Who They Are to Me.

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.