Oops

I broke down in front of my husband today. I really didn't mean to and it came from no where. I had just learnt that a close friend is having another baby but I thought I was fine with it. I said to him, jokingly, "But I want one!" and he said, "yeah...And." And something in my just snapped. I said, "It's more complicated than that" and he said "how?  You're just about to start the job you've always wanted and you said that had to come first" I walked into the kitchen and started to cry. 


He was brilliant. He came and gave me a hug and tried to understand.


It's very difficult to explain when I don't even understand, but I think he's getting how much it bothers me now. We both know we need to wait just a little longer. 


Just thought I'd make a note of today. It threw me, I'm usually better controlled. I still feel oddly weak and weepy. Hopefully work will distract me from tomorrow! 

Guilt

There are days when I feel guilty for being so broody. One of the biggest reasons for this is that the world is already so overcrowded that it seems vastly unfair to increase the strain upon. But then, I would rather do my bit to help reduce the risk of an "idiocracy" forming. Another reason is that I worry about the impact it (my incessant broodiness) has on my relationship with Husbit, but that seems to be as strong as ever so I can let that rest for now.

Today, my guilt stems from thinking about the couples out there actively trying to get pregnant without success - the people who feel as I do and are doing something about it but without success. If I feel like a failure every month for failing to be pregnant when Husbit is doing his best to make sure I'm not, imagine how much worse it must be for the other women.

According to this site, 1 in 7 confirmed pregnancies ends in a miscarriage. If the sight of menstrual blood upsets me so much, how do broody women cope when that is their child flowing from them?

I feel as though I am somehow cheap for feeling so powerfully when there are women out there who want a baby, a pregnancy, so desperately but, for whatever reason, struggle to achieve it. I do not know how easy it will be for me to carry a baby to term. One of my greatest fears is that I will either not be successful concieving or else will not be able to carry the baby to term but at the moment I have no reason to have this fear; there is no suggestion that I am any less than standardly fertile and similarly Husbit's family history doesn't give me any reason to worry there. So realistically I should just put the thoughts from my mind.

I still feel guilty for being so painfully broody when, in all likelihood, I will be able to conceive/carry a child with relative ease and through choice (a difficult and horrendous choice, fraught with sorrow, anger and "what-if's") am not doing so yet women out there are trying to become a mother and not succeeding. I feel like I am somehow reducing the extent of their suffering by, on some level, claiming the same. Like them, I am a mother without children. Like them, I am hurt to my very core by this. Unlike them, I have a choice in this regard.

Broken

Her head rests on a black tile.
The tears streak her face.
Across the room is the toilet.
It's porcelain shine shows the distorted reflection of a woman
Alone
On the floor
Her head rests on the black tile.

Her head rests on a cold, blank wall.
The curtain hides her.
Here she hides until the world goes away
And takes the children with it.
She leaves the clothes she was going to try.
Composed, just
Her head rests on the cold, blank wall.

Her eyes look down an aisle.
Pink and blue of various hue
Assault her
formulae milk, a child's bib, nappies and wet wipes and
so much more.
Her eyes look down the aisle.

Her head rests on a white tile.
The tears streak her face.
Across the room is the toilet.
It's porcelain shine shows the distorted reflection of a woman
Alone
On the floor
Her head rests on the white tile

Time To Talk

If anyone ever comes to me to ask my opinion on a topic or argument etc that involves another person I will always be the first to ask if they've talked to that person first. So it goes counter to everything I hold true in life to not be talking to the hubs about this.

The trouble is, we've talked about it (admittedly I can't recall when so a significant amount of time ago), and in his opinion the case is closed.

But during my period I start crying (though he's yet to see the tears), I get frustrated, and sadly he ends up in the firing line with me snapping at him for no good reason. As the months roll past this seems to be getting worse with each period. I can now guarantee at least once during that week I will end up curled up in a ball in tears over the whole situation. And the more I snap at him the more it seems unfair to not sit down and explain what's going on.

