Every mom has their own unique journey to Motherhood and I am no different.
If you are lucky, you fall in love, get married(or not nowadays), get pregnant right away and have a baby.
That's the easy way.
Well that wasn't my trip.
I didn't plan on being a mom when I was little. I wanted a career in the entertainment industry.
I was talented(or was often told such), creative and artistic as a kid. I loved theater and excelled at most of everything involving that world.
I planned to major in theater and go on to a career in it.
But then I fell in love with a Political Science/English major nerd in college during my first semester.
We decided to marry after we finished school.
And after being exposed to what goes on in the real theater world I decided before graduation a career in theater was not for me.
Especially back then in the 1980's making a living in that art field would mean living in/near NYC(a place I hold no love for). One couldn't make a real living doing Regional theater and it also involved moving around a lot so having a marriage meant a lot of long distance separations and Hubs and I decided we didn't want our marriage to look like that.
Hubs was at this point beginning his Master's degree before going onto a PhD, and then a career as a University professor. So I was headed for a life as a professor's wife who would support him in that role and have a little hobby on the side.
But before finishing his Master's program Hubs had a change of heart about a career in the Ivory Tower of academia and decided to find a career in the business world.
Our move to Tidewater Virginia didn't bring about a business job for Hubs so we packed up and moved to New Jersey. Hubs found work at Prudential after a short term stop gap job working security for Warner-Lambert(the makers of Listerine among other products)at their world HQ. I commuted into Brooklyn working jobs with Theater designers I knew plus a couple other theater jobs and then working as Assistant Manager at a fabric shop and then Caldor Dept. Store while we lived in NJ.
Once we moved to Pennsylvania and bought a tiny house I worked for a few years(first as a CNA in a nursing home in NJ then as a waitress in a long established family restaurant), we paid off Hubs student loans using my various salaries, Hubs climbed the corporate ladder and we decided after 4 years of marriage it was time to have a baby.
But the problem was during our 4 years of marriage we hadn't been using birth control and I never got pregnant. We were both young still(I was 27, Hubs was 28)so we didn't worry about it. But we had a fertility problem and we didn't even know it at that time.
Then I got pregnant in early 1988. I found out on a trip to the ER for a pulled muscle that I was 5 weeks pregnant. Two days later my appendix ruptured and I had emergency surgery, became septic because of the rupture and got pumped full of blood thinning drugs because of my condition. I spent 5 days in the ICU before I was out of the woods and they transferred me to a regular room at the hospital. A couple days after moving me I miscarried the baby/fetus.
After 6 weeks home I was cleared/healed up and we tried to conceive. But it was not happening so we began the process to adopt. We were accepted by Holt International Adoption Services. While we completed the dossier we decided to apply to a private foster care agency in our area. Sometimes these foster care placements became adoption situations and were a lot cheaper than going international. Besides, fostering would give us practice being good parents.
After having 3 foster care placements(1 was short term until the child had his court hearing, 1 was from NJ for a special needs child which we ended as she was violent and attacked/harmed me, and a set of half siblings-one of which was a sociopath we and the state agreed to have removed from our care(and ended up institutionalized for his/society's own good)and the other was yanked because the state wanted them adopted together(even though they hadn't grown up together and had no relationship).
I started to see a fertility doctor after the 2nd foster placement failed. It was at this point that Hubs was tested and I realized that the problem was me. You see, I had gone years since puberty started without having a monthly period, or a sporadic period now and then. My body wasn't ovulating on a regular basis. I had undiagnosed Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome or PCOS for short. This is back when it wasn't a known condition like it is today. Besides lots of other things it involves a very high testosterone level in the woman. Woman with these kinds of testosterone levels find it hard to get pregnant. (I also have undiagnosed Hidradenitis Suppurativa which I am sure just added to the difficulties conceiving.)
With the help of the OB/GYN and a couple of courses of Clomid the fertility drug, a somewhat regular menstrual cycle returned and my testosterone levels naturally going down as I aged I was finally able to conceive again at the age of almost 32, which back in the 1990's was considered high risk and a geriatric maternal age. lolz
My eldest was born in 1991, 9 years after Hubs and I married(and 14 years after we were "together").
We figured it would take another decade to make another baby so we were quick to try for another baby but this one didn't take long......daughter was born 17 months after her big brother. ;-)
We relaxed a bit(and were exhausted too)after having 2 kids so close in age to care for but when daughter turned 2.5 years we were pregnant again for the last time.
