She and I were at lunch and I was
She looked at me, serious as could be and said, "I'm surprised you're complaining. As much as it took for y'all to get pregnant, you'd think you would appreciate every single second".
I was floored y'all. Floored.
I wanted to be pissed because hello, ouch. But she wasn't being mean. At all. She legitimately thought that I wouldn't want to complain because of how precious my sweet baby I was growing was to me. And how longed for she was.
Sometimes after a really hard day with BG, I get down and out and aggravated and truthfully, in that moment, I don't like being a parent very much. It's freaking hard. She's trying and some days I just feel like I can't win for losing. She beats me at everything.
The fact that I wanted this child more than anything on the planet does not make parenting her a breeze. The fact that she was created using medicine and big time prayers, does not make her an easy kid. She didn't come with the knowledge that "my parents worked their arses off to get me here so I should be a peach".
She is still a kid. She is still rotten sometimes. She can still be tough.
I find as a woman who beat infertility and recurrent pregnancy loss that I am perhaps a bit more, how do I say this, aware of my child being here. I appreciate her. A lot. I am grateful to her for being the child that stuck with us. Every single day, I look at her and know that realistically, she would not be here without the miracles we witnessed to get her here.
I don't think parents like me love their kids more than parents who got pregnant easily at all. I don't. I do think it's a bit of a different kind of love though. It's a love ripened over years of waiting. It's a love that hurt when your husband had to look you in the eyes and promise you that the two of you would be parents someday. Somehow. It's a terrified love as you pray just to make it one more week. Then one more after that.
It's a love that explodes when your baby beats the odds and makes it past the point her brothers and sisters before her couldn't get past. It's a hopeful love when you finally buy your first baby item. It's a determined love when you stick a needle through your skin for the hundredth time knowing you'll do it a hundred more if it keeps your baby safe.
It's a scared love when you make decisions based off of "studies" instead of cold hard facts because you and your baby are in uncharted medical territory. It's an overwhelming love when despite all the odds, she breathes air outside of you for the first time.
After all that, how can I still ever complain about her? About parenting?
Because I'm normal. And I'm a Mom. And as much as I love her, this is still the hardest job ever.
But, it is hands down, the best one ever. Man, I freaking love that kid. She's my sidekick. She is the littlest love of my life. And even when she makes me crazy, I adore her. Always.
