two under two

September 11, 2023

I mentioned in a previous blog post that my husband and I are expecting our second baby in January, creating a 14-month age gap between this baby and our first daughter, Florence. In this post, I plan to talk about I just shared a post on the blog where I talk about what it was like for me when I found out, and where I am at now. *Please be warned* - a lot of my thoughts at the beginning are sad, dark, and triggering for many people, specifically surrounding miscarriage. If you have struggled with infertility or miscarriage, please proceed with caution or skip this post altogether. This blog is about honesty, and there is lots of that to be found in this post.

To start, I just need to make it known that my husband and I were never under the impression that “breastfeeding is birth control”, and never planned to use that as an effective form of contraception. We also, however, do not use birth control because I had such an awful experience with it when we first got married, and we were totally fine for the almost two years before we started trying (on purpose) to have our daughter. All that being said: I got my first postpartum menstrual cycle exactly eight weeks after I had Florence. My body really said, “you don’t need a break from bleeding.” I logged this period into my app because prior to having our first baby, a cycle tracking app was essentially what we used for birth control.

In the months following, I got my period pretty regularly, give or take a few days. It wasn’t quite as painful as it used to be before pregnancy, and it was not accompanied by the nausea that I usually had either. Annoying as it was to get my period back right away even though I was breastfeeding, it was... “whatever.”

Five months postpartum, there was some “schmexy time” happening between my husband and I, so I decided to consult my cycle-tracker app to see if we needed to use the pull-out method or not. According to the app, it was ovulation time! Super great, if you want to have fun AND have a baby. Not great if you want to have fun and NOT have a baby. I told my husband we should probably be careful, but if you’ve ever been there… neither of us really wanted to do that. The exact words that came out of my husband’s mouth next were, “Our baby is cute. We could have another one, right?” I immediately laughed. While I agreed that Florence is adorable, a baby was not in my future plans for a WHILE. But… my cycle was still trying to get itself figured out, right? The chances of it happening after one time were slim, right? There’s no way we would really get pregnant five months after our first baby, right?

As is obvious, I was very WRONG. I remember checking my phone every day and seeing that I was on day 32, 33, 34 of my cycle. I mentioned to my husband (whose name is Jarom, by the way) that I was a little worried, but he assured me that I would be fine. But somehow, I just knew. On day 34, I went to Walmart with my good friend who led me right to where the cheap pregnancy tests were, I bought two of them, and told myself I’d take them on day 35 if I hadn’t gotten my period yet.

Surprise, surprise… I didn’t get my period on day 35. I think my husband and I went somewhere that morning, I don’t remember. But what I do remember is that we had this amazing anniversary date planned to go and feed penguins at the aquarium. And taking pregnancy tests before that was not the best idea, considering the results.

I looked so hard at the line on that first test… and I couldn’t make it go away. And the second test didn’t make it go away either. At first, I didn’t really do anything. It was hysterical to me, and I just joked it off. It wasn’t until I was sitting on the bed, staring at the tests, and my husband asked me, “How are you feeling about it?” that I really processed what was happening. I started sobbing, my six-month-old in my arms, while Jarom said, “What’s wrong? I thought you wanted this?” A bold statement to make after a five minute conversation before having some fun...

As I’ve told a few people, I think I went through all five stages of grief in two days. For the first day, I just cried. I couldn’t really explain any of my tears other than that I didn’t want to have another baby.

The day after, I was in extreme denial for a while. I remember specifically taking a shower and just saying over and over again to myself, “If I say I’m not pregnant, then I’m not pregnant. I’m not, I’m not, I’m not. This isn’t going to happen.” And I would feel just a tinge of relief.

Then I was angry. Angry at my husband for even putting the idea in my head, blaming him. I didn’t want him to touch me or even look at me. It was his fault. Even though I knew full well that it wasn’t. It takes two to tango, and I was even angrier at myself for ever agreeing to not be careful, and for being so downright stupid.

That Sunday, I bargained with Heavenly Father before church. It was a Fast Sunday and because I was breastfeeding, I didn’t normally fast. This Sunday was an exception; I told myself that I was going to deliberately skip breakfast and open and close my breakfast fast with a prayer. *This is where things start to get a little heavy.*

I remember praying to Heavenly Father and asking Him to send this baby to someone else who really needed it. I knew someone close to me who had been struggling, and I remember saying over and over again that I could deal with the repercussions of a miscarriage, just let it happen to me and not to her again. Send her this baby and I will go through a miscarriage. Bargaining. But in my mind, I was thinking that a miscarriage would be easier than having this child at all. Which is so heartbreaking to think about for all of those who have struggled with child loss. I was being selfish, I know. Over a deliberate decision that I made.

