Oscar turn 2 last month. 2! Years! It's been over a month since his birthday but I'm still in shock. I mean, we went from this little baby playing soccer:

 

To this flipping toddler:

 

To this running, talking little boy:

 

But wonderfully enough, he has stayed a very happy child through all the changes. He is developing his own unique and wonderful personality. I'd forgotten how much I enjoy this age. Two is generally looked at as the "terrible twos" but I find watching them change from baby to kid is just fascinating. He has plenty of fits, louder and more screaming than I thought possible from him, but thankfully he's usually quick to calm down given the proper response from us (which is as little response as possible).

He's quite an athletic child, who spent most of this last year climbing everything he could from our bed, his high chair, and the latest, the bathroom counter! He's learning to jump high enough on the mini trampoline to scare me. And if he's in the mood, can run for almost half a mile. All of this physical ability is wrapped up in a small little package. At 33.5" (28%) tall and 25 lbs 9oz (18%), he's sitting on the low end of the growth chart. This doesn't concern us in the least since at this age, Sebastian wasn't even on the chart. And Oscar is incredibly healthy, catching many colds that Sebastian brings home from preschool, but never seeming to have more than a stuffy nose and maybe one crabby day from them. He still sleeps like a rock for 10 solid hours at night and a 1-3 hour nap in the afternoon. But he makes up for all that rest by being incredibly active while he's awake.

He is teaching me more every day about life, and just like his brother (in this regard), showing me how amazing life is when you're just happy to be alive. That's why little kids are so wonderful. They're a constant reminder of how great this moment is right here. Not earlier or tomorrow, there's no real concept of time. Just right now and how much fun, sadness, excitement, anger, or love can be had in this one moment. And the freedom to be exactly who you are, which no real restrictions being set by society yet, just total transparency into how they are feeling every minute of the day. It's refreshing and reminds me to care less and less what anyone else thinks. How much happier would the world be if everyone was truly doing what made them happiest each moment? We'd all be like children again. :)

I want to talk about women's bodies. Bellies, boobs, butts, even thighs, arms, and backs. It's all affected by pregnancy, nursing, and just from aging. After having a baby, most women are left feeling a little stretched and saggy. I'd say most women feel bad about it at some point, mostly due to postpartum depression. And some woman are never able to accept the state of their post-pregnancy body. I think a lot of this unhappiness with our bodies does come from society. Whether it's the media, your family, friends, significant other, or let's be honest- ourselves, many women feel pressured to "get their bodies' back". Well ladies, guess what? You can't have it back. Not 100% the way it was. And why should it? It's ridiculous to expect that our bodies will stay 18 forever! That's just a part of life. Even if you don't have kids, your body will sag eventually, it just happens a bit sooner with pregnancy.

I'll be the first to admit that looking at my body after each baby was totally depressing. Each time there was that shock, oh my god will all this skin go away? My boobs, belly, and thighs were covered in bright pink stretch marks. Would they fade? And after weaning both times, staring in the mirror at tiny, deflated flaps of skin that used to be boobs was horrible. I allowed myself a moment to grieve each time. And then I kept going. I bought bras that fit and shirts that were looser around the waist to hide my "mummy tummy", and I exercised. Oh man did I exercise my ass off. After Sebastian, I did P90X until I injured my shoulder and was unable to do a single push-up. I ran so much after having Oscar, that I hurt my knee to the point I couldn't continue exercising (see previous posts). Now I firmly believe that if I'd taken my time getting in shape then I would have avoided those injuries. All of my joints and ligaments were still way too loose from hormones to be exercising as much as I did. I knew it was happening too because each workout meant pain, either during or after, in every joint, especially my pelvis after Oscar. But I ignored it. I would not use having a baby as an excuse.

In reality, a little baby weight should be the least of our concerns after having our abdomens stretched to the max and giving birth. Whether you birthed vaginally or by c-section, you have some serious healing to do! And what do the doctors tell you? 6 weeks! You'll be fine, you can do anything after 6 weeks! LIES! Such a harmful fucking lie. Instead they should be saying, rest! Go for walks, do gentle yoga. Spend time with your newborn, who in the blink of an eye will be all grown up and you'll be wishing for another baby just for those precious baby moments. 6 weeks needs to be at least 6 months. And they should give you a list of physical therapy exercises to help strengthen your hips and pelvis. And if you experience any pain in your joints when you try to workout, you should wait! Carrying around a couple extra pounds of flabby skin for a few more months isn't worth a bunch of injuries. Trust me on this. Not to mention, your body will still not be exactly how it was, so if that is your expectation, you'll still be disappointed.

