On February 24, I wrote a post titled “Face vs. Ass” about the face-versus-body dilemma taunting many aging women, at least those women unwilling to use extraordinary means to look young: http://www.mkkennedy.com/2010/02/face-versus-ass/

Today, five months later, nearly four months since my son was born on April 5, I’ve lost 42 of the 67 pounds I gained during my two in vitro fertilization (IVF) cycles and my pregnancy.

This sounds impressive, I know.

But I lost the first 40 of these 42 pounds in the first five weeks after my son was born—effortlessly.

In the 11 weeks since, I’ve lost only two pounds, regardless of round-the-clock breastfeeding, which is chunking up my 3½-month-old son Luke, but not de-chunking me.

Last Saturday, my friend Chris, whom I’ve known for 26 years, and I got pedicures together, with Luke in tow, because he is that well-behaved. Because my 42nd birthday was four days later—yesterday—we were talking about aging, about the progressive changes to our bodies, from wrinkles to aching body parts.

In the midst of our chatter, she said, “You don’t have a wrinkle on your face.”

I do often have wrinkles on my forehead because my facial expressions reveal them, but I have these lines hidden by bangs.

But as far as my 42-year-old face, my 25 pounds of excess baggage are an amazing cover-up. Even when I smile, I only have a few wrinkles underneath my eyes; my previous ones on the side of each eye are gone.

With my 25 unnecessary pounds, I’ve drastically reduced the aging appearance of my face.

As far as my backside, my husband gave me a birthday card featuring a woman gazing at her ample derriere in a full-length mirror. She is, by the way, wrinkle-free. The card reads, “Happy Birthday to my wife who’s still ‘got it’…”

Whether I’m fit or fat, my husband thinks I’ve still got it.

So the dilemma isn’t face vs. ass, but how to find a man or woman who loves you regardless.

I didn’t get married until I was 38½, but I’ve got one.

Today is my birthday, I’m 42, and I’m not even depressed.

For me, this level of contentment is significant, for I’ve spent more than half of my life monitoring my biological clock, making varying decisions as it ticked, tocked, blared, then declared war on anyone in its way.

At age 18, I entered Miami University as a Psychology major. However, upon taking an introductory Psychology course during the first semester of my freshman year, I learned I’d have to go to school for five years after college to earn a Psy.D., as opposed to a Ph.D., in Psychology, so I changed my major. Considering that my primary goal was to be a mom, spending so many years in school—starting my counseling career upon earning a Psy.D. at age 27—seemed a waste.

I never dated for fun: From my first date at age 15 until meeting my husband at the tail end of 35, I evaluated each and every man based on whether or not he’d be a good husband and father. I remember being at a grab-a-date event my sophomore year at Miami University, with my date, a recent love, blowing me off by telling me that it was obvious I “was looking for something,” and he “wasn’t it.”

I was 30 for the year that I lived and worked in London, England, as start-up manager and acting director of the British Film Institute’s (BFI’s) London IMAX® Cinema, a period in which I worked countless hours. When the BFI approached me about extending my contract, the concept of being in London past the launch of the IMAX 3D Cinema, having a normal life in one of the world’s most spectacular cities, was appealing—except that I was turning 31. I knew I didn’t want to stay in London for the long-term, so staying seemed useless, for I didn’t want to fall in love, get married and have children in a city in which I had never felt at home myself.

My desire to find “The One,” then to beat my biological clock, was the primary determinant in my decision-making regarding career and associated city, country, continent. And although I did partake in many experiences, I gave up opportunities as I aged, for they didn’t mesh with my goal of being a regular mom.

At age 35, I started trying to get pregnant on my own, using donor sperm, only to be foiled by DES (diethylstilbestrol)-related infertility. However, I did have success on my seventh cycle of intrauterine insemination.

After having my son Patrick at age 36, I am a mom, however I never let go of my desire to have a second biological child. So as I turned 37, 38 and 39, I felt increasingly tense. As I neared 40, I felt downright panic. And as I turned 41 one year ago, with one unsuccessful in vitro fertilization (IVF) cycle under my belt, with the egg retrieval of my second IVF cycle only days away, I felt as if every day that I aged reduced my chances. Because every day did.