During the testimony meeting that Sunday, it seemed that everyone and their mother’s testimonies were about how they had faced difficult trials in their lives, but that they had become such huge blessings later on after enduring them. I felt worse and better at the same time after each testimony. Later, I confided in the primary president that I had just found out that I was having a baby, tears stinging my eyes. I thought she would laugh at me and tell me how unfortunate my situation was. Instead, she told me how excited she was, as if this was my first baby and not this burden I felt I had to deal with. She told me about how her last son was a surprise, and how she felt like she couldn’t fathom having another child so long after her last, that she was out of practice and would have to do everything all over again. But, she said that she could not imagine her life or her family without her last son, that he completed their family and has been such a blessing.

While this sister and I will experience different ends of the spectrum, her words were a comfort to me and we shared tears

together. I’m grateful to her for listening to me when I felt utterly lost and hopeless.

At this point, depression and acceptance were kind of intermixed. I don’t know if I’ve ever had a true panic attack before, but the experience I had on the bathroom floor in front of my bathtub has to come pretty close. I went in there just to be alone and cry about all of it - about how I JUST had a baby, how I don’t even know what I’m doing with the one I have, how everyone will judge me and feel bad for me and know how stupid we were, how I never even got comfortable with my postpartum body and now I will just be fat and pregnant all over again, how Florence will have to grow up so fast because I will be so busy taking care of a newborn while she’s still in the critical stages of her growth and development - and Jarom came in to hold me while I just sobbed and hyperventilated and snotted everywhere. I was a mess.

The acceptance came after that Sunday, after talking to my best friend, and after a long walk and talk with my husband (in which *trigger warning* he confided in me after I shared about my bargaining prayer that he had also silently wished that we would have a miscarriage. If you couldn’t tell, neither of us believe in abortion, hence the wanting God to give the baby to someone else.) And mostly, it came because I just realized: what’s done is done, and there’s nothing we can do about it.

I will still have a breakdown every now and then thinking about what our situation is going to be like for the next few years, and I think that’s okay. I think it would be worse to have no apprehension at all about it. The one thing that was still so hard for me to shake, though, was the feeling of shame and embarrassment. Nothing against my amazing dad, but when we told my parents, his words were, “You know how that happens, right?” Yes, we do. I would feel less embarrassed if I knew that people weren’t thinking how “unlucky” we are. But I know people are thinking it, because I’ve thought the same thing. Just before I found out I was pregnant, I remember seeing a few reels on Instagram about people who were in our exact same situation, and thinking, “Oh man, that would suck.” I know someone who has an even smaller age gap between their first and second kid, and I discussed with a family member, “Wow, what were they thinking? That’s going to be rough.”

I let what others think get to me more than I probably should, but I think that has been my biggest hurdle in all of this. I don’t want to be 36 weeks pregnant, carrying my non-walking one-year-old, walking around while people think, “Man. I wouldn’t want to be her.” Because I’ve thought the same thing about that mom. And maybe this is more of just a wake up call for me to stop judging people...

Having two under two is definitely going to be a struggle. But from what I’ve read and heard, having two kids that close in age is a wonderful blessing and opportunity. And, after telling people both in person and on social media, I’ve gotten an overwhelming response of congratulations and happiness for our situation, and much less pity or jokes.

I am excited to see Florence become an older sister. But I still feel sad that she won’t understand anything that’s going on or really even be able to hold her sibling, like I anticipated with our kids being 2-2.5 years apart. I am excited to have another go at parenting, because I feel like there are so many things I did wrong with the first, but I also feel really bad for Florence. (I’ve been told that’s how it is for every oldest child, though.)

I hope this wasn’t too depressing of a read. Babies are miracles, and we have been blessed to be able to conceive two of them without complication. Again, welcome to my mind and thank you for reading/listening. I hope this helps you feel less alone if you’ve ever experienced unplanned/unwanted pregnancy. And if you’ve got any tips or stories about small age gaps between kids, I’d love to hear them.