Tonight I am thinking about the dreaded "Why aren't you over it?" question. I QUITE DISLIKE that question. :( When people ask me it, it is usually about why I am not "over" Eli's premature birth. They say things like, "Why aren't you over it?" "It was so long ago." "You can't even tell he was a preemie by looking at him now!"
YES, I KNOW! Thank you for pointing this out to me. It was a long time ago, you really can't tell he was a preemie now, BUT I AM NOT NOR WILL I EVER BE "OVER" IT!
Why? Well, because that experience changed me. A whole lot. How? Oh my, that is a HUGE little question....
When I first found out I was pregnant I went through the normal thoughts and feelings that a pregnant person goes through. I had plans. Like real plans. Like a birth plan. Written out. Ready to roll when February 2, 2010 rolled around. I took my Bradley Method birth classes. I was ready for a natural birth with no drugs. I planned on being fat and happy walking into the hospital stopping once and awhile for a contraction. That was the plan. But we all know that plans don't ever go as planned.
Instead of all my plans that I had imagined, I got chaos. There was no plan, there wasn't time for a plan. There were no real options, baby comes or people could die. Instead of my nice calm contraction-filled birth plan, I got a chaotic day that will forever be ingrained in my head. Not ONE thing happened the way I had planned. NOT ONE!
My first moments of motherhood were not joyful. They were tearful, but not in a good way. I had PLANNED on holding my child skin-to-skin, breastfeeding soon after birth. Instead I got to see my child for about 30 seconds before he was whisked off to a deathly scary part of the hospital that I couldn't even imagine. My first moments of motherhood held fear, disorientation and anxiety on a level I had never known before.
Where many women fall right into the mother roll, it took me longer to get there. I didn't want to get attached. You see, when I would walk into the NICU, I was full of fear about what the problem would be that day. There were very few days, even right to the end, that there wasn't a problem that had to be dealt with. It wasn't for a couple of weeks that I finally felt comfortable with the "mom" word. So, my mothering roll didn't start the same way most women's do.
When you see your child with tubes to help him live, it will forever change the way that you mother. I don't know what kind of a mother I would have been had Eli not been in the NICU. But I won't ever have a chance to know that mother. I am the mother that I am. The mother who try's not to take any moment for granted, because I know that it could all go away all to soon. The mother who looks at her child and realizes what a gift from God he truly is. I am a better mother because of what I have been through. I am a better mother because I have walked to the brink of loss and come back from it changed.
When will I "get over it"? I can safely say NEVER. I will NEVER be over what happened to Eli. I will never be over what happened to ME! I will always talk about it, always be concerned for my fellow mothers who are pregnant. I will always ask the most probing questions to my expecting friends "How is your blood pressure?" "Are you spilling protein?" "What did the doctor say about the swelling?" "Headache has been here for how long?" I ask because I know. I know the signs of something going chaotic. I NEVER want what happened to me to happen to another human being again. EVER! I am working hard to make sure that other mothers will never have to experience the same being to motherhood as I did, because it's not really a beginning to motherhood as much as it is a beginning to the chaos that will now make you into a different person.
So the answer to the question, "Why aren't you over it?" Well, the answer is because it is a part of who I am now. And that is something that is never going to change.