Dark Can Be Funny, Right?

This pregnancy wasn't planned. We had started talking about the possibility of trying this summer to give Caleb a little sibling, but we hadn't entirely agreed on that timeline. No, we weren't preventing. But considering it took us months to get pregnant before, while actively charting, I didn't really think we were in the market for an Oops. And, yet, that's precisely what happened.

Pregnancy was so far off my radar that I was 10 days late before I even thought to test. Not 10 days past ovulation, but 10 days after I was supposed to get my period. And I'm one of those clockwork cycle ladies.

But we started to adjust to the idea of two under two, RB and I did. And we joked about Caleb's baby twin sisters, because three under two is even more funny. We figured out the baby would be due on New Years' Eve, and so we nervously laughed about our Halloween baby. The only thing funnier than three under two, apparently, is two babies in the NICU with a 15-month-old at home.

As we adjusted and warmed to the idea of trading the Mini Cooper for a minivan, we were starting to actually get excited about this little pickle we'd gotten ourselves into. We codenamed the baby "Inchworm" (Caleb was "Tadpole" until he was 4 days old), and we started to talk about room adjustments and carseat purchases and whether a third baby was in the cards for the future.

However, my progesterone numbers were falling. Not terribly surprisingly, yesterday afternoon the doctor couldn't find a heartbeat anywhere. At 8 weeks, it shouldn't be hard to find a heartbeat, so the pregnancy has been officially called non-viable. We have a D&C scheduled for next week, and then we'll let my body recover before diving into trying again.

In a world where a quarter of all pregnancies end in miscarriage, and a world where some people never have one, there are some of us doomed to have more. No one ever plans to be in the 3-pregnancies-1-child camp, but here I find myself. At least I do have that one child, and he is such a joy. I can't lose sight of that, even though times like this are hard.

So, now that my dark sense of humor is clear, and since I obviously cope oddly, I have to share this song whose slightly modified version is stuck in my head:

Go ahead and watch it. It's only about 2 minutes long. I'll wait.

And you're welcome. I can now virtually guarantee this song will be stuck in your head, too. Because, well, dead babies aren't much fun, either, but the song is catchy.

Returning

So, I'd abandoned this place of writing for a very long time. Three and a half years to be exact. Wow. Lots has changed in that time, and I think it's time to resurrect this for a few reasons. I doubt anyone is still following this thing, but in case they are, welcome back! Hmm....Here's the quick update. GB and I officially got divorced. We still keep in touch -- he's remarried with a one-year-old, and doing well -- but we're both happier not to be married to each other. Me? Well, I moved back to Austin, married this guy (I'll call him "RB") here, and had a baby (who I will call "Caleb" here) this past July. Names changed to protect the guilty, here. You never know what people do with stuff they find on the internet and all that. Anyway, it's been crazy, but the result is pretty much awesome. And now I'm back. I'm pretty sure this blog will look different, but it's still me.

One Less Thing to Worry About

I got some test results back, and I am not a carrier of any of the 23 types of cycstic fibrosis they can test for. While they still give me a 1/16 chance of passing it to my offspring based purely on the fact that it's in the family, I'm not that worried. My aunt had everyone in her family tested when my cousin was diagnosed and she's comfortable with the results that her other two kids aren't carriers. I'm guessing they haven't decided to stop testing for certain types of the gene, so if she was comfortable they tested for the right variety, then I am too.

Now we can go try to conceive with reckless abandon, I guess. We can just worry about the eight million other things that could go wrong, instead.

Mixed Feelings And All That

I have a lot of friends and acquaintances that are expecting. I think it comes with the territory. I'm at that age where most of my friends are married and looking at that time of their life. I work at a company where the average employee age is right about 30. I have lots of cousins approaching their late 30's and feeling the need to rush, and a bunch more in their early- to mid-twenties, where you always just sort of wonder how careful they are being. And I read a surprising number of infertility blogs, considering we've received no such medical diagnosis.

