Dear Anonymous

Dear Anonymous,

I don't know you (I hope) and I am not sure what brought you to my post or why you felt compelled to comment with the tone that you did. I am guessing that your comment:

AnonymousJanuary 5, 2013 10:33 AM That is just really sad... thinking you don't need anymore anyways!

on 1/5/13

is an inference that I am not a good mother because I don't desire having any more children.

Like I said, I don't know anything about you. You may have been having a bad day, you may have just caught my blog right after getting a negative result on yet another pregnancy test and you can't fathom that someone would not want to have another baby when you have been trying SO hard to just get pregnant in the first place.

I understand, I have been there.

You see, while I don't know anything about you, you also seem to know the very little that you read in that one post. Let me share a little bit of my story with you.

My entire life, I have been in training to be a mother. I just knew that I would have a gaggle of kids, everyone knew it. I babysat from the age of 13, I wanted to be a teacher. I was good with kids and they loved me. There was nothing more important to me in the world than eventually being the mother that I knew that I was born to be.

When I got pregnant the very first time, I was not really ecstatic about it. I was 19, the guy that I was with (now the Hubs) was 16. I was in college and he was still in high school. As much as I feared that my life was over, I knew that I would be a good mother, that I would take responsibility for our actions, that I would do everything that I needed to do for this child because that is the type of person that I was. When I miscarried that baby at 8 and half weeks, I mourned. While relieved that I could move on with my life, my heart, my spirit was broken for the very first time.

The next time that I got pregnant I was 23, I lost that baby at 7 weeks. Again, with a broken heart and a heavy spirit, I got counseling, I mourned, I grew up a little more.

The next time would be different, I reasoned, the next time it would not hurt this bad.

The next pregnancy sailed through the first trimester, I only had morning sickness one time. I was older, I was eating better, I was doing everything that the doctors told me to do. This time was going to be different, this time I was really going to be a mother.

I miscarried at 14 weeks, I was devastated, the Hubs (who still was not the Hubs just yet) was devastated. There were a lot of tears. I started cutting and burning myself again. I stopped sleeping. I knew that it was ALL my fault. I knew that I was broken. I knew that I was useless. There was not a darker period in my life than the days that followed me losing that baby.

My two best friends got pregnant immediately following that miscarriage. I now have two of the most wonderful boys to call my godsons. They are beautiful and awesome and I love them so very, very much.

We started trying to get pregnant immediately after we got married. I was 29 by then, settled, married. It was time. Except that I didn't get pregnant. And I kept not getting pregnant. The tears, the agony, the worry about why I could never just be normal, why I couldn't just get knocked up like everybody else in my life was killing me. Why does she get to have a baby when she doesn't even take care of the ones that she has? Why does God bless them and not me?

My faith struggled. My hope struggled. I cried daily.

I went to see my doctor who ran blood work, who did everything he could to find out why my body did not work like everyone else's. He prescribed fertility medication that I took religiously. His nurse would call me every month and report that my blood work was great, that I could potentially be pregnant based on my hormone levels. And I would lie on the cool tile of my bathroom on the first day of the next period sobbing uncontrollably, my body racked with grief at the loss of a little bit more hope, because I wasn't.

I asked the nurse to stop calling me.

I stopped taking the medication.

The very next month we conceived the Supergirl. The entire time I was pregnant, I held my breath. I just knew that there would be bad news, I just knew that something would go wrong. We didn't tell our parents until 16 weeks and only then because it was becoming obvious. Every breath I took, every thing I put in my mouth, every good night's sleep that I got, I questioned. Every lack of symptom or added symptom was researched. I must have called my doctor's office twice a week with questions ranging from gross to crazy. My only symptom besides the increased need to pee was tender breasts, I punched myself in the boob 8-12 times a day just to make sure that they were still tender.

I was so scared.

Miraculously, she was born, a healthy 9 pound, 3 ounce miracle. And she is awesome and smart and so incredibly beautiful. She is so much more than anything that I had ever asked for and I would not trade her for the world.

I did not sleep for her entire first year. I stood over her crib, checking to make sure she was still breathing. I brought her in to bed with me, just to give myself peace of mind. Every cough, sneeze, and sniffle had me on edge.

I am too old to do all of that all over again. The worry, the miscarriages, the grief - I can't do that to myself, I can't do that to her.

You are right in a sense, I don't need another baby and I am done wanting another one. I am a mother and that's all I ever wanted to be. My totality is not encompassed in just being a mother and a wife, there is much more to me than that. I am a daughter, a wife, a sister, an employee at two different companies, and a friend, I make a difference in my world and I want my daughter to know that marriage and children do not end that for women. That women can have dreams and pursuits and plans   that they can pursue even after a baby enters the picture.

