This week has forced me to admit that all these pregnancies\/births\/adorable baby stories\/actual babies…they are starting to hurt.<\/p>\n
A lot.<\/p>\n
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.\u00c2\u00a0 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\u00c2\u00a0baby that crosses my line of sight.<\/p>\n
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.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Because I can’t help but think.\u00c2\u00a0 Not mine.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe never mine.<\/p>\n
And this shiver just goes through me and my throat closes up and sometimes my heart literally aches.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
I can’t explain it.\u00c2\u00a0 And I’m ashamed that such a wonderful thing could possibly make me feel this way.<\/p>\n
It’s not that I’m not overjoyed for other people.\u00c2\u00a0 I am.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
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.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t.\u00c2\u00a0 I get it.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
They don’t even have to say it.\u00c2\u00a0 Like I said, it’s just there<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 In the way people talk about their children.\u00c2\u00a0 As though they are talking about unicorns that shit diamonds or something.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n I don’t begrudge them that life changing happiness,\u00c2\u00a0it makes me happy\u00c2\u00a0to\u00c2\u00a0see parents loving their children like crazy, I just want in <\/em>that fucking club.\u00c2\u00a0 I want my life to change.\u00c2\u00a0 I want my\u00c2\u00a0priorities rearranged.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n I want to know what it’s like too.<\/em><\/p>\n 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.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Hearing them recount their own stories of rushing off to the hospital, the amazement of being a\u00c2\u00a0parent for the first time…all these experiences that I want so desperately to have and I guess the\u00c2\u00a0aching comes from\u00c2\u00a0knowing this may never be in the cards for me.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s weird, because I am<\/em> 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.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t feel envious of them, I don’t feel anything towards<\/em> them except happy.\u00c2\u00a0 But I can’t deny that it makes something about me<\/em> feels a little bit more broken when I hear these things.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n (Sounds like a personal problem, I know.)<\/p>\n The other day,\u00c2\u00a0I asked Paul if he could really imagine our lives with children.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Because, I said, sometimes I can’t imagine what it would be like\u00c2\u00a0to insert a baby into our peaceful, stable little lives.\u00c2\u00a0 He\u00c2\u00a0didn’t hesitate for one second, he said of course he could picture it.<\/p>\n Just another\u00c2\u00a0sign of what I already knew.\u00c2\u00a0 My husband is there.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s ready.\u00c2\u00a0 Now we really are just waiting for me.<\/p>\n 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)\u00c2\u00a0where people feel comfortable questioning us on when the little ones will be coming along.\u00c2\u00a0 I can’t get upset over them asking because I do it to other young couples too.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s the natural progression of life right?\u00c2\u00a0 You grow up, get married, have babies.\u00c2\u00a0 The end.<\/p>\n Mostly, I just lie.\u00c2\u00a0 I give people the “we’re still young” line and people accept it, because I guess by today’s standards we are.\u00c2\u00a0 The truth makes people uncomfortable, and it’s complicated with me not wanting people to think of me as being “sick.”\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n Recently, though, I’ve started sharing a little bit with certain people.\u00c2\u00a0 I think it’s just becoming too much to hold it in all the time.<\/p>\n 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.\u00c2\u00a0 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.”<\/p>\n Which, okay, I get.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 I see where they are coming from.\u00c2\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n Anyway, I brought this up to Paul one day and asked him what he thought.\u00c2\u00a0 Were they right?\u00c2\u00a0 I knew that I <\/em>really wanted kids no matter what, but did he?\u00c2\u00a0 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)?<\/p>\n His reaction?\u00c2\u00a0 Made me thank God I married this man…<\/p>\n First he laughed.\u00c2\u00a0 He laughed like, seriously?\u00c2\u00a0 They said that?<\/p>\n And then, he actually said, Seriously?\u00c2\u00a0 They said that?\u00c2\u00a0 Wow, that’s actually a really rude thing for someone with kids to say.<\/p>\n What do you mean, I asked?<\/p>\n Well, he said, How can anyone who has kids ask us why we want them?\u00c2\u00a0 Why do WE want kids? Why did you have YOUR kids?<\/p>\n I know for people who don’t know my husband, that conversation was probably nothing astonishing.\u00c2\u00a0 But folks, my husband does not say things like that about people.\u00c2\u00a0 My husband is impossible to get a rise out of, so for him this was a pretty strong reaction.\u00c2\u00a0 He was clearly annoyed by what they said, and this is a man that rarely gets annoyed at the words of others.\u00c2\u00a0 So I think it’s safe to say that this is a sore subject for him too.\u00c2\u00a0 And while, that doesn’t make me feel good, it is<\/em> nice to have that confirmation that I do indeed have a partner in what I’m feeling.<\/p>\n