And unlike Julie, in a post I read this afternoon, I don't generally want to hear these things first-hand in person. Unless I know you really well. I think this time in my company's history is a perfect time for me not to work in the main office, but safely in my quiet house away from all that (I know of 3 people expecting in a relatively small office). It's much better to get the IM from someone to the effect of "Guess whose wife is pregnant?", rather than to get blindsided by it in person. I actually dig for that information from all the known office gossips just before I have a scheduled visit back to Austin. That way I have time to get rid of my own baggage in private, so I can be genuinely happy for them. Or at least act like I'm genuinely happy for them. You should see all my scripts and talk to my director about the blocking for them. It's a big production sometimes.

It's easier for me with the people that I know are trying hard, like they somehow deserve it more than other people (congrats, Julie! and T!). I know, I know, life's not fair and things don't always come to the folks that deserve the good things the most. And it's mean of me not to be equally happy for everyone that's expecting. So then I hate myself for being selective with my genuine happiness. Thus, the mixed feelings.

I guess, unless we're really close, let me know electronically, so I have a chance to be mean and hateful or sad and depressed on my own and not inflict that on you and your happy news. In a couple of days I should be good and ready to be (mostly) truly happy for you. I want to be happy for you, so I will do my best to be such.

I'm a long way, today, from seven or eight years ago when my last contact from highschool called to let me know she was expecting. I was very much not in that place at that time, and I'd always considered us very similar (graduated at the top of our class, went to college in technical fields, married the month after graduation, skipped the master's and went straight into software companies). My immediate reaction was "Did you do that on purpose?" I took it back as soon as I said it, and we laugh about it today. Now, if she called to say she was expecting number three, I'd congratulater her and tell her how jealous I am of her stay-at-home-mom life.

A couple years back I had an acquaintance that announced to all her friends that she would have a baby by her anniversary (this was a month or two after the wedding). And, lo and behold, by the 6-month point she was announcing her first trimester was completed and would be having her baby right on schedule. I had trouble being happy for her with the control she seemed to be able to exert over her baby timing. It was never, particularly, a friendship, but all contact pretty much ended after that. I couldn't really even fake happy for her, very well. Again, the self-flagellation is in full swing (Ha!), and I know I'm not a very nice person for it.

And then, recently, I found out about another friend. She has a son with hemophilia (he's almost three and very healthy). She got pregnant again, had the baby tested, found he also had hemophilia and aborted the pregnancy. She's trying again via IVF to test for the gene before transfer. I don't really know how I feel about that course of action (for myself in her shoes, not as any judgement on her handling of that situation). I have cystic fibrosis in my family, so there is the possibility that I could be faced with a similar situation (assuming I'm willing to even test the fetus for the possibility). Deliver a child that I know will have a chronic and life-shortening disease or abort it and live with the "what ifs" for the rest of my life. What if they found a cure? What if the child was able to really live a meaningful life in that short time? What if that was my only chance to be a mother? I guess that makes me selfish, in addition to mean.

So, I'm conflicted. I don't want to be, and I try very hard to be happy for each and every one of you that finds yourself in the position I'd like to find myself in. I'd really appreciate a little tip ahead of the "p" word (sort of like a friend who started out the conversation by saying "You know how I've had the 'flu' for two weeks now?" -- just enough time to get there and prep myself a little before having to hear "pregnant"). That's just my own little need there. Everyone else's is different, I'm sure. But I got married really early, so my wedding invitation didn't cause you any of that "I wonder if I'll *ever* be sending one of these out?" angst. A little sensitivity to let me have my angst in private is all I ask.

What Else do I Have to Learn?

Monica and James both made comments that must have been ripe for the considering. While thinking about what may be in store for us that might lead to having kids not being the best decision ever, I started to think about all this in a slightly different sort of way.

Life is a journey. Every experience you have gives you new perspective on the world around you, and helps you develop new skills that might come in handy with future experiences. There are certainly things I've done that I know I couldn't have done as well without X having happened before Y to teach me something in particular. There is definitely a desirable order to some experiences, and it's nice if things go in that direction.

