Pace Yourself

This post has been in the works for six months. Apparently that's how long it now takes me to think, ruminate, write, rewrite, rethink, rewrite, and edit. Blogger extraordinaire right here. For the last several months I've noticed something about myself and I've spent a few of my available moments of free brain space to think about this interesting (at least to me) thought pattern. You see, I have felt pressure, literally since the beginning of our time with Garrison to do all. the. things. There has been no "or" in my vocabulary. It's always "and." We should do this AND we should do that. We should go there AND we should go there. We need to (fill in the blank) AND we need to. Anybody else ever feel this way?

I've thought about it and thought about it and come up with a couple of ideas as to why this may be my new thought process. Firstly, there are more times than I can count where I've convinced myself that we need to X and Y "because Garrison might be our only child." Can I get an amen? It's crazy the things that I've felt pressured to do, buy, experience just because he might be our only one. Strangely enough, I don't really believe that he will be our only child. If you ask me (when I'm not freaking out about the need to do/buy/see X) I would tell you that I'm pretty confident we'll have two, maybe even three kids. However, I definitely don't know that we will have babies, so along that same vein of thought, comes "because he might be our only baby." Example number one. If you follow me on Facebook, you've likely seen that I became obsessed with photo sessions this past year. Newborn, family photos, sitting photos, standing photos, Santa photos, family photos, first birthday photos. Photo sessions with professional photographers are not cheap and this year our finances have struggled due to daycare + formula + PT and OT appointments + Garrison's surgery, and yet, I would have taken out a second mortgage to have those photos. Wise? No. But I'm terrified to look up and have missed it. He will very likely be my only newborn. There was no way in hell I was missing those insanely expensive photos. Garrison very well might be the only child that will ever learn to sit or stand or celebrate his first birthday with us and I just can't miss it.

A second idea is that I waited so long to do these things with a child, and now that I have one, it's like we must do all. the. things. RIGHT. NOW. For example, I've dreamed of taking my kid(s) to Disney World for YEARS. Like literally the greatest dream come true will be to walk my little kid(s) through the gates of the Magic Kingdom. I might just lie down on the floor and weep. I have greatly struggled with the need to take him this past year. It would have been a financial nightmare and that's about the only reason I've not gone. The fact that he wouldn't remember it, that he might sleep through half the day, that he might not be able to ride anything, and that he'd likely be scared out of his ever loving mind by all the people and characters has not deterred my desperate need for him to experience Disney. Sam has known about my love affair with Disney for years and his answer has always been "when we have kids." We've been together for almost 11 years now...that's a lot of waiting. He surprised me when we completed IVF in Jacksonville with a day trip to the Magic Kingdom because technically, we had kids (be still my heart). It was heaven, but I've still been dying to go back and see it all again. We've joked for years that because of his "rule" I'd likely try to take my six week old to Disney...well he wasn't far off. If finances hasn't stood in the way, I'd have taken that little boy to every single park. In a similar way, I need him to go to the zoo, the aquarium, go to the beach, see snow, fall in love with Harry Potter, etc and I need him to do it all NOW. It's a constant battle to remind myself that no, we do not need to fly to Colorado or drive to Kentucky to follow the snow this winter. And oh gosh Christmas. I needed to start every single Christmas tradition this year. There were a number of times that I considered giving the kid hot (mildly warm) chocolate because CHRISTMAS, you know?

And thirdly, maybe the darkest of all of the thoughts has been the discovery that I in some weird, twisted way have felt like my time with him is limited. Maybe it stems from the adoption process. The fear that any second we'd receive a call telling us to get out of the NICU and head home it was over. Or the days and nights once we were home fearing any 904 area code calls that would say bring him back to Jacksonville, his birth father is coming for him. Or maybe it stems from my gigantic, overwhelming fear of SIDS since the moment we left the hospital. Garrison was/is truthfully at a higher risk than most babies, and somehow that has manifested into this anxiety that has plagued my days and nights over these past months. I thought I would breathe much easier at six months when the risk drops significantly, and to some degree I did. I don't wake up a million times in the night to check the monitor. However, I do become paralyzed with fear, literally too afraid to even go check for fear I'l be too late, when I've slept a long stretch and he hasn't moved.

In a similar, rather depressing, Freud would have a field day train of thought, I've also noticed that for me, the monthly age recaps have felt a lot less like counting up and a lot more like counting down. One month becomes two, and two months becomes three, but in a lot of ways it feels like a slippery slide down to one year where I can't catch my breath or find a foot hold to pause for just a moment. In some ways, that count down feels like a countdown to the end. What comes after one? It's a constant struggle to remind myself that two, TWO comes after one, and there are twelve glorious months in between just like this year. That there will be plenty of time to go explore the zoo, to see Disney, to stay up past our bedtime watching movies and eating popcorn. Because he's mine. Not my borrowed son. Not my temporary son. But my real, forever and ever son. So pace yourself, Amanda, it doesn't all have to happen now, this year, or before he turns one. You've got a lifetime to fill to the brim with love and happiness.

That's where this blog post was meant to end, and then tragedy struck and all my thoughts about forever and ever were questioned. In November a precious mama that I went to high school with found out that her two year old has cancer. Ughhh. And not just any cancer but super rare, super aggressive, terrifying cancer. And then just weeks later, a fellow infertility mama lost. her. son. 13 months. You guys. I was a hot mess of terror. She did an IUI the same month I did IVF and delivered her son within days of my IVF due date. She had all of the milestones that I would have had if our IVF cycle had not ended in miscarriage. After those two events, I just couldn't post this. Because tomorrow isn't promised. Sometimes "a lifetime" isn't all that long. And I was terrified all over again. Any insight or comfort this cathartic use of writing had brought was quickly eliminated by the ugly truth that our days with our children are not promised to us.

I've spent time since then as the clock slowly ticks closer and closer to his first birthday thinking about how to process these heavy emotions and thoughts in light of the truth that my days, Sam's days, and Garrison's days are numbered and we will never know what that number is until our days are done. I still believe the encouragement to pace myself is important. We don't have to do it all, or see it all right now. But I think it's also a fair reminder to remember that these days are precious whether we have just one more, or twenty thousand more. So we should enjoy them. Love them. And live them well.