Today I am 42, and I have a second biological child, my son Luke, who is 3½ months old. I finally feel as if my family is complete, so today is the first birthday in probably 12 years in which I am not obsessed with my DES-induced infertility and/or my biological clock. I am truly content.

So today I spent my day snuggling with my boys, first curled up in bed this morning, where Patrick, age 5, suggested that because it’s my birthday, we should buy some vanilla ice cream, which happens to be his favorite food. Then this afternoon, my husband came home from work early, and we watched a movie, with my motivated husband working out, while I, not so motivated, lounged in a recliner with Patrick and Luke lying on top of me.

I’m a thinker, so I reveled in these hours, appreciating all I have been blessed with and loving that my birthday is no longer cause for biological-clock concern.

Happy Birthday to me. Happy Birthday to me.

When I was pregnant with my newborn son Luke, now 12 weeks old, I broke the news to my sperm-donor-conceived son Patrick, age five, that the two of them may not look alike.

I explained that while his donor and I have blonde hair, blue eyes and pale skin, his adoptive Dad provided the sperm that made Luke, and his baby brother may have his Dad’s brown hair, brown eyes and darker skin. He understood, for his two brothers, ages 14 and 16, my husband’s biological children from his first marriage, have brown hair and brown eyes. But he said he wanted Luke to look not like Dad and his older brothers, but like him.

Luke, almost three months old, has brown hair, for sure. While Patrick was born with reddish-brown hair that fell out, with white-blonde hair replacing it, Luke’s hair, ultra-dark-brown at birth, has become light brown, but still brown.

Luke’s skin has a medium tone, while Patrick’s and my skin is so pale, it’s translucent, although both of us are able to tan.

And while Luke’s permanent eye color is yet to be determined, it will be some shade of brown. Patrick’s are absolutely blue.

So Patrick and Luke could not be more different as far as coloring. But my four brothers and I, all of whom have the same biological parents, have differing skin tones and hair colors, although all of us have blue eyes. My mother and uncle, who also share biological parents, are a pale-skinned brunette and a freckled redhead. Bottom line: Genetics don’t dictate that even full siblings resemble each other.

While I was a real blonde in my younger years, as I near age 42 my blonde is primarily artificial. But having a high-risk pregnancy and then a newborn, I’ve let myself go in a myriad of ways, and sadly I’d gotten used to the new, unkempt me—until last weekend, when my husband, sons and I were running errands, and I caught sight of myself in a full-length mirror as we walked to the back of a men’s clothing store: I noticed, for the first time, that I had a brown stripe down the middle of my head, along my hair’s part line.

Spurred to fix my reverse-skunk look, I made an appointment to have my hair cut and highlighted this afternoon. As my stylist asked me if I’d like highlights and lowlights, or if I’d rather just add blonde, I told her that all I want is to have Patrick’s white-blonde hair. Sitting in a chair across from us, playing games on my iPhone®, he grinned. His hair color is stunning, so he gets a lot of attention for it, including ample women proclaiming how much they’d absolutely die to have his hair.

Today Patrick got a haircut too, and as we talked in bed tonight, I told him that his hair looked handsome, then asked if he liked mine.

“Yes.”

“I look better blonde,” I said.

Patrick immediately asked, “Can we bleach Luke’s hair out?”

“No, sweetie.”

He was quiet for a moment, then said, “Well, maybe when he’s older.”

Before I could intervene, he continued, “And his eyes…”

When he abruptly stopped, then remained silent, I asked, “What were you going to say about Luke’s eyes?”

“Well, we don’t know the color yet,” he stated. “But they’re dark. They look black. I was thinking we could change the color.”

Patrick was overtired tonight. We had a busy day, with dual eye appointments, dual hair appointments and a relative’s birthday dinner at a restaurant, at which he hit his Dad in anger. So tonight was not the night in which to explain anything, including that his baby brother looks perfect just the way he is, with his light-brown hair, dark eyes and dark skin.

