Not a gratitude post, mostly to shake it up a bit for me. Oh well, ok, because this is what’s going through my head.
(We still have lots of gratitude to get to, don’t you worry.)
I saw Knocked Up on the weekend, although I left before the end – at the point where the monitor goes off and the nurse rushes in and says “we have decels!” and the doctor starts pushing the baby around because the cord is around the baby’s neck. Yah, that scene. I’d thought I was doing really well on the whole pregnancy thing until then!
Pregnancy is on my mind these days. To not be coy about it: Carl and I both feel that there is an empty place at our family table (beyond the mere fact of missing Emily). I still have weird feelings about it, like my ideal biological family has “two” children and we have had “two” children and yet we have “one” child and so there is room for “another” child. The quotes there are trying to convey my internal reluctance and ambivalence about this whole counting thing. Not only can I not count children without stumbling over the question of Emily, but each child is so unique that it’s not really about the numbers. But another works best I think. I think our family here in the reality of where we are has room for another child.
Yeah, even with my ambition and my fears about affording good care for two kids or having to stay home for a while and everything that I’ve learned about myself as the imperfect parent that I am, I still think I would like another baby. The fear of what two mean for my life is pretty present and normal, I think, but it does not feel like a dealbreaker. Lyria would adore another baby. And Lynn’s life is screwed anyway, plus she fiercely adores Noah despite his opacity to her.* And given that a baby would be wanted, I also think it would be nice for Noah to have a sibling. If he doesn’t, that is fine too.
I definitely feel that I have an obligation to my work not to rush into anything, so take that as given. But I am going to be 37 in January. Also it took 7 years to conceive and not miscarry Emily. Still haven’t entirely worked out how and when Noah was conceived either although he was so. fast. in comparison that now I vaguely am back in the mindset of my 20s that you might be able to, you know, vaguely plan these things a little, in the start of them anyway.
But then I think of being pregnant again and I just flip out. First of all, I realize that Noah’s pregnancy happened at a very specific time and place and that it was quick after having Emily, but it was dreadful. I cannot imagine being that sick and having that level of fatigue and being a halfway decent parent to Noah, never mind work and everything else. I know that working out now would help and popping iron pills and all the rest of it, sure. But still, there never was any explanation and every pregnancy is like that – you just don’t know, overall, how it will be.
Except I do know that it will be scary and triggering and that it will be really hard to be present. And that’s not really how I want 9 months of Noah’s young life to be.
Then there’s a whole other layer of fear around what if things go wrong. Losing another baby would be devastating. I think with Noah I was still in a certain degree of shock, and also, I hadn’t had a healthy baby so I wasn’t really wholely, roundly, aware of what I was missing. I had a layer of hardness that I no longer have at all. And I don’t want to lose a baby, be devastated, and have Noah have a parent that’s a worse mess. Or what if something happened to me?
Maybe I should just stick to watching the movies about it for now. Cheaper by the Dozen, anyone?
* This is a good blog post topic to take up later.
