when my first baby was born, i remember being so awed by how much i loved her. i even apologized to my man when i’d say “i have never loved ANYONE or ANYTHING like i love this baby”. i am sure any mother can agree with the amount of love that comes with giving birth to your first baby. during her first few months, i blogged about the love, i wrote her letters, and i could not stop staring and gazing at her. it was typical behavior you read about anywhere. it was typical mushy for me.

out of left field, i find out i am pregnant as my precious angel is turning two. i find this out after we had agreed to wait at least a year and then discuss again. after we agreed to both work really hard and save some money for a year. i find out after i “missed a pill or two” says the doctor and “that’s all it took”. yes ladies, definitely take as directed or you can find yourselves in the .1% that gets pregnant while taking the same darn pill you have been taking for over ten years.

oddly enough as the pregnancy started to settle in, i began to worry about my motherly love. i actually worried if i would love this baby enough. why? because how could i love anyone or anything as much or more as i loved my first baby? i remembered how i felt when i saw my daughter for the first time and thought i would not be able to share that love. that there is no room in my heart. it was such a strange feeling, i am having a hard time describing it.
i am sure it also did not help that this baby was SUCH a surprise. that the tension in my relationship was unbearable. (i mean, the guy is pissed!) that i honestly did not want to be pregnant and felt really guilty about even having those thoughts. the pregnancy had definitely started off on a bad note. with that rough start came some denial. and it was when that denial finally started to wear off that i began to analyze my love and how fair i would be to this new baby. it hit me so hard that this was actually happening that i went from Denial to Fear. Fear of ALL of it. Every single aspect, every moment, every thought – I was scared of it.

looking back now, it seems almost ridiculous. what happened when my second baby entered this world was that my heart actually grew. i now love two precious angels, equally. my heart grew to be twice as big. i literally have double the love in my heart for these girls. i would give anything to see them happy, to see them protected, to see their every desire or need fulfilled. giving birth a second time was just as overwhelming as the first time, but twice as hard because it was happening AGAIN. because my heart had to grow to receive her.
-i am going in circles with unexplainable emotion- it was Intense. my heart grew.

with two little babies to protect and love, i grew stronger as well. i had not thought of that before i had her, either. while the first few months of my first baby were spent melting over her and the experience; the first few months of my second baby were spent with much worry and anxiety for she was born with an ailment. her first bump in the road presented itself immediately. fortunately, her bump in the road was not life threatening and a plan was made to remove her ailment (BH). plans did not go exactly as we had planned, as we would expect from life, and i prayed for strength. i feared being such a sensitive, emotional mother would not be helpful in the experiences to come. to be in the hospital at the bedside of your infant you just gave birth to. to hand your infant over to nurses and later witness her wake from anesthesia. for rushed trips to the emergency room without a way to explain things to my older daughter. how would i go through it all without breaking down on a regular basis?

well i did. with each step of the way i grew a little stronger. then a little more.
at first the tears would spill over uncontrollably. eventually i could control them from spilling out and they would linger around my eyeballs. i learned to not cry while i nursed her so she would not feel any anguish. i learned to wrap her in warmth love and positivity instead. then i learned to keep it all in my throat even though i sometimes felt i could not breathe – but i did not want my older daughter to see any of it on my face as i would turn away from her baby sister. at least no one could see how badly i was choking at this point.
i am happy to report that at our last visit to the doctor with both babies crying and our new nanny on her first day in the room – i did not shed a tear and i did not lose my breathe. i stayed at the side of my upset infant and purposely looked at my other daughter straight in the eye so she would know that everything was okay and she need not feel worried or scared.

i do not think i am less emotional or less sensitive. i still feel everything and anything around me, especially if it has to do with my family, but i have strength to control. these experiences really do make us stronger. i am stronger now to be alone with my girls while their father leaves town for work and they both get sick, and of course i am sick now too. of course, these weeks without him only make me stronger for the next.

i will not doubt or fear my strength as a mother again. i am still scared shitless of what is coming – but i have faith. i have seen my heart and my strength grow so much in only a few months that i have to lift my head up high as i face the rest of my life as a wife and mother of two.