Baby Boy #1

As long as I can remember, I have known that I was going to be a mother. I knew I was going to grow up and marry someone, have children and live happily ever after. Little did I know I was going to become one of the most rare species in this day… A mother of five boys.

We started on this crazy journey almost 13 years ago, and by the age of 23 I had already been pregnant twice, one ending in a severe ectopic pregnancy and the other one with a healthy baby boy to bounce around. It was so nice to be a family of three, and we were all so close and happy. I grew up with my son, and he has taught me things no one else in the world will ever have the chance to teach me.

Baby Boy #2

After six years we decided to try for our next little bean, not knowing that we would have the same outcome as our first pregnancy. But within the next year came boy number two. He was perfect, with his bright blue eyes, long lashes and the cutest little dimple in his left cheek. Life got more busy, but we seemed to thrive off of it, so we thought we would try for number three.

By this time I was already getting questions of “Are you trying for a girl?” or comments such as “This one HAS to be a girl”, so it was hard to escape the pressure of society to fit into the perfect family of having boys and girls. But it wasn’t just society… I had longed for a girl my whole life, and I think every little girl growing up, dreams about having a daughter that you can have tea parties, hair bows, and frilly pink dresses.

Baby Boy #3

So when told I was having boy number three, I wasn’t as thrilled as I would have hoped to be. I loved my boys, and once I met my new little man, I fell in love all over again. Nothing would make me any more happy… Except to have one more baby.

Now even though I had three healthy children, I knew deep down, I wasn’t done yet. My husband was satisfied, but I was not stopping there… Two years later, we were surprised with a new bean. I was so happy to finally be finishing our little family; that I didn’t expect the call from our physician to tell us that some results where not good from the IPS screening we had at our last ultrasound.

Another Heartbreaking Loss

After some more testing, we were told she was a little girl with Trisomy 13. She had passed away on her own two days later.  We were devastated, and still are, and you would think that it would stop us from continuing on from building our family. But I was more determined than ever, and four months later (and many peed-on sticks), I told my husband we were having our last baby.

Baby Boy #4… And #5!

This time I was terrified…I could not go through another loss. I had already had three, and I probably wouldn’t make it through another. So when we were at our first dating ultrasound at six weeks, which coincidentally happened to be my little girls due date… The ultra sound tech told us something that would change our life forever…

She said, and I quote, “I couldn’t find a heartbeat…But I found two..”.  This didn’t register with me, until my husband started nervously laughing. What the heck was going on??? She finally spelled it out to me that we were having TWINS!!! After a lot of laughing (and some profanity), we tried to put together our thoughts and think about what our reality was about to be.

We prayed for one baby for so long… But God laughed and sent us two.

A Difficult Journey, But So Worth It

It wasn’t easy to be pregnant with twins. I couldn’t work past 15 weeks, and was diagnosed with almost every pregnancy complication you could think of. I was in pain at all times, and your body stretches in ways you didn’t think were possible.

I was convinced we were having at least one girl… I bought pink sleepers, I dreamed of days of hair braiding and wedding dress shopping and picked out the most beautiful names. So on Christmas Eve when we pulled two blue sleepers out of the gift boxes that our OB set up for us, to say I was flabbergasted, is an understatement. I wasn’t only dealing with my thoughts of having five boys…but I was also dealing with the grief of never having my little girl.

We had prayed for a girl for so long, but God laughed and sent us two more kamagra pills boys. Feelings that people were ashamed of us, and laughing at us, overwhelmed me. I felt that I let my husband and my family down. My oldest son wanted a sister so bad, so I felt I had let him down. But knowing I had 17 more weeks to get used to the idea of raising five boys, helped me love these two new little men even more.

For the last five weeks of my pregnancy, I had to stay two hours away from my five boys, so when the day arrived that we would all meet the twins, I was so happy it would be over. The labour and delivery went as good as it could have, but what came next was horrifying. I lost 90% of my blood, so 11 blood transfusions, an emergency hysterectomy, and time spent in the ICU, I finally made it back to meet my new boys.

A Proud Mom of Five Boys

My new life as a mom of 5 boys had begun. Watching my older boys with their new brothers was my favourite part. My oldest son is one of the few people I trusted babysitting my twins, and I don’t know any boy his age that would take on the responsibility of changing and helping when I needed it the most. My second son loved to hold the twins, he would get so excited and rammy and try to make them laugh by day one.  My third son, was finally a big brother, and nobody was going to mess with his new brothers on his time.

Having 5 children makes this house very loud and busy…for those of you that have little ones at home, you probably hear  “mom..mom…MOM?!”…well multiply that by five and you will understand what I deal with all. Day. Long.

Don’t get me wrong, I love hearing them, but I will not lie when I say it has sent me over the edge a time or two. One time a few months ago, I finally got a shower in without any interruptions (yes I said ONE time)…and as I was standing there in the quiet, warm water, I yelled out “WHAT?!!!”. That’s when I realized, no one was looking for me or wanting something, but that I had “mom” ringing in my head for too long.

I am always one step ahead of my five boys but they are typical boys…silly, obnoxious, don’t listen to anything you say and laugh at burps, farts and the word “poop”. I even caught my one year old twins laughing at each others farts the other day. Even though they are boys, someone is always crying, picking their nose or pounding on their brothers. But they are the first to have each other’s back, the first to tell me they love me, and the first to want to snuggle on the couch.

People often say that I am supermom, and that they don’t know how I do it having five boys. But I look at everyone else and wonder how they do it without five boys. I am a tough cookie, and I run a tight ship, or these boys will try and pull anything and everything past me.

Every day is a game of survival, and new challenges always present themselves but knowing that each and every boy is depending on me to show them how to be sensitive, compassionate, generous men…makes me think I will deliver some good men to the world someday. It makes me proud to know I will have five strong men carrying my casket to my final resting place someday. I know it’s early, but I am going to say “your welcome” to my future Daughter (or Son)-in-laws now.

Society still hasn’t stopped with the questions or comments… And probably never will. I had a lady point to my boys the other day and say “Did you not get a girl out of all THIS?”, and another that said “Ooooh I don’t envy you” or my favourite “You poor woman”… But they don’t realize that I am the lucky one, because I am the number one woman in five little men’s lives.

I will have more back-up than anyone else out there, and when I see how happy they are, and how much they love being home with us, I know I am doing something right. So whether we are being photographed by strangers (yes it has happened), or ridiculed by those that don’t understand my life… I would do this all over again in the exact same way, and I thank God every day that he gave me five boys who are healthy and happy.