[Menttaly] Preparing for the thought of having baby #2

Originally wrote early 2019. 

I’ve always wanted at least two kids and then I had one.


It started the day we had Killian (feels like at least) the questions of “when will you be having #2?”. Ugh, I seriously hated this question. I know it’s natural to ask, I do it too. But it can be sooo intrusive and just awkward sometimes. Not everyone understands how intense that first year can be or just the plain fact that growing a human inside you kinda sucks.

It took me a long time to even give the thought of actually having another child a true thought. I always wanted at least two, I have an older sister and my husband has an older brother. So naturally we both want Killian to have at least one sibling but, holy shit these things are hard to take care of.

I love being a Mom, it’s literally the only thing I ever wanted. In elementary school I dressed up as a stay at home mom for career day once. I never thought about how truly draining, mentally and physically this whole motherhood shit really is! The mental side is what gets me so let’s talk about that for a minute.

Mom guilt, sleep deprivation, anxiety, ptsd so many things that just come out of absolutely no where and ruin EVERYTHING. My mom guilt of having more than one child is that I won’t be able to give Killian the attention I want to give him. He is such a Mamas boy during the day but even more at night. He has never been a good sleeper (which is another story) and he still wakes up multiple times at night. Most of the time he just wants me to rock him in the rocking chair and he will fall asleep on me, which I really do love (once a night) but when this is happening multiple times a night it’s not fun. Now add on knowing I won’t be able to comfort him in the middle of the night because I’ll be tied to a soul sucking newborn is my mamas heart nightmare.

Sleep. My sleep. Bye sleep. I still do not remember what it’s like to wake up fully rested and I know that’s like the main job description of this Mom gig. But f*ck I love sleep, like I could sleep as a hobby. And of course my baby does not feel the same was as I do. Killian’s first year sucked. I will be the  first to admit I didn’t love the baby phase and I attribute that to sleep deprivation.  After that beautiful first 3 weeks of the sleepy newborn stage he turned into a full time sleep demon. Day naps were almost non existent and nighttime was not much different. It would take over an hour to get him down for a nap and then they would last 30 mins tops. This went on for about 5/6 times a day. All day I was just trying to get him to sleep, that was my day. He would then be up at night every hour. He slowly started to get better with naps and bedtime sleep but, never enough for me to feel like I was doing anything right. He didn’t sleep through the night until AFTER his first birthday. And that didn’t last long.

Added 11/22/19

Let’s talk PTSD. [I wish I wrote this section before getting pregnant with Maverick so I can compare my thoughts now, but that didn’t happen so this is kinda all over the place between what I remember thinking and how I feel now...]
Anyone who knows about family personally knows we went through a very traumatic pregnancy before Killian. (I may make a post about all of that in time) but in a nut shell we found out our baby had a number of genetic issues that would make life outside the womb impossible. Fast forward to Killian’s birth he inhaled a massive amount of meconium and had the cord wrapped around his neck pain delivery. He came out blue and unable to cry. Within seconds he was taken to the NICU and it was over 12 hours before I even got to see him, another 24 before I could hold him. Scott was able to see him before me and the first time he held him I was watching from a grainy webcam. He was in an incubator with so many tubes and cords I didn’t even want to hold him, he seemed so fragile (even though he was the biggest baby in the NICU). Two back to back pregnancies that didn’t go “normally” really fucks with your way of looking at future pregnancies. Every little symptom, doctors appointment/ultrasound, trip to the bathroom, baby not moving as much as he did the other day, etc. leaves you thinking the worst of the worst. For Scott and I the ultrasounds are the most nerve wrenching hours. We study our techs face, we stare at the monitor and look for anything that might look like what we saw before, Scott nervously makes inappropriate jokes, I hang on to the fact that the doctor says the chance of something happening again to us is like getting struck by lightning twice. But, it never goes away. The thoughts of loss never leave my head during pregnancy and the thoughts of delivery complications come on those last weeks. This made it so difficult to want a second baby. I definitely do not love being pregnant for a number of reasons so adding in fear and anxiety of the unknown makes it almost impossible to ever really enjoy it. I look forward to the week that baby can survive outside the womb just in case something happened; I never feel like baby is safest inside me and that definitely stems from not being able to do anything to help the baby we had to say goodbye to. There are so many emotions that go with this subject and I know it’s a lot but this is the most real thing I can share. I hate that someone will relate to this but I know only those that can relate will understand what I’m talking about.

Final thoughts 11/22/2019

I never got around to finishing this post before finding out I was pregnant...
but I feel it’s still important to post because it’s something no one talks about. The fears of adding another baby to the family is something I think most people do think about but maybe not want to admit the full depth of those fears. I honestly was worried I wouldn’t be able to love my second born because I loved Killian too much, that’s crazy right? But it seriously tore me apart thinking about having to share my love. Now that Maverick is here I am so happy I started this post because even though I’m still in the sleepy newborn stage I definitely feel a lot of my fears have vanished. The sleep part is still 100% true though, I am struggling hard at night. Luckily this time around Scott hasn’t asked for a sleep mask and ear plugs yet (if you know, you know)!