How on earth do I bring up a topic that he thinks is closed and sealed for at least another couple of years?

I've sat and thought about what I want to say even..

After explaining about my periods and feeling frustrated, putting across why it's not such a bad thing... can I do that without making him feel like the bad guy, feel like I'm pressuring him or guilt tripping him?

- Firstly money - money is always going to be an issue and I think that if we sit counting the pennies they're never going to add up. While I don't want to lumber him with supporting all of us, including my loan payments, I think if we were careful (I have no qualms with second hand, or third/fourth/fifth hand!) we could make it work.

- Job. I work a crappy job at a coffee shop that may just be the epitome of evil corporate America.. But to their credit the benefits for staff are pretty good. If I got pregnant while I was with them I could get maternity leave (or the farce that is called maternity leave in this retarded country), and they'll even give me short term disability benefits so that I can get more than the regulated 6 weeks, and even get a (small) percentage of my pay during that time.

If we wait until my business takes off we're faced with one of two possible problems. Either the shop is open and running, at which point I can't take time off until we have a member of staff we trust there in my absence, and that is unlikely to happen for a long long time. Or, I'm still at the working from home stage (but let's assume it's doing well enough that I've left my crappy job and this is my sole income).. If this is the case then if I take any time off then I get no money whatsoever, and I have to turn business away, ruining my reputation and losing customers.. Quite honestly the idea of trying to operate a business while trying to get to grips with motherhood seems like a crazy idea and I'll take a farce of maternity leave over none at all!

I'd rather have the child before establishing the business.. my career will wait, my body will not.

- Which leads us to age.. I keep coming back to this. Again, even at 26 I'm passed my prime in childbearing terms. And if we wait until my loan is gone at 30, hubs will be retiring before our eldest reaches university (assuming they don't bump up the retirement age! ;-) ) if and only if we even manage to get pregnant straight away at that age.

So ladies, I bow to your infinite wisdom.. How do I bring up this closed topic, and how do I do it without making him feel like the bad guy, the unreasonable one?

Something new

...and not in a good way. I'm usually fairly laid back and relaxed, but recently I've been getting... well, angry. It doesn't seem to be at anything in particular, just generally. It's starting to become a default response to most things that in the past might have irked, annoyed, or even just been laughed off. This seems to become most apparent when I'm reading posts on social network sites. I'll get unreasonably annoyed by something someone has posted, often yelling at my computer screen. More often than not these are posts by parents either complaining about their children, or how annoying it is having to wash up after their children, or sometimes a parent simply telling of something slightly amusing or cute their child did that day. Then I get angry. I can't tell you at what exactly. I try very hard not to be angry at the parent, but I know I am. I'm then in a foul mood and likely to get angry at my SO which doesn't help as he has no idea why and I can't explain it.

There are so many things that can make me angry now. This weekend I was at a LARP (Live-action Role-play) event (google it, it's good fun but difficult to explain succinctly). I was monstering the event meaning that I took on various roles as deigned by the refs and did not play the same character for the whole event. One of the characters I was asked to play was a young (about 5 years old) girl. This is not exactly new as I often play the little girl, I'm quite good at it. Through the course of the night and into the next day I played this child who had watched her mother being eaten by monsters, she was scared and cried quite a bit, she was also given a dagger (yeah, they were not the type of people one would call if they needed a nanny, but they did OK). After playing these girls we were eventually told by the refs that we were to give it 30 seconds and change into demons. We duly did and were of course killed by the players. After that I stood in the monster camp and felt so angry I was nearly crying. I didn't want my little girl to die, I had wanted her to live. She had been imagining a wonderful life with her new family. I had to take a few minuets, luckily I didn't seem to be needed and was able to take that time. I even shed a few tears. I honestly don't know why. Thinking back to it now even makes me choke up a little! A few moments later I was called up to play an imp and returned to the battle field, I hit things and was felled swiftly as is the way of the game. I'm sure that had anyone had the chance to look into my face and seen the tears running down it they would not have taken a second look. I have watery eyes anyway, and there was a bit of a wind. No one noticed and, after a while, I didn't notice. After the anger I was able to carry on, but the sadness didn't leave for a long time. I still feel oddly disconnected.

