What About When...?

I didn’t actually start this blog with the express intention of only ever writing about parenting stuff. I actually thought that at some point I might say something about my political standpoint or my diet, but then I figured that those of you who follow my Twitter account already have a pretty comprehensive overview of those subjects and probably don’t need a blog to fill in the blanks. But in spite of everything I share about my kids and my motherhood battles, the only part of my relationship that I’ve ever really alluded to is the fact that my husband had a vasectomy in March and we very nearly got divorced in April, two completely separate things which were in no way related. So this blog is going to be about relationships and marriage, and if you don’t want to know about either then please look away now.

So, the first thing I should probably mention here is that I’ve always thought of myself as being a pretty emotionally open person. I’ve never really been afraid to tell someone that I loved them, whether it was in a romantic or platonic sense. But this week I’ve kind of realised some stuff about myself that has actually left me feeling really fucking confused. Like, I almost feel like I’m not really sure of who I am anymore. For this to make sense I have to deviate from my original point so I can lay the groundwork and bring this back around full circle. Eurgh. This is hard... I’m not actually sure why I decided to do this.

When I met my husband I was hurt. Seriously messed up hurt. I remember sitting on the steps outside my flat after our first date thinking, “Well, fuck... I don’t even know if I can do this.” I’d been in and out of this toxic thing with my ex-boyfriend for about four months by this point which basically amounted to us not actually being together, but somehow always ending up sleeping together whenever we thought it was a smart idea to see each other. Which it never fucking was. It was always a terrible idea. So I was in a bad place around the time of that first date and definitely not at my best at all. I was pretty determined to be completely emotionally unavailable, but I guess over the weeks and months, my now-husband kind of... Won me over. I mean, it wasn’t that easy. I was a total mess a lot of the time and he had to be really patient with me, but I started to figure out that you probably don’t put that much effort into a fledgling relationship unless you really, really like that person. Or, I guess, unless you enjoy hard work with little reward and like a challenge.

After about four and half months we moved in together. I think pretty much everyone thought we were crazy, but you know what? If it’s going to be a total fucking deal breaker that he leaves piles of clothes all over the house that never find their way to the washing machine without female intervention then it’s probably just as well that you figure that out quickly and don’t waste your time picking them up. On the other hand, if it’s not a deal breaker and you can laugh about how he always sings the wrong words to every single fucking song ever – with the possible exception of songs you hate – then maybe it might work out. It wasn’t easy. It really wasn’t. I have a really chequered relationship history and I’d lived with someone before so I had pretty warped expectations of what it would be like, but... We did okay. We got engaged about eight months later, and I guess the rest is history.

But even though I pretty much think I’m doing okay now and I’m probably about as “normal” as I’ll ever be, I’m still a bit less of a person than I used to be. I’ve kind of lost some pieces along the way. So when on Tuesday night we were in the pub with some friends and someone who once spectacularly shattered my heart walked in, I went into a kind of state of shock. This particular guy was somebody else’s boyfriend when we met and nothing happened for a really long time because I knew about her and I was determined not to be that person. Except that of course I ended up being that person, for which I have no excuse other than possibly the fact that I was only 19 and pretty besotted with him, and I was that person for exactly two weeks until the guilt crippled me and I walked away. But I was so hurt. I was heartbroken for months. In fact, since then I’ve only seen him in passing a handful of times until that night in the pub. And when I saw him and I felt the awkwardness of knowing that the only really sensible thing to do was not acknowledge him at all unless he made it impossible, I started to realise that maybe I’m not quite the person I thought I was.

On Thursday night, my husband and I watched a movie called “I Give It A Year”. I hope none of you were planning to watch it because I’m about to completely ruin it for you. When we went to bed that night, he cuddled up to me and said something about being really glad that our marriage isn’t messed up and how happy he is and even though I was thinking that I absolutely feel the same, I somehow felt uncomfortable about saying it. Which is when I realised that this actually happens quite a lot... Which is also when it occurred to me that maybe it’s because I still have some residual walls or defences or whatever.