So, what is the X that is supposed to happen before my Y of having kids? (Ha -- get it? Xs and Ys? Maybe it's only funny to me.) What sorts of experiences am I supposed to have (or is my husband supposed to have) in order to better prepare us for the crazy world of parenthood? Since I have no way of seeing into his brain, I'll just focus on myself. Here are the main skillsets I can see that I could use some work on pre-kids.

Patience. Couldn't we all get better at this one? My relationship with my husband has taught be quite a bit of this over the years and my sister living with us taught me how to push the limits of what I can tolerate. I am currently lightyears ahead of where I was ten years ago, but that's not really saying much. I do think I am slower to get angry than I used to be, but I'm also just slower than I used to be. I could use a little reminder to count to 10 before getting angry every once in a while.

House Maintenance. I've never been a great, or even middling, housekeeper. Dishes stack up for days. Laundry isn't always done until there are no clothes to wear. Toilets start to grow moldy, fungusy things. The refrigerator does, too. Go figure, since one of my dad's favorite sayings while I was growing up was "Cleanliness is next to Godliness." Pthbbt. Whatever. It's just never been a really high priority for me. I do clean when I know someone's coming over, and I am capable of doing the work, it's just not the first thing I do when I finish my workday, and sometimes it piles up. Living in this house that has to be kept clean for showings does help, and I'm starting to like having the house clean for us, and not just for company. Hopefully, I can keep that going if the house isn't on the market and will have learned something new. If not, I figure a messy house leads to stronger immune systems. Or I can find any other justification I need.

Sleep-Deprived Functioning. This is probably the biggest one for me right now. The thought of the first few months of nearly total sleep deprivation is a little scary. I'm a girl that really likes her 8-9 hours of sleep each night. I also like a weekend nap if I can get it in. I know in my head that when I'm exercising I can get by on less sleep, so maybe that will come into play, and I fully intend to sleep whenever I can with a little one to avoid issues if at all possible. Sleep deprivation is one of those things that depletes patience faster than anything. Not sure how else to try to teach myself these skills. A deathbed watch doesn't sound like a lot of fun. I'm not going back to school to have to pull all-nighters (those didn't work out well in college, either). Maybe I just have to exercise more so I'm in better shape and ready to take on whatever is thrown at me.

Those of you that are parents, maybe you can relate some things that you see now that you had to learn before you became a parent. I'd be interested to look for other opportunities to learn the skills that would come in handy for the fun that could lie ahead.

Happy Birthday, Husband!

Today is my husband's birthday. Please don't tell him I told you, because he apparently hates his birthday. I'm a big fan of birthdays, and have decided to celebrate his, whether he wants to or not. In order to do this in a way that doesn't make him mad at me, I'm celebrating here with a list of why my husband would make a good father. (Wink, wink! There's an ulterior motive here -- see if I can convince you that he would make a good parent, maybe I'll be able to convince him one day.)

1. He's a constant learner and questionner. I believe that children learn some things about life from watching how their parents interact with the world. He loves to debate topics and experiment and research ideas and talk through something and pick up a brand new hobby and learn about it. This love of learning is infectious, and I know he'll pass that one to our kids. He'll probably also cause many visits to the ER, but that just adds to the spice of life. What kind of a childhood can it really be with no ER visits? Well, mine, but that's precisely my point -- mine was mostly boring. He would make sure that our kids' growing up wasn't boring.

2. He is tender and loving. While he is convinced that a kid would turn up on his discarded hobby-of-the-month pile at some point, I'm convinced that's not the case. I've seen him with other people's kids, and he's great. He has a Godson he writes letters to, because one day that kid will want to read them. He is quiet and kind and not afraid to cry or say he's sorry. Besides, loving a child of your own is one of those things that you can't imagine until you're a parent and then you can't imagine not being a parent again (at least that's what my parent-friends tell me). He's just too sweet a soul to become apathetic or mean to a child.