What that particular event has to do with the baby crazy I don't know, but something in me says it does. So if anyone has any ideas I'll gladly hear them. 


~

Babies Everywhere

Aren't there just days when it feels like every other person you see is pregnant, or has a newborn/very young child?

Today this was magnified, I had to voluntarily go into a baby store to get some bibs for my niece, I'm planning on embroidering them as a present. Walking into, and around that store surrounded by mothers, babies and everything cute and baby related has to be one of the hardest things I've done in a while. I got back to the car and had to take some time to get myself sorted.

Life Sucks!

Only Joking!

When I'm feeling particularly awful about not being a child, I often joke about sabotaging a condom in order to get me pregnant. What upsets/surprises/scares me is how many of my friends don't seem to realise this is a joke. I joke with my husbit about this. He knows I'm jesting. I suppose at the end of the day that is what matters but it still makes me feel let down by friends and family when they actually think I would go behind his back like this. I haven't told Husbit, but I have made 3 promises to myself regarding ways I will not fall pregnant:
1. I will not lie to him.
2. I will not cheat on him.
3. I will not deliberately trick him.

If I'm entirely honest, there have been times when I've found this difficult, especially point 3 (though I'm pleased to say not point 2), but I do not believe that it would be a fair relationship if I did any of these and so I won't.

What it boils down to is that, whilst I may joke about it, I would never gennuinely act dishonestly in becoming pregnant. I value him and our relationship too much for that.

FKL

Ready or not...

I realised something recently that scared me: we really are, financially and space-wise, in a postition to start having children. We'd need to move if we wanted more than one, and then finances would be a problem as this flat is a steal, location- and size-wise, but not only is it doable, my work would be supportive of me having time off for maternity - i've only been there a couple of months but am very much at the younger end of the scale so most of the other people have children or evening grand-children already so they have a certain degree of sympathy (although I haven't risked releasing the full baby-crazy on them!). I like my job and the people there, so that's surprisingly important to me.

The only thing holding us back is my partner. As I've commented before, he does have a couple of good reasons for delaying, which I may elaborate on further down the line but not just yet. What annoys me is how far behind rubbish excuses he hides - he tries telling me we don't have space when we clearly do, or that we can't afford it when we clearly can, or that we won't be able to go out for the evening when we so rarely do anyway that I can't see it making any difference. Maybe the difference is that we can go out whenever we want that's important, but I have less of a feeling of that because I'm not insured on our car and it being the type of car it is, we can't afford to run two cars - which means if I want to travel any distance then I need a lift. So for me, it won't make a huge impact on my current situation.

I love him. I need him to hurry up and be ready too because I'm afraid I may not be able to hold on much longer.

FKL

How To Be Happy?

It seems that the pregnancies of friends and family comes in waves. I'm not sure if the previous monster wave has finished and a new one is starting or if it just ebbed a little and is coming back with full force. Either way in the space of a week I've heard two pregnancy announcements and know of at least a couple more people who are actively trying.

I want to be happy for them, I really do. It is joyous news and I feel like a monster for for not being overjoyed.

But deep down inside of me is that little voice that's asking why them? Why can they get pregnant when I'm not allowed to.

And in their happy innocence they seem to make the worst comments. Almost worse to me than the "why would you want to get pregnant" or the "you have plenty of time." No, these are the "well why don't you" or "we're managing on one income and this is our second child" the understanding that I really want to get pregnant but the confusion as to why I don't just go ahead and do it hurts more than the people who don't understand.

