By: Paulina Lopez-Velazquez
If you know me at all, you know I always wanted to have three kids, I've dreamed about it for so long, told everyone that would hear me that my family wasn't complete. I even had a whole therapy session about it back when my husband wasn't completely on board, how could he not understand? I couldn't just erase this baby that already existed in my mind, but most importantly, it already existed in my heart. We had talked about timing, and said that when Sabina, our youngest turned two, we would start trying.
Sabina’s second birthday came and life was getting busier and busier, we slowly stopped talking about it, there was just too much going on. Working full time, the Podcast, two kids, new projects, life was busy! We said, maybe next year, yes, next year we could take our time and plan it better. I was ok with that. I made peace with that decision and it sure felt like the right one for our family. When it was time to create my vision board for the year, I had some baby cut outs, but I decided to take them out because it wasn’t on “my plans “for this year.
You know that saying, “If you want to make God laugh tell him your plans? “That’s kind of what happened to me, within a few weeks of the new year I started feeling off, I knew something was up but it never crossed my mind that I was pregnant, yes, I was not on any sort of birth control, but I haven’t been for the past 8 years, and things had worked out great so far. I was in sync with my body (or so I thought) and we had it down! Well, one day, when I was feeling super sick, I got a notification from my period app saying, Hey, you are 6 days late! Could it be? No, I’m just too stressed, I should go get checked because stress is affecting my cycle I said. Obviously, I was still on denial. Pregnant? Not possible! No way! The next morning out of pure curiosity I took a pregnancy test while getting the kids ready for school, I honestly forgot about it then on my way out I came back into the bathroom to grab something and saw it, POSITIVE. I literally sat down on the toilet and stared at the thing for a minute. I called my husband immediately, he didn’t respond , instead he showed up at the house right away and gave me the biggest hug, he was so happy, I went to work, gathered my siblings, called my parents on facetime and gave everyone the news, they were all super excited. But I was not.
Judge me if you want, I probably would too, but I was not happy, or excited, or looking forward to it. Why? I’m not sure to be honest with you, this is my last pregnancy, I always dreamed of enjoying every second of it, savoring every milestone, watching my belly grow for the last time, bonding with this baby inside of me in a totally different level. But honestly it hasn’t happened quite that way, and I feel so guilty about it. I cried so many days trying to understand my feelings, I had many conversations with God those few weeks. I got into arguments with my husband for no apparent reason. Hormones maybe? Guilt? I couldn’t really tell you. What I do know is that I couldn’t voice my feelings. You wanted this baby! You asked for this baby! You talked about this baby nonstop!
So, what now? I prayed so much, so hard, I meditated, I did everything, Then It came to me, Of course it was going to be different, I have 2 kids that require my full attention, a full-time job at the family restaurant and a Podcast that I love and enjoy, my schedule is full most of the time and things just keep coming my way, I realized my second pregnancy was so different from the first one, obviously, this was going to be much more different too. I had to accept that life doesn’t come to you how and when you plan it but when it’s meant to happen, if it didn’t happen this way, it probably wouldn’t have happened, it would never be “the right time” for us.
So, I am making the best of it, even if it doesn’t look like what it did in my dreams. Sometimes I get so busy I forget that I am pregnant, and it’s not that I don’t care about my baby, I LOVE MY BABY, when I saw that ultrasound and I saw that little thing jumping up and down inside of me i knew that my family is finally complete. I knew that what I always imagined will happen at the end of the day, even if the process of getting there was different.
This baby is teaching me a great lesson, it is teaching me to be comfortable with change, with the unexpected, because some of the best things in life are often unplanned.
