What About Everything?

For the last time for a while: babies. Stop gagging. I know, I know – all the irritation of a Mommyblog, with none of the cute pictures.

My younger brother’s wife had a baby last week, which, hello familial prodding, and honestly, I don’t know what to tell them when they ask me when or why we haven’t. Someday the thyroid excuse is going to wear thin, and I’m going to have to come up with something better. This is annoying for about a million reasons, but mostly because I am knee-jerk honest, and an oversharer, and usually feel compelled to tell people the truth, and the truth is one I’m not comfortable with, but here it is.

For the better part of the last two weeks, with not-unsubstantiated reason, I have been convinced I was pregnant. ClearBlue “Easy” (a lie) tells me no, but I’m still not completely sure that the test is accurate. And the thing is, I hate my reaction, and I feel like there is/was something wrong with me, hence, all of the bellyaching and whining and “What about the CHILDREN?” questions and self-indulgence and…bah, just bah. Because, forget about the children, what about everything? Really, what about fucking EVERY.THING?

I am honestly disgusted at my reaction during this Time of Fear. I was panicked, looking about wildly for something, anything, familiar to hang on to. Flashes of utter sadness and depression and absolute misery flashed over me like giant bolts of malevolent lightning. I felt selfish and awful and embarrassed and just…miserable, and so I didn’t really tell anyone until today, when I was CONVINCED that it was true, and I was on the cusp of finding out, and all I could say was, “Erica, I’m NOT THERE. I AM HERE, AND THEN WHAT?” because I just…I just…I just wanted to go home, and I realized that I now know where that is, and I’m really and truly nowhere near there.

I just wanted to go home and be with my sister. My friends. People who know me who would help me through it, because I wasn’t ready, and I wasn’t excited, I was just upset and sickened and miserable. And the thing is, that’s pretty pathetic. I’m THIRTY. Hello, if you didn’t hear me, I’M THIRTY. People who are thirty should know enough not to panic if they think they are pregnant. I AM AN ADULT, not a teenager. They should know that they are financially solvent enough to survive a baby (we are) and that the world isn’t ending just because a new life is beginning (is it?). But that’s all I could see: An ending, and that this kid – and Adam – would know that my first reaction wasn’t joy, but was, in fact, terror and loathing. And I wanted to go home and start it all over again. Home. Which is veryvery far away.

It took a long time for the rational thoughts to even come close to the surface. Ones that involved a baby, maybe. That I would name him or her after Adam’s grandma, whom I loved beyond all rational thought. That maybe he or she would have smooshy feet like Sundry‘s Riley (who is, if you’ve never noticed, the cutest baby I’ve honestly ever seen), and like to be carried around in a backpack and visit the ocean and laugh. That maybe I’d learn to be able to communicate with an Aries, because, FUCK, my kid could be an Aries and Capricorns don’t get along with Aries, really, at least in my experience and then OH MY GOD, I’d start to panic again, because: ARIES.*

I didn’t tell anyone. Not my friends, not my sister, and not even Adam, until today. Because I was too ashamed at how scared I was. How chicken I sounded, and what a pathetic wimp I am. How ridiculously stupid 99% of my fears were, and how, if I actually was pregnant, I wouldn’t be as happy as I think I should be, and how there are women – hundreds of thousands of really smart, capable, brilliant women -would give their eye teeth for a baby of their own, and the best I could do was fear it like a coming storm, and try like hell to outrun it.

I wanted to run so far and so fast that nothing, not even my own body, could catch me. And I still might be, and I’ll have to live with this, this awful fear right here in print, and we’ll have to see what happens. It will be okay, but god, what about it? What about a baby and my life and being a parent and what about everything? The closer I get, the further I feel, but at the same time, I realize that this is the only way it will ever happen for me.

I know that if I were pregnant – if now really and truly was the time for me, that I would love that child beyond all fathomability. The love would swallow the whole world. But what sickens me is that I didn’t want to, and I knew it would be in spite of myself. I didn’t want to love him. I didn’t want to move on. I’m not done with me enough to give me to someone else. I have things to do.

And this – this horrible dread, loathing and panic is why I fear infertility. I will never put myself through what I see so many women do every day to have a baby. Not because I disagree with what they do, or because I think it’s somehow wrong – no. It’s that they want it more than I do, and they have a hell of a lot more courage than I do. But strangely, if you asked me if I want children, I will still tell you yes, but I don’t see how I’ll ever get there without an accident, and, after seeing my own horrified reaction, I’m not sure I deserve one anyway.

*This in itself is ridiculous, because if my math is correct – and it’s not my strong suit – he or she would be a Pisces, which is, in fact, safe. A lot safer than an Aries.

**Carbon Leaf

16 comments June 12th, 2006