This little boy. Oh my heart. Let me tell you about this
kid.
His big sister was a surprise baby, which I assumed meant I
was very fertile and could get pregnant whenever I wanted. That turned out to
not be a true statement and the year and a half leading up to his birth were
very difficult. I didn’t get pregnant as easily with #2 as I expected to, and
when I did, that pregnancy ended in miscarriage.
That was a dark season in my life. Statistics say that a lot
of people have experienced it, but when we went through it, I didn’t feel like
a lot of people understood. It’s one of those weird painful things where you
have all of these emotions that you don’t know what to do with. Because “it
happens to a lot of women,” I didn’t necessarily feel tons of compassion for my
pain. Granted, I was extremely needy and not in a very healthy place, but I
felt lonely and angry and bitter.
Three months after that miscarriage, I had a positive
pregnancy test. I remember the day – January 1, 2009. I was anxiously excited
that we were going to get to have that second child. But just days later, I
started bleeding. I went to the doctor and they said that they felt like everything
looked okay. So my despair turned into hope. But then it happened again, I went
back, they said the same thing, and I had hope again. That roller coaster of
emotions happened 4 times during my first trimester. I was well into my second
trimester before I felt “safe” to be excited.
When I found out I was having a boy, I had mixed emotions. I
mean, everyone wants to have “one of each”, right? But I didn’t really want
that. I’m one of three girls. I know girls, I know sisters, and I know female
friendships. I didn’t know anything about little boys and was unsure what that
would be like.
I was a big baby and my daughter was a big baby, so we
assumed that Cooper would be a big baby. There was never a guess or
measurement, though, and so we were all taken aback a bit when the whole team
of doctors and nurses in the OR screamed when he was born. When he came out, he
was the size of a 3 month old. He was 10lbs3oz and that gigantic bundle of love
captured my heart immediately.
From the very first time I held him, he was a ray of
sunshine. He was a big bright spot at the end of what had been a lonely and
dark tunnel for me. We thought our home was full of joy with just one child,
and then he came in and just exploded it. We had no idea how much bigger our
hearts could grow.
When he was only 3 months old, his big sister was diagnosed
with a brain tumor, and I had to spend much of those early days tending to her.
We also moved houses during that time and the poor kid didn’t have his own room
until he was almost 9 months old. And 9 months old also happens to be the age
he was when we found out that there was going to be another baby.
The first two years of his life were chaos in ours. We had a
house on the market, a very sick toddler, a move, a dissertation, another
pregnancy, and then a newborn. But he had the perfect disposition for all of
that change. It didn’t matter how stressed I was, Cooper always made me smile.
I felt guilt for a time about this middle child whose life
had been overshadowed by his siblings in some way, but if you know him, then
you know that he is not a child that gets forgotten. In fact, without a doubt,
he is the kid I’m most often asked about. “Do you have a Cooper story?,” they ask.
Because they know I always have one.
If you are a friend of mine on social media, then you know about his antics. He makes us laugh every day and he can turn my sadness to joy quicker than anyone on the planet.
He is as snuggly as he is big and he loves with his entire
self. His current dream is to be an American Ninja Warrior and he told me that
if he conquered the final stage and won the million dollars, he would give it
all to me.
This kid is so much fun, and I am so thrilled to celebrate
him today.
We love you, Cooper! You are my very favorite 6 year-old.