3. He is committed to his family. This overdeveloped sense of family of his is very endearing and a little maddening at the same time. His sister is not a very nice person, and takes out most of her anger on their mother. Who is the good son that talks his mother off the ledges after the shouting matches? My husband. Who still calls the sister on her birthday even though she hasn't talked to us in months? My husband. Who is constantly remarking how brilliant his 10-year-old stepsister is and talking with her mother about ideas to nurture her creativity? My husband. Who takes every call from his uncle who just wants to talk non-stop about cameras and no one ever wants to listen to him? My husband. Who is convinced my baby sister can do anything she wants if she's just encouraged enough? Well, besides me? My husband. Who offered to have my crazy sister come live with us when she hit rock bottom? My husband. I'm constantly amazed by how hard he tries to give all the family members around him what they need, even when that's not reciprocated.

4. He's encouraging. Anytime we talk about other people, his thoughts always turn to what they're great at. These observations generally have nothing to do with what he's good at. He's genuinely interested in recognizing their strengths, even if they don't notice them themselves. This is vital in parenting, as you can't just try to raise mini-mes that the parent lives vicariously through. As such, I know he would help our children explore themselves and discover the innate talents that they have and then practice them in order to better succeed as people.

5. He loves my cupcakes. I'm not certain that this will make him a good dad, but it might. Meanwhile, I better go finish them before he gets home. What's a birthday without cake?

Purge...Didn't...Work

I thought that by typing out the thoughts I have over and over and over again that I would be able to move on to other topics. Well, by the lack of posts lately you should all be assuming that didn't so much happen.

So, while the frustration hasn't abated, I've decided to come back and bore you about our current disconnect. My husband is concerned that we have to be a certain amount of stable in order to expand our family beyond the two of this. I agree, to some extent. We are both very responsible, we have great credit, we live below our means (at least until we buy a house -- HA!), we're healthy, we're done with school, we're both employed at jobs we like that compensate us appropriately, our only debt is a 2005 Mini that'll be paid off in the next year without trying (at least until we buy a house -- HA!). We're in a good spot. Expecting to be in a more stable place seems akin to trying to buy the moon. Right now, he harps on the fact that we're renting a house that is on the market, and so we could have to move at any time. I say "So?" in my head, but I know it's a concern of his, so I try to treat it with respect. Now we've made an offer and things are moving slowly on that front, which is good, because I think we may have to back out of it.

Here's the background on my husband that you have to understand for this to make sense. He loves the idea of home. You could say he's obsessed with it. Every time he sees a "Home for Sale" sign he goes ballistic. See "home" is where you go to feel safe and loved and you're almost invincible there. People sell houses. You couldn't buy a home with all the money in the world. I have worked tirelessly to create something that he could call home. It'll never be as perfect and safe as he has in his mind (have I ever mentioned that he's such a girl sometimes?), but I think I'm getting the hang of what he's looking for: a place with discussion and debate, but not fighting; a place where projects can be done, but don't have to be; a place where good food is eaten and available for all-hours snacking; a place where people work hard and see the results; a place where one knows the surroundings, and feels reasonably sure they will stay there. I don't always manage to create all of this, but the closer I come to making our house meet these sorts of criteria the happier he is, and the more I get the things I want. I don't mean to say that I do things to try and get a measured response from him, I mean that we have a positively reinforced cycle -- one that I generally get as much out of as I put in, even if not the same sorts of things. I don't want you all to get the impression that I'm a 1950s housewife, either. He cleans and does laundry and does various projects with the best of them. I'm just home more to do more of the mundane house stuff. But he so appreciates it since he's not so depressed anymore. All this would point to buying a house and being able to be more settled -- being able to do projects around the house without a landlord's approval, etc.