Over the years, a lot of friends and family members have tried to reassure me that my husband loves me, which is something that I actually know is true, but I always respond with, “Right, but what about when...?” What About When... he figures out I’m not actually cool? Happened about six years ago when he realised that I love Dawson’s Creek, Pure Shores by All Saints and that I cry at veterinary programs. What About When... he notices that I’m a bit of an emotional train wreck? The illusion of me having my shit together was shattered pretty quickly when my aforementioned ex-boyfriend reappeared on the scene about a week after we met, causing an I-don’t-know-what-the-fuck-to-do crisis that had me calling the whole thing off. What About When... I’m sick with something and I look like shit? About a month after we moved in together I came down with swine flu and he found me crying on the kitchen floor on my third day off work because I didn’t have the strength to get up and go back to bed. Looking like shit didn’t quite cover the catastrophic state of my physical appearance that day. The point is, there are about 27million What About When...? scenarios, and we’ve probably gotten through at least 26.5million of them over the last six years. So I should really know by now that it’s okay to be emotionally open again. I do know. I know he’s not going anywhere. I know there’s not one single What About When...? that could make him think any less of me. But... knowing and accepting maybe aren’t quite the same thing.

Why Hypothetical Baby = Actual NO

Before we get started: I am ever so very grateful for my two beautiful, wonderful children. Okay? Pease don’t forget that and feel the need to remind me about it because I AM.

Sometimes I’ll be driving along and I’ll start thinking that maybe we actually could cope with another baby, and I’ll wonder if perhaps we might even get a girl. I’ll start going over the dialogue in my head, how I would present the idea to my husband and I’ll think about the possible reaction I might get and how I would feel if he flat out rejected it. Then it hits me with a sickening lurch that seems to knock me sideways; another baby isn’t an option for us anymore. And it really doesn’t matter how many times I forget and subsequently remember that fact, the force of the impact never seems to be any less devastating. But we decided this. We looked at our options and we made this choice. And, truthfully, there are a lot of reasons why it was the right decision to make. Logical, sensible reasons with strong foundations in the reality that is our life together. But there are a lot of reasons why it was the totally fucking wrong decision too, and some days I find that I really resent my husband for how easy he found the whole thing. I know that’s really unreasonable. I’m self-aware enough to realise that. But here’s the thing about me; sometimes I am really unreasonable. And illogical too, a character trait for which this precise situation is a case in point.

Here’s a list of the things that would have to change for my husband and I to have another baby. It’s not a short list. In fact, it’s a list that falls just short of EVERYTHING.

I would need a new car. Probably some hideous people carrier effort with shitloads of seats and cavernous boot space for all the crap that I would need to cart around all the time. A new car would be expensive, and I just bought one that I really like and which suits our current family perfectly. I don’t want a people carrier.

We would have to move house. About six weeks ago we had a new bathroom fitted. It is a bathroom that I have been lusting after since ever we bought this house and the bloody awful bathroom that came with it three years ago. I like this house a lot, and there are a whole bunch of reasons why I wouldn’t want to move out of it. It’s not all about the bathroom. But right now, a lot of it is about the bathroom.

We would need more money, which means that I would need to think about taking on some evening work as well as my day job. And it might sound selfish, but I kind of value my quality of life over a hypothetical baby right now considering how hard everything has been during Baby Taylor’s first year and how sleep-deprived I still am. That’s just how it is right now, and how it will probably be for some time to come.

Okay, so actually laid out like that, it’s not a long list. But if you expand on the repercussions of just one of those things, the whole concept kind of takes on supernova status and suddenly I WANT ANOTHER BABY doesn’t really seem to hold much weight or make a whole lot of sense. Then there’s all of the stuff that wouldn’t so much change as change back.

Night feeds. Show of hands for everyone who hates night feeds as much as me? Yeah. Thought so. They’re shit, aren’t they? Particularly when bad experiences with Baby Taylor’s night feeds would mean a constant inner monologue of, “I wonder if s/he will actually go back to sleep when s/he is done...” I can’t even tell you how much I am done with night feeds.

Alongside night feeds... Explosive nappies in the middle of the night that get all over the bed and then the whole bed needs to be changed as well as the baby and the baby has shit in his/her hair and I have no fucking idea how it got there or what I’m supposed to do about it at 4AM and... NO. JUST NO.

