My 1st Born...Is There Room For More?

I've felt very scattered lately. Too many thoughts swirling in my head. Lots of happy thoughts about our baby and our life. Also lots of reflection about the past.  It's not all coherent and it's kind of frustrating that I can't seem to get it focused. 

Lots of thoughts about my kids.

My amazingly sweet, funny son who is truly a light in my life has been a subject swirling...

When I first found out I was pregnant with this baby last December, I was so torn between wanting a boy or a girl.

G is an only child --and a big part of me wanted a boy to carry on his name. But there was a part of me who has a boy in my life who has had to share everything for the last 2 1/2 years while we fought in family court for my stepdaughter and up until then, it had always been just A and I since he was little.

A and I have always been close and the part of me that didn't want this baby to be a boy was wrapped in not wanting him to have to share anything else.  It still brings tears to my eyes thinking about how much I love him and about having to share me with another son. 

There's a lot I can't really explain fully just because it's just too intriciate, but he's a kid who has tried to find his place in a family made up of blended people on BOTH sides of his life. He knows he's loved and loves both of the fathers in his life.  There had just been so much time, energy, effort, emotion invested in family court for 2 1/2 years, that we had to work a 1000 times over to ensure A wasn't lacking for anything.  He's not a dumb kid by any means and he could see the times when we had deadlines to meet and we had to do something at a different time or plans changed etc. 

Fortunately, he and I have always talked and he doesn't fear asking me questions or telling me how he feels. Thank God. That's the security of my love for him.  I'm grateful he truly knows and I have worked very hard to ensure he always has.

After a long time and the court order that followed the custody trial, G and I were done. We had done everything we could possibly do --what we had sought in family court was awarded and now the focus of our lives could be ALL of us and not just one.  We both agreed that we had spent plenty of time focused on just R and we had to integrate that into our lives and not the imminent piece any longer. It's honestly still a struggle for R where she is not the center of the world, but rather a part of ours. Albeit an important part, without a doubt.

Back to A, and this new baby...finding out this baby is a girl didn't even matter because of all the worry we had been through with our genetic testing. We simply didn't care at all --boy or girl. All that mattered was the baby being ok. So, as quickly as I began my back and forth about my son having to share with another son, the struggle was over. We were all just happy she is healthy.

A asks me how big his baby sister is, feels her move, hugs my belly each night before bed, reads to her, sings her songs, asks me what I need carried --the laundry to the basement, the groceries from the car etc. -- he's very connected to his baby sister so much already.  I don't fear not being able to love this baby as much as I love him or him struggling to find his place...at all.

A is my 1st born and will always have a uniquely connected part of me that no other child ever will. I could never truly express how I feel about him because there are not enough words.  I was forever changed by his place in my life.

Just the other day we were driving down the road and a song came on that I haven't heard in a long time. I looked at this 10 1/2 year old boy in the back seat and I said, "I used to sing this to you when you were a baby."  Instantly tears filled my eyes. 

He looked at me with this, "Ugh, Mom" expression and went back to reading his book.

I sang along, tears streaming down my face reminiscing about him as an infant. It's a "love song", but when I hear it, it takes me back to Franklin, TN in 1999 and 2000, and me holding this precious gift in my arms and I knew love in a way I had never known before.

I'm eternally grateful and so very proud to be HIS mom.

November 27, 1999 ♥

This is the song that takes me back...

Right here in this moment is right where I'm meant to be,

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