These Babies Were Real, These Babies Were Loved

Eli & Webber. Those are my baby boys’ names. They each (separately) arrived too early. 20 weeks early in fact. If my body could have held on a little longer they might be here with us today at 7 and 6 years old. I would have had a house full of boys and I would have been fine with not having any girls. Then maybe no one would steal my makeup and jewelry. I would brush up on the rules of football and be lax on rough housing in the living room because boys are like that right?

After more doctors appointments and procedures than I can keep track of, we had our “miracle” baby Liam. He’s almost 5 now. It wasn’t really a miracle that kept Liam safe inside until 38-1/2 weeks. It was a simple piece of string that resembled dental floss. Otherwise known as a cerclage or the stitching of the cervix. It took two doctors and two lost babies for me to be finally diagnosed as having an incompetence cervix.

I remember telling our families that if this pregnancy ended the same way the last two had that I was done trying to have children. I couldn’t take it. If I had to hold another tiny baby whose heart had stopped beating then mine might as well stop too. I still have flashbacks of moments. My dad holding Eli with tears streaming down his face. The sound of silence in the room when I gave that final push when Webber was born. Crying so uncontrollably I almost vomited in my bathroom on the day I got home from the hospital after losing Eli.

Pregnancy after that was like fearing the worst each day until I slowly inched past 20 weeks.

And now here I am with three beautiful faces that call me Mommy. One boy and TWO girls. So it looks like my makeup and jewelry might disappear after all. And that’s okay too. And with only one boy, I think I’ll wait to brush up on all the intricate rules of football and hope he might be interested in something I know a little more about.

And when my little ones are old enough to understand, I’ll tell them about their big brothers and how they changed the course of our lives.  And how really we are a family of seven and not just five.