FAMILY.
What does the word mean to me? It means so much. I grew up in a family who wasn’t very affectionate. It was me, my older sister, and my parents. Our parents worked a lot and we moved every two years or so. Always within the same region/town, just different houses. I had a decent childhood but my parents had a lot of issues so we saw a lot of arguments and not so healthy ways of going about it. I loved them but I always kind of felt like second best and kind of grew as an adult to not want affection from others. As an adult, my view of family changed a LOT.
But let’s get started. I married my first husband when I was 18. Yes, 18. Still immature but jumped right into motherhood and being a wife and adult. Or so I thought. I had my first daughter during my first marriage at 22. We were together 4 years. All of which were pretty harmful. We tried to make it work for his daughter and ours but it didn’t work out because he was abusive both physically and emotionally and I wasn’t about to raise my daughter in that type of situation. We left not long after she turned 1 and never looked back. For 2 years, Epperly was my ONLY family. The only person I knew was a constant for me and I for her. They were hard because I was parenting, working as much as I could to support her and myself, paying for very overpriced daycare and driving back and forth from my parent‘s house for a good year.
After a while of dating again and figuring out what I didn’t want from my next partner, I stumbled upon Blake on a dating app. Thinking back on the pictures he had posted there, I laugh so much. He was too much hahaha! But we clicked and fast. So fast that I was pregnant not long after with Wrigley. My very strong willed second born. After she was born, postpartum hit me HARD. Epperly loved being a big sister to her (still does when they aren’t fussing). She was suuuuch a good sleeper and really the best baby. It took about a year of therapy and switching around meds to really get back to normal. We found out I was pregnant again not long after I stopped taking meds for it in 2016. We moved to another part of town and started prenatal visits for that pregnancy. About 16 weeks in, I had a miscarriage. Blake rushed me to the hospital for it because we lived an hour away from the closest one that could actually help. I ended up passing the baby in the hallway alone outside of the ultrasound room. It isn‘t something I’m fond of looking back on because it literally broke me. It took a good 7-8 months for me to really cope with it. It sent me into a bit of darkness and depression. We started to try again for another baby in 2017. It took a few months but alas, pregnant again. We were so excited but I was TERRIFIED it would happen again. I was careful all the time with this pregnancy. The day we went in for our 16 week gender ultrasound, I had an off feeling. We went in and usually during an ultrasound the nurse is chatty and talked us through what we were looking at but in this one she was very quiet and said she needed to call in my doctor. I knew what that meant and they broke the news that this baby had passed and there was no heartbeat. Like how could it happen twice in a row at almost the same week? Why again? So for a second time we went through the grief of miscarriage. The OBGYN sent me to a specialist to see if anything was off in my body just to make sure and told me we’d put me on aspirin for the next and maybe it would help if I so chose to get pregnant again. Y’all, I swore I wouldn’t try for another baby after that. I didn’t want to deal with that grief again. It was SO hard to dig out of it not once but twice!
Another couple of months rolled by, I was enjoying just having my two older girls when boom, pregnant again. I immediately called my OB and she put me on baby aspirin and told me to take it easy until my first visit. When we made it to 16 weeks and got through the gender ultrasound, I cannot tell you how happy I was. We were having a BOY!!! I still held my breath literally every week hoping we wouldn’t lose this baby. I was sent for extra ultrasounds at another hospital because of a growth issue but was released from there at 32 weeks. When we got in the last few weeks of my pregnancy, I asked that I could go the full 40 weeks just to make sure he was ready to come out when HE was ready. Sure enough, January 2019, my Clarky was born. We were so happy. I couldn’t believe I’d made it the whole pregnancy AND had a boy.
But you know when you have that inkling that you aren’t quite done with having kids? I asked Blake I don’t know how many times if he was sure he felt done having babies and this was literally just a few weeks after Clark had been born. I should have known then, we most definitely were in for a surprise. So color me surprised when Clark turned 3 months old, I felt like something was off. I told Blake I felt so weird. I was late but that was kind of normal seeing as I’d JUST HAD Clark a few weeks back. I just brushed it off as my body being a little off like it’s always been. The next day I felt like that again so I went and got digital and dye pregnancy tests. I was holding my breath the whole time hahaha. Then KABOOM, PREGANT. When I tell you I was shocked, I was floored you guys. 3 months postpartum and pregnant again???
It took just a little while for that shock to wear off. When I went for a pregnancy confirmation at our local health departmen, they also kind of shamed me for being pregnant so quick. But I counted it as a blessing, we were meant for another if God sent us another. When I saw my OB again at my first visit, she said “You ready to do this again, girl?”.... Nope but I had to get ready. My pregnancy was breeze. I still held that fear in the back of my head from going through those miscarriages but I was so so happy. Then came Fenny girl in November 2019. 9 months and 3 weeks after I had Clark. Irish twins!
Let me just conclude this by saying it was really hard in the beginning going from 2 to 4 so quickly but it’s been the best accomplishment of my life. When I was a teenager, I swore I‘d never have kids. And now, I honestly don’t know what I would do without them. They frustrate me daily but they are quite literally the reason I get up every morning. They are the family I created and I hope to be for them what I wanted when I was growing up. Stable, loving and THERE FOR THEM.