And I need a night to think about how to explain that Luke is perfect just the way he is, yet I look better blonde.

For more than five years, my much-longed-for son has been my primary focus to the extent that my husband and I call him “The Little Prince,” and, according to his preschool teacher, who has more than 30 years of experience teaching children ages two to six, we have an exceptionally close mother-son relationship. So I’m daily asked how my five-year-old has reacted to his baby brother, born April 5, and to having to share my attention. The answer is exceptionally well, with only a few negative comments.

NOTE: The members of my writers group had an intervention with me, in which they said that, while they understand my disinclination to use my sons’ real names in my blog, it’s distracting—and emotionally distancing—to not refer to them by some names, rather than identifying them by age, as in “my 14-year-old stepson” and “my five-year-old son.” So from now on, I will refer to my 16-year-old stepson as Vlad, teasingly cursing him with the “sexy vampire name” he wanted to give his baby brother; my 14-year-old stepson as Elvis, for they share a birthday; my five-year-old as Patrick, his middle name; and my newborn as Luke, since Patrick was desperate to name him Luke Skywalker, and, while he didn’t get his wish, he may be appeased that Luke will be his little brother’s pseudonym.

Since the day of Luke’s birth, Patrick has been sweet, gentle and protective of his newborn brother.

For the first few weeks of Luke’s life, he kept declaring, “That baby is so cute.”

When, on Day 3, the hospital photographer came to our room to take pictures, he noticed that Luke was squinting every time the camera flash went off, so he walked over to him and, cupping his hands, he placed them like tiny umbrellas over Luke’s eyes, shielding him from the light.

When I walk even a few feet away from the baby monitor, Patrick will yell, “Mama, don’t forget the baby monitor,” and run it over to me.

If I hear Luke fussing, I’ll enter the room to find Patrick leaning over him, putting Luke’s pacifier in his mouth and singing made-up songs to try to soothe him.

On Sunday, my husband was watching Patrick and Luke, while I visited a pregnant friend in the hospital, and when my husband went outside to grill hamburgers for dinner while Luke was asleep in the swing, Patrick said, defiantly, “You’d better not ignore him!”

And Patrick claims Luke as his own, asking his five-year-old friends, “Do you want to look at my baby?”

While I’m sure that he has felt ample jealousy, Patrick’s negative reactions have been rare.

Shortly after Luke and I returned from the hospital, Patrick, Luke and I were lying in my bed in the morning, and Patrick asked flat-out, “Why does he have to be around all the time?”

“Because he’s a member of our family,” I replied. And that was that.

But about two weeks after he was born, Luke was crying at Patrick’s bedtime, our special time together each night in which we read books, tell stories and talk about his day. I told Patrick that I was sorry, but that I needed to feed Luke, and he asked me to do it in their bedroom. I said no, explaining that because of my still-painful C-section incision, I couldn’t get comfortable breastfeeding Luke from his bed. As I left the room with Luke in my arms, Patrick, feeling slighted because that cute baby brother of his was now affecting his time with me, said, “Stupid, stupid baby.”

The following week, when Luke was crying from his crib at bedtime once again, Patrick said, “That baby is so annoying. We never should have gotten that baby. I will never be able to sleep with that baby in here.”

I agreed that it is annoying when babies cry, explained that it is the only way Luke can communicate—and assured him that Luke will cry less and become more interactive and fun over time. Patrick has since admitted that Luke is more annoying than cute at this point, but that he is still glad that we have him.

I have little time to spend alone with Patrick now, and I repeat, “Give me a minute,” and “I’ll be right there,” to him dozens of times each day. But I’ve learned that the key is our successful transition is to maintain my special nighttime routine with him at all costs and to empathize with his very normal negative feelings, rather than make him feel guilty for them. And while I have a needy newborn, if I enlist Patrick’s help in caring for Luke, he rarely feels left out or displaced or resentful.

In short, I now have two “Little Princes,” and I am blissfully happy to spoil my two sweet boys.

Today marks exactly 12 weeks since my son was born on Monday, April 5, and I have only posted once, to announce his birth.

