mere minutes after penelope was born… in our bedroom of our home… by choice… i looked over at Jesse and said “oh jesse, i can’t wait to do this again.” i think it’s safe to say that a fast, beautiful, planned and successful homebirth will make you say things like that. penelope’s birth was absolutely magical. im sure i’ll share her whole birth story here eventually.

one of my favorite memories is having sushi in bed hours after penelope was born with penelope on my chest, eleanor watching TV in bed next to us, and jesse coming in and out to check on us. absolute bliss, i tell ya.

we dealt with a few hiccups that week trying to get her bilirubin count down, but then the next few weeks were filled with a whole lot of laying on the sofa and soaking each other up.

the age gap between eleanor and penelope was not planned. however, once i realized that i would get tons of one on one time with penelope the way i did with eleanor, since eleanor would be in school all week, i felt so excited for that time to come. those few weeks that we did get to have that were amazing.

penelope was born on february 11, 2020. the alone time i was expecting to enjoy with her was abruptly interrupted on march 22, 2020 by a shelter at home order due to a global pandemic. isn’t that so weird to think about? a GLOBAL pandemic. we went through a G L O B A L pandemic. wild. so, school was shut down, we couldn’t go to work, and as a new family of four we spent all of our time together at home. just the four of us.. alone.. at home.. all. the. time; just like everyone else in the world. to say that we are blessed and shouldn’t take for granted the peace we were able to experience while others had it so much worse is a given. but, putting a lens on my own struggles, which we are allowed to do, made me want to scream. i wanted the one on one time with penelope, but i didn’t get that. what i got was bathing a five year old at the same time a newborn was dangling from my boob. what i got was “mom, remember when you were able to pay more attention to me?” from eleanor while wearing penelope in a sling as i’m doing laundry and getting supper cooked. what i got was being smothered on the sofa by both girls anytime i tried to relax and get a little me time. there was a lot of good stuff in there too. picnics for lunch on a tuesday, eleanor reading books to her baby sister, being smothered on the sofa by both girls and receiving so much love. there was lots of good stuff AND there were challenges galore during these quarantine months.

this isn’t a story about covid, i would like to be clear.

instead, it’s a story of how life with two children has been challenging and how i keep wondering if i would have handled this life transition differently had it not been for having to quarantine and deal with the stress and anxiety the came as a result of the litany of struggles that the pandemic brought with it. so, maybe it’s a story about covid. just a little. but really, i guess it’s a story of contemplation and life.

when penelope was born, i thought for sure that we would want more kids as soon as mother nature allowed. several months into life with two kids, i found myself feeling guilty for not giving eleanor the attention she was missing. how could i possibly divide my attention even more? a year and a half into life with two kids found me feeling alone and helpless and like i was losing my mind a little bit. can i really stay sane with any more children? nearly two years into life with two kids, and i was becoming a mother who screams when she can’t hold it together and dreams up escape routes regularly. my own childhood trauma holds me back from running away. but the messy house, never ending laundry, the screaming and fighting, and the need for my mental, emotional, and physical attention from EVERYONE in my household all definitely lends itself to a mental hysteria that sometimes feels like its only solution is to just go. i stay. i always stay. i will always stay.

recently, i told myself that if i ever hope to even consider the thought of having another baby, i would have to prove to Jesse (and myself) that i can hold it together instead of falling apart regularly. it’s not an easy feat, and it’s ok that it’s not easy. i don’t think life is supposed to be easy. truly, i don’t. i think that you’re supposed to fall apart. i firmly believe that failing and falling down and being a complete mess is the only way you test your strength and learn what you’re capable of. so, i committed to figuring out how to put myself back together and started taking care of myself so that i could take care of my family. food and exercise came first. nourishing your body is so important apparently. feed yourself well and move your body. taking time to be alone to recharge came next, yet still doesn’t come as often as i need it to. the last piece of trudging through the emotional mess that i had become (read: am, still) was talking to a professional regularly. i started going to therapy through betterhelp.com because, aside from just “taking care of myself”, i wanted some tangible tools to use for when i can feel myself heading toward the edge of a cliff on the verge of diving head first into a mommy meltdown. therapy has been really cool. i like it a lot. 10/10 highly recommend.