But...and there is always a "but" with these things...he get's buyer's remorse more than anyone I've ever heard of. This is seriously difficult because he buys way more stuff than I do. This year, his major purchases have included some zany-looking speakers, an original-style camera, an iPhone, and more computer equipment than I care to think about. And each time, he remembers how much money this all costs, and he's sad or mad for days. The more money something costs the longer the sadness/madness lasts. When we bought his car, it lasted about a month. A house costs more than a car. I'll let you do the math. Oh, and the house has termites. And dry rot. And possibly structural issues.

So, here we are. Buy a house and help him feel more "stable" (not honestly sure that anything will make him feel more stable) and likely have buyer's remorse for a very long time OR don't buy a house and try to convince him that we're stable as we are. Neither sounds like Heather will be a parent for the next several years. Oh, and either way there's no moving -- just the same house we're living in now which we both really like. And, while it's a really big move for us, his employer is helping out a lot, so it's actually a manageable house purchase for us.

And different posts are coming. I promise to force myself to post about other topics for a while. Here are some topics that I will be posting about soon:

privacy vs. openness
our recent bike tour of the area
attempts at running in this town
updates on the house we're trying to buy

I might even try a week of posting every day, but let's not get too crazy here in our expectations.

Reasons Why Not

So, if I want kids so badly, why don't I have them? Well, as they say, it takes two to tango.

When my husband and I got married, we were very young. So young that people have told me (quite ouside of anything that's any of their business) that we were too young. We were told all the reasons our marriage couldn't work. I was 21 while he was 23. I'm outgoing while he's shy and reclusive. He's a C programmer, I liked Fortran. He used emacs, I used vi. But I digress. However, we're both stubborn, and though we've had some really rough patches along the way (years five through eight were nearly unbearable), we've managed to stay together. We'd been dating two weeks when we first talked about kids, and found we were much on the same page. We both wanted kids and felt like 3 was a good number (we are both the oldest of 3 kids), but that we didn't want to rush into these things. We would wait until he finished grad school, so he'd have time to devote to them, too, and that all seemed reasonable to me. And then grad school took two years longer than expected. And then he wasn't sure whether he wanted to stay at UT after graduation. Then it was maybe we should look for a different house because ours clearly wasn't big enough. Based on his increasing spiral into depression, I pushed him to take this job out here in California. And then he didn't like his job and thought he'd quit and we could just move somewhere we (read "he") wanted to live. But then he realized he hasn't been feeling depressed at all since we moved out here, due to the sunshine and the exercise he gets every day biking to and from work. So, then he wanted to stay, but we couldn't have kids while we're living somewhere where we're on a month-to-month lease. But we just can't buy a house out here. Okay, we can, but we're not sure we want to.

All this avoidance says that clearly he's afraid of becoming a parent. He's voiced this once or twice, but that was a long time ago. I'm sure this fear is rooted in something from his childhood, but he won't talk about it with anyone, me included. I was excited when he started seeing a therapist earlier this year, because I thought he might open up to someone neutral who wouldn't judge him or share his secrets with anyone else or run into him in social settings. But it didn't work. Instead, he used it as an opportunity to see if he was smart enough to trick the therapist into believing whatever he could. It was a joke to him. I've never been able to get him to go to any kind of couple's therapy to try and work this one out, either, and that's mostly because he has decided that psychiatry/psychology are invalid fields of medicine. It's part of why he made a joke out of his one-on-one time this past spring.

So, it's back to just us trying to work this one out. And since he won't talk about about the root of the fear, we talk around other things. We've talked about so much of the theory of childrearing that I think we've got it all mapped out (notice I didn't say figured out) through the college years. We've talked about the houses we've been looking at and whether they are conducive to raising a family in them (the one we're in now is perfect, we both agree). We've talked about overscheduling and vacations and living in other countries and public school vs. private school and religious education (he quit going to church 3 years ago as his depression -- my diagnosis -- started to really get the best of him) and a gazillion other things that I'm not thinking of right now. He still says he wants children, but when it comes right down to it, he's just not ready. And I respect him too much to get pregnant accidentally on purpose. That's just a given. I think that's something girls did in highschool or college to keep some guy around (hint, hint, that never works out the way you want it to), but not now. We have to do this together. I'm just anxious that waiting for him to be ready means my decade will evaporate away.