Today I was even asked why I didn't just go off the pill and not tell my husband (this is however the colleague who wasn't trying, just "letting god decide"). Now aside from the fact that we use condoms on top of using the pill, how can he think it's acceptable to deceive my husband, to trick him into becoming a father?

No, this is a decision that needs to be made together, and as much as it hurts, as much as I want to cry every time I hear of someone else, it seems I just have to grit my teeth, hold back the tears for a time when I'm alone, and wish them well.

Talking (becomes a rant)

One of the hardest things about the baby crazy is there are so few people to really talk to. I expect this is the same for any emotional issues - no one can really understand unless they have been or are going through it, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone! 

However there are some people that you *should* be able to discuss anything with. I desperately want to discuss what I'm going through with my best friend. The problem is he is also my husband. We have discussed how I feel, he knows it's a strong emotion, and he knows what I want. But that's just it - it's been discussed. As far as he's concerned we've come to our decision on the matter and it can be put to bed... but I've discovered it doesn't work like that.

The problem is I discovered that after I made a promise. I was talking about kids...quite a bit shall we say. I wanted to discuss our future and make plans. He said he needed space, and time and he explained why. He was very clear and I understand completely why he asked for it. So I made a promise. I promised not to bring up "that" discussion until he was ready. I didn't realise then how hard that would be. 

Many months passed. Children came up - we discussed things we saw on T.V., news articles about how parents of the Y generation are too soft, we discussed how we saw other people parenting, what we would do the same or what we would do differently or not at all. We skirted and we talked, but never about us and when we might have children. Never that. 

Then one day, not very long ago he said something to me. He said, out of the blue, I've been thinking. I think when you get your implant out I might be ready. That was it. No more was said. I couldn't believe it. An actual time frame. And for about 24 hours I was on top of the world. Then I started to realise some things. First of all, I'd gotten my dates wrong. It feels like I've had this implant for forever, and I thought it was coming out this October. It's not. I've actually had it for 20 months (now, when we had this exchange it was more like 18mnths). I've got another 16 months left. But I thought that would be fine. It gives me a chance to get the year in work I need and allows him to settle into his new job. Perfect. 

2 days later I was in the bathroom trying not to be too loud or obvious about my sobs. The months stretch out ahead of me in a way they never did when I didn't know. I've started to *hate* the implant... hardly fair on the poor thing, it's doing its job. 

So in some ways knowing that there is a "when" has made the months until then even harder. I go to bed at night  and think, "another day down". I'm so obsessed with getting to that point I know I'm missing out on now. Because it's all I've got on my mind I can't find other things to talk about, so the evenings have become quite nights of watching the T.V. or looking at a computer screen. I need to do other things, so I have other things to talk about, so that I can talk to the man I love with out breaking my promise... but it's so much harder now. Sometimes I wish he'd just told me on the day I'd had it taken out. 

Some days I do think of other things - I think about how boring I must have become to him. I think about the fact I might be loosing him because I can't make this soul wrenching ache go away... but something always happens to let me know he's still there, we're still good.  

Maybe the worst thing about it all is that even though we have a "when" anything could change between then and now. There is still no certainty so I'm building myself up with hope, crashing again because the hope feels so far away and it could all be for nothing! Some days I just don't know how many more times I can go round the cycle.

Why Don't You Just Get A Dog?

Back in November I had an especially bad period of time thanks to broodiness, I went through several days very withdrawn and close to tears thanks to the havoc hormones were playing on me.. It started after a friend's very successful home water birth and was intensified by meeting their new son when he was less than 20 hours old... all occurring at the start of a period didn't help either. It was funnily enough, one of the times that I just had to let hubs know what was going on and how I was feeling, it would not have been fair to him to not.

So I don't think it was at all coincidental that a week or so later is when he announced that he felt we were ready for a puppy.

Now, I wasn't complaining, I wanted a dog just as much as he did.. I just think he was hoping it would help me more than it has.

