My Baby Reminds Me With His Eyes How Lucky I Am
I am not one who spends too much time on self-pity, but after countless months of not achieving a healthy pregnancy and 12 losses behind us, the challenges caught up with me. We were trying everything to conceive our fourth child, a long-wanted child, who was taking his time to come. “I don’t know, love. I wish I knew,” my husband gently answered my unanswerable question. The toll of infertility and multiple loss, medications, planning, and my tears were getting to him – heavy on his shoulders. It took him a while to get to the place of wanting a fourth child, he likes to fully commit to anything before saying ‘yes’ – a place he sat then for over a year. Finally. But, we made it. A fact that I know very clearly so many others are not able to say – despite their total body want and desire to meet that child who is missing that they can’t place. My fourth child was born, small, but perfect. “He’s perfect! I remember that moment so vividly – I think it was the first time I had taken a real breath in over two years. It has been six months since he was born. Six months filled with its own set of challenges of fears and pain, but six months that made all that pain seem more distant than they are in a real timeline. There is something about a baby born after loss and infertility – something I can’t put into words and probably not something you could understand unless you’ve been through it. There are days where I have been holding Silver for hours, him unwilling to be anywhere but my arms that are tired and aching. In the middle of those moments, Silver reaches up his pudgy hand to my face. His eyes catch mine and he looks at me, deeply, with a wisdom too old for his age. How badly I cried to meet him. Photo credit: Devan McGuinness
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Devan is a freelance writer living in Toronto, Ontario, with her husband and four kids. No, those aren’t her kids’ real names – they’re online pseudonyms. Read more from Devan on Babble as she dishes about babies, pets, and love + keep up with byDevan on Facebook and Twitter!
