Intro (part 2)

I make an initial OB appointment with my gyno and cry all over the phone with the poor receptionist. Since I chart my period by the moon and not by writing it down the doc isn't sure what the gestational age is - and being that I'm emotionally shaken to pieces, and crying in the office the doctor is kind of a dick. He tells me to come back in a few weeks for an ultrasound to determine gestational age and have my next appointment. So Andy and I are wrestling with a decision of keeping the baby or terminating the pregnancy. It's been a question we've asked ourselves 3 times now. Twice before my/our decision is obvious. This time things are different.
We don't have the room in the house for an extra person.
I'll have to take time off work for maternity leave and we'll be struggling financially again. And then there's no guarantee I'll be able to find work again, or even WANT to go back to work.
And then there's the matter of being raised pro-life catholic, and still identifying myself as pro-life, but having to make this decision. In my head I can't see either end - me holding a baby, or me walking into a clinic to terminate.
I have my u/s and get to see the baby, even though I really didn't want to - I'm trying to desensitize myself just in case we decide to terminate....that way I won't have formed an attachment and won't be emotionally devastated like I would anticipate. But honestly I wasn't sure how I would feel after a termination. And Andy was afraid it would destroy me and effectively end our marriage. We're between a rock and a hard place.
So I see the kid and am saddened to see that it already has a heartbeat at 7 weeks...and I get a picture from the u/s tech. After seeing it, it's harder to make the decision to terminate, however trapped I feel by this. I see my gyno (now OB) again and cry like a blubbering baby...and he's a jerk, again. UGH.
Then one night in the middle of the night Andy wakes me and he's freaking out about the whole thing.
He makes the case for termination, which has really been his stance the whole time, and sadly, I have to agree. We could go back to our lives again if we terminate and have the hope of a future that we can actually get to. So we' re up at 3am researching on the computer for clinics. We find one and I get the number so I can call and make the appointment the next day while I'm at work. We already know that if it's early enough I can take two pills and it will basically just start my period again, and I won't have to have a surgical procedure.

So the next day I call the OB and let them know of my decision, so they can take me off their patient list and cancel my next appointment.
And then I call the clinic. The girl on the phone is super-nice, and I'm just crying all over myself....now keep in mind I'm at work and just crying and crying...I can't stop. I'm gonna kill my child and I tell myself it's for the best and I just have to find a way to have it make sense in my head. So I make the appointment and since I'll be over 9 weeks by the time the appointment happens it'll have to be a surgical procedure. And it'll cost $500 if insurance doesn't cover. (It does - Andy checked it out. So we're not sure how much it will cost, but it won't be the whole fee.)
I call Andy and let him know that I made the appointment, and that it'll have to be a surgical procedure. I gave him a run-down of all the instructions the girl from the clinic gave me over the phone, and to my absolute surprise (but weirdly, relief washed over me), he said that if it has to be a surgical procedure he'd rather not have me endure that, but thinks it would be better just to go through with the pregnancy. He told me he'd been asking the universe for some sort of sign as to what decision is best....and apparently not wanting the surgical procedure helped him make his decision. Ya, my non-religous husband asking the universe for help. Whoda thunk.
I'm relieved but still freaked. I wait until the next day to call the clinic and cancel, and call the OB office and try to reinstate my original appointment.

My next OB appointment Andy goes with me. I don't cry and my doc is nice. Guess he can't handle emotional women very well....but the career he's picked means he's GUARANTEED to be around emotional women. Go fig.
After deciding to keep the little bugger, we started telling people we were pregnant. Starting with the kids. To be honest, I was so afraid that they'd whine about it and just make it all worse for me than it already was. But they were excited. Aidan said right away that he wanted a sister and he promised that when she was old enough he'd play tea party with her, no matter how old he was. And of course both sets of parents were ecstatic - we wanted to wait until all of us were together with each set of parents before we shared the news, but Aidan couldn't contain himself and had to spill it to my MIL. And then about 3 days later he told my mom while I was at work even though I gave him SPECIFIC directions to wait until I was there. Damn kid, he was too excited to keep it in anymore.


Fast-forward to today.
I'm 22 weeks.
We're having another boy.
I so totally did NOT want a girl. My mom and I do NOT get along, and I am terrified of repeating a relationship with a child of mine that I have with my mom. But I was afraid it would be a girl this time - girl names were easier, the cute stuff that I did like was girl stuff more than boy stuff, and as time went on before my big u/s I was finding more peace in having a girl than I thought I would. Scary.
But, when we had the big u/s there it was. Another brother for the boys. Poor Aidan was actually sad and cried a little...he'd kept wanting a sister. That crushed me, I didn't want them to be sad about this. It could be as awful for me as it needed to be, but I don't want the kids to suffer.
And it's kind of already bad enough - the boys are gonna have to share a bedroom (which I never wanted them to have to do, my sis and I shared a room and having our own space was the best thing ever).
Aidan has also begun his middle-child syndrome. He's acting out in school and one day had to visit the principal's office. He told my mom that he's not special anymore, Mommy is now cause she's having a baby...The nightmare has arrived.

I'm still not thrilled about this. The kid kicks up a storm and I'm already showing enough that people at work are commenting on my belly. I can cry at the drop of a hat over this and they're not happy tears. I don't want this and I'm scared of what the future holds.
I don't want to go back to stressing about every penny spent and whether or not we'll overdraft each paycheck. That's not a life.

But we've bought some outfits for the hospital and some onesies. We've also purchased a crib bedding set and a mattress, both I got on clearance.

I want to be happy about this.
Andy tells me we just gotta stay positive and get as much joy as we can out of this - it's supposed to be a joyous time.
I don't see any happiness in our future.