Ex-College Boy came along in early 1996, a month after my 37th birthday. He was the only C-section(due to his enormous Toddler sized head!). My OBs advised us to not get pregnant again due to the condition of my uterus, fibroids they discovered while doing the surgery and all the scar tissue they dug out of me from that appendix surgery. They remarked while I was being put back together like a jigsaw puzzle in the OR that they were amazed I ever got pregnant due to all the scar tissue(not to mention the PCOS).
So we went through a lot to have our 3 children and we ended up being much older than most folks are when they have babies.
Would it have been better to be one of the lucky couples who have children easily(sometimes too easily)?
Maybe.
But having had worked so hard to get them here I hope they know they were very wanted(though they may have tried our patience along the way)and are loved to the moon and back.
Many of my college friends either didn't want kids or never had any. I don't know all their reasons but I am thankful for mine.
What's your journey to Motherhood story?
Happy Mother's Day to all those readers who chose to take up the challenge of motherhood.
Sluggy
If you are lucky, you fall in love, get married(or not nowadays), get pregnant right away and have a baby.
That's the easy way.
Well that wasn't my trip.
I didn't plan on being a mom when I was little. I wanted a career in the entertainment industry.
I was talented(or was often told such), creative and artistic as a kid. I loved theater and excelled at most of everything involving that world.
I planned to major in theater and go on to a career in it.
But then I fell in love with a Political Science/English major nerd in college during my first semester.
We decided to marry after we finished school.
And after being exposed to what goes on in the real theater world I decided before graduation a career in theater was not for me.
Especially back then in the 1980's making a living in that art field would mean living in/near NYC(a place I hold no love for). One couldn't make a real living doing Regional theater and it also involved moving around a lot so having a marriage meant a lot of long distance separations and Hubs and I decided we didn't want our marriage to look like that.
Hubs was at this point beginning his Master's degree before going onto a PhD, and then a career as a University professor. So I was headed for a life as a professor's wife who would support him in that role and have a little hobby on the side.
But before finishing his Master's program Hubs had a change of heart about a career in the Ivory Tower of academia and decided to find a career in the business world.
Our move to Tidewater Virginia didn't bring about a business job for Hubs so we packed up and moved to New Jersey. Hubs found work at Prudential after a short term stop gap job working security for Warner-Lambert(the makers of Listerine among other products)at their world HQ. I commuted into Brooklyn working jobs with Theater designers I knew plus a couple other theater jobs and then working as Assistant Manager at a fabric shop and then Caldor Dept. Store while we lived in NJ.
Once we moved to Pennsylvania and bought a tiny house I worked for a few years(first as a CNA in a nursing home in NJ then as a waitress in a long established family restaurant), we paid off Hubs student loans using my various salaries, Hubs climbed the corporate ladder and we decided after 4 years of marriage it was time to have a baby.
But the problem was during our 4 years of marriage we hadn't been using birth control and I never got pregnant. We were both young still(I was 27, Hubs was 28)so we didn't worry about it. But we had a fertility problem and we didn't even know it at that time.
Then I got pregnant in early 1988. I found out on a trip to the ER for a pulled muscle that I was 5 weeks pregnant. Two days later my appendix ruptured and I had emergency surgery, became septic because of the rupture and got pumped full of blood thinning drugs because of my condition. I spent 5 days in the ICU before I was out of the woods and they transferred me to a regular room at the hospital. A couple days after moving me I miscarried the baby/fetus.
After 6 weeks home I was cleared/healed up and we tried to conceive. But it was not happening so we began the process to adopt. We were accepted by Holt International Adoption Services. While we completed the dossier we decided to apply to a private foster care agency in our area. Sometimes these foster care placements became adoption situations and were a lot cheaper than going international. Besides, fostering would give us practice being good parents.
After having 3 foster care placements(1 was short term until the child had his court hearing, 1 was from NJ for a special needs child which we ended as she was violent and attacked/harmed me, and a set of half siblings-one of which was a sociopath we and the state agreed to have removed from our care(and ended up institutionalized for his/society's own good)and the other was yanked because the state wanted them adopted together(even though they hadn't grown up together and had no relationship).
