“Can I tell you something without hurting your feelings,”  I asked him.

He looked over at me and nodded.

“I’m afraid to have anymore children with you.”  I said.

“What?  Why?”

“I wanted to fix some things in this relationship before we bring another baby into this family.  I wanted us to be more stable.”

This conversation occurred on February 18.  I found out I was pregnant with my second child on February 19.

It was a Friday night.  I’d been feeling sick and fatigued for the last few days.  He went out and bought a box of home pregnancy tests.

“Give me a kiss for luck,” I said as I went to the bathroom.

I took the test and tried to compose myself after seeing the positive result.  I stood on the stairs looking at him.

“Well?”  He asked.  “Are you pregnant?”

I nodded and sank to the floor and started sobbing.  He stood there just staring at me, not knowing how to react.

Yes, I was unhappy about this.  For several reasons.  The number one fact being that I wasn’t ready.  I’m still so scared of going through this again.  Intellectually I know that this pregnancy should be better.  We know about the HG, we are closer to family, and I’ll have a better idea of what to expect.

Emotionally, well that’s a different story.  Emotionally, I’m scared of my abilities to be a good mother to Lukas while sick and pregnant.  I’m scared of how a new baby will affect Lukas.  I’m scared he will feel pushed aside.  I’m scared that the things that are broken in my marriage will become aggravated once the new baby comes like they did when Lukas was first born.  But the big thing?  I didn’t plan this.  I wasn’t taking prenatal vitamins for 6 months prior to this pregnancy like I did with Lukas (which was good since I was unable to keep anything down, prenatal vitamins included, for the first 5 months of that pregnancy).  I didn’t have every detail worked out ahead of time.  The control freak in me is freaking the hell out.

But it’s happened and now I need to warm up to the idea.  I’ve had nearly a week to let it all sink in.  I’m warming up to it.  I’m getting excited about another baby in the house.  I’m still having my sour moments, but they are about this being unplanned and not about me being unhappy about a new baby.  A trip to Target’s baby section helped me to get the right perspective about a new baby.  I walked to the pajama section, picked up a set of footie fleecy pj’s in a newborn size and started crying.  A new tiny baby.  Oh yes, I can get behind that idea.

I’m doing ok.  Really I am.  The sickness has kicked in earlier this time around.  The motion-sickness-but-not-moving-reading-nausea is terrible.  That’s why my online presence is being so quiet.  I’d like to thank everybody (my friends and internet family) for all the well wishing and congratulations.  You guys are great.

Since I didn’t have a baby shower with Lukas, I was thinking about throwing myself a party in late spring.  Not a baby shower, just a party.  A chance to celebrate a new baby without soliciting gifts from all of my guests (not that I’m against that, I’ve just already got most of what I need).  I’ll flesh that idea out after I can finally get an appointment with a doctor and get some pills.  I’m not taking this lightly.  I may be pregnant, but I’m still the Momma to a toddler and he needs me.  He needs me to not be bed-ridden and to be able to chase him round the house and play bouncy ball with him.  It will be taken care of ASAP.

Until then, my dear friends and family.  Thank you so much again for your love and support.

I try not to go to him every time he cries at night.  Sometimes the crying only lasts for a minute or two before he falls back to sleep.  Sometimes it lasts longer and I find myself standing by his door fighting with myself on whether or not to go in.  I’m a big believer in self-soothing, and since it’s worked for over 2 years I have no reason to deviate.

Then there are those nights when he quietly gets out of bed, goes to his door, and says through the door, “Momma.”

I’m awake in a flash and going to him.  When I open the door, I am greeted by a tiny creature dressed in fleece footy pajamas with a blue blanket hanging from his mouth.  Tiny arms are reaching up for me.  I bend down and the tiny arms wrap around my neck.  I pick him up and hold him for a minute, just standing in the doorway with his tiny form in my arms.  His warm soft cheek presses against the side of my face.  Little hands have found my hair and are lightly playing with it.

I walk him back over to his bed and lay him down.

“Sit, Momma.”  He cries.  I get in bed with him and pull the covers around us.  I stretch my right arm out and he snuggles into the nook between my chest and arm.  Tiny hands reach up and start playing with the button on my shirt.  We both doze.  He wakes up, not realizing I’m still there and cries out.

“Shh.  Momma’s here.”  I say to him.

“Momma,”  he says as he grinds his face into my chest.  He’s asleep in a matter of minutes.  I slowly make my way out of his bed.  I pull the covers in around him.  I kiss the soft hair and warm skin at his temple.  I pick up a tiny hand and kiss it before tucking it under the blankets.  He sleeps the rest of the night.

