Of books and hope…

Earlier today, I spent some time reorganizing my bookshelves which, on the face of it, probably doesn’t sound terribly significant. Shifting books to and fro is hardly cause for excitement, nor is putting books away in a closet in order to make room for other books. Unless, of course, the books that you’re carefully piling away in storage are your pregnancy books, and you’re putting them away because you’ve more or less reached the conclusion that you’re not going to be needing them anytime soon. For a long time after The Kid (I’ve decided he’s too big to be the Little One anymore) was born, I refused to even consider the possibility of having another. After all, it had been a difficult pregnancy and a complicated birth, one that could have cost me my life. We’d tried to have a child for nine years, and now that we’d finally succeeded, I couldn’t imagine putting myself through all of that again. I was emotionally drained from my pregnancy experience and terrified by my birthing experience, and the prospect of pushing our luck and trying for a sibling was simply too exhausting to contemplate. To be honest, I wasn’t even sure I wanted another child. I liked the idea of giving our son a sibling, but when it came down to it, was that really reason enough to try again? At some point, though, I realized that perhaps it would be nice to have another, but that I wasn’t prepared to take […]