went for a scan and couldn't find a heartbeat, and all these scary thoughts even though I've had no reason to believe anything is wrong - and all was confirmed as just fine when we went for a scan today; little heart flickering on the screen, and growing well.  It was so reassuring to see that little heartbeat, and to see little bubba wriggling around - I nearly cried out of relief.

I know what I went through with Lily is the least of it - and that others have been through much, much worse - but it was a scary time for me and with nothing worse to compare it to, those moments were some of the most frightening I've ever experienced in my entire life.  I spent nearly 3 weeks of last year not knowing if Lily was going to be born premature, or if she'd even make it at all. 

And I know that every thing turned out perfectly in the end, and we now have a super healthy 11-month old who is growing and developing in leaps and bounds (started walking in the last week!), but I think between scans, until I can feel baby moving, that fear is always going to be there.  You can't shake it when you've been through difficult times in similar circumstances before - it's human.

That being said, we're SUPER excited to be adding another little kiddo to our household - our little ones will be 18 months apart almost exactly - and I think that's a great age gap to have.  They'll hopefully grow up really loving each other and getting along well and sharing their fun moments (not without arguments of course, but that's part of being a brother or sister!).