It's a Matter of Time

I am terrified of time.  Time that passes too quickly.  Time that creeps by dangerously slow.  Time that no longer seems to be on my side.  
If this tragedy had struck me ten years ago, it would have been no less horrible and traumatic, but an extra silver lining would have shone around the black clouds above me.  Time.  More time to heal.  More time to try again.
When you're young, everything seems possible.  Even when faced with jagged cliff faces and raging storms.   When you're young, it seems that you have all the time you need to climb that cliff, to wait out the storm, to get where you want to go.  Now, I feel rushed.  I feel hurried.  I feel like my time is running out.

I didn't meet Mike until I was almost 31.  Although we both knew fairly instantly that we had found the right person, we didn't get married until I was almost 34.  I was never really one of those girls that just had to have kids.   When people would ask me if I wanted kids, I always replied with "Yes, as long as I meet the right guy."  I was really okay with not having children if I didn't meet someone I wanted to marry and start a family with.  I would have forged a different, and just as happy, life.  However, I did meet Mike.  I fell in love with him and I knew he was the guy for me.  The one who would be a wonderful husband to me and a wonderful father to our children. Our children.  And that is when the timer kicked in, ticking off the seconds and minutes, showing me just how much time I had left to get this show on the road.  When I found out I was pregnant, it was the summer before my 35th birthday.  Whew!  I was going to get in just under the wire!   I was going to have my baby before my file would get the dreaded label - Advanced Maternal Age.  (Ouch!  Right in the gut.)  

Now, you are going to tell me, "Hey, plenty of women have babies later in life nowadays!  It's perfectly fine!  Besides, you're not that old! "  And you are right - they do and I'm not.  And there is no reason why I can't have a perfectly healthy pregnancy in the future that will result in a wonderful sibling for Kenley.  But, as we have discussed before, my ability to think logically and listen to reason has decided it no longer wants to communicate with the rest of me.   I am scared.  I am scared that, as I get older, my risk for birth defects and other complications increases.  I am scared that Kenley was my only chance.   I am scared that her room will be empty forever, and that I won't be able to handle it.  

Kenley taught me what it feels like to be a mother.   She opened my eyes and my heart to a love I never knew before - and I honestly could not bear it if I wasn't able to share that love with a child who got to stay with me.  So, yeah,  I am terrified of time.  Of the clock that remembers the moments I had and reminds me of the moments that are left.  Tick, tick, tick.