i felt that i was really making strides. well, in the little time i was really investing in myself that is. it’s been a little over two months. i find myself yelling less. i’ve been slowing down more. i was starting to be as patient and present as you can be with two very strong willed daughters; talking to them gently, taking the time to explain why certain boundaries have to exist and really listening to why they feel the way they do. A+ moments for me as a mom, I’d say, which has been a nice reprieve from the monster i was becoming. and do you know what happened next? i was hit with what felt like a ton of bricks. “im scared that if we have another baby, i’ll lose the only little bit of you that’s left over for me.” those were the words that came out of jesse’s mouth after a discussion about why i wasn’t giving him the physical and emotional attention he wanted. i think it’s important to say that his and my marriage is a part of my life that has and continuously provides so much healing for me. we love each other immensely. we even like each other immensely. we don’t have a perfect marriage and yes we both get annoyed by things and each other from time to time, but i never want to live life without jesse by my side. i guess what i’m saying is that, when he shares his feelings, i do my best not to react aggressively before i’ve given it some time to sink in. i work really hard to give him the respect and patience he constantly gives me. but when he said that it took everything in me not to lose it on him, because how dare he. alas, i had the wherewithal to know that i should sit with what he said with all the empathy i could muster because in the end it didn’t feel right to discount what he was feeling. honestly, i envied his ability to speak up for himself. so, i did some digging so that i could really figure out how i truly felt. lots of questions came up.

what if i had had that time to be alone with penelope when she was a baby? would i have some energy reserves stored up somewhere to allow myself to be the wife that jesse needs me to be? what if eleanor hadn’t regressed behaviorally during quarantine? would my patience not have run dry so quickly? can i realistically add another member to our family while at the same time NOT adding on a multitude of stressors that leave me hanging, again, at the end of my rope day in and day out? what if i just stopped feeling guilty all the time and started making more time for myself? could that bring the parts of me back that i’ve lost? taking the time to ask myself those questions really validated for me what jesse was feeling. of course this would concern him. how could it not?

still, those words cut through me like a dagger to the heart. im still sifting through what that brings up for me. so far, what i’ve come up with is that i love the IDEA of having another homebirth to tout about. i love the IDEA of having a big family. i love the IDEA that maybe we can have another girl and jesse can continue to say that “he only makes girls.” i love the IDEA of trying for another when so many of our friends are doing the same. i love the IDEA of being an awesome mom to not just two but three kids and living the perfect life. hah, perfection. what even is that? i enjoy challenges that i know i have no choice but to succeed in. challenges where there is no giving up. but at what cost and to what end would the challenge of growing our family come to? maybe at no cost or sacrifice. maybe a third dufrene is just what our family needs. there’s no way to really know right now i guess.

but, i don’t love the idea of losing more parts of myself and it affecting me and the people i love. i don’t love the idea of sacrificing my marriage to fulfill a desire that miiiiight driven by trauma or the superficial need to impress. ouch. is that why i want more kids? still, i don’t know. am i supposed to know? why do i even burden myself with this question when i should just be grateful for what we already have? why is it something i think so much about when people have way more kids and just figure it out as they go? alas, it’s what i’ve been working through lately and i don’t know yet how to set it aside comfortably. i don’t know yet if by having more kids i’m just trying to prove something to myself or if it’s what my heart truly desires. it feels like a lot of both.

if you’re struggling with something similar, i’m so sorry. it sucks, doesn’t it? if you’re struggling with something heavier, i hope you know that my heart is with you. i hope that by reading these words, you understand that these thoughts that life brings with it (however petty OR important they SEEM) can easily be swept under the rug only for them to show up all of a sudden when you’re having a bad day and cause a lot more damage then if you had just allowed them in. let them in. play around with them. welcome them in because maybe out of these thoughts a peaceful and comforting resolution can be birthed.

today, these ponderings feel heavy and important to me. i hope that some clarity comes sooner rather than later, but for now i’ll give myself grace. what else is there to give to ourselves and to others? i’ll stick with grace because the alternative is to beat myself up for “overthinking” a part of life that i assume others probably don’t question in the least. and the time of beating myself up for simply thinking has come and gone. well, almost. i’m still working on loving my mind for how it works.

at the end of the day, though, the answer to my question of whether or not things might feel different for me if the world didn’t go all squirrely is this: it did go squirrely and look at all that you’ve learned. look how hard you are working. keep going. keep learning. keep pondering. keep growing. it’ll all be ok no matter what.