Abandoning my blog for nearly three months post-partum wasn’t part of my master plan. In fact, when answering e-mailed interview questions posed by Fran Howell, executive director of DES Action USA, in January, I responded to her question, “Will you continue to write after your son is born? How will you find the time???” with the following:

“Yes, I will continue to write after my son is born. It has become a daily ritual, a habit that I am dedicated to continuing. I’ve realized that, previously, my excuse that I didn’t have time to write was simply a manifestation of my fear of failing…”

I’ve barely written in three months, to the point where I couldn’t even complete a blog post, so I feel naïve and guilty. But rather than wallow in those feelings, as would previously have been my natural response, I need only to hold my newborn son—and every negative thought leaves me. I’ve never taken Valium, but that’s how I compare my reaction to having him: He alleviates all tension, all stress, making me Zen.

After going through two cycles of in vitro fertilization (IVF), losing his twin, suffering from placenta previa, and surviving multiple bleeds, four hospitalizations and bed rest, I gave birth to my completely healthy son at full term, 37½ weeks. I am so relieved and thankful that, when I saw my psychiatrist five weeks after he was born, she said at the end of the session, “Well, there’s no reason for you to be rushing back here.”

But I am so tired, due to having a newborn at the tail-end of age 41; being completely out of shape, having gained 67 pounds and been on bed rest since January 13; and having a C-section, which became infected, which, according to my team of high-risk doctors, “just happens sometimes.”

Being so exhausted makes me feel overwhelmed not because of my duties as mom, which I revel in, but because of the pile-ups around me. Literally pile-ups. I’ve started recording and watching the A&E television show Hoarders for inspiration, because I had to let things go, while enduring IVF, a high-risk pregnancy and then bed rest, and now sorting through the paperwork, the clothes, and the closets seems impossible. The individuals featured on Hoarders are worse off than I am—with some having long-dead animals crushed underneath the floor-to-ceiling clutter in their homes—which makes my clean, yet disorganized house seem more manageable.

Shortly after recovering from my C-section, my 5-year-old and I were watching Hoarders, when he announced, “Mama, my closet is a hoarder.” I had shoved every baby item given to me by friends into the closet in his bedroom, which he and my newborn share, to get them out of the way until I could sort through them and put them away.

Due to the wake-up call that my son thinks his closet is hoarding things, I have given up my loves—writing and jewelry making—in the short-term as I handle the necessities—being a mom and trying to get my home in order. I’ve gone through all the closets. I’ve sorted through my own and my four sons’ clothes, organizing those they’ve outgrown in bins labeled by sizes, for not-too-worn items will be passed from our 16-year-old to our 14-year-old to our 5-year-old to our newborn. I’ve reorganized most of the basement. I’ve given dozens of items to charity, even things I love but rarely use.

I’ve made great progress, yet today I felt incredibly paralyzed by how much I still have to address. But as things piled up in my home, I made a baby. And when he and I were at risk, I listened to my doctors and stayed put on the couch and/or in bed. I had my priorities straight, so he and I are healthy and happy.

Well, I’m still 26 pounds overweight and incredibly out of shape, but I’m on my way to healthy.

And I am so incredibly happy.

My baby boy was born, via C-section, on Monday, April 5, at 10:07 a.m. He made it to term–37 1/2 weeks–weighing in at 7 pounds, 14 ounces, and measuring 20.5 inches long.

He’s perfectly healthy–and, as the nurses keep telling me, is “a beautiful C-section baby,” sans cone head, bruising, scratching and all of the other physical side effects of vaginal birth. I, on the other hand, experienced a perfect, pain-free delivery, but the C-section aftermath is brutal.

I’ll share all the details when I’m less debilitated, less medicated and less exhausted–all of which was worth having him, of course.

Formerly eating-disordered, I struggle with the emotional impact of my pregnancy weight gain, which in both successful pregnancies has been well beyond twice the maximum amount recommended.

In 2004-2005, when I was pregnant with my son, now 5, I didn’t have anyone take pictures of me until the tail-end of my pregnancy. And I only relented because of guilt, because friend upon friend told me that I would be cheating my son if I refused to be photographed, because a pregnancy picture is a must-have on the first page of every baby book.

