I have 5 kids. I have had 5 whole humans shoot out of me like tiny little rockets out into space, creating their own orbit around the sun. Or I am orbiting around them. Yeah, it's definitely the second. The pregnancy with Sunshine was physically draining this time around. I was no longer in my early 20's and I'd already had 4 kids to run after. I had so much pain , I cried, Nay begged for my husband to have a vasectomy. I was convinced I could not survive doing this again, especially since she was umm....errr.. a pleasant surprise, I didn't want to chance it. By many peoples measure we were beyond blessed, 4 healthy kids and a home and many trappings of the upper middle class ( DAMN IT! It was my last fucking kid I was going out with a BANG! You bet your sweet ass I bought that fucking Bugaboo.) This was the stopping point, the place where we close this chapter of our lives for good. I got what I desperately wanted, another baby girl.
Then the BIG day came and I lost my shit.
I have yet to regain it.
I'm not sure if I ever will.
After 5 days spent in a hospital , nearly bleeding to death, a 9 pound hypoglycemic baby, and a blood transfusion we were exhausted. Physically and mentally drained. Therefore we never should have gone into that consultation room at all. We were in no condition to make that kind of LIFE ALTERING decision. It was exactly 1 week after we had her and exactly a week later they set the appointment to do the deed. As the days wound down we began to realize what a treasure Sunshine was. She was LITTERALLY sleeping through the night by 2 weeks... WHAT BABY DOES THAT!?!?! She was so fucking pretty I cried nearly every time I saw her. She only cried when she was hungry. To sum it up she was perfect to me in every way. I couldn't get enough of her, I became quite obsessed with Sunshine. I started making noises that I rescinded my initial pleas of a vasectomy. That I wanted just one more chance to do it again, just one last, last time. He knew my discontentment and met it with a stern " Remember when you were pregnant? You said you'd act this way and to not listen to you because you would be hormonal and incapable of making this choice."
Damn, bested by past Krista AGAIN!
Then the day before the procedure we picked up a Valium, support undies and pain meds. I tried the 'ole " If you need a Valium then it's a sign you're doing the wrong thing!" Nope, no cigar. As the day wound down I was numbing my self to the fact he was really going to do it. He had his concerns and instead of trying to quell his fears I was playing into them hoping to God he would cancel the next morning. Hoping he would see how much this would mean to me.
The next day I got up with him and got ready with the largest pit in my stomach. I drove him into the office since he was doped up ( and hopefully pliable.) I dropped him at the front so I could park and met him in the lobby after he signed in. My chances were slimming but damn it there was still fucking time. Then they called his name and he went back, when he turned away from me one silent tear escaped, my façade was beginning to crack. Sitting there all I saw were old people on deaths doorstep. Once we were no longer young and fertile this was next. It was a grim crowd and it just compounded my feelings of grief. Grief, yeah, that's exactly what I felt.. The clock ticked on and I busied myself with Facebook, silently begging for him to run through those doors and tell me he couldn't go through with it. He didn't and when he returned he looked like he was on the verge of being in pain. A terrible, horrible , rotten part of me took pleasure in that. That he deserved to be in pain for not giving in to my whims. It was then I couldn't hold back the dam and started quietly weeping as I walked him to the car. He was too high to really see the pain I was in and offered a dopey "I'm sorry."
I knew I had a hard day ahead of me and needed to keep it together from there on out. I had 5 kids I had to care for and would be going it alone for the next few day. I sucked it up and took the man to our favorite Italian bakery so we could take some comfort in food and some time not caring for the kids. I got him settled in and the kids came home, I ordered dinner and got them dressed for bed. After David had gone up to out bed and I sat in a quiet living room , I let out a guttural cry. The kind that only comes once you experience a great pain. I let it come from the very depths of my being. I sobbed, and sobbed, then when I thought I was done I sobbed some more.
It was my grief that had come to the surface and finally bubbled over. I could no longer pretend I was holding up. Most people think grief comes from death or a more tangible thing. It doesn't, at least not for me, and it took a therapist to put that word to my EXTREME emotions. It can come from any huge loss. I lost so much with those two snips. I essentially lost me, my identity, and in my mind my fertility, everything I had built my vision of self on was gone. I have been a mother well before I was an adult, it's all I have every really done of merit and even that is subjective. I lost ever holding another positive pregnancy test, ever seeing a shitty black and white version of the human I was building and the subsequent heart beat. I lost ever feeling those tiny kicks , labor pains and the rush of euphoria once you hold the one that is most precious to you in that moment. Once Sunshine stops nursing I will never again nourish another from my body. No more tiny toes and tiny hands. No more inhaling a babe fresh from the bath, warming them up and holding their fresh bodies in your tight arms. Never again will I have first tooth and first steps. As time marches on it steals all that I hold dear. The amount of pain I still feel from this knowledge is crushing. There are days I don't even want to get out of bed. I don't know where my life is going anymore nor do I know what to expect. I feel like I am in a total free fall and I forgot how to use the parachute because I wasn't paying attention. I died that day. I still am a mother, but I am in the process of transiting away from this. I know I still have 17.5 more years but once she starts school my day job is over. I look at her and I see a clock counting down the time till she is gone for the day. I see the light at the end of the tunnel and I am not sure what's there and I am more than terrified. I just don't have a fucking clue what I want to do with the next 50 years. Excuse the fact this last paragraph is really fucking ramble-y and incoherent, just imagine me behind the screen stopping to periodically bawl my ocular cavities out.
I have shared all of these things with my husband, frankly I just can't let it go and move on. I really look forward to that day I am tired of feeling this way. He had his reasons for going through with it: wanting to move on with our lives, freedom sooner, no more crying poop factory taking up our time together, money and wanting to maintain a certain life style, wanting to see me achieve my education goals and just being terrified that my next delivery I won't come back from. I get it, I really do. I have my own theory's on why I could want another, and no one has ruled out insanity just yet ( it's only a matter of time lol.) I am still young, fertile and have so much life and love left to give. It makes me feel old, really fucking old, especially since my mom was in her 40's shooting them out. We can still have kids if he ever decides he wants more. We have a 5 year window for a reversal and then in vitro is an option as well. I hope one day he comes around and grants my wish, but I doubt it. Tonight as I sat at the kitchen table I held Sunshine in front of me, I soaked her in. Then I looked up at the rest singing and dancing while they ate their ice-cream and I felt a twinge. It was so beautiful and so completely satisfying yet inherently sad. Sad that I will forget the exact moment that brought me such joy on a sad day. Sad that I will forget the weight and soft skin of my new daughter. The exact tinkling of the others laughter will escape me in the future and I will have lost it forever. Then I got it. This is where life is. In the moment, just loving the wonderful things I have here and now. I am starting to really fucking get it, now if 30 could just stop sounding geriatric I would be good.
So I am here just picking up the pieces of me that broke that day. With loss there is opportunity is a fact I have come to learn recently. Well unless your dead that is. Lost "friends"? It just made room for better, truer ones. Lost my ability to have kids with my husband? I get to spread my wings and learn to fly now. It isn't all bleak, just sometimes. My future is unknown and an open book, and I am it's author.
