I was sitting on my bed one night banging away on my laptop just like what I’m doing now. Out of the blue and for some random reason, Shorty decided to take a pregnancy test and proceeded to disappear into the bathroom to do it.
I was oblivious to it all. Shorty couldn’t be pregnant. For one we haven’t really started planning for the second child yet because our doctor told us that given Shorty’s complicate pregnancy the last time, it was best we wait a minimum of 2 years before the next delivery. That means Shorty had to wait till 15 months after Fighter was born before we could try again. We were only at about 13 months. 2 more months to go.
As I was typing away on my laptop I heard Shorty shout from the bathroom
“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?!”.
I stopped typing to pause for a while. I knew what that meant… that it probably meant the pregnancy test came back positive but I didn’t know how to react yet so for the next 30 seconds I just carried on typing on my laptop.
Then my mind finally knew what to do and issued orders to my body to walk over to the bathroom where Shorty was. I asked her “What’s up?”.
She showed me her pregnancy test. She was pregnant once again. I immediately went “That’s great news!” only to be met by a lack of enthusiasm by her. Then she suddenly broke down crying.
I asked why and she said she hadn’t prepared herself yet for her next pregnancy. That she was still breast feeding and she’s feeling overwhelmed about having to go through a whole pregnancy again especially since she had a really difficult one the last time round.
I couldn’t really understand how she felt to be honest. I mean I felt nothing but happiness knowing that I have a second child on the way plus I know how difficult it is to conceive. I used to envy couples who got pregnant by accident or without having to plan. Now I am one of those couples with this accidental gift and I felt nothing but joy. It’s like striking a lottery.
I realize though that at times when I fail to understand why my wife feels certain ways, I have to stop trying to ask questions to understand but really just listen. So I listened to her and after it all I reminded her what a blessing it was… and yes that her previous pregnancy was difficult (having spent a month in the hospital before Fighter was born) but look at Fighter now!
I blamed it all on hormones. That her hormones were making her really emotional and eventually though she began to be thankful and excited about this second child we’re having. When we went for her first ultrasound, we saw “bump” (our temporary name for him/her now) sitting up like a Buddha and Shorty thought he was super cute. Right there and then whatever feeling she had of not being ready quickly dissipated. She was ready to be a mother again. A mother of a second wonderful child.
The slightly bad news is that our doctor said that given Shorty’s history with pre-eclampsia, this is considered a high-risk pregnancy. There is a good chance that pre-eclampsia will happen again and we just hope that it will happen later rather than sooner. It sounds scary. But all we can do is pray… because we know at the end of it… the reward will be a second beautiful child that God has blessed us with.
So that’s what happened when we found out Shorty was pregnant with “bump”.
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Today I had some sort of an adventure. Shorty brought Fighter to come see me for lunch and mid-way Fighter decided to take a poop. I ended up being the one who had to take him to the changing room and change his diaper.
It was a bit of an eventful episode and I happened to blog about it here on my Dayre. So if you haven’t read it yet please click here.
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space