Shoe leather. And wanting.

November 3, 2009 at 1:01 pm | Posted in motherhood, My life, rants | 12 Comments

So, as it turns out?

My level of mental Zen is directly proportional to the amount of sleep I’m getting.

Now that O’s better, he’s sleeping more. And more importantly, LONGER.

As in, through the night.

WOO.

And so I’ve managed to catch up on my OWN sleep.

So I’m feeling good. He’s still exhausting and exciting, and physical, and playful, and fun, and every day I spend with him I collapse into my bed at the day’s end, utterly exhausted.

But I wouldn’t have it any other way.

This weekend we went to a baby shower. For a girl who has gone to EVERY BABY SHOWER imaginable. Even when she and her husband were having marital issues. Even when kids were a LONG ways away.

So when we got the invite for the Jack and Jill party, I knew we had to go.

(Even though I still hate baby showers.)

It wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be. O kept me on my toes, and since husbands were there, too, it felt like just a gathering of friends moreso than a SHOWER. So that was good.

But there were babies there. My friend J, who had her utterly adorable, gorgeous, happy, smiling baby boy in June.

And another friend N, who had her son in July. Who when she was pregnant was already planning on her kids being as close together as they could possibly be.

And it came out during the course of the party that N was pregnant again.

Her kids will be 11 months apart.

My first reaction, I admit, was to remark that she was nuts.

(Yep. I actually SAID THAT. “You’re NUTS.” )

I immediately regretted it. And subsequently spent the rest of the conversation frantically trying to make things better, speaking through the taste of shoe leather.

I totally ROCK the friend thing.

But on the way home, I realized.

I want to be in her place.

I want to be pregnant.

It freaks me the fuck out, truthfully. I think “I want another baby” and then I pretty much mentally shut down.

Because when I think about having a baby… and managing O… and my marriage… and my full time job and the cost of daycare and transitioning O to another room or making the guest room another nursery and having a newborn and the bottles and sleep deprivation and schedules and money and… AND…

Well, you can see how quickly my thoughts spiral into “OMFG. NO WAY can we manage that.”

And then I think that one is enough.

I think the most annoying part of it all is that I feel like we have to make a DECISION. To go back to the doctor, to DECLARE “yes, okay, we’re ready.”

Because in my world, ready has always meant something more than where I’m at right now.

I mean, I THINK I’m as ready as I will be.

Really, how does one PREPARE for another? I have SOME knowledge of what’s involved with having a newborn.

But.

I have NO IDEA of what having a newborn AND a toddler will be like.

So yeah. All I’m going on right now is this WANT thing. I WANT to see O as a big brother. I WANT to complete our family.

But mostly?

I WANT to be finished with thinking about TTC. I WANT to be DONE with doctors and reproductive medicine.

I WANT to live our life, and be a mom, and have our two kids, and just be DONE with all this TTC nonsense. I DON’T WANT to have the internal debate whenever I see EWCM – do I seduce my husband or not? (Because there’s always a CHANCE that we can get pregnant, as small as it is.)

I WANT to set how far we’re willing to go in stone (FETs only? ONE IVF cycle? Two? Three? Seventeen?) and then stick to that plan.

And be DONE when we end up there with nothing to show for it.

At this point, I just WANT to be done. I WANT to feel like I’m NORMAL.

Where, you know, I have the family I planned for because I WANTED it.

I know it doesn’t work that way, though. Maybe it will for us, because we get lucky enough to be blessed with the two kids we WANT.

Maybe it won’t for us, either. Maybe it’ll just be our family of three.

I’m just tired of THINKING about it, though.

And really, it boils down to this.

I just want to move past infertility for good.