There seems to be an underlying attitude over here that dogs are training for children... it seemed ridiculous to me. Having since compared notes with my sister there may be something in it, but not completely. I do not think being a successful puppy owner will make you a good parent, there are just not enough similarities there.

I didn't mind much what age dog we got, it's going to involve work and training either way, but hubs really wanted a puppy, and who was I to say no?

We put it off for a while due to travel and eventually got the puppy in March at the age of 10 weeks old. His first shock was due to not realising just how much work a puppy of that age entails. It actually turned out to be a good thing that the company I worked for had gone bankrupt and I was out of a job as it meant I got to be at home all the time during the early days. We spent at least a month exhausted as we were getting up at all hours to make sure she went to the toilet outside.

I'll be honest, our pup has some issues. As far as I can figure out from the records we have she was taken from her mother too young and dumped in a shelter so I think at least some of them stem from this.. The rest are just because she's too damn smart and therefore stubborn!

Initially he got increasingly frustrated with her because she wasn't understanding him, she was doing things he didn't want her to. So he's had to learn a lot of patience. This is a good thing, and I'm glad he's been able to work through this with a dog and not a child. It annoyed him that she didn't just know that she shouldn't try to get to the kitchen work surfaces (taking an example here), she'd done it once and we'd told her off, why wasn't she getting it. He just didn't realise that telling once doesn't work and she needs it repeated and repeated with no slip ups and no letting it go "just this once."

He's gotten a lot better now, and so has she. She's still smart and stubborn, as strong-willed as her namesake (Granny Weatherwax from the Discworld series of novels), but as she gets older (nearing 8 months now) she learns more, she calms down. She still gets manic when we have visitors, but she's still young.

So, I've told you about getting the pup, and how it helped hubs and in fact probably did prepare him a little more for children, but what about me?

Honestly, it's done nothing to help my broodiness. For the first couple of months while she was young and more of a handful it distracted me, but at no point did she fill that hole in my heart. Yes, I love her, she is in her way part of the family, but she can not and will not ever be a child of mine and therefore the hormones bubble away the same as if we didn't have her at all.

In fact, when I'm at my lowest (especially if she's misbehaving), she's just one more drain on our resources, one more reason why we can't afford children right now. And I feel bad for feeling like that, don't get me wrong, I don't want to return her to the shelter, but why is a dog an okay drain but not a child?

Baby Crazy - Explained pt 3

I'm a late joiner to the party, but I'm here now and like the two other wonderful women on this site I am baby crazy.

I was fascinated by babies when I was a child and always wanted one but the true broodiness didn't really hit until I became settled down in a relationship, that's when that desire intensified and became the all consuming ache and longing that I have to live with now.

When I moved over here (to the ridiculously hot USA from the UK) the hubs and I sat down and had a vague version of the baby talk that established that we both wanted them and that was that.

I think part of the trouble now is that I know that hubs wants children (yes plural) but he's being all sensible and reasonable and wanting to wait until we are more financially affluent.

This is going to take a while, I had to take out a huge loan to move here and paying it off takes a large proportion of my wages every month. But waiting another 4 years for that loan to be paid off seems like an impossible task right now. Our current compromise is to revisit after I have my citizenship (I can apply next year, the process could take up to another year).

While I obviously think having a child while we blatantly can't afford it is not the greatest of ideas, in fact it's a pretty stupid one. I feel that waiting until we are "financially affluent" is just as silly. Unless we win the lottery (which would be impressive since we don't take part) it is never going to happen, there is always going to be something that provides a drain on our resources and in my opinion there's never going to be a best or perfect time and at some point you have to realise that and just go ahead and do it anyway.. Explaining this opinion to hubs ended up with confusion as he completely misunderstood what I was trying to say.

Luckily I can be fairly open with hubs about how I'm feeling, though for the most part I actually keep it bottled up. He's understanding but that can only go so far, and if he realised just quite how often I am consumed by this he might be a little more freaked out.

