This time was supposed to be my redemption...

I was so excited when I was having my son. I had some trouble getting pregnant, nothing major, just a couple months delay. Then I found out I was having a boy and that was it, that was all I ever wanted, a boy first, I didn't care what came after. I wholeheartedly admit I still was not the pregnant woman who "loved" being pregnant...especially as his eventual 9 lb 4 oz body filled my 5'2" frame, and as he decided he would laugh at his due date, and as I developed a lovely and full-body case of PUPPS the last week. I had all the plans, I would cloth diaper, I would have a natural birth, I would exclusively BF....the best laid plans of course.

And then I hit 41 weeks, and went in to be induced... still was going to do natural, but probably with an epidural. Then Jack's heartrate dropped for a good couple minutes and everyone freaked out and my fate was sealed. I had a c-section. I was in tears going in, I had failed. Having that c-section broke.my.heart. For someone that really wanted to do something a certain way, and missed out on it...please, if you have a friend or whomever that goes through this, please don't go on with the "as long as you got a healthy baby, it's not the end of the world, you didn't fail, you shouldn't be upset about this." Nobody validated my feelings or let me mourn the process I had missed and it hurt. For a long time. And it was physically painful as well, for quite a while. Cloth diapers were chucked out the window - I was lucky I could manage to lift this almost 10 lb giant high enough to change him. Then on to breast feeding. Well, Jack wanted nothing to do with it from the beginning. We went to LC's, however at 45 bucks a pop, I couldn't afford to visit every time he wouldn't latch at home, which was all the time. Milk came in late, it was all a mess. So I did what I knew I could do and I pumped - for a year, through a period when I had clogs everyday, through a week or two when I would sit crying into a pillow in my bedroom pumping because it hurt so bad. I did it, it was the most and the least I could do.

So this time was supposed to be my redemption. I had a doctor that fully supported an attempted VBAC. I would know the BF pitfalls this time and be ready for them, I would do the cloth diapers because I wouldn't be healing from another c-section. I would redeem all of the guilt that I had over Jack's birth and maybe try to heal a small part of me... one that isn't there all the time anymore but certainly exists. And then week 22 came. And again, every single one of those things were taken away. Again. And it makes me sad, and it hurts. And on top of that, some of the excitement of a new baby has been robbed from me too. My husband doesn't quite get that, and in some way I think holds it against me. But I've had to face a lot of things and thoughts in the past three months, thoughts that no one in this position can imagine, or sympathize with, so I can't blame him. Obviously after all of this I want a healthy baby, with all she has gone through. But I also need to mourn all of the things that have been taken away from me by all of this, by this cancer. That's why it's so difficult to even relate to people who have fought cancer but not while pregnant... there's a whole different set of game rules that apply to the pregnant cancer set. So I can't change anything, all I can do is try to process all of this the best that I can, and come out the other side, and be proud of all that I did accomplish during this time, and try to make peace with it all - again.