The next morning, I am awakened by the sound of one of his noise-making books honking loudly by his door.  He is awake and is patiently keeping himself occupied until I let him out.  I get out of bed, open his door, and a tiny creature in fleece footy pajamas flies past me, stops, turns to me and says “Hi, Momma!” before darting into his toy room where he plays with his train set until breakfast.

He eats his yogurt and fruit quickly and quietly knowing that finishing this dish will get him a bowl of Cheerios and milk.  When I set the cereal before him, he looks up at me and says, “Ank oo!”  I sit across from him eating my breakfast and checking my email.  He lifts his small plastic spoon for me to see and proclaims that it is a green spoon.  I tell him that, yes, that is a green spoon and that he is a very good and smart boy.

Now it’s time for Sesame Street. The time of day that I dread and he loves.  With the hour-long show comes 10,000 questions about minute details on the screen.  Yes, Elmo is red.  Yes, that is Mr. Noodle.  Yes, I see Big Bird too.  No, that is not a cat, that’s a dog.  Yes it is.  YES IT IS.

He has not been napping lately.  Usually around this time, it is nap time but now I pull some special toys out for him.  We cut wooden fruit, play with cars, or fry bananas in his play kitchen.  When I go upstairs to shower, he stands in the bathroom with me standing on his stool and compulsively washing his hands and getting water everywhere.  I brush his teeth and he begs for a sip of water from his ducky cup.

Now it’s time for his lunch.  I put him in his chair and serve him a plate of bologna, cheese, and a crackers or chips.  He asks for a sippy.  I bring it to him.  He tells me to sit.  I sit and we chat while he eats.  We talk about the house that he can see out of the window.  We talk about the kitty misbehaving.  We talk about what kind of cheese he is eating.  We sing the ABC song.  He claps and wants to sing it again.  We sing it again.  He claps and wants to sing it again.  We sing it again.  He claps and wants to sing it again.  We sing it again.  I get up from my chair and remove his empty plate before he can ask for another encore.  I let him down from his chair.  He grabs my hand and says “DOO DOO!”  And drags me upstairs where we play with his train set (choo choo).  We come downstairs and chase each other around for a bit.

I ask him if he wants chicken for dinner.  He says no.  I ask him if he wants fish for dinner.  He says no.  I ask him if he wants rice for dinner.  He says no.  I ask him if he wants noodles for dinner.  He says no.  I ask him if he wants a weiner for dinner.  He says no.  I ask him if he wants French fries for dinner.  He says no.  I ask him if he wants M&M’s for dinner.  He says yes.  I opt for chicken.

His father comes home.  He goes crazy.  They say their hello’s and hug and kiss.

We sit down to dinner.  When he sees that he did not get M&M’s for dinner, he gets angry.  He repeatedly pushes his plate away from himself and I keep pushing it back telling to eat a little bit.  He puts a piece in his mouth and takes it out before chewing.  I tell him to eat or go to bed.  He doesn’t want to go to bed so he eats one piece.  Only one piece.  We give up after about 45 minutes of screaming and tantrums all around.  We go downstairs and watch a DVD.  Then we go upstairs and play with the train set some more.  Then it’s bath time.

He plays with all of his toys, splashes us, points out his winky 200 times, and turns on the cold water and squeals when it hits him.

We take him out, brush his teeth, lotion his body and put him in fleece footy pajamas.  We read him a book.  We snuggle him under his blankets and kiss his cheeks.  He says night-night to us.  We turn off the light and tell him that we love him.  We close the door.

Last night I had a dream that I gave premature birth to quadruplets.  I was initially told that they had all died.  Of course, I was destroyed from this.  About 3 weeks later, we got a call from the hospital asking us when we were going to come and visit our baby.  We rushed to the hospital and they handed me a very tiny blond baby boy.  A doctor came in and was talking to us about how miraculous his growth has been and that is has been significantly faster than the others’.

“My other babies are alive, too?”  I asked.

“I can’t say right now.”  The doctor said.

“YES you can!  These are my babies!  I deserve to know at least if they are alive!  I deserve to see them and hold them!”  I said.

“I’ll keep you updated,” he said coldly and left.

We kept asking the nurse to tell us stuff, but she refused as well.  We kept asking when we could take the one baby home and they kept saying that they didn’t know.

It was an infuriating dream.  I’m so tired of having these sad dreams about babies.  But pretty much any dream that I have of having another baby is sad.