The What The Fuck Is Wrong With You And Why Won’t You Sleep/Stop Crying/Eat guessing game. Because now Baby Taylor and I sort of understand each other well enough that most of the time he can find a way to tell me what he needs without screaming the house down about it and I usually figure out what he’s getting at pretty quickly. When he was a baby? Nope. And it was the same with Toddler Taylor, made even harder by the fact that he was my first baby and I had no bloody idea what I was actually doing.

Immunisations every four weeks. Absolutely necessary, of course. But “please don’t cuddle your baby until we’ve given both jabs”? Seriously... Fuck off with that right now.

Weight Clinic. Does anybody else come out in a cold sweat of panic every time they have to take a newish baby to weight clinic? Like, what if s/he’s not gaining enough weight? What if they tell me I’m doing something wrong? What if someone says FAILURE TO THRIVE? This has only become less of an issue for me since I bought my own set of scales to alleviate the fear of nasty surprises. I actually wish I was kidding about that, but HI. I’M NEUROTIC.

You know how people always tell you to “weigh up the pros and cons” whenever you’re feeling a bit on-the-fence about something? That’s my Could We Have Another New Baby cons list. Oh, and there’s one more: MY HUSBAND HAD A VASECTOMY IN MARCH AND WE CAN’T HAVE BABIES TOGETHER ANYWAY. I always somehow forget that one. It gets lost in the myriad of other cons, but then it always seems to be the one that flies back up and smacks me in the face because it’s the only one that really matters in the end. And a lot of the time I can see this for what it really is, rather than what my conscious mind would like me to believe it is. What I think this is actually about is how much I just did not enjoy Baby Taylor’s first few months, how guilty I feel about wishing that time away and how much I wish I could go back and find a way to not hate every second of it. It’s about me wanting to “fix” myself, and I think I always knew that I would feel that way. So my pros list would probably look something like this:

I could exorcise my I’m A Shitty Mother demons by doing an absolutely perfect job of nurturing and breastfeeding (I can’t even. It still kills me) and bonding with my new baby, then I might start feeling better about myself and stop obsessing over all of the things I regret that I can’t fucking change because it’s too late.

 But my selfish desire to not feel totally shit about the whole experience forever is not a good enough reason to bring another child into the world. Not at all. And it wouldn’t actually work anyway. I was going to do a better job of a lot of things with Baby Taylor than I did with Toddler Taylor and look how that turned out; I got thrown a curveball and that whole notion went to hell. If we’re going to start looking at it like that – and we shouldn’t, because I know it wasn’t my fault – the chances are it probably wouldn’t be any better or easier next time either. So it’s really a good thing that we can’t have more children, otherwise I might just end up forgetting all that and convince myself that it would be a smart idea to try again.

No More Babies

My husband had a vasectomy last Friday afternoon. Kind of a blunt way to start a blog, but there it is. It’s weird how differently we’re dealing with it. Like, you marry somebody and you kind of assume that you’ll feel the same way about the big decisions in life. Moving to a new neighbourhood, getting a cat, deciding to have kids, deciding not to have more kids, but... Nope. People have been saying to me for the last couple of months, “If you’re not sure then you shouldn’t be doing it” and, “Why don’t you wait a few more years?” because it was clearly obvious that I felt conflicted about it. And I know it’s supposed to be helpful, but hey! SO NOT HELPFUL.

Babies are cute, aren’t they? Sure, they cry a lot and crap even more, but they’re essentially incredibly cute and very forgiving of all of the things that make mums human and not Wonder Woman. But they soon grow up and become toddlers, who are a little less cute and far less forgiving. You fall asleep on the couch with a toddler and, even if you were absolutely certain that they were thoroughly engrossed in whatever they were playing with or watching on the TV, ten seconds later they will be jumping up and down on you and poking you in the face, shouting “WAKE UP, MUMMY!” and generally making you feel like you want to cry. Babies don’t do that. They either don’t notice for a good half hour that you’ve fallen asleep, or they fall asleep with you. And you can only cuddle a toddler for a maximum of ten seconds before they get bored and look for entertainment in using you as a trampoline or bashing you repeatedly over the head with a stuffed animal. Which, FYI, still kinda hurts after a while. Those are just examples.

