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A couple of months ago, I wrote:

Today, I overheard a co-worker telling a real estate agent that she is in the process of getting a separation.  She has two boys and one is only 7 months old.  It made me feel sad for her but almost relieved.  Of course I don’t know the particulars, but I was relieved to know that someone else was finding marriage and children tough.  Now that I’ve written that down I feel pretty shallow.   But, I’m just being honest.  I get all wound up sometimes when people seem to be going along all pretty and pink.

In fact, I can hardly stomach couples with two (or more) kids.

Especially if they’re smiling.

Then I wrote a little P.S. ~

(To those of you managing with multiples, I hope I did not offend.  But right now you just happen to be up there with women who maintain a size 4, eat doughnuts, and refuse to exercise.  If you are a size four, and you have three kids, and you eat doughnuts, and you’re still married, you best stay out of my way…)

Apparently, I was offensive.  But, that’s beside the point.

I can’t help that my innards twist and that I am only two small steps away from piece-mealing a Voo Doo Doll when I hear about baby number two or three or four.   I can openly admit that I get crazy jealous.   Sometimes just plain jealous.  Sometimes evil jealous.  And, sometimes I just suffer from the ole self-loathing variety.  (And, yes, I am aware that piece-mealing is not a verb.)

Still, the problem is not my actual jealousy.  (Well, maybe that’s a bit of a problem.  Especially because it doesn’t just stop at baby making.  Lately, I’ve been just pure out and out green.)

The problem is my dishonesty around the reason for my jealousy.

You see, I WANT ANOTHER BABY!.

I pretend that I don’t.   But, I don’t pretend very well.   Everyone knows that I want another baby.

In fact, I talk about it incessantly.  I tell random strangers.  Or, my husband’s friends.  My therapist even pointed out– when I thought that I was being direct about it for the first time–”Yes, you’ve mentioned that three times already today.”  (”Today” being the past thirty minutes.)

I am nuts about wanting another bun in the oven.  (Even if by immaculate conception.)

But, when asked directly about whether or not I’m thinking of “number two”, I often say things like: “Hmmmm…  I don’t think so.”  or  “You know, Silas might just end up being a solo child.”  or  “That’s none of your GD business!”

Occasionally, I’ll tell the truth:

“I’d love to have another baby, but we can’t afford it.”

(And sometimes I also feel compelled to add:  “Well, I did just stop hating my husband like three weeks ago.)

The truth is, I feel trapped.

And, if one more person says something like:  “Well, if you wait until you can afford it…”  I’ll scream.  Because we have to wait until we can afford it or we’ll be eating Sheetrock dust.

Still, I prefer the encouragement to the alternative I’ve gotten.  The “You really might want to consider stopping here” or “Things have been so tough on you, one might be enough.”

I know I can’t have it both ways.  I can’t expect sympathy on one hand and encouragement on the other.

Or, can I?

Yes, the last two years have been tough.  Silas was a screamer. I had postpartum illness.  Paul was depressed, was mis-medicated, and destroyed our kitchen.  And now we’re in an ugly financial nightmare that feels like it has no end.  And, yes, we went from two to three and now I want four.

Still, just because life has been tough doesn’t mean that I am, that we are, not capable of pulling our heels up by the bootstraps, of battening down and finding a solution to this financial mess, of discovering what love means after adversity, or of having another (happy) child.

You see, I get all wrecked up and anxious when someone tells me what they think I probably want to hear: “You don’t need to have another baby to feel complete.”

It’s not that I want to feel complete or that other people that are telling me that I can’t have another baby.    It’s me. me. me.

I am, as my grandmother would often say, the friggin’ Wreck of the Hesperus.   I am, as my husband would contend, a ball of ugly negativity.  When did I turn into this wad of tar-like cynicism?  When did I become so, well, stock out of idealism?

I must say and say I must that I don’t know.

Still, while I am not at that place of “ready to conceive”, I guess I am certain that I will, someday, if blessed with the opportunity, going to be the vessel to bring another life into this world.

Stop!  That’s bullshit!  I am ready to conceive.  I am.  I know I am.  (Even if I may change my mind several weeks or even days from now…)

I am ready and I am trapped.   That’s the truth.  There is no way on Earth that we could, right now, pay our bills and either survive on one income or put another little one in day care.  No way.  Not right now.

But that’s the key, I think.  Not right now.

We can do this thing.  This family thing.  This marriage.  This one more baby.  We can.

We just have to get our shit together first.

And, we will.  I am certain of it.

(There, not so negative right?!?)

I read on my friend’s blog, you know the one that I was puking all sorts of green over, about her plans for baby number two.  One of her concerns was about not finding room for all that love.  For, maybe, not being able to love the next baby as much as the first one.  (I may have just butchered her sentiment, but earlier I also said that I was happy to hear that a couple was getting a divorce.  I am not trying to be pretty here.)

While I understand what she is getting at– I’ve heard many parents say it– but I don’t feel like I share that concern.  I feel like I could love five more and all with the same brilliant fervor.  (Of course, then I often wonder if maybe I just don’t love my son enough.  Like maybe there is something wrong with me.)

The problem for me is more like sometimes I don’t know if I can hack it.  If I can deal with the nitty-gritty.  If I can give up even more of my time, of myself, of my passions.  If I can be even less selfish.

Still, the grass is always greener.

And, I want that luscious green.

So, let’s hope, let’s toast, that in a few years you will meet me here, an accomplished young writer and mother of two, as I explore the reasons why it’s so damn tough to have two instead of one.

Here ye!

Congrats to all of you and your babies and your dreams of babies.

I can stop hating you now.

~Em

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 at 10:44 pm and is filed under On Competitiveness, On Friends and Family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.