Originally posted to my personal blog: Rockets, Swords, & Shields on November 15, 2012.
In the last couple years, a lot has happened. A lot…and to
be honest, I’ve been trying to figure out how to process it the whole time but
there hasn’t really been a pause to finish reacting to one thing before the
next begins. What I’ve realized in the last few months though – and finally
figured out how to put into words tonight… is who my sons are to me. They’re my
war buddies. The buddy part of that makes it sound cutesy – but it’s not. When
I was pregnant with Owen, I went through hell. Constantly and for every part of
my pregnancy with him, I was in hell. There were very few good moments and a
host of bad ones including twice almost having to have him delivered early. It
was with him that I learned what it is to have a friend in an unborn child, because
he was suffering everything I was – he knew me, he had my blood flowing through
him … he was literally a part of my physical being. He was the only one who
truly understood what I was going through because it was happening to him too.
When he was born and he was placed in my arms while they wheeled me out of the
operating room, my first words to him were, “Hey Buddy.” I had always thought
that was strange since I had called him so many things but that for my whole pregnancy;
Spawn, Alien, Monkey, Owen – never not once did I refer to him as Buddy, but
when I saw him – I knew that’s what he was. I don’t call him that all the time,
but it is a name I have continued to give to him for the past 22 months. He has
been with me for every single bad day and horrible moment I’ve experienced in
the last two years – when I have needed comfort or something to make me happy
again despite what was happening, he has been there to cuddle with me and he
has always been able to make me feel better…even if it was just in that one
small space of my heart.
This year being pregnant with Mac brought me the positive
experience in pregnancy that everyone talks about. There was little to
no
discomfort or problems … until there were. We had two big scares this
year –
one for me and one for Mac. With Cormac, I went through hell for 4 days
while
we waited to find out results from a test after a doctor had seen a
marker for Down’s
Syndrome. I waited in that hell alone with Owen while Corey was out of
town for
work. The same week we had that scare – we were told I had abnormal cell
growth
that could be precancerous on my uterus and that it could amount to
nothing, or the hormones of my pregnancy could push it to become
full-blown cancer - and regardless they couldn't act for another 6
months until after Mac was born and I was healed. So that week was my
week to cry, to
find comfort in my Buddy in my arms, and to realize I was going to have a
second war buddy – because while it was less hectic, this was sure as
hell a
new war that Mac and I were fighting together. Mac turned out to be fine
obviously, and while I had to go through the rest of my pregnancy and
wait
until after his birth to check the cells again, as of right now it
appears that
I’m okay and I’ll be meeting with and getting a plan for the future from
an oncologist tomorrow...and during and after that appointment as with
many that came before it, it’s my
sons who will be there to comfort me until Corey comes home again.
I have two sons that I spend more hours with than anyone
else in the world with now, my husband included. They’re not my friends in the
sense that Corey, Brittany, Shaina, or any of my other friends are – but they
know me in a way none of you ever would be able to. We’ve been through hell
together, and they’re the only ones who not only were a part of my being in the
past, they have a piece of me in them still. A piece that makes it physically
hard for me to be a part from them or see them in pain – and this, I know, is
motherhood…but it’s something else too. It’s the bond that comes from going
through a war with someone and only they were there to know what it was like.
That’s who my sons are to me – before they have grown into little boys or
eventually men – they’re my war buddies. They’re not only the cause of my scars
and stretch marks…they’re the reason it was worth it.
