It Sure Ain't What I Expected...

Well, as I nominated this topic in the EB challenge, I guess I'd better enter.

What were your hopes for your firstborn when pregnant and how have you had to adjust them to reality.

Funnily enough, my first pregnancy was unplanned. We had been married only six months, and not begun talking about attempting to fall pregnant when some higher power chose to take it out of our hands.

I was not one of those glowing expectant mothers. I threw up for four and a half months. In fact, at my six week post-birth check up I was six kilos lighter than my pre-pregnancy weight! I felt like an alien had invaded my personal space...Not content with making me very ill for twenty four hours a day for the first half, this thing all of a sudden started kicking, doing back flips, using my bladder as a trampoline and causing chronic indigestion! My stomach not only looked like a bad special effect moving of its own volition BUT total strangers kept approaching and touching me! ARGH! I hated it! My body had suddenly become public property...

Expectations? Hopes? None. I had enough trouble getting through each day as it was. In hindsight it was probably for the best. I won't go into the disaster of the birth, nor the high blood pressure issues of the last trimester. They are not what this tale is about.

Then he was here. I loved being a Mum. I still do. When they tell you these little people reach in and grab your heart in an eternally tight grasp they are not kidding. My love for my children absorbs me.

So I guess in my case, my dream adjustments were a mere hiccup. All I have ever wanted for my children is happiness and contentment. I am not ambitious on their behalf, I do not expect them to fulfil MY dreams. I want them to follow their own path and define their own futures.

Yes, when he was diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder I had my bad days. I still do when times are tough. But I have recognised that my expectations were in fact just that...mine, not his. And let me tell you, his dreams far surpass mine. Boy 1 has to work harder at certain things others take for granted. In a strange way it is almost a blessing, as he has learnt to push through the difficulties, and he does not expect life to be easy.

So, how have my hopes changed? Well, I know he won't backpack around the world by himself as I did. But considering his grand plan is to invent a time machine AND to find a cure for cancer I really don't think it matters, do you?