I read this little quotation in a magazine one day after buying my first home. I have found it to be "the quotation" that would represent my life.
I had a lot of big, yet simple plans for my life that all changed and went off into a totally different direction then I had originally wanted. But I find that I am exactly where I need to be in my life. It is not perfect, but it's somehow (I'm convinced) better than it could have or would have been. Maybe it's a mini mid-life crisis.
We all had the dream.... get into a great career, meet Mr. Right, f*&^k like minx, make rugrats, buy a house and live happily ever after.
Of course, as we all know, life doesn't always work like that. Sometimes you get everything you ask for yet somehow it's not quite right. Not quite as perfect as you imagined.
The timing is off, the person is off, you are off, your life is off.
So I got into my dream job. I became a teacher. (SMART MOVE #1) Just kidding. I love my job. I would just love to be able to make a decent wage doing it! I met Mr. Right (he really was back then). He was an unexpected but obvious choice. I was crazy about him! I never saw it coming. We did the I do's. Saved, scrimped, sacrificed and bought our little house before our 1 year anniversary.
Two weeks after buying the house I found out I was pregnant! Although the timing was way off, I was ecstatic! I was going to be a mom! I enjoyed every moment (once the morning sickness subsided) of getting fat. Counted down the weeks and months, planned the baby shower, bought all the baby goodies, and put in for a nice 8 month maternity leave.
I was in the final semesters of my Masters program. I finished my final paper that semester and the minute I got up from the computer, I am not exaggerating, contractions began. Two long exhausting painful nights later (I will spare you the details) my beautiful daughter was born at exactly 10:10 PM. 10 has always been my lucky number. My first thoughts and words to my nurse after I came out of the O.R. were, "I'm not good enough for her".
The first days and nights at home were "rough" to say the least. I cried the first night because it was simply too much! Do not get me wrong. I just culd nt handle the fact that she needed me so much. Needed me for everything from her feedings, to her diapers to being carried.
I adored this baby. No, I was in love with this baby. If you ever doubt that you ever love or have loved someone, ask yourself if you feel or have felt the way you feel for your children. If you do, you know what true love is.
For the next couple of months I labored to learn how to do it right. How to "sleep when she slept", when to carry her if she was crying and when to let her cry (never), give her a bath, change her diaper, breastfeed, dress her, carry her. And most of it did "just come to me". I began to get used to being at her beck and call every moment and slowly adjust to there being less for me.
Then POW!! I found out when she was 4 months old that I was pregnant again. My mother had warned me, but I didn't listen. It was a harsh lesson on the importance of birth control. But either way, we figured (or I guess I figured) we could do this. We ( I ) wanted another baby one day, so maybe sooner rather than later was ok.
Baby #2, my son, was born only 13 months later. My two children are practically twins. The second was a little easier because at least I knew what to expect. I knew what to do and my daughter became mommy's little helper.
I enjoyed knowing what it was like to have a girl and a boy and imagined that I would one day throw a wedding and also get to attend one. That my kids would be close, yet give each other space, because they were boy and girl. I truly enjoyed the time and dreaded the double diaper duty.
Then they were 2 and 3 years old... I thought I would pull my hair out one strand at a time or have a mini-breakdown.
And just when I thought I couldn't take it anymore, that our finances could not be in a worse place, and my marriage was almost completely in the toilet....... The pregnancy test read "PREGNANT"
Damn you digital pregnancy tests! No room for doubt. Yet I still bought another test at the drugstore and went to Dr office, fully expecting this to be an error in manufacturing or that the tests were past their shelf life.
Nope. I was definitely pregnant. "Congratulations?" I swear that is how the nurse put it. As a question. She must have read my face!
I told my husband in a text message.
I honestly did not know what to think or do. I prayed A LOT. I thought A LOT. I researched A LOT. I read a woman's blog on an unwanted pregnancy. And lastly, I spoke to my grandmother who set me straight right away. I was going to be a mother of three. I was BLESSED.
It was not an easy pregnancy emotionally. Full of angst over many, many, many things. And most of it I kept to myself while still raising two toddlers becauseI really had no one who I thought would understand.
When baby #3 came, after a few pre-term labor scares, he was perfect. He had the highest Apgar scores of all my children. He cried and cried at his birth and only stopped when he was placed on my chest.
We took him home and at 7 weeks a tumor the size of an orange was discovered in his kidney.
That is almost word for word how we were told at the hospital.
We were left there to take that fact in for what seemed like an eternity. And my first thought was to grab my son, look up at the ceiling tiles and think, "My God, and I didn't want him".
The ordeal we went through that Mother's Day week at the hospital is one for another day. (I will spare you these details, as well) But after 7 days of tests and being told that there was no certainty as to what he had or what the outcome was, we were told he had to have his kidney, or whatever there was of it, removed.
I never looked so intently at my son as I did those days before his surgery. I wanted to soak him im. He was only 7 weeks old and would go into major surgery.
The day of his surgery I could not stop shaking. But there came a moment when I just thought, said, or prayed, "God, he is in Your hands, and what you have/want I will accept. My son is in Your hands and I have faith that I can and will deal with what You want". I went for a walk out of the hospital in a state of complete peace. Strange huh?
That is also a story for another day.
After all was said and done, my baby son was found to have a benign tumor. Mesoblastic nephroma.
Our prayers had been answered. We took our son home. And to this day he is still monitored every 3-4 months, but all is well. Although, it took a while for our feet to finally hit the ground, they eventually did and he is a rambunctious little guy who definitely keeps me busy.
"On the way to what you plan to happen, something even better comes along".
So, as you can see that quotation is most appropriate for my life.
My life has not been perfect but, somehow, I just know that life works out just how it's supposed to, not necessarily how you plan. But that's a good thing. All the mistakes, surprises, leaps of faith, accidents, and unexpected heartbreaks often lead you, nudge you, sometimes shove you, onto the right path.
Life is not ever going to be a fairy tale, but sometimes it seems like it can be one hell of a soap opera!
