Be Still My Beating Uterus

With my littlest bro on my wedding day
Image source

I was never one of those girls who dreamed of becoming a mother. I have much younger siblings and spent a portion of my teenage years looking after them, so 'clucky' was just not in my vocabulary. When I was 24 I had to see a spinal surgeon. I was told that my back would only get worse with time, that I needed surgery but the surgery had its risks. He advised that because I was so young I should hold off as long as I could. What about pregnancy? We asked the surgeon. There were no easy answers, we wouldn't know how my body would handle it until we tried.

We went home and talked about it. If my spine was inevitably getting worse, did I really want to consider starting a family in 5 years time, with more pain and less mobility? And thus began our road to parenthood. I know it's not a very romantic story, but we figured what the heck, let's give it a try.

Soon I was pregnant, and it became less about "sooner rather than later" and more about the life growing inside of me. I loved every minute of it. When J was born my heart doubled in size. Our perfect little baby, "I could have ten of these..." I said to M, swooning over our jaundiced baby boy. 

We took to parenthood like flies to shit (no? you wanted a sweeter analogy?) and just weeks after J's first birthday, I was pregnant with H. Even though we had a difficult time with H, he was still so amazingly lovable and we were certain we wanted more children. We had to wait until after May 2011 though, because we were going to the Whitsundays for Big Bro's wedding! That June we found out we were expecting A.

Babies: 3 days old

Last weekend we were out shopping and looking at some cute little baby shoes. A, 7 months old now, was in my arms, the two boys at our sides. "Oh look at these shoes! We need more babies!" I exclaimed. To which M replied, "We have a baby!" laughing. 

I won't lie, I have hard days, days where being a mum seems like it's just too much. 

But those 3 sweet faces just make my ovaries pulse, my uterus do the Nutbush, and the hard days feel worth it. My oh my I could have ten of the little buggers. Watching them grow and develop into these amazing little people makes my heart swell. I need to have more children. But here's the thing, we agreed on four. M says any more than four would be too hard. So I have only one pregnancy left, only one birth, only one newborn... and that's kind of heart breaking... and uterus breaking. My uterus weeps with the knowledge that it only gets one more turn.

And I wonder, what if after four children I still feel this way? What if another baby doesn't cure my cluckiness? Will I just have to deal with it? Could I? Or will trying to wrangle four kids send me well and truly bonkers? If I'm not there already...

 I used to dream of becoming the BOSS. The Boss of what? Well that wasn't important, I wasn't too concerned with details, as long as there were plenty of people for me to tell what to do. Now as I flick through photos of my babies for this post and as I contemplate number 4, I wonder if motherhood was my dream after all, perhaps I just found a way of having a group of people report to me!

I AM THE BOSS!

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