Writer's Workshop

#3. A moment you felt truly relieved.

In keeping with the serious theme from Tuesday about motherhood, I'm going to admit something; tell you something that I rarely talk about.

I've written a few posts about my son, and my struggles with him in the past. The quick version is that I was horribly depressed during my 2nd pregnancy, and for the first seven months of my son's life. Pre-partum, post-partum...I had it all!

 I was a mess. 

 You see, I got pregnant with my son Kaleb when Katherine was just six weeks old. 

Weeks? 

 Yes. 

 That's right. I said weeks. It's not a typo. It wasn't 6 months. It wasn't 6 years. It was SIX WEEKS. So, of course I was a mess.

When my son was just five months old, I found out I was pregnant with my third. So there I sat, with a 15 1/2 month girl AND a 5 month old boy...despondent and not sure what the future would hold. I was, at this point, un-medicated. My depression undiagnosed. My feelings buried. I had to hide a lot. I got so much criticism and so many of *those* looks...the looks that say "What were you thinking?" Or the comments:  "Are you crazy?" Or "You know how that happens right?" So my only reaction, my gut reaction, was to pretend like I was 100% thrilled with the reality that I would be 23 years old, still in college THUS barely hanging on financially, with three babies in diapers.

You know what? I wasn't happy. I wasn't holding it all together, on the inside. I was a mess and my marriage, to top it off, was not in a good place. I was depressed and neither Kris nor I knew it. Long story short (I'm not good at that am I?), when my son was 7 months old, God pulled me out of my dark pit and things turned around. I finally bonded with my son...better late than never right? A couple months later, it was time to find out if my current pregnancy would bring me another boy or another girl.

I told myself, convinced myself, that I would be happy either way. Boy or girl, I didn't care. So long as he/she is healthy. The usual, right? God had really helped me through a severely dark time in my life and I was at peace with my current babies, and the baby to come. I had a girl and a boy at this point, so I really didn't have a preference.

And yet, when the technician told us that we were indeed having another girl, I felt this huge weight lift from my shoulders.  I couldn't explain it.  I THOUGHT I would be happy, boy or girl.  But that sense of intense, tremendous relief I felt was undeniable.  I think that I was so traumatized by all of my experiences with my son's pregnancy and first few months of life that I thought I would go crazy if I had another boy.  And while it wasn't as extreme, I felt the same relief when I was told that my fourth child was also a girl. I think I was just not cut out to raise more than boy.  And don't get me wrong.  I don't HATE boys.  And I love my son fiercely!  In case you are now wondering and questioning if I like my girls better.

So there it is.  How's that for some honesty?