Double Digits

Everyone's road to motherhood is different. To understand mine, you'd have to go back to my teens. When I was 16, I was diagnosed with thyroid disease. My endocrinologist at the time was one of the best people I've had the privilege to know. Not only did he treat my disease, but he took the time to help me and my parents (mostly my mother, who generally brought me to my appointments) to truly understand the disease, and the many and varying impacts it would have on my health and life. Not least among those impacts was the likelihood that conceiving and carrying a child would likely be difficult for me.

This message was echoed by my next endo, when I graduated from pediatric to adult. Again, I was lucky to have an amazing doctor who spent more time than he really had talking with us about what life was going to look like for me after the radioactive iodine treatment that neutralized my thyroid at age 20. Natural conception was not very likely.

Having known this about myself for such a long time, you can imagine my surprise, then, when, two months into marriage at age 30, I found myself unexpectedly pregnant. In fact, when I had an appointment with my endo at seven months pregnant, he was literally dumbfounded when he walked in to find me sporting my healthy bump. And I spent a lot of that pregnancy feeling rather dumbfounded myself. I had mentally and emotionally prepared for something so different. This is not to say I wasn't grateful, because I have always felt immeasurably grateful. It was just so...surprising.

And then ten years ago tonight, I went into labor two weeks early. And at 3:58 am on October 25, 2007, Benjamin Thomas made his entrance. He came SCREAMING into the world, and has been making himself more than heard ever since.

I started this blog largely to chronicle my journey mothering him. He was just 2.5 months old when I started blogging here. So, particularly the early part of our journey together is well covered in this space. It has been an adventure every day. He was a relatively easy baby, but has not been an easy child. He is extremely emotional, has ADHD, and is neurotic.

But he's also kind, friendly, and hilarious. He makes me proud during all the moments he isn't making me crazy. His love for others takes my breath away on the regular. Simply put, he has made the past decade of my life full of color. He changed everything about my life, and about my identity to the world and to myself, and there really aren't even words for that. He has my heart.

I can still so easily concur the way I felt when the nurse placed him on my chest ten years ago. Thrilled, terrified, full of awe. I still feel those things frequently. And love. Always love. So much love.