This Moment in Time

Isn't life full of odd coincidences? Like the fact that my babies were born nearly a month apart in terms of gestation, yet they were only a hundred grams apart in weight? One was in the 80th percentile, while the other was in the 5th, and they met at 2.5 pounds. It's like that with their therapy. My son has two physical therapy sessions and four speech therapy sessions left before he turns three and ages out of the state's early intervention services. We have just had my daughter assessed, and she begins her physical therapy exactly as my son finishes. In fact, she will have the same therapist, and she will take her brother's time slot. How bizarre is that?

Therapy and growth concerns and discussions about meeting developmental milestones have taken over my self-centered concerns about my professional development. My life has revolved around these two preemies for the last three years. I won't lie--it has been so difficult in many ways. There have been days that I thought I was a terrible mom and I had so much to learn. Other days my husband comes home to a clean house and to the baby sleeping and to my son on the floor with me painting pictures, and I smile at him like, "Hey, not only did I keep the kids alive today, but dinner is on the stove, the house is clean, and we're having fun!" When I take a step back, I'm not even sure what my life will look like when I don't have tiny babies. My son's physical therapist probably knows him better than most people in this world--she has seen him for one or two hours a week since he was a six-month-old trapped in a newborn's body. Now, he's running and laughing and filling all our lives with such joy. As she starts all over again with my daughter, I wonder what our life will look like when we're done with having preemies, when our kids are big and healthy and all this is a blur?

I feel at a crossroads in my life where I'm not sure which direction is right, but I know I can't leave all this behind. It has been totally and overwhelmingly life-altering. I'm still a little silly. I'm a total nerd, and I love reading a good book almost more than anything else. I love food and growing food and being outside. But, so much of what I've always thought made me Summer is in the background now. I am the mother to two preemies. We have therapy and talk about the next milestone to meet. I rejoice in their health and happiness. I worry about the next hurdle, and I change lots of poopy diapers. I cannot imagine not having more children, not having more preemies, ending this phase of my life, even though I know we have been told we should never have more biological children. When I allow myself to go to an alternate universe, one in which I'm not careful and practical and I throw caution to the wind to try once again to have a full-term baby, I simply cannot imagine it. I imagine us back in the NICU, seeing all our favorite doctor and nurses and laughing at the ridiculousness of having a third preemie. I know it would irresponsible to have another tiny baby, and I know my husband and I are too afraid of all the things that could go wrong. We know how fortunate we've been, and if you keeping pushing your luck, eventually it runs out. I just mean that I am so changed that I cannot even imagine having a baby any other way than the NICU way.

So, again I wonder at all the coincidences and the happenstances that have brought us to this moment in time. I believe in the order of things, that even life's chaos has an order we don't fully understand. I have to believe that as an otherwise perfectly healthy woman, I have been chosen to have these tiny babies and to live these experiences for a reason. I feel like I'm on the verge of seeing the big picture, but I'm not there yet. Instead, at this moment in time, I'm still in wonder that these beautiful children are mine and in awe of the journey that has gotten us here. And in shock that it has all happened to us.