Adjusting

Life around these parts has certainly changed.  In some ways, much more than I expected, and in others, the transition has been much easier than I expected.  Prior to K's birth, I was terrified about how A2 would handle the transition.  I couldn't imagine how I would take care of him in the same way that I was and also care for a newborn.  The two seemed to be mutually exclusive things that couldn't possibly exist together.  They were both full time plus occupations.  Shortly after we came home from the hospital I was left with the two of them without a chaperone for maybe 2 hours and I was terrified.  I was still incredibly sore, could barely move, and definitely couldn't lift A2.  Nap time came around and A2 requires someone to lay down with him to fall asleep.  I got us all upstairs and laid down with them just in time for K to wake up and need to nurse while A2 was overtired and desperate to cuddle.  Both of them screaming, one laying in the crook of each arm.  I started crying as well - sure that this reality was exactly what I was fearing and what our lives would be for the next couple of years.  In truth, the golden child came home very soon and helped.  And in the days since, A2 has made leaps and bounds in adjusting.  He loves his brother very much and is always ready to defer his needs to K so that K doesn't cry.  He might only be willing to defer for 5 minutes- but it's 5 minutes that make life doable.  I nurse with two boys on my lap, with A2 often "helping" K nurse.  We read bedtime stories together.  A2 helps give K baths.  When K cooed for the first time the other day I realized with horror that I had never cooed at him to encourage it.  And then I realized that  somehow he figured out anyway.  It certainly isn't the same one on one attention that the golden child and A2 got - but he's developing and growing nonetheless. 

We're surviving.  Some might even say thriving.

My health still sucks.  The severe headaches that I had for the last two weeks of pregnancy were apparently caused by a cracked and rotting molar that needed an emergency root canal.  I'm still sore. from the c-section.  Still having some weird nausea, swelling, and elevated blood pressure.  I'm having some bleeding issues that may honestly end up in a too soon after delivery hysterectomy.  But we're here.  And somehow, the picture above is mine.  My family. 

A family I could never have imagined being my reality in the days of loss.  Home is the place I now always long to be.