I wasn’t able to find a baby book appropriate for our family situation anyway, for I conceived my son as an aspiring single mother inseminated with anonymous-donor sperm, and every baby book I saw included a family tree, with expectations that both branches be completed, along with other single-parent nightmares such as “Parents” pages featuring fill-ins like “The Story of How We Met.”

Not wanting my son to be screwed on both the baby book and pregnancy pic front, I had my boyfriend (now my husband) and other friends take pictures of me a few times during the final months of my pregnancy, and I’m glad I did. I have shown them to my son throughout his little life, and, in hindsight, they’re proof that I actually carried him, that at least one aspect of his conception and in-utero stay was “normal.”

With this pregnancy, I didn’t make any conscious decision not to be photographed. Actually, I’d planned to have our go-to photographer, Jennifer Girard, do a shoot because she has recently delved into pregnancy portraits. Jennifer encouraged me so I wouldn’t regret not having pictures of my final pregnancy, and she said to book the shoot as late in the pregnancy as possible.

But I was hospitalized at 25 weeks of pregnancy because of pre-term bleeding, then I was on full or partial bed rest for the last 11 weeks, so I couldn’t make it to her Wrigleyville studio. And now, frankly, I feel so disgusting that I can’t imagine that the effort involved in trying to make myself presentable, then traveling downtown, would result in pictures that I would find acceptable. Jennifer could Photoshop me, of course, but what’s the use of documenting the real pregnant me, then making me slimmer?

So today my 5-year-old son took on the role of photographer. Unfortunately, he doesn’t fully understand the zoom lens on my digital camera, and, unfortunately, he’s very blunt: He told me flat-out that he coudn’t fit my entire belly into a picture because it’s too big.

Here are two of his images, demonstrating that, no, he couldn’t figure out to how to fit all of me, in my pregnant glory, into the frame. But now I have pictures of this pregnancy, I look like the real me, and the pics were free.

At 36½ weeks of pregnancy, including 10 weeks of varying levels of bed rest, I’ve gained 60 pounds, and my stomach is so big that it’s soliciting stares, smirks and comments.

Last Friday I was released from complete bed rest for the second time, so, after my 36-week appointment, my son and I went to a local pancake house for breakfast. After eating, we made a trip to the ladies’ room—my second home due to “pregnancy bladder”—and a woman who’d just come out of one of the stalls asked, “When are you due?”

“I have four more weeks,” I sighed. “I’m just huge.”

“I knew it,” she laughed. “My boyfriend and I saw you walk in, and he was sure you were going to have your baby right in the restaurant, but I told him that Americans get big, and I said, ‘I bet she’s eight months,’ and you are.”

This morning, I drove downtown to my in vitro fertilization (IVF) clinic to donate my leftover medications, and, as I got out of my car, I announced to the parking attendant, who remembered me, “I’m a success story.”

Taking a look, he asked, “Twins?”

But tonight my bulging belly was invisible.

My husband got great news today, so he took our son and me out to dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. Because there weren’t any close parking spots, he dropped us off in front of the restaurant.

“We’ll sit on the bench and wait for you,” I said.

“No, honey, you go up.”

Of course, due to my overactive bladder, I needed to use the ladies’ room as soon as I’d given the hostess our last name. A few minutes later, when my son and I walked back into the lobby, my husband was waiting.

He said, “You know, I asked the hostess if she’d seated you two by asking if she remembered a little boy with white hair. And she said, ‘Is your wife pregnant?’ It never even occurred to me to describe you as pregnant, when it’s the most obvious way to identify you. Isn’t that weird?”

Weird? I’m going with flattering. Because it means that regardless of how much I have physically changed in the past year—due to two rounds of IVF medications, followed by months of progesterone suppositories and progesterone-oil injections; emotional eating because I lost one of the twins I was carrying; pregnancy weight gain; and the loss of muscle tone associated with bed rest—my husband still sees ME, inside of this increasingly alien body.