Not a day goes by (and I mean this, literally…I’m not just telling a story…it’s every day) where I don’t struggle with the decision of whether or not to have more children.  The decision has been left 100% up to me by my spineless husband.  Ok, that’s not fair.  It should be my decision.  I’m the one that has to be pregnant again.  I’m the one that will be doing the reorganizing of our home and lives so that we could fit one more.

Jessie has given me his input which basically said, “I’m perfectly fine with it just being the three of us.  But if another baby should come along, it’s only good news.”  That sounds like the perfect and wonderful thing to say…and that’s exactly why he said it that way.  Because it sounds perfect.  The truth of the matter is that Jessie is a little hesitant to have me pregnant again.  The first time scared him to death.

I still get a little defensive about that first pregnancy, and with good reason.  People have listened/talked about my first pregnancy and the sickness with either complete ambivalence or have been cold about the subject in a way that would suggest that perhaps it is thought that I was lying.  The reason why this pisses my off royally is because NOBODY was there.  I was 3,000 miles away from everybody!  Nobody could see how freaked out Jessie was.  Nobody was at my doctor’s appointment when the nurse said to me,

“You’re 4 months pregnant, your clothes are hanging off of you and your skin is completely gray.  You need help.”

Nobody was with me on those days where I sat in bed and cried because I couldn’t even keep down the two sips of water that I had just had.  Nobody saw me lying in bed for 12 weeks.  Nobody was there with me when I cried what water was left in my body when they told me that it was a disease and that it was more than just morning sickness.  People heard about it from Jessie (who tells things in a cold manner.  It’s just his way) or read about it in blogs.  Nobody was there.

Nobody was with me when I found this site almost a year after my first baby was born and read that studies have shown that in all likelihood, if you suffer the sickness in one pregnancy, you can expect to suffer it in any subsequent pregnancies.  Nobody saw me sitting at my computer crying.

The most painful part of the aftermath of that sickness was the lack of support from family that I received.  People looked bored when I talked about it.  People made hints that perhaps it wasn’t as bad as I was making it out to be.

Surprisingly, the most sympathetic person was my mom.  My mom had no “advice” for me such as the whole toast and crackers thing.  My mom listened to me with pure sympathy in her voice.  My mom listens to me talk about it to this day.  She is active in these conversations, meaning she doesn’t just stare at the ground and wait for the subject to change.  This is because my mom could relate.  Studies have found that the disease may be hereditary.  My mom had two kids and experienced the sickness twice.  The first time was bearable, the second time was more like what I went through with Lukas…..except she never got any medication and she got even less support and sympathy.  My mom was the only person besides Jessie who even tried to listen to me.

In case you’re new here or have forgotten, the disease that I’m talking about is Hyperemesis Gravidarum.  I wear a little blue rubber bracelet on my wrist to show that I support the research going towards this sickness so that it is more recognized.  I am am member of the community behind this research to give support to people currently going through the sickness and, like me, have people who believe that they are being overly dramatic about run-of-the-mill morning sickness.  Truthfully, it is that lack of sympathy and support from family that is the most hurtful.

So back to my dream and the debacle of whether or not to have another baby.  I’d love to have another baby.  I love being a mom.  I had one beautiful baby, so logic would dictate that I could possibly have another beautiful baby.

My current answer when asked about whether or not I’ll have another baby (asked by people who weren’t there the first time and still look at me with skepticism) is that I’m not going to think seriously on the matter until Lukas is old enough to understand that Momma is sick and why Momma is sick.  And although I think about having another baby everyday, it is the truth.  I can’t seriously consider having another baby with Lukas being so dependent still and still needing so much attention.

If I’m lucky, I’ll get a new OB/GYN who will talk to the doctor who treated me the first time (she ordered me to have the next doc call her if I get pregnant again…I was the first case of HG she had ever seen, so I’m sure she’ll remember me) and who will give me the medicine that I need to keep me from vomiting so much.  I can’t start taking the medication until at least 8 weeks of pregnancy.  With Lukas, I started getting nonstop sick at 6 weeks.  If I’m lucky, that’s only 2 weeks of hell.  I can’t do that while chasing a toddler around, though.

I honestly don’t know what I’ll decide in the end.  By the time Lukas is at a point where I can make the decision, I may decide that I like this dynamic of a three-person family.  However, I may start thinking about how great it would be to have a baby in the house again, a little bundle of squishiness and farts who has toothless smiles and tiny toes.  I guess we’ll see.