Les, for the record, is TOTALLY PSYCHED about trying to have a baby. So psyched in fact that he has been telling anyone and everyone that we have "decided this year to try to have a baby". The first time he said it, I freaked. I kindly, quietly asked him not to announce that information. Even if I were as excited as he is, I don't think it's the kind of thing you tell people over lunch. But he can't seem to help himself. He's talking about it pretty much every chance he gets.
It's cute. It's encouraging and very sweet to hear him talk about it with such enthusiasm. He also has very little filter about the topic, so he doesn't think it is weird to ask people whether having a baby has impacted their spiritual life, or whether they thought it was harder or easier to get pregnant than they expected, or whether they feel completely overwhelmed by the responsibility, or anything along those lines. If he were just asking some close friends in a one-on-one setting, I don't think I would be so spooked. But he's talking about it in large-ish groups of acquaintances and near-strangers. With a big, eager grin on his face.
It doesn't upset me, exactly, but it does freak me out. I feel exposed, and set up for public disappointment/pity/whatever if this just doesn't go as we hope. And, to be honest, I'm still not 100% "there" about the pregnancy thing.
For 5 days last week, I thought I was pregnant. I *really* thought I was. It was unexpected and terrifying. And kind of a relief. I would have been terrified if it had really happened, but relieved that we had gotten pregnant so easily and had been spared months and months of anxiousness, let-downs, and discouragement. When the test was negative, I was a little disappointed, but ultimately really glad for more time. More time to lose some weight, get disciplined about our finances, go to the dentist and the doctor and go on a wine tour in California and all those things that we keep saying we are going to do. And I was happy to have some more time to reconsider. A reprieve, so to speak.
I sit here in an uncomfortably lukewarm bath of ambivalence about procreating. Parenthood, yes. I feel like I could really get excited about adopting. Not that that is smooth sailing and free of anxiety and discouragement. I've read enough and talked to enough adoptive and adoption-hopeful parents to know that it is NOT for the faint of heart. But at least I'm not (yet) worried about being too old to get started.
That's what it really boils down too, I think. I'll be 35 in just over 30 days, and frankly, I am not confident of my physical ability to conceive and carry a healthy baby to delivery. Why? Because I've been reading, checking my biological signs and signals, and feeling my heart rate accelerate every time I see or read or chart or feel something that leans me towards the "not very likely" end of the fertility spectrum. I'll spare you the gory details, but suffice to say that the mucus, the temperatures, the cycle tracking do not really scream "You're still totally fertile!".
Les admonishes me to have hope, and that there are plenty of women who have healthy babies at and after 35. And that's the kicker. Because I'm not sure how hopeful I really want to be about all of this. I think I really would be OK with just deciding to scrap the pregnancy and skip straight to the adoption applications. Motherhood doesn't scare me anymore. I'm excited about it. I'm ready to move on it. But "trying to get pregnant", actually BEING pregnant, and delivering a healthy baby out of my actual body scares the shit out of me. Still.
"Have lots of sex and bring your pregnant wife ice cream and then cheer her on during delivery" just isn't as scary. Les is just so gosh darn cute in his cluelessness! Maybe I need to get him to watch "The Business of Being Born" again. That may scare us both straight.
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