I measured my waist tonight, and, at belly button level, it’s expanded to 47 inches. But my husband doesn’t always notice it, because when he looks at me, he still sees ME.

A week and a half ago, on St. Patrick’s Day morning, my placenta started bleeding again. I was stunned, for it had been nine weeks, to the day, since my beginning of prior bleeding episode. At 34½ weeks of pregnancy, I’d gotten comfortable, thinking I’d become the best-case scenario of a high-risk pregnancy patient with placenta previa, and I’d just deliver my baby boy via C-section when my doctors determined he was mature enough to do so, for it wasn’t safe to go into labor—or deliver vaginally—with the placenta covering my cervix.

Then a trip to the bathroom.

Bright-red blood soaking my incontinence pad and underwear.

Fear.

I called my high-risk pregnancy practice, The Center for Maternal and Fetal Health, and spoke with a nurse, who told me to immediately go to the office, rather than Labor and Delivery, because the doctors were still holding office hours. My friend Yana drove me, took my 5-year-old son home for a playdate with her son, then took both of them to afternoon preschool.

At my doctors’ office, I was quickly ushered in and waited for only a few minutes before being seen by Dr. D, the doctor I’d seen in Labor and Delivery for my bleed in mid-January, at 25½ weeks of pregnancy. She asked if I minded pulling down my pants, so she could see the extent of the bleeding. Upon viewing the blood, she said, “If you keep bleeding, we’ll just do your C-section today.”

I told her I was relieved, that the bleeding, resulting from my placenta partially tearing away from my uterus, makes me nervous because I have a sorority sister from college who lost her baby at 41 weeks—while on a fetal monitor, in the hospital, the night before she was being induced—due to placenta abruptio, a condition in which the placenta completely separates from the uterus.

“She lost her baby in two minutes, in the hospital, on a fetal monitor,” I said. “So if know that if I started bleeding severely, I could call 911, and I’d still never get here in time.”

“Placenta previa is different from placenta abruptio,” she said. “With placenta previa, YOU die.”

Subtle, huh?

My practice is connected to the hospital, so Dr. D had Kathy, one of the nurses, wheel me down to Labor and Delivery, where I was checked in, put into a room at the end of the hall, and given a hospital gown.

My nose started bleeding profusely. Sometimes it will bleed when I blow my nose, which is a common pregnancy side effect, but I’d never had an actual nose bleed in my life. I had an overly dramatic thought that I was bleeding from every orifice, which wasn’t true, but I was feeling panicky without my husband, who was on his way from his office downtown.

Alone in Labor and Delivery, I felt intense sadness, and it took all of my strength, physical and mental, not to cry. I was worried about having my baby at 34½ weeks, when he’d likely land in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) because of respiratory and/or eating difficulties. Then again, my 5-year-old was born on his due date, but spent his first five days in NICU because he was born in acute respiratory distress after aspirating meconium, his first bowel movement in utero, during delivery. After he was able to breathe on his own, he refused to eat, which the NICU nurses said was likely because his throat was sore due to his initial intubation. So even at full-term, babies can end up in NICU, but I recognized that, at 34½ weeks, my baby would have a guaranteed stay.

After I’d changed into the gown, nurses took my vital signs, positioned the two monitors on my stomach to evaluate my baby’s heart rate and any uterine contractions, and inserted an IV line.

Next, a resident entered and said she needed to conduct a vaginal exam to determine if my cervix was dilated. It was just a basic exam, with a speculum inserted into the vagina, so the resident could see—with a light strapped across her forehead, as if she were a miner—my cervix. However, it was one of the most painful medical procedures of my life: I was tense; my feet weren’t in stirrups, but straining to stay at the edge of the bed, and after nine weeks of bed rest, I had little muscle tone; and the exam was long, because the resident couldn’t see my cervix because of the amount of blood in my vaginal canal. She kept removing the blood with swabs, then trying again.

I have a high pain threshold, but I was so uncomfortable that I was whimpering, so I was relieved my husband wasn’t there to bear witness. It would have increased his stress levels.

