Very long, having a hard time
This is just sort of a bloodletting post--feel free to respond or not. Sorry if this meanders a little. I have two little boys. Growing up I wanted all girls and always thought and imagined that I would have a daughter but when it came time to have kids I wanted a little boy first for two reasons: I wasn't sure how many kids I wanted and if I had only one I wanted one like my youngest nephew, who convinced me with his utter adorableness to have children, and secondly because my oldest sister was such a bully that I was afraid I wouldn't handle normal sibling conflict as well if I had more and the oldest was a girl. It was a hard decision to have children because my childhood and early 20s were not-so-good. I was the youngest of four (three girls and a boy), overweight and forgotten. After I got married and moved away life was much better. I worked out a lot, kept the apartment clean, had a good relationship with my husband, had a great job and enjoyed traveling. We lived in a great place and hiked every day after work. Rocking the boat by having a child, which my husband really, really wanted, was a hard choice but after I had my oldest son I felt very happy and content. I had confronted a big fear and come out a winner. I was working 4 days a week so I had a fantastic work/life balance. I exercised a lot and got in great shape. I had a beautiful Victorian house in a great neighborhood and some friends as well as knowing every family on our block. We took some nice trips. None of my fears about parenthood had materialized and having a son only made everything better. The pregnancy had not been great—he had low birth weight because of a cord problem and he started to lose weight in the womb so I ended up on bed rest and then being induced. He had low muscle tone and needed physical and occupational therapy but he was ahead on all the verbal/cognitive stuff and from the beginning was the sensitive, imaginative, affectionate little boy I had always wanted. I knew almost immediately that we would want another child and felt I was finally ready for the girl I assumed I was destined to have. I got pregnant two weeks after having my IUD removed; my doctor had assured me it was ok to try immediately. He had helped me through the low-birth-weight saga of my older boy and I had an enormous crush on him so as silly as it sounds I was really looking forward to seeing him during my second pregnancy. About seven weeks into the pregnancy I started cramping. I was at work and had an unavoidable deadline so I had to keep working but the cramping was so bad I soon could not sit up straight and when I went to the bathroom I discovered so much bleeding that I was positive the pregnancy was over. I called my doctor and his nurse said I should come in but there was nothing they could do that early. I still needed to meet my deadline so I arranged to go to urgent care later that day in the same medical facility and finished my work. When I went to urgent care they discovered that I had had a partial placental abruption but the baby still had a heartbeat. There was so much bleeding they thought I still had an 80% chance of miscarriage but I had to wait and see. I was somewhat relieved but I steeled myself for a miscarriage. I went from being very active to “taking things easy.” Fortunately that miscarriage never happened. I continued bleeding for two months and even had two more events of heavy, profuse bleeding that I was sure meant I was miscarrying but by the time I got to 20 weeks everything seemed ok. My doctor unfortunately quit the practice for personal reasons. I missed him and felt depressed but of course I plodded onward. By the time I went to the 20 week ultrasound I had a hunch that it was a boy and it didn’t bother me at all; I was amazed to still be pregnant and thought we might still have one more child if having a girl meant so much to me later. When the ultrasound confirmed he was a boy my husband and I both laughed because we knew it. The doctors warned me that he might also have low birth weight but that wasn’t the case—he was over 8 lbs. He was born a few days late after an easy labor and it was as if he had spent those extra days reading literature on how newborns are supposed to behave. My oldest son had had fluid in his lungs, was weak and sleepy and had trouble nursing. This guy was healthy and robust from the beginning. He’s two now and is still healthy, beautiful and energetic—happy all day long. When he was about six months old I had lost much of the baby weight and was doing ok. I had quit my job because I now had two to take care of and it had been an adjustment. My husband had also gotten a better job but the commute was longer and he now hoped to move. I took the baby to his six-month check-up and the doctor noticed he had a single palmar crease, which is a symptom of Down’s Syndrome, and he wanted to have him tested. My chances based on the quad screening were 1/12,000 so although I was 35 it wasn’t something I had worried about before. It took many torturous attempts to get enough blood for a screening but we finally got enough and we waited an anxious week for the test results. I lost a few pounds over the course of that week just from anxiety. When the results came in we were relieved that he did not have Down’s Syndrome. We had spent the week researching it and felt we could have dealt with the condition if we had to, but we also didn’t want to endure that kind of worry again and decided not to have another child, even if it meant never having a girl. I gave away my maternity clothes and considered myself, at 35, too old for one more. I regretted quitting my job as it was now clear we would not have more children but there was nothing to be done. The house we lived in was beautiful and a great pleasure to me every day but we decided to sell it as there was now nothing holding me there. I felt very sad to sell it but my husband’s commute was long, his new job made more career sense, and the schools in the areas closer to his job were much better. It sold very quickly to a couple pregnant with their first child. We moved away to a new house in a nondescript suburban neighborhood. I was depressed about the move and gained a bit of weight. About a month before the move, when I was supposed to be packing, I got appendicitis and had an operation. Soon after I got the shingles with a lot of accompanying nerve pain but somehow we got through the packing and moved. I started to feel better because I had gotten through those obstacles and we even planned to have my IUD removed and try for a girl but about a month after the move, just before I was to get the IUD out, I tripped and broke my foot. X-rays every two weeks meant no pregnancy until I healed. I spent the winter depressed, gradually gaining back all the weight and more as my foot refused to heal. It took four and a half months before I was able to return to the gym. Over the last few months I have tried to return to my normal self. I am working out again. I just can’t snap out of it. I’m so depressed about leaving my job and consider it a huge mistake. I recently found out that the couple who bought my house had a girl, just as I predicted. When I think about them living in my house with their baby girl I feel venomous hatred. Everyone I knew who was pregnant in the last year or so has also had an opposite-gender child. I have made no friends since moving and a few even dropped me from Facebook almost immediately after I moved so I now know they never liked me. I have nothing to look forward to. Every day I dwell on whether to try for a girl. Everything reminds me of it. I would love to have another child but I’m almost convinced there would be something wrong with it. I know the solution is probably to go back to work. I also feel like I might have recovered from the pregnancy but the DS scare pushed me down the rabbit hole of depression for hormonal reasons. Thank you for listening. Any feedback you have is appreciated.
