Not Just A Mom: How We Became A Mom

It's been awhile since I've linked up with all the "Not Just A Mom" bloggers but I wanted to join in today. This month we're talking about "how we became a mom" which is a topic I find really interesting.

You may, or may not, know that Dave and I didn't start dating until I was 34 and a half. I'd always wanted to be a mom but had almost given up hope that it would happen. Things moved fairly quickly with Dave and I and we started dating in November 2006, got engaged in October 2007, and got married in June 2008. Since we were housemates when we started dating, we'd talked about having one of us move out, but that didn't make a lot of sense, and when Dave was accepted to a PhD program out of province, we moved three provinces away together in summer 2007.

All this is to say, what with me being older (just over 36 when we got married), and both of us wanting kids, we decided to try to get pregnant right away, in case it took awhile. Spoiler alert: It didn't take awhile :) We got pregnant on our honeymoon although I didn't clue in right away why Dave got over jet lag so much faster than I did. Hahaha! I took a pregnancy test in late-ish July 2008 and it came up positive really quickly. And then the morning sickness hit. And it lasted all day. And it didn't go away for three months.

We talked about nicknames for our baby and Dave came up with the idea of "Attila the Hun" because a dictator was taking over my body! We figured once I stopped being so sick, we'd call it "The Hun" but by the time I stopped throwing up (around 20 weeks), the name Attila had stuck. And everybody referred to the baby as Attila. It was kind of hilarious :) Dave even made a separate Hallowe'en costume for Attila that year and just a few weeks ago I met someone who was at that Hallowe'en party, whom I hadn't seen in years, and they remembered this costume! Upon meeting Sam they asked, "Were you the jack-o-lantern at the party when your mom was pregnant?!?!"

Since we didn't know if we were having a boy or a girl, we got a lot of gender neutral, duck themed items. Dave joked that Attila wouldn't know if they were a duck or a human, and thus the mural for Attila's nursery was born. This was a fun project to work on.

This picture was taken on Attila's due date :) Sam was born 6 hours and 13 minutes after his due date and you can read his birth story here. The preview: Natasha's water breaks, we're on the phone with the midwife keeping her updated, Natasha never pushes, do they make it to the hospital?!?!?!

Sam, at a few days old

A little shell shocked to have a baby in our arms. These pictures were taken when he was less than two hours old. (If you didn't read Sam's birth story, he was born at home in an unassisted, unplanned, home birth.)

 

When Sam was a little over one, we started trying for Baby #2. Baby #2 was not as eager to join us as Sam was :) We did get pregnant in July 2010 but I miscarried shortly after and it was a very sad few weeks. Since I was 38, we worried about secondary infertility and it was a hard and stressful five months. However, by early October 2010, breakfast was starting to taste a little off. I took a pregnancy test very early on and it was definitively positive.

Barely pregnant with Rachel

I was so sick with Rachel. I didn't throw up as much as I did with Sam but I was so nauseous all the time. There are about two months of Sam's life that I just don't remember because I was (barely) at work or in bed. Dave did the bulk of the parenting and my parents came to help out for a few weeks because I was so sick. And true to our nature of naming our children after invaders, Rachel's nickname in utero was Knut -- a Norwegian dictator. We joked that Baby #2 would be named Ghengis, and so we gave that name to the baby we miscarried at six weeks.

Because we lived in a very small duplex when Rachel was born, we turned a corner of our room into her "nursery." We painted a couple of animals on the wall for her -- a giraffe and a hippo. On the right is me proving that I could still balance. This was the day before Rachel was born. Rachel was four days overdue, my parents came to wait with us, and I just remember feeling so frustrated and impatient that week. (By the way, tomorrow marks the 12th anniversary of Rachel's due date!)

You can read Rachel's birth story here and, if you read Sam's and think his was crazy, Rachel's tops it!

Sam, meeting Rachel, who was about an hour and a half old.

 

So that is the story of "how I became a mom." While the timing (for becoming a mom or of my labours -- hahaha!) is not necessarily what I would have chosen, I wouldn't change things, because this family was absolutely the one I was meant to have. And they are well worth the wait.

Check out the "Not Just A Mom" bloggers at the links above