So I have to ask you momma, do you like feeling this way about your body? Do you enjoy that society or whatever has made you feel so shitty about what's happened to your body, even though what happened was a completely natural part of life? No, of course not. No one likes feeling like crap about themselves. So don't you want it to change? I know I do! So how can we change it? By one smart decision at a time. Don't make your decisions about your body so rashly. Give yourself time, and I mean years of time, to heal. Remind yourself that what you went through gave you a beautiful human being that was well worth the damage. And try to feel proud instead of depressed. So what if you're saggy and have stretch marks everywhere? You have a child! Do you know how many women can't even have a child, or struggle to do so, and we're bitching about some loose skin? Think about that for a moment. Next time someone you know makes a comment about post-baby bodies that makes you feel shitty, don't be afraid to speak up. Remind that person that there is nothing wrong with the fact that our bodies change from having a baby. They should change. And we should be proud of that change instead of sad. Changing our view of ourselves is the first critical step. Then we really should be trying to change society's view on this. After all, do you want your sons and daughters to feel like shit about themselves? Of course not, you want them to be confident individuals who take good care of themselves and don't listen to the bullshit from the rest of the world. If you want them to learn that, you have to model it. It's the only way.

So mommas, take care of yourselves, that includes being nice to yourself, in all of your thoughts and actions. And significant others, be supportive. I'm so thankful to have such an amazing human being like Brian as my support. He's never once said a mean thing about my body, and has always encouraged me to feel better about myself. If you're eating healthy and doing gentle exercise when you can, nothing else should be expected of you. Especially not your own unrealistic expectations.

9 months pregnant w/
Sebastian (baby 1)

About 4 months
postpartum w/ Sebastian

About 3 years postpartum
w/ Sebastian, finally
feeling good

Missing post-baby
picture from Oscar...
I was too depressed
to allow a single body
shot! :(

9 months pregnant
w/ Oscar (baby 2)

20 months postpartum
w/ Oscar

It's been a little over 3 years since we were told Sebastian likely had NF1. Since hearing this news, I went through all stages of grief. First was definitely denial. Here I stayed for a solid 4 months, from the moment the pediatrician told us her suspicions until we got the results of the DNA test. Then it was anger. Anger that this was my child. Mine. This happens 1 in 3,000 births, why his birth? Then bargaining... what did I do wrong? What could I have done different? What can I do now? Once I did enough research to finally convince myself that there was nothing I could have done, or could even do now to change it, depression set in. For me that depression has not gone away fully. It's a lot better, but if I think too hard on it, I am consumed by too much sadness, too much helplessness.

Since we first received this news, we've taken him to 6 specialists (neurologist, geneticist, opthamologist, physical therapist, orthopedic, and developmental specialist), plus had him evaluated by the school district by another physical therapist and an occupational therapist. The consensus from all of these doctors was that he was doing great for a child with NF. All that was needed was the little bit of help he received from an OT on learning to write. Even that, in retrospect, I think all he really needed was more time to catch up to his peers. After the last doctor, we vowed to take a break from all the specialists, who despite saying he's fine, all want to see him annually. But we decided they can fuck off because that's too many damn doctors appointments for a healthy kid.

However... with a disorder like his, it's hard not to worry about every little thing. Sometimes you want to just ignore it and others you can't help but think, if I ignore this will it turn into something horrible? Something I could've prevented if I'd done something sooner? In the last several months we had become concerned with a few things. Sebastian's been in gymnastics for 2 years and made little progress. He's also been crying whenever we try to get him to run too fast, and consistently complains about pain in his legs. After much discussion we decided we needed to make sure we were truly doing everything we could. I knew that meant it was time for a check-up with a neurologist to see if he really did need an MRI.

We said if we ever needed to take him to a neurologist again we'd find another one. Well the only other place that seemed worth our time was OHSU, who is booked out until the end of the year for new patients! What if there really was something wrong? I just didn't want to wait that long. That's when I really started thinking back to the neurologist he'd seen, and I was remembering that hard denial I had been experiencing during that time. I have written less than nice things about her in more than one post. Now that I'm out of the denial phase, I can honestly say, she didn't do anything wrong, she just did her job. But since I didn't want to hear that there was anything wrong with my little boy, I wrote her off pretty quickly. I realized it wouldn't have mattered what any doctor had said or done at that point, if it wasn't good news I didn't want to hear it. With this realization, we decided to give her another shot.

We saw her this morning. She asked us lots of questions about the leg pain, and all the specialists we'd seen since our last visit with her. She did her evaluation of him again and her results this time were very good. She says he's actually doing really great, and she sees no need for the MRI. Her tune seemed to have changed a bit as she didn't seem to recall being that concerned about him needing the MRI last time. Maybe it was just how I was feeling then, or maybe she has changed her mind about when an MRI is needed, who knows. But there was nothing wrong with her abilities as a doctor this time, I think it was all about perspective.

Amazing how often in life your perspective can change so drastically, and how different everything is when it does change. I have been flooded with a huge wave of relief since hearing that he doesn't need an MRI. Maybe that's not such a big deal for some people, but for me, where I was at with my concern for him, it was the exact thing I needed to finally help me into the acceptance phase of this grief. Obviously this day could've gone very differently, and there's no guarantee something won't change for him in the future. But for now, I'll take this moment and enjoy the hell out of it because my baby is ok.