See, something that takes your breath away and makes you evaluate your life with a microscope happened to Peter and I. After much contemplation, emotional upheaval and a few discussions with friends, I’ve decided to tell all. I’ve also read that great bloggers speak to the keyboard as if they are having a chat with their sister. I don’t have a sister, only two equally strong-willed brothers, but I’ll give it my best shot.
The short of it is that it turns out that Peter and I can reproduce nearly as well as the Duggars. You know. Those people with like 50 children?
About 4 days after the little ladies joined our lives, Peter visited the urologist and had any necessary plumbing for further procreation snipped. 2 tests later, 6 months later we thought we were good to go. Turns out, we weren’t. While Peter was in Connecticut in March, I was watching Lost reruns after all our angels were in bed. During Lost Sun takes a pregnancy test. As I was sipping my beer witnessing her revelation, I thought, “Hmm….that’s weird…it should be about that time for me.” Sure enough, examination of the calendar disclosed it was definitely time. Past time. A pregnancy test the next day agreed with my calendar.
WHAT!!! How could this happen?! I was shocked, angry, happy, sobbing, everything. Peter and I always said we would take whatever babies were given to us, but after the debacle we went through bringing our girls into the world, we weren’t ready for another episode of “See How Fast the Rossis Can Run.” And yet, through it all Peter was amazing. This crazy man with his over the top OCD, meticulous planning and organized life really rolled with the punches. He made it all okay. He held me and said, “Let’s make room for baby #5!” and he tore into our basement with gusto. Down came the rock wall, out went the old pellet stove and up went the new sheetrock and a new door.
During this pregnancy, while Peter was determinedly holding the world up on his own shoulders, and I was coming to terms with more chaos, I knew something wasn’t right. The whole pregnancy felt different. I know what pregnant feels like. At about eight or nine weeks, at my first checkup, I was miscarrying. I’d never miscarried before, so this was a new experience. Terrifying, heart breaking, and suffering such loss when you didn’t really know what you had. I found myself in surgery the very next morning. I lost Rossi baby number five on April 5th, or at least that is when I was under anesthesia. We had tentative names picked out and a new room in progress, but time marches on and there is certainly little time for a mother of four to be down and out.
It’s been an absolutely wild emotional roller coaster. After all was said and done, we found ourselves contemplating many important questions, such as “How much wine should parents be allowed to consume to work through these issues while still being responsible for their other children?”
In all seriousness, Peter says these memories will make us stronger. And this memory definitely has already. It made our marriage stronger. As good as Peter was through it all, it reinforced a truth that I already know. Peter is a good man, a strong man, and I love this man. An appreciation for life was reignited and we laugh a little more at the silly things. Some other really great things came out of this detour in our life. While we know it in our hearts, we really realized that there is so much love that surrounds us. My family was fabulous. My parents showed up with steaks and wine and said, “Let’s celebrate life!” And we did. My brothers called and we had a good chuckle. My friends were incredible and they brought dinner, fruit, chocolate, flowers, an ear and lots of laughter. We even started the remodeling project on the basement that we've been wanting to do for 3 years!
It hits me below the belt every once in a while. It’s only been about 4 weeks and I’m not quite over the shock, but I look at my four beautiful children and I think, this is really it. These are the gifts I’ve been given and I’m going to be the best mom I can be.
Oh, and Peter and I are playing the lottery these days. Just imagine the odds we’ve overcome! 3 in 1000 pregnancies ends up with identical twins, and the chances of having a vasectomy fail at 6 months? Having these two events happen to the same people, back to back? Who knows the odds, but maybe, just maybe we’ll continue to overcome such wild statistics.
