I used to scoff at people who wrote about how they didn’t know how they could love another child. How ridiculous I thought. Perhaps – being the last of four – meant I didn’t want to acknowledge that my own parents might have had the same thoughts before my arrival.
Now, I’m shitting my pants.
How will I love another child quite like the love I’ve developed for my son?
How will I continue to love my son without losing something by loving another?
It’s been four years of literally just me and him. No partner. No siblings. No one else. Our bond is near impenetrable. Yet someone is going to blow it apart very soon.
How will I cope?
How will he cope?
How will we cope? The relationship we have?
Ultimately we will be fine. Of course. But that doesn’t stop me worrying about the transition before we get to that point. That doesn’t stop me becoming one of them. Those people who put their first kid first (at least until the next one is born).
In the last four years we’ve done everything together. There’s been co-sleeping, co-screaming and co-elephant riding. There’s rarely been anyone else there (apart from my ex in the very early days but given our divorce was finalised by the time little one was one I think you can guess how engaged he was). As the due date of my second child comes into view I realise how much I’m going to miss this unique bond we have. I used to wish my children were closer in age, but if that had been the case my son and I wouldn’t have experienced the relationship we have had for the past four years and I can’t imagine not having that.
I’ve never had to allow space for another person, and neither has he. I’ve been able to make my life centre around my child, and him centre around me – opting for a no strict routine approach in the early days so if I want to go out for dinner with a friend, he came too. I still do this to an extent – travelling to see friends regardless of the time we get home. The decisions in this house have only ever had to consider me and him. How will either of us cope making room for another? Tensions already exist trying to balance the needs of two separate humans, how will we balance it all with a third? Will the bed feel cramped? Will the kitchen table seat us all? Will the garden feel overcrowded?
I don’t know.
Whilst it’s been amazing to have that unique bond between my son and I grow over the past four years, I cannot wait to be have it blown apart by another little human. Someone who can bring their own traits and norms to our little family, someone who can help to break the tension, whilst creating their own in abundance too. We have had too long alone, now it is time to see how we can share this love.
I know, as D-day gets ever closer, our hearts have more than enough love for this baby. When we meet him or her, although there will be adjustments we need to make, tensions we need to overcome, I know this will be the best thing to happen to our family. We will carve out the space for this child because that space has always been there, just waiting for the right child to step into it. Being a parent to two children may even show me more ways in which I love my son. My womb already weeps a little when I see my son cuddling or playing with a friend’s baby. I can barely imagine how beautiful it will be to see him do that with my child, his sibling.
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