Monday, June 18, 2012

The one that got away



I'm a mom, I get frazzled.  I'm human, I get frustrated.
I start by saying those because over the weekend I realized a couple things.   One, as my monster was sitting on the floor crying I started thinking "Man, it'd be great if you'd just stop crying." That's when he started crawling toward me and then hugged my legs and lifting his arms up motioning for me to pick him up. So with him be just undeniably adorable I bent over picked him up and wiped away his tears, and just like that he was over it smiling and clapping. 
Now to understand what made me feel like a complete a-hole about this I have to tell you about me, the me I was in 2008.  I had come into the Marine Corps just a year prior and had a boyfriend, not the kind that wanted to know my family, and kind of not really the kind I wanted my famly to know. But alas, we were together for the wrong reasons and I ended up pregnant. When the Dr. told me I was indeed pregnant, I was scared but I was pretty happy too.  So I accepted the fact that I was going to have a baby, and kept checking all the online baby calenders to learn about my new one's progress. A couple weeks later, while in the middle of class, I started getting really bad cramps went to the bathroom, if you have no idea where this is going I'll just say I was definitely bleeding.  I finished class and then went to our detachment Sr. Enlisted Advisor who then had another Marine take me to the ER. The ER Dr couldn't confirm it since it was early on in the pregnancy and said the test didn't say if the cell count was going up or going down so I would need to wait a week and go back for tests. I didn't need to go back to know what I already knew.  I lost the baby. I spent the entire next day either sleeping or crying.
At my follow up appointment the next week, the doctor took me into a small room and said "I don't know why they made you come back, you're not pregnant. And if you were you are not pregnant any more." Then she hurried me out of her office and went back to the waiting room packed full of patients...just like that completely dismissed as a single active duty female who was probably just too dumb and miscounted her cycle.  What that doctor didn't know was, I wasn't some dumb floozy who got knocked up and would have been relieved by the news I wasn't pregnant. I wanted more than anything to be a mom.
I'll be honest that was one of the two things that made me kind of forget myself. Forget who I was and where I cam from. I became selfish, moody and honestly- a total bitch. I could go into everything I felt in those following days, months and years, but I digress.  Those weeks I told myself I would welcome the cries and messiness of evrything that a baby brings when I finally did have a kid.
And when the monster came up to me crying like I was never going to come back and just wanting nothing more than to be in my arms and I got frustrated- I stopped. I remembered what it was like when the first one got away and I leaned over picked him up and hugged him, told him I loved him and even though he didn't know I was frustrated I told him I was sorry kissed away his tears and boom he was all better.
And two, yeah I'll admit, there was time a while ago when I said "I just want someone to want me and need me desperately (and it wouldn't hurt if he was just out-of-this-world-cute)" and as my little monster of a son came crawling up to me crying because he wanted to be near me I thought to myself, I definitely got what I wished for.