The Birth of Our Baby Is Not About You…
Published by www.kidspot.com.au
"I’m left now wondering; what happens when your head and your heart disagree?"
This month I was late… and I don’t mean in an ‘I missed the bus.’ kind of way. I mean in the way that good old ‘Aunt Flo’; who usually sets her fortnightly alarm clock, the second my ovaries close their doors for the month, went AWOL. She just didn’t show up. Not a hint, or a note to say, ‘running late, traffic is a nightmare’.
We’ve always had a fairly decent relationship, her and I. I mean, as decent as Aunt Flo has with anyone. In the early days I’ll admit, it was a little patchy. She was often late. She’d show up unannounced, and I could never really tell how long she was banking on staying around for. She was about as reliable as my high-school boyfriend (but that’s an entirely different tale).
These days though, we’re OK. It’s a simple kind of arrangement. She shows up, I rue the day we ever met, and then in roughly five to seven days, she packs up and leaves me in peace… for the next few weeks at least.
"She got a life"
Then suddenly, she got a life. She was off somewhere unbeknownst to me, kicking up her heels for a whole extra week. Or at least that’s what I imagined at the time, because the alternative was me imagining myself as a mother of four and kicking myself for giving away my maternity clothes that I was ‘never going to wear again’.
We’d always planned on three children, me and my husband. He is an only child, and when we welcomed baby number two, he was done. I am one of four though, and the noise and chaos of a big family just seems so normal to me. So, we compromised, and after some back and forthing a few years ago, we welcomed our third and final baby girl. In fact, my husband is so done with adding to our brood, that he’s basically stockpiling bags of frozen peas for his upcoming Vasectomy next month.
And I thought I was done too.
Yet here I was, entertaining the thought.
Four kids. Me?
My brain was trying so hard to take control of the situation, she was trying to remind me of all the times I’ve cried at the top of my lungs ‘Never again!’. She was trying to remind me of the sleepless newborn nights, the preggo-somnia, the restless leg (Oh god, not the restless leg!), and not to mention the fact that I am the proud owner of an irritable uterus. But my ovaries… Oh, my ovaries were practically squealing at the thought.
“Just remember the newborn squishiness!” they squealed.
“That intoxicating newborn scent!” they cried.
“Remember when they were small enough to sleep on your shoulder?” they shouted at me.
And how could I forget?
"It wasn’t meant to be"But alas, it wasn’t meant to be. Aunt Flo moseyed on in eventually. Without so much as an apology for her tardiness. And I just can’t help but feel a small pang of disappointment that one didn’t ‘accidentally’ slip past the keeper.
I know our baby making days are through. We’re blessed and all that, lucky even, and so often these days, already chasing our tails with the three that we’ve already got. The practicalities and logistics of having that many children, is not an entirely foreign concept to me. Most days I already feel like a headless chook, and for the most part I’m OK with saying goodbye to that part of my life (and looking forward to sleeping all night at some point in the future), but I wonder if I’ll forever have that lingering feeling of ‘unfinished business’.
I’m left now wondering; what happens when your head and your heart disagree?
If you’re not quite done at the time when the line in the baby-making sand is drawn for you, will you ever really be done?