The exam revealed that my cervix wasn’t dilated, although I wasn’t sure why that mattered, since I was having a C-section. But I didn’t question any of the bustling staff members. They seemed very sure of every stage of their evaluations of me and my baby.

Next up was a meeting with a member of the anesthesia staff, then an abdominal ultrasound, during which Dr. M, the head of my high-risk practice who was on-call in Labor and Delivery, changed course. He said that it looked like the placenta was no longer covering the cervix, but right next to it, making a vaginal delivery possible. To get better ultrasound images, he sent me back upstairs to the practice’s office, telling the technician that he wanted to personally see the images, so, when she was ready, to page him.

My husband met me in the hallway as I was being transported by wheelchair to the office. Once again, my name was quickly called, after which my husband and I were led into an ultrasound room, where both abdominal and trans-vaginal ultrasounds were performed. Our baby, breech during my previous ultrasound, was head-down, and Dr. M pushed his head up and away from my cervix to get a clearer view. But clear wasn’t possible.

Dr. M said that he thought that the cervix was free of the placenta that had been covering it since my week 13 ultrasound, more than 21 weeks of my pregnancy. He showed us what he thought was the harder edge of the placenta, as compared to what he thought what was on top of my cervix—a blood clot. He asked the ultrasound technician to run a blood-flow analysis, which made him more confident, because blood would flow through the placenta only, not through a clot. All of the images consisted of shades of gray, and Dr. M admitted he couldn’t be 100-percent sure of his readings.

He then recommended that we first try a vaginal delivery because he believes that, as the baby descends into the vaginal canal, he’ll push the placenta farther up inside the uterus, enabling him to be delivered safely—before the placenta. He assured us that, in case of any complications, he’d immediately perform a C-section.

He explained that he was considering the best interests of both me and the baby, and a vaginal delivery is preferable for me because of less recovery time, and delaying delivery is preferable for the baby because, even at 36 weeks, just a week and a half away, he’d likely be able to come home with us, rather than spend time in NICU due to breathing or eating problems.

I asked, “You really think it’s safe to try a vaginal delivery, even though I’ve had two placental bleeds?”

“Yes.”

But then he added that he wanted to consider my emotional state, that he’d heard that I had a friend who’d lost her baby via placental abruption, but that placental abruption is extraordinarily rare, as in 1 in 1,000 pregnancies, and that what happened to my friend is yet another 1 in 1,000 placental abruptions. He outlined the signs of placental abruption and said that I’d likely be at the hospital, diagnosed and having a C-section before either my baby or I were at risk.

He said we could evaluate the situation and decide when to induce, based on how I’m feeling emotionally.

“I just want to do what’s best for the baby,” I said.

And what was best for the baby was to stay put, rather than attempt a vaginal delivery on St. Patty’s Day.

So I was wheeled back down to Labor and Delivery for observation—for another five hours before I was released—during which I wasn’t permitted to eat or drink, just in case of increased bleeding necessitating delivery. I’d woken up at 5 a.m. to eat some Frosted Mini-Wheats and hadn’t been hungry again before my bleed started, so I went almost 13 hours without food or drink.

So I lay there in Labor and Delivery with fetal monitors strapped across my stomach, starving, emotional, and having to disconnect the monitors and wheel my IV into the bathroom every 10 minutes because the IV fluids were making me pee. And my husband sat there with his laptop on his lap, accessing the hospital’s wireless Internet so he could work. And we were both reeling, because we’d been worried about my bleeding, we’d been told we were having our baby via C-section because of the bleed, and we weren’t sure waiting and trying a vaginal delivery was the right call. Because, at the time, we never could have known.

But Dr. M was right, and we were right to listen to him.

When I was released, Mr. M put me back on complete bed rest until last Friday, the day I hit 36 weeks, his goal. In the past week and a half, I haven’t had another fresh bleed, although old, brown blood is still coming, 12 days later. But old blood is nothing to worry about.

I am now at 36½ weeks of pregnancy, and, on Friday, I will be full-term, for full-term is defined as 37 to 42 weeks. At this stage, our little man will likely accompany me home from the hospital.

And last, during my 36-week appointment on Friday, it was crystal-clear, via ultrasound, that the placenta has moved even farther away from my cervix.

