Congratulations!

The other morning, Reilly turned to Shawn and in surprise said, "Mommy! Look!"

She gently placed her hands on Shawn's belly, which has just recently started to show. Then she cuddled her head alongside Shawn's waist, looked up, and said, "Congratulations, Mommy."

Done trying

We always knew that we wanted a second child, but had not discussed it in earnest since Reilly was born. The difficulty of surviving through Reilly’s colic was a powerful prophylactic and it took a few years for us to consider putting ourselves through that trauma again. I guess Shawn and I were just waiting until it felt right.

I think it is easy to assume that it was Shawn who finally approached me about a second child, but it was actually the other way around. I remember that two friends at work had recently revealed their new pregnancies, and that somehow I knew immediately that I wanted to experience what they were—the happiness, the intensity and the inexplicable parental bond to a little person who was still the size of an olive.

I thought it through for a day or a week or a couple of months, I don’t remember exactly, but if I were to guess, I think is safe to say that we started “trying” in February of 2008.

If you need help with the math, it took us nearly two years to get pregnant.

The “trying” was fun at first, not just for obvious reasons, but because of the dreaming. Would it be a boy or a girl? Would we name her Scarlett? Where would we put the crib and how would we figure out our leave from work? Would we name him Ian?

***

We spent some time with a brilliant doctor who prescribed a couple of medications for Shawn. The negative aspects of this course of action included a financial obligation that was not covered by our health insurance and turning the whole process of conceiving into a very cold and lifeless medical procedure.

Except for one thing: we created a life.

Here we are at 13 weeks and it still doesn’t seem real. After months of having hope stripped away, it is hard to believe that we are actually pregnant. I find myself strangely emotionless about the whole thing which is easy to pin on the fact that my hope over the past two years was consistently rewarded with disappointment and a range of other unfortunate emotions.

Today we had an ultrasound. The baby shone through clear as glass and proceeded to show off a series of acrobatic moves, performing little jumps and leg stretches for us.

And for the first time, it felt real.