I started to see a fertility doctor after the 2nd foster placement failed. It was at this point that Hubs was tested and I realized that the problem was me. You see, I had gone years since puberty started without having a monthly period, or a sporadic period now and then. My body wasn't ovulating on a regular basis. I had undiagnosed Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome or PCOS for short. This is back when it wasn't a known condition like it is today. Besides lots of other things it involves a very high testosterone level in the woman. Woman with these kinds of testosterone levels find it hard to get pregnant. (I also have undiagnosed Hidradenitis Suppurativa which I am sure just added to the difficulties conceiving.)
With the help of the OB/GYN and a couple of courses of Clomid the fertility drug, a somewhat regular menstrual cycle returned and my testosterone levels naturally going down as I aged I was finally able to conceive again at the age of almost 32, which back in the 1990's was considered high risk and a geriatric maternal age. lolz
My eldest was born in 1991, 9 years after Hubs and I married(and 14 years after we were "together").
We figured it would take another decade to make another baby so we were quick to try for another baby but this one didn't take long......daughter was born 17 months after her big brother. ;-)
We relaxed a bit(and were exhausted too)after having 2 kids so close in age to care for but when daughter turned 2.5 years we were pregnant again for the last time.
Ex-College Boy came along in early 1996, a month after my 37th birthday. He was the only C-section(due to his enormous Toddler sized head!). My OBs advised us to not get pregnant again due to the condition of my uterus, fibroids they discovered while doing the surgery and all the scar tissue they dug out of me from that appendix surgery. They remarked while I was being put back together like a jigsaw puzzle in the OR that they were amazed I ever got pregnant due to all the scar tissue(not to mention the PCOS).
So we went through a lot to have our 3 children and we ended up being much older than most folks are when they have babies.
Would it have been better to be one of the lucky couples who have children easily(sometimes too easily)?
Maybe.
But having had worked so hard to get them here I hope they know they were very wanted(though they may have tried our patience along the way)and are loved to the moon and back.
Many of my college friends either didn't want kids or never had any. I don't know all their reasons but I am thankful for mine.
What's your journey to Motherhood story?
Happy Mother's Day to all those readers who chose to take up the challenge of motherhood.
Sluggy
that was a marvelous read; thank you for sharing this.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing this. Happy Mothers Day!
ReplyDeleteI’ve trapped and collected feral cats - had 8 at one point but down to 4. Then dirty Daryl the dog was dumped in our neighborhood so he was added to the mix. Human kids annoy me after an hour so that’s my version of motherhood. 😉
ReplyDeleteJen G.
You are so right-the journey is unique and a bit different for all One hopes every baby that is born is loved, and sadly, not always the case. Mine are my blessing/
ReplyDeleteThat was a long and difficult journey for you. I knew a bit of it but not the whole story. Thanks for sharing. I never had trouble conceiving and had one miscarriage which ex thought was hilarious that I would be sad. There is more to the story but that is enough.
ReplyDeleteGreat outcome and adorable kids. My childbearing life lasted nearly 20 years! I had the last of four when I was 37 just two months after my college graduation. I don't think I did anything in the proper order. Incidentally my first son was 9 pounds 14 ounces! Three boys, all over 9 pounds, and a daughter in the middle...Happy Mother's Day!
ReplyDeleteI am so glad you were blessed with your three beautiful kids! My journey was similar to yours...PCOS, Clomid, an IUI, a miscarriage....and then finally almost five years after we were married we got pregnant without any medical intervention. Our son is 15 now....he is our miracle baby and we are so thankful for him. Happy Mother's Day!
ReplyDeleteWhat cute pictures of your babies! They definitely know they were wanted, great story :)
ReplyDeleteI was lucky in that when we decided to try for a baby it worked first time every time. BUT, my older sister, who I consider to be the best mother in the world, could never have children. They tried everything. Went through all the misery of IVF and so on and eventually were lucky enough to adopt two girls - although it took years and much heartbreak. When I found out I was pregnant I felt awful telling my mom and sister because I knew how much she had struggled. But in the end it worked out ok. She has her beautiful girls and I have my beautiful boys and the world righted itself one more time.
ReplyDeleteI just love those baby pictures too cute. even though I have seen them I just want to reach out and grab those little guys and bit their feet.
ReplyDeleteWhat a lovely read. Thanks for sharing Sluggy.
ReplyDelete