Gratefulness

Last night, I met a very interesting woman. She is one of my mom's neighbors and, although it has been many years, when she was young she had five children in six years. Six entire years of being pregnant! I can't even imagine. And she said to me with a smile, "I never felt better than I did when I was pregnant." I am not that woman. I'll be honest. When I find women closer to my own age who tell me they loved being pregnant or they felt so fabulous during those nine months, I want to hurt them. I doubt their honesty. I have not felt good. And just when I crossed the twelve week mark and nausea started to subside, and I thought the end was in sight... no. It has returned. Now, in week fourteen, the dry heaving has resurfaced along with the nausea. I have headaches (and sometime migraines) just about every day. My allergies are having a field day... and there is very little I can do about any of this. Take ginger. Use heat packs. Take a Tylenol. Yeah, great. Like any of those things are as good as "real" drugs.

But then I hear of friends (far too many friends) who are having trouble conceiving or who are having legitimately challenging pregnancies and I have to take a step back. True, it took some medical intervention to get me knocked up, but it worked for us. (In fact, it worked a bit too well, if you ask me.) And true, I feel like I have low-grade flu 24/7, but that will end and we will hopefully have three healthy babies as payment. I can't say the same for everyone else in the world. That is something to be grateful for. And it brings some reality to our own pregnancy - things do not always work out as you had planned. Right now, we have more than we bargained for, but that could change in a heartbeat. Our perinatologist so kindly told us that 25% of multiples don't even make it to the 24 week "safe zone," which is a sobering statistic. But for now, I need to be grateful for each day that my peas have in their pod and show true kindness and love to those who are struggling because, well, it's the right thing to do and because it could just as easily have been us.