Astrid is my last. We knew that from the very beginning, but it was driven home by the difficulty of the pregnancy. At 13 weeks, we thought we were going to lose her when I started bleeding heavily in the middle of the night. The hip pain I'd had during the last weeks prior to Sam's birth started early in the second trimester. By the time we were trying to settle in to our new house, in February, it was hard for me to walk far enough to complete the weekly grocery shopping, much less help BJ with the rigors of moving. And, as with all my pregnancies, I had the constant, unrelenting nausea of hyperemesis, the pregnancy disorder that people overwhelmingly dismiss as attention seeking. (Here is a tip: if you are throwing up a lot and thinking "Oh god, I'm afraid I'm going to die", you have severe morning sickness. If you are throwing up all the time and thinking "Oh god, I'm afraid I'm not going to die, and it's just going to keep on like this forever", you probably have hyperemesis)
So, any doubts about this being our last were put to rest. And, honestly, there weren't many doubts. After Sam was born, we knew we wanted one more. When Astrid arrived, putting us at a neat and orderly four children, two girls, two boys, arranged boy-girl-boy-girl...it felt finished.
I've never been one who got sentimental and wistful about my babies milestones. I have friends who talk about crying when they packed up the crib, and while I offer hugs and support, I secretly wonder if there is something wrong with me, since I don't feel that at all. I just always felt excitement for the next stage. Those early questions, where everything in the world requires and explanation. The fun of seeing them off to school, when their understanding about the world explodes. Those pre-teen years when they learn to counter my tendency to sarcasm with their own. The teen years, when I can introduce them to politics and activism and we can talk about controversial subjects. I love the first time we discuss some major world situation (war, poverty, the war on drugs), and they make a point to disagree with my opinion, articulating their own position with passion and thought. I've never wanted parrots; by all means, lets debate!
It's a bit different today. My last baby...isn't a baby. She is absolutely a toddler. Her birth set the stage; she's still in a hurry, her first steps coming at almost exactly 9 months old. She is quite focused on talking right now, which is, I think, pushing my late-talking Sam to step up his game a bit. And, while I don't regret anything, I kind of wish she'd slow down just a little bit.
There will be other babies in my life. I will have nieces and/or nephews. Many of my friends are younger than me, or, at least, in an earlier stage of family-building, and I will enjoy their children to the fullest. No doubt, at some point I will go back to working as a doula, where I will once again have the privilege of seeing tiny humans take their first breath of the world. We've even talked of someday doing foster care, inspired in large part by the tender heart of my ER-nurse husband, who wants to bring home every abused child he's ever treated. But the era of my own tiny babies has ended.
Someday soon, there will be no one getting up in the night. Eventually, she won't want to nurse anymore. The baby bottles are already giving way to sippy cups. Nothing is being pureed anymore, unless I'm making soup. I can't say I'm going to miss diaper changes, when those finally go, but I will miss the way she falls asleep on me, turning into a limp, heavy, boneless little critter that I call "jelly baby". It will be fun to put her hair in pigtails, but I will miss the wispy, silky baby-hairs at the nape of her neck. I look forward to talking to her, but I will miss the wordless baby-babble songs she sings when she wakes up happy. And, while she may not seem any different today than she did yesterday, it feels different to me. My littlest, my last, is a year old today.
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