I have been sitting here for several minutes trying to figure out how to start my story out and after several attempts of trying to find the catchiest words it occurred to me that my initial plan was just to get my story off my chest for my own good, so why did it matter how interesting it sounded?? There is so much going on right now and my brain can't seem to make heads or tails of anything, so I was hoping if I sat down and started writing I would be able to sort thru it all and make sense of the unfolding of my life with Braylon including all involved.
At 35 I thought it was ridiculous that while I was pregnant with Bray, they kept labeling me as "advanced maternal age"! Every time I heard someone say that I got so irritated and thought, "for crying out loud people!! I'm flipping 35 years old, not like I'm old!" Having been labeled as advanced maternal age came the pep talks from my docs as to the risks of pregnancy at that age, risks towards myself and possible risks to baby. I never took any of it serious because I knew I wasn't going to do anything stupid to hurt my baby and quite frankly I wasn't "that OLD!"
Looking back I have come to the conclusion that I am a stubborn idiot, BUT an idiot who in the past 2 years has been blessed with 2 of the 3 most beautiful boys I have ever laid my eyes on! It's true, just ask their dad!!! I say 3 because I have a 17 year old young man, he may not have been as cute as them from the beginning... in fact he kind of looked like a bull dog for his first couple months!!! Today however; he was a handsome young teenager with one of the most amazing smiles I have ever seen. In fact, all 3 of my boys have smiles that put a sparkle in their eyes and tears in mine.
My current story began 2 years ago when I gave birth to my Braylon (middle bub) but began to unfold during my pregnancy with Clayton Cooper (little bub). Braylon has always been a special one! He pulled himself up in his crib before 5 months, took his first steps at 7 months and has pretty much blown us away by his crazy intelligence and endearing personality. It's been obvious from the beginning my lil B was special! Unfortunately I did not recognize the signs of post partum until after the fact, so Braylons and my first 6 months together did not go the way I feel it should have gone.
See, prior to becoming pregnant with Bray I had spent almost 15 years as a single mom with my son Mason. We lived with only one other man and that ended before he turned 2, so for the most part it had always just been mason and myself. That's a novel of a story in and of itself so I'll do my best to stick to the topic! For several years I had been told by my docs that I wouldn't be able to have more children so I lived with this heavy on my heart for about 4 years until I met up with Brian Michael (he is enough to fill an entire new blog, but again, Ill try to stay focused!) Shortly after I started being intimate with Brian I went for an appt. and was told I should have no problem getting pregnant, however; due to having a prolapsed bladder I may have issues carrying a baby, but pregnancy is not out of the question. This news was like a dream come true for me, I just had to convince someone to knock me up so I could finally complete my little family! Hind site, yes I realize I was not thinking rationally but I didn't care at the time, all I cared about was knowing there was a possibility of getting pregnant and that thought thrilled me! Brian and I talked about my appt and his eyes lit up with excitement for me as he smiled and listened to me ramble on about how exciting this was and he had mentioned that someday he wanted to be a dad. Well, I'm sure you can guess what happened next!!!
Fast forward to present day. Brian and I are married, living separately right now, but we are still together hoping to work things out. We now have Braylon Michael and Clayton Cooper as well as my Mason Clay and it has occurred to me that my husband and I took on too much too soon and we paid for it as well as the children.
Braylon and I had a rocky time from the get go, aside from having some post partum issues, bray has always been a very independent and not very affectionate child and I have been very high strung and selfish for several years. Lil B met every milestone, up until recently, way before he should have. This baby boy came out of me as a toddler ready to be a man! He was in a hurry to do everything! For the most part up until Braylon was a year old I didn't have too many concerns about him other than the fact he wore me DOWN!! I have never in my life seen a child with so much energy and at the same time seemed like sometimes he was just agitated to be alive.
I used to joke with people, when they asked what was wrong with him during an emotional melt down, and tell them "oh, he's just pissed off he's alive!" Now, I'm eating my words. I first noticed a change in his behavior when I was hospitalized during my last 3 months of pregnancy with cooper. Whenever his dad or my parents would bring him to visit me he would throw these crazy tantrums to the point that I was embarrassed. It was during one of these visits that I noticed him hitting his head on the floor of my hospital room or the wall. I was very concerned by this behavior and did so much research and chalked it up to him just having a hard time adjusting to me being gone and as long as he didn't do it to the point of hurting himself then it's not that big of a deal.
I delivered baby Coop at 35 weeks and was finally allowed to go home and try to resume normal life as a mother of a newborn premie and a 16 month old! Even with all the stress added to our house after me coming home I was pleased to see Braylon stopped hitting his head and things seemed to be going back to normal. Now by normal I mean, he went back to his crazy self but without the head banging. He still threw nuclear melt downs and still drove me to crazy town and back daily! Braylon also knew how to make me smile just as quickly as he made frown. His smile could melt the coldest hearts and if it didn't then You just didn't have a heart. Now up until this point, at 17 months old Braylon had excelled thru his milestones and continued to amaze us. It was after I got home with coop that I first noticed Braylon genuinely did not like affection and if his routine was disrupted, it would be hell to pay. Even back then I didn't feel like there was something wrong! I just assumed I had given birth to the cutest, most stubborn mule I had ever met in my life!
Sadly, by the end of summer this past year, we ran into difficulty with our current landlord and we were asked to leave our home. I couldn't play a victim roll as it appeared that she was trying to run everyone out of the trailer hood so we decided not to fight her and gave up, swallowed our pride and moved in with mom. Well, the boys and I moved in with mom and dad but daddy did not. This was the first time I left Brian.
The first week with mom and dad was like hell week only worse!!! Braylon did not adjust well at all, didn't help that every move I made was questioned by my parents and if they didn't like how I did something with my kids, well they let me know right then and there. Needless to say it became too much to bare in a short time and I went to a hotel with my boys and my boxer. The nite before we checked into the hotel was at that time, one of the worse notes every in the history of bad nites and mornings with children! We stayed with my best friend and I guess Bray couldn't stand it so he stayed in a constant state of melt down, until we checked into the hotel and it seemed like a switch went off in his brain and happy Braylon came out to play for a few days!
In that short few days of being in the hotel Brian and I decided we needed to be together so at the end of 5 days there we moved back in with mom and dad. After a few weeks of lots of fighting and tears, mom and dad finally started working with me instead of against me when it came to my boys. This seemed to put Braylon into a learning stage of his life. He still had melt downs but he also became affectionate and started speaking more. He has been learning sign for several months but it was nice to see him communicating more and especially nice for me to get cuddle time with him!
Well then Daddy decided it was time to tuck tail and run and thats what brings us to our current situation. A situation that causes me to lose sleep on most days! Although Bray is extremely intelligent, I can tell you there is something off about my baby. And my gut led me to our family doc who took me serious and is referring us to a program filled with a team of early intervention specialists who have promised me to make a formal diagnosis and put people in my life that will allow me to be exactly what Braylon needs from me :)
Welp, I'm going to conclude my story here for now. Still have so much I wish I could say but given that it took me 3 tries to write the last sentence above, it's probably WAY past my bed time! and my precocious, spirited and beautiful braylon will let me know in about 2 hours that it's time to get up!!!! I wish I weren't so tired I would go back and proofread lol but my eyes are crossing SO if anyone here read all this, I thank you very much and i would like to invite you back as my story unfolds! I have so much more to write but that will wait until tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment