Oh, Baby

Mood:  anxious, happy



This may be the most personal post that I have authored to date.  It's been a long month being away from the blog.  I've wanted to write, but I haven't been able to sit down and write anything coherent.  The truth is, I find it hard to write about one thing when in reality I'm thinking about something else.  For the past month there has been one thing on my mind and in my heart:  babies.

I think it's pretty normal after you've been married for a bit to assume that people are going to ask "soooooo, when are you two having kids?"  This question seems to come up a lot.  I don't have an answer to it.  I wish more than anything in this world that I did, but I just don't.  

Anyway.  I've been avoiding blogging about having a baby for a whole month.  I can't any longer.  There is nothing on TV this afternoon and Malcolm is down for a nap.  Jeff and I have a thing for Discovery Fit and Health so I flipped to that.  On Discovery Fit and Health right now (literally as I type) is a show titled Bio Moms.  Naturally I decide to watch.  And I was doing fine with the whole show until a birth scene.  No, there was nothing ewwwie or gross (since I can be rather squeamis)...it was just utterly heartbreaking.  

I can't imagine placing a baby up for adoption and yet that is not why I found my eyes brimming with tears.  Rather, my stomach knotted up in pain for the adoptive mother.  She was in the birthing suite with the bio mom and as the bio mom screamed in pain, the adoptive mother wept.  And I want to cry for her, with her.  

Let me state very plainly that I do not want to diminish the role of the birth mother.  I do not want to appear callous to the pain that she is suffering, both physical and emotional.  But I identify with the adoptive mother.  Why?  Because that could be me.  

Without discussing the level of trying Jeff and I are or are not engaged in....there is a possibility that I may never be a birth mother.  I've known this since my sixteenth birthday. Seriously, that's when the OB broke the news to me (uhhh crappy present Dr. H).  And at that point in my life it didn't matter.  I was 16, I had no boyfriend or sex life...or even the desire to be a mother.  I have always been a girly girl (to the extreme) but I never really imagined myself as mother.  I played teacher, but I don't remember extensive games of "mother."  I liked my American Girl doll because she was pretty and I could change her outfits more than for the fact that I could pretend to be her mommy.  So when, at 16, I learned this about myself...it seemed inconsequential.  

However, it affected me more than I was willing to admit.  I have lived my adult life as if there was an expiration date on my foot regarding my fertility.  The age of expiration has come and gone.  And now, happily married, I find myself succumbing to the external pressure to have a child.  That's out of my control, I know...and I am trying to stay positive.  But as that adoptive mother shook with sobs...something in me broke.

Having, or not having a child is such a personal thing.  Thus I have stayed away from the topic on this blog as much as possible.  But everyday in some form I encounter this question. And the conversation is pretty much always the same.

"So, when are you guys having a child?"
"Oh, we are just adjusting to married life...hopefully some day"
"Well, are you thinking about it"  and then there is generally a comment such as "well you know, you're almost 30 and...."

I know that this is never meant as criticism.  Nor do people realize that there may be a reason as to why a couple is not having children.  These things are so intensely private, especially for one struggling with the knowledge that this conversation may end one day in me having to say "We aren't having a child because I can't."

As I watched this woman...who was unable to conceive...go through this I could not shake the feeling of defeat.  To have to stand there watching someone go through labor that they view as an annoyance (the bio mom stated this) when you would have given anything in the world to be the one in that bed....it just broke my heart.  Sure there is more to being a mother than carrying and giving birth to a child, but what a distinct honor and blessing it is to be able to do so. 

Again, without discussing anything about Jeff and I and where we are...I haven't given up hope that one day when the time is right we will have a child.  Until then, I have to continue to believe that we are where we are supposed to be.