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The Unwanted Child

Filed Under: Life
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I was planning on writing about the farce that is sharing but I’ve saved that as a draft for a rainy day.

Tonight, I shall write about Oliver.

Some back story, though I’m sure I’ve probably written about this before.

I found out that I was pregnant with Oliver on my birthday of 2007. [Jan 3rd. I particularly like video games if you want to get me a gift.]

I was still breastfeeding Cara at that point and was suspicious that I might be pregnant since I had a lot of nipple pain while breastfeeding. Tucker was getting out active duty Navy that March and we had NO plans of a baby any time soon. I left our apartment under the guise of going to Target to get some groceries and bought some pregnancy tests. I tested and found out that I was indeed knocked up.

I bawled like a fucking baby.

I came out of the bathroom with tears in my eyes and apologized to Tucker. Another baby was SO not on our list of things to do before we got out of the Navy. What the hell were we going to do about insurance? What were we going to do about a place to live?! How would Cara feel about not being the only child any longer?!!

I had a LOT of guilt about getting pregnant the second time around. Guilt and regret and anger and…well…I was feeling a lot of different emotions at that time.

I weaned Cara at 18 months and felt more guilt for weaning her but truth-be-told, it was time.

We lived with Tucker’s parents for about a month after we moved back to Arkansas and then we found our own place. I think I was around four months at that time. Tucker had joined the Naval Reserves so that we would have insurance and we found a triplex that was better than the place where we had been living in Florida. It was a two bedroom place but Cara had slept with us in our room till she was six months old so I tried not to stress about the number of bedrooms.

Then came the search for the baby’s name. I wanted NO input from anyone other than Tucker on the name. The name we had chosen while I was pregnant with Cara-James Robert-was nixed since we didn’t want our son going by a version of his middle name and so we were a ship without a port so to speak. We floundered around for a name for a while and even bought a baby name book. Then, my friend Hollyn, made some offhanded comment about horses that I’ve loved. That’s how I came up with Oliver’s name-a horse at a barn that I used to work at. This horse was the most laid back, chill horse that you could ever want to meet.

Inexperienced rider? Hey. I think I’ll just chill here in the middle of the ring.

Douche bag rider who got in his face? Hey, man. Why the heavy hand? How about I just hang out here in the middle of the ring until you realize that I think you suck?

Now that I had a name to go with the faceless parasite kicking my ribs, I started talking to him by name. And, I felt much closer to him than I did while I was pregnant with Cara. I don’t know if it was because he was my second baby and I knew what would come from my ever growing belly, but I felt like he heard me when I talked to him.

Oliver was “due” on September 11th and I was damned if I was going to have a baby on that date. He deserved his own birthday that wasn’t tangled up in the whole September 11th thing. I went into labor late on the night of September 11th and four days later posted pictures. It was the first time that I had been away from Cara overnight and though I welcomed the chance to get to know my new baby, I was eaten up with guilt about being away from my first “baby”.

I can’t help but compare Cara and Oliver.

Cara was sitting unassisted at three or four months and Oliver has decreed, “fuck a lot of that noise” and insists on crawling everywhere and refusing to sit anywhere. Cara never babbled a day in her life and I was worried that she might have “issues” while Oliver has started babbling “mama” in the past week and means it.

While Cara has always been the type to “do now and ask questions later”, Oliver seems to take the “observe and then act” track.

My kids are polar opposites but it seems to work-it’s no wonder that I’ve always called Cara “cuckoo” and Ollie “sunshine boy”.

Tonight, Oliver was rubbing his eyes and was obviously sleepy. We had spent a lot of time at the mall and it had worn him out. Cara was in bed and I had a ton of work to do. I made sure that Oliver wasn’t hungry and that he was dry and then I turned on his mobile and his glow worm and told him, “Goodnight”. I heard a singular cry and then nothing. I went in to check on him and he was sound asleep.

His sister never would have done that and to this day still pitches a fit when she goes to bed. However, Oliver seems to appreciate the gift that is sleep.

I’m constantly thankful for the child that I admittedly did not want. I’m constantly grateful for this blessing whose name is Oliver.