But I'm ready. And whenever he's ready then we'll be ready.

Wants that Hurt

I've been having trouble posting lately because what I want to write about I'm not sure I want to write about. All through my time in this little blog adventure, I've written about whatever I'm thinking about. Lately, all I think about is the fact that I desperately want to be a parent. That feeling has around a hundred reasons to be there, but it's a bit unfortunate that it's become an obsession of my mind. It means I have trouble coming up with other topics to type about, so many times I just don't. And why don't I want to go down this path? It's easy. I'm afraid of being too open and inviting ridicule into my little world. I like the approval of other people, and I feel like this is such a raw self-misunderstood set of emotions for me that I will likely say things wrong and cause precisely the kinds of comments that I don't want to get.

But I have to figure this out. And with my best friends in the wrong timezones for long discussions of this sort (excepting my husband, but I suppose he tolerates as much of this blabbering as he can handle), I guess that means I have to do it here. Most of the people that read this are childless -- some by choice, some not, and some are just too young (baby sister, that means you!). Regardless, I am not childless by choice, and I have to do some soul-searching to figure out some of what goes with that. So this risk of being attacked is finally low enough compared to the risk of self-implosion that is going to happen without some place to vent. And then I'm guaranteed to never have kids.

To start this introspective journey for all to see, I have to start with my own fears and the reasons for the current desperation. I did recently have a birthday which reminded me that I have less than a decade left of acceptable fertility. Now, my mother got pregnant at 41 without trying (hi, again, baby sister!) and her mom accidentally got pregnant at 44. So, I could probably get pregnant into my forties, but since that is generally considered irresponsible, I've just capped that at 40 in my head. Yes, I know it starts getting harder after about 35, but let's not discuss that I might have even less time than I think, because I believe that would just push me over the edge. I have always imagined myself with lots of kids. Not quite the Duggars, but maybe 3 or 4 of my own and as many of their friends as want to hang out at our place. I am slowly coming to grips that this is probably a pipe dream, but I can't seem to let it go, and that leaves me in a bit of a tumultuous place.

It doesn't help that everyone around me seems to be having babies. Coworkers, friends, etc. I think there have been 6 or 7 in the last 6 months. When this first started, years ago, I was happy for them. Then I was jealous. Now, I'm afraid, I've become a bit unfeeling towards these happy little (or big) families. If you're one of my blog-reading friends with kids, please don't take this the wrong way. I still love you and your gorgeous children. But the pain is becoming almost too much to bear, and out of my most common defense mechanism to employ, I have had to wall off a little piece of my heart so I don't spend every day crying my eyes out. Sometimes, I know that makes me seem callous. Don't think I don't worry whether this little wall is permanent. As often as I can stomach it, I let it down and cry for hours.