You see, Anonymous, while you imply that I am a bad mother for not wanting another baby, I am actually making the best choice that I can for my family. I am sorry that you failed to see that when you read my post. Perhaps you will think of the person behind the blog the next time that you decide to cast judgement on another person's life.

Thanks for taking the time to comment.

Sincerely,

Heather

P.S.
Posting comments anonymously, particularly negative ones, is generally a troll move. If you do not have the guts to put your name on what you have to say, then you are essentially telling me that you are not even important enough to have an identity. That makes me extremely sad for you.

Once Upon A Drunken Night

Last Saturday, I felt like playing some pool. It has been 5 years since I last played, I reasoned. I need a break, a release from the jobs, the kid, the Hubs, the house. It has been months since I have had any real time or conversations with the Scare Bear.

Her only caveat was that I had to drink. Alcohol. 

Let me preface all of that with saying that I have not had a drop to drink since my wedding night 7 years ago when I had one shot to celebrate my birthday and marriage. Besides that it had been a full 15 years since I had really drank, mainly because I did not like the out of control feeling that I was left with and partly because the person that I took as my designated driver took my car to go hook up with some random guy that she had met and then left me at the bar on my 21st birthday by myself. And I fell asleep with my head on the bar. That's what friends do when you are 21. I forgave her and then threw up on her shoes. She totally deserved it. 

And I gave up drinking. 

Me at 21.

I started working at a bar taking care of the ridiculously drunk people that came into my Karaoke Lounge which was really not so much as a lounge as a walk in closet with a stage and a torn picture of George Straight. Once I saw exactly how crazy and stupid people could be when they were drunk and how easily fights could happen between to completely ordinary people that had just had a little bit too much, I knew that that life was not for me. 

I appointed myself the designated driver and may have even become the sober girl that acted like she was drunk (the only line that Ke$ha has ever sang that has ever made any sense to me). Only I was drunk from the comraderie, the lack of inhibitions of those that I was driving around, the silliness of it all - not from the Mountain Dew that I had been swigging all night long. 

I buried the fun-loving me in favor of the responsible, uptight, rigged me. 

But that was back then. 

Going out now is different. I have the Scare Bear, who I trust and who I believe trusts me. I know that she will not leave me to go hook-up with a random guy, I know that she will not let me drink enough to vomit on anything (especially not her shoes) and I know that she will make sure that I get home, even if I am not so certain that that is where I want to go. Having people that you have known and trusted for teens of years is important, I think. 

So we had some drinks, we laughed (OMG, how we laughed), we ran/stumbled our way across my front yard to hide behind a bush to scare a car that never came because what she thought were headlights were really just my neighbors porch lights, she ate way too much Taco Bell and I hijacked people's Facebook posts. 

And it was one of the best nights that I have ever had. 

I am finding a me that I have had buried somewhere for a long time. I didn't realize how much I missed her. 

By the way, I kind of suck at pool now. I should really play some more. Like tomorrow. 

One and Done

I sat there, holding him, this 9 pound beautiful boy that JoDene had just brought into the world. This baby boy, barely 3 days old, that cried softly when he would lose the pacifier that he was working so hard on.

And all I could think, all I could feel was, "Thank God that you are not mine. Thank God that I don't have to do this all over again."

At this very time last year, I lamented over the fact that I would have to start fertility medication in order to have another baby. I cried every month when my body would once again remind me that I had failed to conceive.

But I don't want another baby. Not now, probably not ever.

You may be wondering what has changed and my only answer to that is me. I have changed. I have other priorities, other dreams, other plans.

And none of those include having my nipples gnawed off by a teething infant. Or gaining more weight that I would have to work my 36 year old ass off to get rid of. Or giving up wearing heels for another year because I am incapable of carrying a wriggling baby mass while wearing heels. Or spending the rest of my life in unflattering attire because even after the age of 2, kids still have a way of ruining your  clothes (like trying to clean up a nail polish spill with my bathing suit and then stuffing said suit back into my underwear drawer so that when I find the mess it has now become a bathing suit/underwear/sock conglomeration covered in GLITTER! nail polish).

Yay for heels!

I no longer desire to smell small people's butts to check for poop, or to wipe anyone else's ass for the rest of my life. I no longer desire smelling sour milk, or clean up whatever that nasty, goopy stuff is that collects in the folds of their little necks.

I don't want to drive a car that will hold more than myself and my child and the nine million things that must accompany us on every outing. If there are two children, where do you even put that much stuff? I don't want to re-baby proof a house that just became un-baby proofed. I don't want to waste hours of my time watching reruns on Netflix while I hold a child that will not sleep anywhere but my arms.

Maybe I am selfish, maybe I am just going through something, maybe I am just a bitch. Whatever it might be, I know that should a tornado or a fire or the Zombie Apocalypse strike our tiny home, I can rescue one child - and I don't have to pick which one.

For right now, I am just thankful for my one.