Of course, there are also lots of reasons why toddlers can be much easier to deal with than babies, the most obvious of which being that they have the communication skills to tell you when they are unhappy without screaming about it for hours and leaving you to play the never-ending guessing game of WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU AND WHY WON’T YOU SLEEP?! Which brings me to the sleep issue itself in that toddlers usually have the sleep thing nailed by this point in their lives, while a baby might not figure it out until they’re coming up to two years old. And let’s not forget the “I love you, mummy” moments that tend to make all of the shit things feel okay after all. All great examples of why toddlerhood sorta rocks, in its own thoroughly draining way.

So, Baby Taylor is coming up to six months old now and becoming more of a small person than a baby. We’ve had our share of problems with him, most of which have been caused by a severe case of reflux which still shows no sign of going away any time soon, and I’d be lying if I said that a new issue didn’t arise every second week. This week, for example, Baby Taylor has decided that he hates sleep. Or maybe he hates his room. I’m not sure. All I know is that as soon as I start walking up the stairs with him at nap time, he starts shrieking and thrashing and trying to make me drop him, because he would rather fall down the stairs than go to bed. So yeah, that’s not so fun. But the rest of the time, when he’s awake and happy and being unbearably cute, he’s pretty awesome.

Watching him grow rapidly out of babyhood makes me miss the days when he would fall asleep on my chest and stay snuggled there for hours. It makes me ache for the early days of bonding and breastfeeding and getting to know each other. But this is mostly my selective memory at work, because the truth is that at best we had a tenuous breastfeeding relationship, which made bonding very difficult as we both so clearly wanted different things. When I finally gave in – and when he was diagnosed with and properly treated for his reflux – our relationship improved dramatically and we now have a solid bond. So, putting aside all of the hell we went through in the first three months, I would be delighted to have another baby. Never mind the fact that we don’t have enough space and my car isn’t big enough and we actually can’t afford more kids... All irrelevant at 27 when closing the door on babies means ending a chapter in your life that a lot of your friends haven’t even started yet.

The thing is, my husband is a more rational being than I am. He loves his kids, but he also loves the idea of getting a little bit of his life back sooner rather than later. And, unlike me, he very clearly remembers the Reflux Hell and isn’t keen to repeat the experience any time soon. So where I could probably have 10 kids and still feel a pang when the last one reached their first birthday, he tends to view each milestone as one step closer to feeling a little less exhausted and a little more human. I get it. It’s not like I don’t ever fantasise about what I might be doing if I didn’t have kids, or if my kids were older and more independent, but a lot of the time I do genuinely enjoy being a mother and having children who are young enough to still think I’m the most wonderful human on the planet.

So on The Morning of the Operation, my husband was more concerned about surrendering a part of his masculinity – not to mention the fact that it might hurt to do so - than he was about the fact that no more sperm = no more babies. In fact, he was pretty clear on being totally at ease with the idea of no more babies. I, on the other hand, was nearing hysterical meltdown and had visions of crashing into the treatment room right at the critical moment screeching, “NO! IT’S A MISTAKE! A HUGE FUCKING MISTAKE!” I didn’t do this. I sat patiently in the waiting room, tapping my feet and chewing my nails for a whole hour until he walked out, relieved of his ability to procreate and of all the associated worries he had carried into the clinic with him. He probably would have bounced out if it hadn’t been for the unfavourable kinetic effects that would have had on his area.

We drove home, kind of talking about it, but mostly not and I woke up at regular intervals during that night and felt peculiar about it. And while every day since my darling husband has been giving me chirpy updates on bruise progress and suture dissolution, I have tried to come to terms with the idea that I will never again carry or birth a baby. It’s not easy, but during a WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU AND WHY WON’T YOU SLEEP?! incident with Baby Taylor this afternoon, I felt like maybe getting some of my life back might not be such a bad thing after all. Because, actually, it wouldn’t be so bad to eventually have date nights and eight hours sleep and an uninterrupted nap on the couch someday. But don’t expect me to be glad about it just yet. And please, for the love of all that is sacred and holy, don’t tell me to be grateful for the kids I already have because I KNOW AND I AM, but it's just not that helpful to point it out right now.