It seems like it's been much harder to cope recently as everyone around me gets pregnant and has babies, including my sister. It's been so hard to cope with the fact that not only does my sister (who showed no interest in babies until a year or two ago) now have the cutest little girl, but they're so far away so I've only been with her once. Now, this is my fault since I chose to move 5000 miles away from them. But the knowledge that I can't even be a proper Aunt, I'll just be a name on a card and a face on the computer makes me crumple with pain.

Like the others I get constantly told that I'm young and have plenty of time. This isn't exactly true - I've had trouble finding concrete (peer reviewed) numbers but it is known that women are at their peak fertility at 24, after that it all goes downhill. Add in to that my hubs is significantly older than me. And while theoretically men can keep producing until they keel over the reality of that isn't quite the same. Assuming no fertility troubles sure you can have kids until you're 90, but do you really want to. Even if we wait until my loan is paid off then I'll be 30 when we start trying, hubs will be 46.. He'll be 50 chasing kids round the park, he'll be in his 60s when they graduate high school. And that is if we get pregnant right away.

So, how do I deal...

My main method of coping is information gathering. This might sound silly... I distract my broody feelings by researching having a baby. This makes more sense when you take into consideration I'm in a foreign country. When I finally get pregnant I don't want to have to be worrying with how the system works over here, what does my insurance cover, what doesn't it cover, what can I expect.

Plus a little statistic gathering - the c-section rate in America has risen to over 30%, the World Health Organisation deems 10-15% as the acceptable level. Part of the trouble is the fact that medicine here is a business and Doctors have goals and people are gullible, the uniformed are being led to believe that this is the only option they have and oh! look! the Doctor just made more money than they would have otherwise. So as well as checking out the local hospitals I've looked into alternative options to see what is available (as much as I can without actually being pregnant and doing the tours etc).

Mentally I have redecorated our spare bedroom and figured out how we could keep the bed in there for visitors and use it as a nursery.

I've recently started knitting a baby blanket.. This is partly because I knit slow so by the time I finish it we might actually be trying, if I wait til I'm pregnant to knit it then the kid'll be grown by the time it's done! It's also a good redirection for me, I can sink myself into it and forget everything except counting my stitches and making sure I get it right.

We got a dog.. this isn't actually a good method of dealing and I fully intend to do a full post at some point to explain how it helped and how it didn't.

And finally I'm focusing on my health. I'm overweight which as well as affecting fertility and the risks of complications will also affect the birth I can have. Too overweight and I'll lose my choices and be forced into a birth full of interventions and everything I don't want. Now if only I could get hubs to do the same as his weight will affect fertility too!

Pro Life/Pro Choice and the gender divide

It may surprise people to learn that, despite my huge broodiness, I support legal abortions. There are many reasons for this - sometimes, medically, it is the better option. Sometimes, things happen at the wrong time. I cannot condone the use of abortion rather than contraception, but it is better to have it as a legal option rather than force already vulnerable people to find their own way - I've heard of women drinking bottles of vodka and throwing themselves down the stairs rather than face a pregnancy as a result of rape. That isn't how it should be. I'm also pro-abortion because the world is already over-populated and there are already so many children in bad family situations and if I want babies then other people have to not have them.

So I think it is important for women to have the right to control their bodies. I dislike the pro-life/pro-choice labels. To me, the implication is that 'pro-choice' equates to 'anti-life' and I am definitely not that, but this is another rant.

What I wanted to discuss is the gender problem. If the mother is keen to have the baby but the father is reluctant, she should be allowed to keep the baby - no one should be able to force her to do otherwise. But what if the roles are reversed? What if the father is the one yearning to be a parent and the mother is unready/unwilling to carry a baby, can the father force the mother to go through with it anyway? Should he be able to? This is a much more difficult area - it is the mother's body, it is her life that is being affected for the next few months but what about the emotional needs of the father?

I don't have any answers, just a lot of wondering.