**TRIGGER WARNING: domestic violence and mention of miscarriage**
The decision to have an Ours Baby with my new husband was easy. What wasn’t easy was navigating the trauma that my body remembered from domestic violence and past pregnancies. While blending families is hard work, self-reflection and working on being in the present can help separate the then from the now.
I was breathless. The panic of pain and the crawling prickles of anxiety still raced down all of my limbs as they handed me my son, still slick and screaming.
You did it, mama. Good job.
But I didn’t feel like I’d done a good job. I’d white-knuckled and fought each contraction instead of surrendering to them as I had with my daughters. I’d lost my grip on reality in the waves. Each encouraging word from my son’s father felt like a lying knife slipping under my ribs. Where was this kindness coming from? I didn’t trust it, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I looked down at the mewling child in my arms. He was too solid, too real, too much of a writhing mass. I leaned my head back and held back the terrified tears that threatened to spill out of me.
What now? He’s here. I did it. Why wasn’t I happier? This is what I wanted: another baby–a double rainbow baby boy. Finally, a boy! His father was not discreet in his preference for a boy over his two previous daughters. The bitterness threatened to pull me under.
I shifted my focus to the soft but solid limbs that poked and prodded at me. His wrinkled, angry face was just as displeased with the situation as I was. And that did it. A laugh burst through the panic, and it all clicked into place.
I know, baby. I know.
That was almost five years ago. And about a hundred terrifying and awful things have happened since that day. I had hoped a new baby would help us regain some of the gentleness from our beginning. But sometime the next day, his father blamed me for hurting his back. I’d leaned on him too much while I was laboring, and I should have been able to handle it better on my own. That should have been my first clue that things weren’t going to change.
But I wasn’t a quitter.
Until months later, I stood in my kitchen clinging to my son and my phone, the voice on the line asking, Are you safe? I froze, listening to the drywall crack and crumble under manic and raged-filled fists. No, we are not safe.
I quit, I ran, I gathered up what dignity and scraps of hope I could and took a wild left turn.
Today, I sit miles and years away from those sleepless nights, wondering if I would wake up a widow or if it would be another morning with silence as thick as frozen butter set out for the kid’s morning pancakes.
I have transported myself from those days and nights of walking on eggshells and dodging snide and cutting remarks. Along the way, I found a man whose smile almost never leaves his face and whose hands are gentle even when upset or rattled. A man who saw the three kids that came with me as a gift.
I sit quietly this morning and feel the subtle shift and curious nudging of limbs within myself. This pregnancy has not been so different from the rest. Maybe that is why the echoes of past panic shiver down my spine. I close my eyes and take a deep breath.
This is a different baby, a different pregnancy, a new life with a new man.
But my body is all too familiar with the heavy weight of growing life; each squeezing early contraction feels like slipping back in time—back when I worried about saying the wrong thing, doing something wrong, worried if the kids were too loud. The muscle memory of terror is strong.
And my muscles remember these contractions and the anxiety that comes with them all too well. Is baby coming early? Is he in a mood again? Can I even do this?
You wanted this baby, not me! You wanted the kids. They are YOUR job.
He was right. I’d begged and bartered for each of them. Just as I’d begged and bartered for him to be the man he had been when we were first together.
I release it all with my breath. Focus on this moment. Today, I don’t have to beg. I didn’t have to talk this new love into any of it.
Of course, I love you and these kids . . . What’s not to love?
Of course, we’ll have a kid together . . . Why wouldn’t we have more?
Of course, it’s a girl, I wanted a girl . . . Why would I want a boy “of my own” when we already have one?
Of course, I’m happy . . . I’m with you.
He says this with no resentment or disappointment. This new love doesn’t come with conditions, strings, and ultimatums.
There is only excitement and laughter as we race through the first thirty weeks of growing this new life. Thirty weeks of ups and downs measured in boring, regular life dramas: complicated work schedules, who will take the girls to counseling, we have Girl Scouts on Tuesday, what do we want to eat for dinner this week? Oh, please, not that again . . . anything but tater tot casserole.
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It’s been four years since I tucked my kids into a car and felt the heaviness of the world on my shoulders as we drove away in the night to find a safe place to land. And as this little girl squirms in my belly, I know that she will never have to ask about holes punched in the walls, why dad left the house screaming, and if he meant it when he said he wasn’t coming back.
This little girl will know what my kids know now: belly laughs that make your ribs hurt, a firm voice and clear boundaries, a balance of work and play, and love that isn’t perfect but tries hard every day.
I close my eyes each time the past creeps up on me and focus on the distance I’ve put between myself and those days. I feel another wave of tightness. It’s just an early practice contraction, and I remind myself that this is a new life, and I can decide to feel differently about each wave that comes. Baby girl shifts in agreement, sending a reassuring kick my way. And I smile.
She already reminds me of her daddy. I’m different. This time will be different.
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