Why do I want to have kids? This is such a hard question for me to answer, because there are just so many answers. It has nothing to do with passing on genes or being pregnant or liking babies, and everything to do with being undeniably maternal. I've always been this way, ever since I can remember. My earliest memory is from when I was five and my two-year-old sister was scared about moving to the Philippines and cried herself to sleep most nights. I would crawl over into her bed and just lay there rubbing her back and talking to her about all the wonderful adventures we were going to have and how she wouldn't be alone because we'd be doing this all together. It continued with the birth of my baby sister, who could have been my daughter if I'd been an earlier bloomer. I remember so clearly a weekend when she was six months old and mom was gone for the weekend. She'd gotten some round of shots and was feverish and miserable, and all I could do was rock her and sing to her all night long and I just wanted to take that pain away from her. Course, I felt like an idiot the next morning when dad pointed out that I should have just given her more Tylenol, but I was thirteen and not at all qualified to be her mother and to think of these things. It's not a little kid thing either. When my sister had a bad dose of life and was close to rock bottom, she came to live with me. Those were the most miserable 7 months of my life, but I'd do it again in a heartbeat. It was teen angst and pain and discipline and the uncomfortable growing into responsibility. And regardless of whether she'll ever thank me for the lessons we forced her to learn in those months, I know she's a better adult today because of them. And I know it's not a blood thing. In eighth grade, I joined a program where I was assigned a student from the special education class. My "buddy" was a girl named Cathy who absolutely melted my heart. She functioned on about a 5-year-old level, but I so relished those times we spent working on writing her name and I posted the treasured pictures she colored for me in my locker. I cried when the school was set on fire the next year and destroyed a stuffed dog she'd given me at the end of the previous year. I think I still have that dog in a box in the basement. Maybe it was because I had so little social capital in those years, but I yelled at some kid who made fun of her in the hall and don't even know what they called me, because I just didn't care. I worked day cares and summer camps and babysat excessively and always grew so attached to one or two kids in each class. I remember a little boy named Ian who had colic. He cried all the time, and the day care workers I worked with gave up on him, saying he was just always crying when I started that summer. He became my project. What will soothe him? I tried so many things and finally succeeded with a sort of a hammock I created with his blanket and I swung him in it rather hard, and after about 20 minutes of that, he would settle down and go to sleep. And with sleep, he was much happier in the awake times, and eventually the colic worked itself out and he was a very happy baby. When I came back the next summer, Ian didn't remember me, but he was the favorite of his new teacher.

I just want to love and nurture a child. I want to experience life through their eyes as they learn new things. I want to do some things right and royally screw up some other things and learn more and more to be humble and loving. I want to struggle with being too protective and too distant. I want the pain and joy that can only come from loving another person so completely that you rejoice with their triumphs and ache with their disappointments. I want to expose a child to things that will mold their futures in ways I may never know and I want to enable them to be the best adult member of this world they can be when they get there.

And that's where I'll leave this for now -- the raw reasons I want desperately to be on to the next phase of my life, one that involves children in my house. Oh, and I'm going to stop crying for the evening.

Happy Mother's Day?

Mother's Day has become an increasingly difficult holiday for me. In my more naive years, I assumed that getting married at 21 meant we'd start having kids by 25, and have a nice trio by 31. Three months from my 31st birthday that picture is clearly out of synch with the real world. Recently, I was playing with a friend's 3-year-old who announced, "You're a mommy like my mommy." They must have been talking about how mommies are adult women and daddies are adult men in daycare or something, and I seemed to fit the bill of a woman. Then, kids are one thing, but for some reason I had two women that sent me emails towards the end of last week signed off with "Happy Mother's Day!" I guess they thought they were being friendly, but it was depressing and hurtful instead.

Let me just try to be real clear here -- don't wish women Happy Mother's Day if they don't have kids. It's not Happy Woman's Day, and it's not the time to try to motivate people to reciprocate in kind just because you're so happy you're a mother. This is a holiday for people who actually are, or have been, responsible for the raising of a child. It's a time to thank your mother for how she helped you become the person you are today. It's also, unfortunately, a time to remind people who don't have kids that it's not a day for them.

I completely understand that some people don't want children, and are happy to have no part in this holiday (I doubt they want to be wished a Happy Mother's Day either). Others aren't in a place in their lives to be ready for that leap into parenthood. No problem. Some of us, however, wish we did, and would prefer not to be reminded that we're not there yet.

I've actually been reading blogs from a few folks struggling with infertility, some for a while now. Not that I'm actually dealing with the same sorts of medical issues that they are, but because I'm struggling with some of the same emotional issues. I'm ready for all the joys and pains that come with parenthood, and parenthood isn't ready for me. It's not easy to talk about, because it's not like we have any clinical fertility issues that we know of. I can't even bring myself to write about it here, but suffice it to say that we don't need an RE, we need a psychiatrist. So, we're not ready to go down any procreation paths. But I want to. Really. So quit trying to make me feel bad, and let me just celebrate this holiday as a daughter.