Two of Two, Under Two

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At five months postpartum with my now two year old, I ended up pregnant again. Thankfully though, this pregnancy's morning sickness symptoms but didn't last as long as the last, even with starting out as bad. However, I did find out in the first or second trimester that I had an issue that made it so I had to see a high risk dr throughout this pregnancy.. which turned out to be from my first baby, that was never told to me. Even at the birth of my second, where the results came from. But that issue never came into play during the pregnancy and both baby and I were okay, thankfully. I also found out around that time that this baby was also a boy. Making me a mom of two boys and one girl. And this time, I didn't have any gender disappointment. As even though I still wanted a daughter (that I could raise), I was now use to being a boy mom, had everything still from my first son and kinda liked the idea of my daughter being my only girl. Anyways, even though everything was always fine at all my OB appointments and ultrasounds, I felt like something was wrong both weekends before he was born. So much so that the second to last weekend, I was going to go to labor and delivery to be monitored for decreased movements and feeling weird but decided to wait til the following day because movements started back up as normal and I already had an OB appointment scheduled for that day. Well, the dr said everything was fine. Like usual. And sent me home. But that I could go to labor and delivery at any point if I felt I needed to. (Which I knew already. I just always feel/felt like a bother). Now on to the following weekend, where again I felt decreased movements and worried.. my partner and I decided to head to the hospital this time. Leaving the house around 11pm, which thankfully my toddler was sleeping. By 12am the monitor showed nothing being wrong, with the nurse/drs exact words actually being "everything is fine, and your baby is perfect. You can go home and relax". Well, everything wasn't fine or perfect as I ended up going to bed when we got home around 1230am and then waking around 4am in some pain and uncomfortableness. Then again around 7am when I had to go get my toddler from my moms room for her to go to work, since that's where he slept because of us going to the hospital that night before. Then all day I was mommying my toddler like usual, by myself (another story for maybe another day ), dealing with the good and the bad of toddlerhood.. and randomly started having pains to where I had to keep freezing where I was as well as started having to pee every 10mins then 5mins, then 1min.. so around 2-230pm I called the OBs to ask them if I should go in and they said yes as I was just under 35 weeks, and it could either be early labor or a uti.. both serious. So I called my mom at work to come home to be with my son, and got their dad up and aware of what was going on since he was still sleeping from going to bed hours later than I did. Then off we went once my mom got home. Once we arrived to labor and delivery and I went to do the urine sample to see if it was a uti or not causing the pain and discomfort, I saw that I was now bleeding a little and yelled it from the bathroom almost in tears. As I was scared out of my mind for myself and my baby. Nevermind not being ready for birth. But after that they checked me and quickly said "well unfortunately, you aren't going anywhere anytime soon but you will be meeting your baby because you're 9cm dilated!" The look on my face!! Nevermind my heart racing and the fear of birth and an early baby. Nevermind that they couldn't even get an IV in my arm or hand but tried about 5-8x making me in even more pain and more stressed and annoyed. But not even an hour later from getting there my second son, J, was born. Unfortunately he couldn't breathe on his own after a few minutes so they had to hook him up to machines and then since our hospital doesn't have a NICU, he had to be transferred to another hospital - an hour and a half away. So we/I didn't get to do skin to skin with him or feed him, change him, hold him. And we only got 2-3 of those 4 hours of him waiting for the transfer, with him.. with all the tube's and machines.. still hurts my heart to think about and see the pictures of.. However, by the time they got him to the other hospital they said he was breathing on his own again.. but still, neither his dad or I could really sleep that night, and we were just itching to get out of the hospital and go check on him (and his brother). But I had to at least wait until morning. Which is so not easy, especially already having extreme anxiety. Anyways, after getting out of there and checking on his big brother plus changing my clothes from us not having anything with us due to it being 5weeks before I was supposed to give birth, we headed to see our new babyboy. And to my surprise, we could hold him immediately, which helped my heart sooo much. But leaving him there, just hurt all over again.. And unfortunately, he ended up having to be there for a total of 24days, as he was now breathing on his own but not wanting to take bottles, like most babies born around 34weeks won't.. so we had to wait for him to take bottles and gain enough to bring him home. Then he was doing great with that but having "spells" so that added another five days to our time there. So it was extremely hard and I felt so alone.. especially since I was only able to go see him 6x! Mostly because of having to be with our oldest and not driving/having anyone to take me. Thankfully the staff understood, and were nice about all the calls to check in on him while he was there.. which helped a bit. But man, the calls just weren't the same as actually being with him and KNOWING he was okay for myself. Nevermind holding him and just being his mom for those first 24days like I was supposed to be. And to this day, even with him going on a year old in just over a month, I still struggle with PTSD from this birth and the month following. And wish I/we got everything I/we were supposed to (skin to skin, first feeds, first diaper changes, first bath etc). However, I'm also grateful for the extra time I have gotten with my little boy from him being early, and am enjoying every minute of what firsts I'm getting with him now. Like the fair a week ago, his first solid food and first table food, seeing him crawl and now learning to walk. Nevermind hearing his first word, and that it was Mama. . Plus seeing him and his big brother go from not wanting anything to do with one another due to his brothers jealousy and aggression to them waking each other up with smiles and laughter, playing together and big brother trying to help me teach baby how to clap . I am so in love with my boys, and forever grateful that I have them - even if they are two under two, and a handful most days.