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This week has forced me to admit that all these pregnancies/births/adorable baby stories/actual babies…they are starting to hurt.

A lot.

But, as ten years of blogging has clearly established (and yes, it’ll be ten years this month but that’s another post), I am an emotional cutter.  So of course I have to hear every single one of these stories, seek out every picture I can get my hands on and coo over every adorable baby that crosses my line of sight.

It’s like I love hearing about this stuff because it’s so freakin’ cute and I just love hearing about kids…but it also kind of feels like someone is pushing needles into my soul everytime I hear about the most adorable thing someone else’s child did. 

Because I can’t help but think.  Not mine.  Maybe never mine.

And this shiver just goes through me and my throat closes up and sometimes my heart literally aches. 

I can’t explain it.  And I’m ashamed that such a wonderful thing could possibly make me feel this way.

It’s not that I’m not overjoyed for other people.  I am.  I see the joy in their faces, hear it in their voices…almost everyone I work with is a devoted and doting father (despite the stereotype of the absent Wall Street father, finance on the West Coast tends to be a pretty different animal)…which is awesome and actually part of the reason I love working with them so much…but recently it has been hard to listen to a lot of the conversations. 

I know some people without kids get offended when people with children talk about how their lives and perspectives completely changed after their kids were born.  I don’t.  I get it. 

They don’t even have to say it.  Like I said, it’s just there.  In the way people talk about their children.  As though they are talking about unicorns that shit diamonds or something.  You can’t really express that kind of sentiment verbally, it tends to come through non-verbal cues like the giant grin that breaks out everytime they mention their kids. 

I don’t begrudge them that life changing happiness, it makes me happy to see parents loving their children like crazy, I just want in that fucking club.  I want my life to change.  I want my priorities rearranged.  

I want to know what it’s like too.

One of my coworker’s wife had their first baby this week and it has been especially difficult listening to the chatter about how happy people are for him.  Hearing them recount their own stories of rushing off to the hospital, the amazement of being a parent for the first time…all these experiences that I want so desperately to have and I guess the aching comes from knowing this may never be in the cards for me.  It’s weird, because I am really happy for him (he has been wanting her to pop one out since before they got married two years ago, even though he’s only thirty) and they are going to be great parents.  I don’t feel envious of them, I don’t feel anything towards them except happy.  But I can’t deny that it makes something about me feels a little bit more broken when I hear these things.  

(Sounds like a personal problem, I know.)

The other day, I asked Paul if he could really imagine our lives with children.   Because, I said, sometimes I can’t imagine what it would be like to insert a baby into our peaceful, stable little lives.  He didn’t hesitate for one second, he said of course he could picture it.

Just another sign of what I already knew.  My husband is there.  He’s ready.  Now we really are just waiting for me.

It’s also hard because we’re getting to an age and point in our marriage (4yrs this July or 5yrs this June depending how you count it) where people feel comfortable questioning us on when the little ones will be coming along.  I can’t get upset over them asking because I do it to other young couples too.  It’s the natural progression of life right?  You grow up, get married, have babies.  The end.

Mostly, I just lie.  I give people the “we’re still young” line and people accept it, because I guess by today’s standards we are.  The truth makes people uncomfortable, and it’s complicated with me not wanting people to think of me as being “sick.” 

Recently, though, I’ve started sharing a little bit with certain people.  I think it’s just becoming too much to hold it in all the time.

My mom talks about it with all my relatives (and probably all of her friends too, but oh well, that’s just my mom) and then she tells me their reactions.  Apparently when she told a couple of my aunts that Paul and I are seriously considering adoption, their reaction was “Why don’t they just not have kids, they’re so much work anyway.”

Which, okay, I get.  My aunts love me and they are both going through struggles with every single one of the four (adult) children that they have between the two of them.  I see where they are coming from.  And to be fair, they have never been so insensitive as to say it in front of me, only to my mother, though I’ve never discussed having kids with them at all to begin with.

Anyway, I brought this up to Paul one day and asked him what he thought.  Were they right?  I knew that I really wanted kids no matter what, but did he?  Knowing how much “trouble” they can be, did we still want to go down the path of doing whatever it takes to be parents (short of stealing one, I suppose)?

His reaction?  Made me thank God I married this man…

First he laughed.  He laughed like, seriously?  They said that?

And then, he actually said, Seriously?  They said that?  Wow, that’s actually a really rude thing for someone with kids to say.

What do you mean, I asked?

Well, he said, How can anyone who has kids ask us why we want them?  Why do WE want kids? Why did you have YOUR kids?

I know for people who don’t know my husband, that conversation was probably nothing astonishing.  But folks, my husband does not say things like that about people.  My husband is impossible to get a rise out of, so for him this was a pretty strong reaction.  He was clearly annoyed by what they said, and this is a man that rarely gets annoyed at the words of others.  So I think it’s safe to say that this is a sore subject for him too.  And while, that doesn’t make me feel good, it is nice to have that confirmation that I do indeed have a partner in what I’m feeling.

I was watching this video this morning. At first I was mainly paying attention to the lyrics. They seem to accurately capture a lot of what I’m feeling right now. Except I think I may be applying it in the wrong way…

But then I actually started to watch the photo montage and when it came to the picture of the lone set of footprints in the sand, it hit me.

During your times of trial and suffering when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.

Lately, I’ve been feeling a little lost.  I used to believe so strongly that God had a Plan for my life even if I had no clue what that was.  It was a comforting feeling.  That there would be meaning at the end of the road.

But recently, I haven’t felt that way.  I’ve been wondering if there really is a plan and finding that I’m not as comfortable with the not knowing part.  (Although, let’s face it, I have never been super comfortable with that part of it because of the whole control-freak problem).

I realized though, looking at that stupid photo, that as alone as I feel right now, this is probably one of those times where He is really carrying me.  And I have to trust in that.

Even if I don’t feel confident about where I’m headed anymore.

This might hurt
It’s not safe
But I know that I’ve gotta make a change
I don’t care if I break
At least I’ll be feeling something
Cause just ok
Is not enough
Help me fight through the nothingness of life
I don’t wanna go through the motions
I don’t wanna go one more day
Without Your all consuming passion inside of me
I don’t want to spend my whole life asking
What if I had given everything?
Instead of going through the motions

– The Motions by Matthew West