Perversely Unyielding, or Possibly Deranged
Ah, the paradox of parenting; when are you truly satisfied? And on what benchmark is that satisfaction based? If you prove your reproductive mastery and pop out many children on timely schedule? Or if you do the best of your ability to produce one noble creature and bask in the glory?
I ponder often about whether or not I really, absolutely, genuinely want another child.
A wise woman recently asked, Why do you want what you want?.
For me, I think it is more stubbornness than an aching need.
I ache with grief over losing Nicholas. But I don't feel like I ache any longer over infertility and my characteristic inability to carry a fetus to term. Or you know, squeeze out a live one.
There was a time I coveted other's babies. Why not ME?, I'd wail inside my gut. Jealousy, envy, gluttony. Why couldn't I be happy with the one I have?
I am! I was! I still am! Thing is, I believe I hate to be a failure. If I want something bad enough, I work hard until I achieve it. If I give up, it had better damn well be my own decision, and not some other person or force making the rules. I don't do rules very well.
So, it is with considerable uncertainty that I have decided to try to make a decision. Shit, or get off the pot, as they say.
When faced with uncertainty and a subject I'd just as soon not ponder most of the time, I have this weird little habit of overanalyzing things. Rather than just AVOID what bothers me, I dive in head-first and wallow around in it until I can't take it any more. Glutton for punishment, my mother calls me. Don't tell her, but she may be right.
Let's dissect a "decision".
By making a decision, one has to adjudicate, arbitrate, and come to a determination.
A conclusion.
Definition of conclusion: To come to an end.
Armed with my handy list of pros and cons regarding continued attempts at losing my mind much further, I have wrestled internally with just how much more I can take. And is it worth it? Really? Can't I just move on, for fuck's sake??
If a wrinkled, soiled, screaming infant was placed on my doorstep tomorrow morning, I would be beside myself with glee.
If I have to wipe thick, gooey globs of coagulated blood and cellular debris from my inflamed and achey hoo-ha for one more goddamn week I will be beside myself with the patients on the 7th floor adult psych unit, waiting for my meds, rocking and humming, and spelling complex medical terms backwards.
Either way, the sun will arise tomorrow, the bills will be stuffed in my mailbox, and we'll still be running low on toiletpaper.
Work is going well. Pretty damn good, if I do say so myself, and I am faced with opportunities to grow and flourish, if I chose to do so. Or, I could just stay comfortably where I'm at and do nothing, for now. Wouldn't the whole "I'll just keep trying and failing because I'm too fucking stubborn to give up" sort of set me back, just a little bit? But. To give up? To QUIT? I am not a quitter. And the "what ifs" keep pelting me like spit-wads in junior high.
What if I took advantage of the employer-paid tuition and went back for another degree? What if I got pregnant again? What if I worked my way up the ladder? What if the pregnancy/loss takes its toll and ruins me emotionally (if not professionally)? What if the imaginary fetus was delivered alive and I found myself faced with daycare and sick days and exhaustion and all the other fun stuff I went through already? What if I just suck it up, be proactive in my reproductive jocularity, and fix it so that there can be no more questioning, wondering, pondering, hoping, grieving?
Besides, as my loving hubster has pointed out, "We'll be having grandkids before too long."
We could build our dream home in the boondocks. Travel. Be relaxed, and happy, and grow old together.
When is enough, enough?
Why do I want what I want?
At an impending 38 years old, with an ornery high-school graduate soon to be leaving home, and a career that is sure to keep me warm at night, do I HONESTLY "need" to even consider the possibility of playing this losing game further? Been there, done that, have the gray hairs to prove it. Oh, and these nice little "worry lines" that suddenly appeared on my forehead. WTF is that all about? I'm the only woman I know who has pimples, wrinkles, gray hair, and a soul patch. I just reek of sexuality.
I have no verifiable reason to explain why this subject even needs to be tossed around in my head. The sane, analytical, feet-grounded-in-reality side of me already knows what the best answer would be. That other chick, well, she's just nutz.
I ponder often about whether or not I really, absolutely, genuinely want another child.
A wise woman recently asked, Why do you want what you want?.
For me, I think it is more stubbornness than an aching need.
I ache with grief over losing Nicholas. But I don't feel like I ache any longer over infertility and my characteristic inability to carry a fetus to term. Or you know, squeeze out a live one.
There was a time I coveted other's babies. Why not ME?, I'd wail inside my gut. Jealousy, envy, gluttony. Why couldn't I be happy with the one I have?
I am! I was! I still am! Thing is, I believe I hate to be a failure. If I want something bad enough, I work hard until I achieve it. If I give up, it had better damn well be my own decision, and not some other person or force making the rules. I don't do rules very well.
