On Making Human Life

I've been pretty open and public about my desire to, one day soon, be a mother, and I feel like it's time to be equally open and public about my noticeable lack of motherhood or anticipated impending motherhood at this time. 

I'll start with the backstory.

I have been married to my very wonderful, very handsome, very loving husband for over 12 years now.  Before the wedding, we were together for 4 years (give or take a few months).  We met when we were really, really, really young.  And we got married when we were merely really, really young.  Against all statistical odds, we are still together and we still like each other.

We did things sort of out of the typical order of most younglings.  We sowed our wild oats AFTER wedded bliss, traveling the country in truck-and-van theatre tours, skinny dipping in southern swimming holes, drinking corn whiskey out of ball jars and dancing in our underpinnings around bonfires.  We each went to grad school about a decade after earning our Bachelor's Degrees, and are just now, in our mid-thirties, settling down into being grown-ups.

But we've been, you know, married.  The whole time.  To each other.  And we're still cool with it.  That alone is pretty miraculous.

So it was natural that after all these years (about a year and a half ago), we decided that we were ready to grow our family.  After years of being very, very careful NOT to get pregnant, we got very, very serious about getting pregnant.  I did my research; I had been off oral contraceptives for years, and I started doing all the things I read about on every fertility website and every fertility book I could get my hands on.  I had spreadsheets of basal body temperature and varying ovulation indicators.  I had a kitchen filled with all kinds of  'ovulation-promoting' foods:  pomegranate, pineapple core, yams, whatever any website told me would get me pregnant, I was trying it.

I did not make a baby.  You know what I made?  I made myself miserable.  I was planning and avoiding plans based on the possibility that I might be carrying a zygote at any moment.  I refused to eat bacon or drink coffee.  I hung on every tenth of every degree of heat that my body emitted as proof that I was or wasn't going to be achieving THE ONE AND ONLY THING THAT WOULD EVER MAKE MY LIFE FULL.

That, my friends, is a recipe for a really unhappy lifestyle.

It was about a year ago that I stopped all that.  We stopped "trying to conceive", because the operative word in that phrase is "trying".  To quote, well, Yoda: "Do or do not.  There is no try."  You know why he said that?  Because 'trying' STINKS.  Think about it.  It's a word we use to describe things that drive us crazy.

I even Googled it:  

"try·ing ˈtrī-iNG/ adjective adjective: trying"-- difficult or annoying; hard to endure.

"it had been a very trying day"

stressful, taxing, demanding, difficult, tough, hard, pressured, frustrating, fraught; 

arduous, grueling, tiring, exhausting; informal—hellish

You hear that?  Hellish.  In the midst of all this trying, I was convinced that, after years of bliss, my life was suddenly meaningless. 

So my lovely, wonderful husband pointed out to me that life without a baby was already pretty freaking amazing. We have all the trappings of happiness:  love, friends, health, plants, a cat, food, home, heat, meaningful work, and family.  He was right.  Feeling sorry for myself for NOT having a thing that I didn't already have seemed absurd, really.  I also don't have a 60-gallon saltwater tank with sharks, and I don't feel sad about that.  Maybe one day I'll have one.  And if I really, really want to get one, I'll find a way.  But if I don't have one now because of some reason or no reason at all, that's no reason to be miserable.  I've got quite a lot. (As it happens, I have a 10-gallon freshwater tank with tetras.)

So there you have it.  Sometimes I do find myself feeling a little melancholy that it hasn't happened yet (and maybe it won't), particularly when facebook keeps putting pregnant lady ads in my feed (yes, fb, I realize I'm 'that age' and female.  Thanks for the reminder.).  But then I remember that, for the time being, I don't have to buy diapers or worry about immunizations; I can watch hours and hours of television, eat takeout on the couch, and sleep as much as I darn well please.  So it's not all bad.  Maybe one day (maybe sooner, maybe later) I'll have the blessed good fortune to be broke, exhausted, and covered in spit up.  That would be fantastic.  Seriously.  For now, I can take comfort in the fact that if/when it happens, I am grateful for the blessings I have and have had all along, because I really do have many.  Blessings, that is.

My blessings are many, and I hope yours are, too.  Take a moment to appreciate those that you've got.  It's a good feeling.  It's even as good as making stuff (and other stuff).