Month: February 2018

Unavoidable Change

Unavoidable Change

Each moment brings with it the prospect of change. When I was first diagnosed with Interstitial Cystitis, my urologist informed me, “You have a disease you’ll now have for life but you’ll manage, you won’t die from this but it will require changes in your […]

Going Unseen

Going Unseen

This week has been tough as an educator. It doesn’t matter if you teach public or private school, it’s been a tough start to 2018 for schools across the nation. Personally, after Wednesday’s school shooting, as I left school for the next day knowing I […]

Think Before You Speak

Think Before You Speak

A lesson we’ve heard since we were little: Think before you speak. It’s pretty common knowledge, but it is never really followed much these days. With the ability to hide behind social media, everyone seems to be saying what they want however unkind and untrue it is. People are becoming more and more bold with what they say to your face without even thinking.

Seems like a normal question to ask a married couple or even a couple after they have had one child right?

Well, what if there’s more to the story? What if it’s private? What if we had been trying and struggling? What if I just want one kid? What if (God forbid) we had a miscarriage we were trying to figure out if we wanted to go through that emotional turmoil again? What if I recently found out I couldn’t have another baby?

Of course I don’t expect to know everyone’s life story before I ask questions like this, but it is very personal to ask when someone is either going to have their first kid or even have a second. I have made plenty of slip ups in the past. I remember specifically driving home from a movie with a friend and making a comment about how I was worried that if I went off the pill I would become pregnant instantly to a friend who could have been trying to have her first baby for several months or years. *Facepalm* How could I have been so naive about this?

I have another friend I worked with in college who married her college sweetheart almost ten years ago. They don’t have kids. I know she would make an excellent mother and he would make an amazing father, but I will not for the life of me ask them why they haven’t had kids yet. Why? Maybe I misread the situation and they never wanted kids, and instead they wanted to be the cool aunt and uncle. Maybe they have been trying, but there are other medical issues going on. I refuse to ask her though because I don’t want to accidentally rip open a barely healed wound of whether or not they are choosing to have kid.  

When I found out I was pregnant with Addison, I told one of my best friends and co worker without even a second thought of how she had mentioned that they had been trying for a year and half to have a second baby. Everyone on her facebook feed had been announcing that they were pregnant. Then I was the asshole chick with an accidental pregnancy panicking about what the world would think of a recently engaged woman that couldn’t keep it in her pants long enough to be married first.

After I had Addison another coworker had a miscarriage just weeks before her due date… I was out sick the day it happened and I remember feeling so crushed for her. I cannot imagine the pain she felt losing that baby, but I have snuggled my little girl a little more ever since. I never once asked this coworker do you think you will try again because the pain she must have felt losing a child, that close to her due date, had to of almost killed her.

I was recently asked myself if Ryan and I wanted to have another by a mom at Addison’s daycare. She is currently expecting her second, so it seems natural to ask another mom in seemingly good health when and if we were planning on having more kids. Right?

I am here to tell you that you could be very much mistaken. I know several women that have been asked when they will have a child or some variation of it that get into their car later to drive home and break down crying because while it is appears to be an innocent question it is one of the fastest ways you can cut out a woman’s heart because with an empty womb she could already dying inside.

I beg of you to think before you inquire about something so intimate. Think of the love that fills your heart as a mom before you ask another woman about a potential pregnancy, regardless of her number of children and your intent: Think before you speak.

Later apples,

L. Bohlinger

Just Below The Surface Panic

Just Below The Surface Panic

It’s the reason I can feel my arm hairs raise with the goosebumps as they create a braille like story of my anxiousness, tattooed by my own subconscious across my skin. It’s the just below the surface panic I feel in silent moments, or loud […]