I NO LONGER HAVE PLACENTA PREVIA.

So the plan is that, if I bleed again, for my placenta is still low-lying, and low-lying placentas are more unstable, I’ll be induced, and my doctors will try a vaginal delivery since there is now no reason for it to be dangerous.

If I don’t bleed, my doctors will continue to evaluate the results of my weekly exams, in which I have ultrasounds to check on placental position and amniotic fluid levels, plus non-stress tests to evaluate the baby’s heart rate and whether I’m having contractions. If any problems are revealed, I’ll be induced. If all’s well, they’ll likely let me continue until I go into labor.

This weekend I told my husband that, if I don’t have another bleed, I’ll probably not go into labor until close to the baby’s due date, April 23, since my 5-year-old son was born on his.

“You have a history of one,” he replied. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to rely on that.”

Yes, I have a history of just one, but having a biological child is a miracle that many DES Daughters don’t have the opportunity to experience. And because I was able to carry my 5-year-old son to his due date, although I was dilated starting at 27 weeks, and because he stretched out my DES (diethlystilbestrol)-induced T-shaped uterus while he was in utero, I felt confident that, if I could get pregnant, I could carry another child to term.

This time around, I admit that I’ve alternated between feeling blessed and cursed, because, rather than have premature dilation and labor as I did with my son, my cervix is long and closed—even at 36 weeks—but instead I lost one of my twins, and I’ve suffered from placenta previa.

But I don’t have placenta previa any more, and it’s rare for it to rectify itself in the third trimester. And if I can make it until Friday, I’m at term. Just four more days, and I’m at term.

Last Monday, I wrote a post about becoming emotional after seeing triplets at a birthday party, then later learning that my friend is pregnant with twin boys, just as I had been six months ago—before losing one of my sons in September. This morning, in my final dream before waking up, my subconscious mind was working overtime to help me process my feelings.

In my dream, my friends Jessica and Adam had just had twins, a daughter with a full head of dark hair and a completely bald son. For some reason, Jessica and Adam couldn’t take care of their newborns for the first few days of their lives, so I was serving as substitute mom to them—and breastfeeding them—until Jessica and Adam were available.

Now my friends Jessica and Adam are real, but they don’t have twins, nor are they pregnant with them. If they did have twins, they’d take care of their babies themselves—or if they were somehow incapacitated, their parents or siblings would come to the rescue. Plus, being 34 weeks pregnant with my own son, my milk hasn’t come in, so I couldn’t breastfeed. And breastfeeding my friends’ children is an act I’ve never considered. But dreams often don’t make sense, as with all of the above elements of mine. But wait until you hear the rest.

As my dream continued, I was alone, trying to breastfeed the twins, struggling to position them—and get them to latch on—with only one arm and hand available to hold each. As I was finally feeding both, I looked down to see that, as I had contorted my entire body to try to lift and support them, my skirt had flipped up, so I was revealing my super-sized underwear.

Then, as I looked to the left, I saw a baby girl lying on a bed and realized that I had forgotten about her, that Jessica and Adam hadn’t had twins, but triplets, and this one still needed to be fed. I panicked, thinking that, after these first two had had their fill, I wouldn’t have any milk left to feed their sister.

Feeling overwhelmed, as if caring for these two—and then three—babies was impossible, my final thought was I’m so happy I’m only having one.

Thank you to my subconsious mind, I experienced a scene of what my life would have been like if I had carried my twin boys to term. I’m 41, and, although I’m normally high-energy, I no longer have the stamina of a 20-something. My husband is 44 and has a very demanding job. My husband and I already have three other sons, ages 15, 14 and 5, to care for. And, regardless of what temperment our twins may have had, parenting twins would have been overwhelming.

So although I will still mourn the loss of my baby boy, vicariously experiencing one breastfeeding fiasco has helped me put my future in perspective. With only one more child, I will be able to a better mother. And with only one more child, I will enjoy parenting my last child, rather than constantly beating myself up for not having enough body parts and hours and energy to satisfy the needs of twins.