Life as Amber knows it

Tomorrow will be my seventh mother’s day.  It seems like just a moment ago that Amethyst came into the world, covered in meconium and pissed off at all the gravity that had replaced the warm, cosy womb she had inhabited for nine months.

My road to motherhood was exhausting: Endometriosis coupled with PCOS, surgeries, fertility treatments, month after month of failed pregnancy tests.  The moment before my final push during Amethyst’s birth, my OBGYN (a man who I owe not only for my children, but for my life due to his instincts and his ability to put his patients before his bank account) looked me in the eyes and said, “Are you ready?  You’ve waited 27 years for this moment,” and then Amethyst finally slid out, covered in her own poo and was rushed to the warming table so the NICU team could make certain she had not injested any meconium.

Autumn was a bit less dramatic in her arrival:  pushing only took about twenty minutes, and she was placed immediately upon my belly.  The nurse brought me a blanket, and we wrapped her up while my doctor finished up doing his “thang” while I stared into the eyes of my second born.  So beautiful, so peaceful, and so calm, she was content to just lay nuzzled in my arms, and took right to the breast.

Benjamin was the greatest surprise I’ve ever been blessed with: thinking we were secure in my infertility history and the fact I was on the pill, neither Brian nor myself thought anything when I started feeling nauseated.  But when the doctor at the clinic I went to because I could not stop throwing up told me I as pregnant, I still didn’t believe it.  It had happened so easily that it had to have been a mistake.  Nine months later, my epidural wore off right as I was pushing, and my son came into the world right about the moment I was mentally calculating where best to kick my OB in the head to get him to shut the hell up about pushing harder.

They are all so different, these three miracles of mine, in looks and personality.  Yet, they share two common denominators: A love of life, and pure joy in being alive. And that is all that I can ask for as a mother:  I do not care who they end up, what the end up as, what their careers end up being.

I just wish them joy.

~Amber