So, it is with considerable uncertainty that I have decided to try to make a decision. Shit, or get off the pot, as they say.
When faced with uncertainty and a subject I'd just as soon not ponder most of the time, I have this weird little habit of overanalyzing things. Rather than just AVOID what bothers me, I dive in head-first and wallow around in it until I can't take it any more. Glutton for punishment, my mother calls me. Don't tell her, but she may be right.
Let's dissect a "decision".
By making a decision, one has to adjudicate, arbitrate, and come to a determination.
A conclusion.
Definition of conclusion: To come to an end.
Armed with my handy list of pros and cons regarding continued attempts at losing my mind much further, I have wrestled internally with just how much more I can take. And is it worth it? Really? Can't I just move on, for fuck's sake??
If a wrinkled, soiled, screaming infant was placed on my doorstep tomorrow morning, I would be beside myself with glee.
If I have to wipe thick, gooey globs of coagulated blood and cellular debris from my inflamed and achey hoo-ha for one more goddamn week I will be beside myself with the patients on the 7th floor adult psych unit, waiting for my meds, rocking and humming, and spelling complex medical terms backwards.
Either way, the sun will arise tomorrow, the bills will be stuffed in my mailbox, and we'll still be running low on toiletpaper.
Work is going well. Pretty damn good, if I do say so myself, and I am faced with opportunities to grow and flourish, if I chose to do so. Or, I could just stay comfortably where I'm at and do nothing, for now. Wouldn't the whole "I'll just keep trying and failing because I'm too fucking stubborn to give up" sort of set me back, just a little bit? But. To give up? To QUIT? I am not a quitter. And the "what ifs" keep pelting me like spit-wads in junior high.
What if I took advantage of the employer-paid tuition and went back for another degree? What if I got pregnant again? What if I worked my way up the ladder? What if the pregnancy/loss takes its toll and ruins me emotionally (if not professionally)? What if the imaginary fetus was delivered alive and I found myself faced with daycare and sick days and exhaustion and all the other fun stuff I went through already? What if I just suck it up, be proactive in my reproductive jocularity, and fix it so that there can be no more questioning, wondering, pondering, hoping, grieving?
Besides, as my loving hubster has pointed out, "We'll be having grandkids before too long."
We could build our dream home in the boondocks. Travel. Be relaxed, and happy, and grow old together.
When is enough, enough?
Why do I want what I want?
At an impending 38 years old, with an ornery high-school graduate soon to be leaving home, and a career that is sure to keep me warm at night, do I HONESTLY "need" to even consider the possibility of playing this losing game further? Been there, done that, have the gray hairs to prove it. Oh, and these nice little "worry lines" that suddenly appeared on my forehead. WTF is that all about? I'm the only woman I know who has pimples, wrinkles, gray hair, and a soul patch. I just reek of sexuality.
I have no verifiable reason to explain why this subject even needs to be tossed around in my head. The sane, analytical, feet-grounded-in-reality side of me already knows what the best answer would be. That other chick, well, she's just nutz.
posted by Julie at 1:10 AM
5 Comments:
If it helps, I tend to be the same way...stick to it, no matter what the cost, because, damnit, I'm not going to quit! Stubborn and over analytical. Good thing that I went to law school.
Does it all make us deranged? Yep, probably. But the thing is, this is just a part of the human condition, part of living. You know, that whole free will thing. Keep chewing, you'll find the right place!
I'm the only woman I know who has pimples, wrinkles, gray hair, and a soul patch.
I can top that: I have the dark sultry eyes (so what if the smudges are below my eyes).
Like you, I don't like having what I feel is a "failure". Especially when the ability to make it right is something that may for many be impossible.
This post was worth the wait, but you really don't have to make us wait that long again, do you? I've been missing you.
I understand. I feel exactly the same. Sometimes I wonder whether I even enjoy the child I have, I'm being so stubborn in my attempts to get number 2.
I think it's a stage of grief, this determination, this looking for strategies.
Thank you for your post. And to drowned girl for her comment. I was thinking that very thing today -- as I buried myself in blogs and sisterhood and negected my 4-year-old while looking for sanity. I'm an at-home-mom, but often wonder if it matters since I'm often depressed or distracted by our IF situation or the financial turmoil that's a result. But it is so hard to give up. Stubborn can be a good thing.
I agree with everything in your post. Sometimes it is hard to determine where your desire to have another child ends and the need begins. I knwo that I desire another child but do I need one? Do I need to drive myself and my DH crazy every month, do I need to feel like a failure every month, etc? Sometimes I think my desire for another one has been enveloped by a need that I have to have now. Does that make sense??
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