We are coming up on Mother's Day this Sunday and though I find it a great day because I have the best little boy in the world hugging on me and loving me I also find it a little bittersweet. My whole life I wanted to be a mommy, I wanted to have a whole mess of babies at home to love, teach, and watch them grow up. They told me  before I ever got pregnant with lil man that there was no way that I would ever be able to have a  baby, my body was too sick to support a pregnancy. They told us if I did manage to conceive that the baby would miscarry and I would probably just assume it was a period. After they told me that news I spent a good two weeks in a pretty deep depression, I felt like they had taken everything away from me and just walked out of the room as I sat there shocked. Eventually, I just started pushing through everything, I still had Josh's kids to love and that was more than a lot of women had and I still left that little bit of hope inside that maybe I might have a baby of my own someday.
     I was awakened early in the morning on Mother's Day 2010 by the Chief of Emergency Medicine calling to tell me that I needed to come in to the hospital that my port was infected. It didn't take long for them to explain the severity of the situation to me and get up into a room and make sure they had IV vanc running. They stopped my TPN so I was super weak and overly emotional as they tried to get the infection under control. They finally let me out of the hospital a week later on IV vanc three times a day and told me to take it easy and they were going to watch everything closely. It turned out that the infection we thought cleared had managed to form a sheath over my line so it needed to be taken out. They put in a PICC so I could run my TPN and planned to replace my line in a couple weeks. 
     The days passed and I got sicker and sicker, not with a fever or anything, but I couldn't stop throwing up and I was getting awful headaches. When I went to my doc appointment the first thought was the infection was back. When I told her I was more nauseous than usual she brushed it off as nothing, it took lots of pushing to get her to run a pregnancy test. Everyone knows the story, God gave us a miracle and I was eight weeks pregnant. They spent over an hour telling me to terminate the pregnancy because I would die, the baby would die, or we would both die. Obviously, we proved them wrong my over tired two year old is in his room now refusing to lay down. It was the most amazing moment of my life when they delivered him. He went from living inside me to all of a sudden I could hear that little cry and it hit me that I was a mommy...my dreams were coming true. 
      My joy was interrupted when my OB showed up by my head and asked if she could go ahead and tie my tubes while they were closing the c section. I was shocked and just looked for a minute like she was crazy. She started trying to rationalize with me that the pregnancy was so hard on my body and I would never fully recovery. I remember thinking, "is she really doing this to me now, after I just delivered my  healthy miracle baby"? I was adamant that she do nothing but close the incision and drop the subject. Obviously, the next few days were pure bliss, this beautiful little blue eyed boy was mine. He would snuggle into my chest and go to sleep and on the second day of his beautiful life he smiled and from that moment on he owned my heart and I wanted nothing more than to have more little ones because they are absolutely blessings.
     Everyone knows that lil man was a difficult baby when it came to sleep, but I still loved it. We often slept with him curled up in the crook of my arm. I felt so much love for him that sometimes I thought my heart would explode. The pregnancy and the birth took their toll on me, what food the pregnancy hormones had allowed me to tolerate no longer stayed down and tube feeds weren't going much better. I was weakening quickly from malnutrition and exhaustion, but it was still so beautiful to be a mommy and I refused to see what everyone else did. We went to the doc for my six week check up and she raved about out lil miracle, but also about how I looked, not like someone who had given birth such a short time ago. She immediately brought up birth control and refused to give me the pill because of my absorption problems. I tried the Implanon (goes in your arm and protects for three years) but the hormones caused bad things to happen. She gave the the choice of the patch or the ring and I went with the patch. According to Josh it made me a raging you know what come PMS time, but i was convinced that I would have another baby some day.
     As the months passed and my lil man got bigger and I got to spend everyday with him I started to get that itch to give him a little brother or sister, in all honesty I wanted to try for my little girl. My health had been faltering to say the least, we were in the ER at least once a month and had surgery in November which caused some serious complications. Josh tried to be as supportive as possible, but I was depressed and wanted to have another baby, I'm a woman that is what we are suppose to do. Finally, my team sat me down and told me that there was no way I would ever carry another baby. I piped up that I had made it with lil man and they said they agreed that it was a miracle and that my labs after he was born were so low I could have died. They said that it was time for me to accept the gift I was given and for my own health we needed tie my tubes.
     I went home and fell apart, I cried as my lil man lay in the crook of my arm sleeping. I thought I had failed as a woman, couldn't do the one thing that we are suppose to be able to do. I felt I had so much love to give and they were telling me that I could never have that moment where you feel the baby move in your tummy again, I would never snuggle a newborn baby again, and I could never give lil man a brother or sister. I was an only child until I was ten years old when my dad remarried and I got a new little sister and not too far off we were given a little brother. I thought being an only child was amazing, but it changes when you have a whole family Christmas morning or Easter morning. I liked not being the only child, I enjoyed having a real family and I was even more excited when my mom remarried and a few years later had my little sister. I feel like lil man is missing out on the joys of having a sibling. Sure we have fought like cats and dogs growing up, but I still love my sisters and brother with all my heart and wouldn't trade them for anything.
     After a long debate I made the decision to let them tie my tubes secretly believing they could undo them whenever I asked. I wasn't in denial, I was going to get sicker, I'm sicker even now and it would have been unfair to bring another baby into this world only for me to not be around to mommy it and it would have been unfair to my miracle I already have. I cried as they wheeled me back to the OR and was given a hefty dose of meds to calm me down as they got me ready for the surgery. I fell asleep believing it could all be reversed. When I woke up I was informed that one of my Fallopian tubes had a cyst wrapped around it that would have burst if they didn't get it out, unfortunately it was wrapped around the whole tube so it had to be removed. She told me the chance of them ever being able to reverse the procedure along with only one Fallopian tube and nutrition problems of me ever conceiving again was pretty much impossible. 
     Here we are a year later coming up on Mother's Day and though I feel tremendously blessed that I was able to have that little miracle in the other room and watch him grow up, but I grieve that I will never be able to have another baby. I hear about friends having babies and I'm so happy for them and at the same time I'm so incredibly sad. After my mom died I stopped acknowledging Mother's Day and I think my Momma Dee understood that it was just too hard to think about it and then I had lil man and everyday seems like Mother's Day. Everyday he does something that warms my heart and makes smile even when I think I don't have it in me. Though I think I will always grieve for the babies I can never have I will never forget the miracle that I was given. We weren't suppose to make it, they said there would never be a Mother's day for me let alone coming up on three and that is something. I think about those that haven't gotten the miracle I did, those women who do everything to try and have a baby and yet they can't do it