Four!

Heads’ up people, she wants four. Not four Danish doughnuts, four soy lattés, or four People magazines (although she’d welcome all of those). A expressed casually with a sheepish grin a few weeks ago that she wants us to have three more babies. And this is after pushing that lump of a boy out of her still recovering body and being stuck like an all-hours dairy bar since. WTF and whatever the kids are saying these days! When did “let’s have kids” become “let’s populate the Empire”? Has she been whipped up into a nationalist frenzy? Very unlikely, although had we remained in Quebec we would be much celebrated and financially compensated despite being anything but “pur laine”. No my friends, it’s something much more powerful that politics, something secretly ruling humankind for always, it’s… hormones. Maybe it’s just Ben; he is pretty awesome. But I’m pretty sure the hormone motherload has hit and she’s hooked big time. It’s more powerful than her, like the Borg she can’t resist. All physical memory of pain is erased. The nearly nine months of nausea, poof! All our conversations about two, maybe three children, ignored. Intelligent Nature has dug Her clever talons deeply into the willing vessel of my woman, who conceived, carried and popped out this baby like nobody’s business (it’s irritatingly genetic). I will admit that A’s got bragging rights. And if I may say so, is looking fine six weeks later. It’s so bloody unfair.

Our baby just left midwifery care after a sumptuous six weeks post-partum and she’s already talking about a sibling. She wants ‘em fast and furious, like an assembly line of babies. Would she stop at four? Nobody knows. The big elephant in the room (despite a dearth of reality show offers) is of course the chilling truth that I’m next up again to the batting cage. Good… god. I can’t say that I’m really looking forward to picking off all of those emotional scabs. Sometimes all that saves me is the quasi-theistic and totally fatalistic feeling that Ben had to come first, and through A. And that when I try again (or IF, though I’m pretty sure I will) maybe it will be time for one to come through me. That is of course instead of thinking there is anything wrong with my body or karma, or that I have the genetic heritage of conceiving at a turtle’s pace. What A’s enthusiastic new “Breeder” t-shirt’s glittery red letters shout at me is “you better conceive post-haste cuz if you don’t and we switch back to me, the bottom line is my clock is ticking and I’m getting OLD!” Fhew! She’s actually said much of that to me, especially about her fears around aging and “geriatric pregnancies” (after age 35 and we're 33). There is also the implication that I have a time limit, and it’s coming from her, not Time. This is deep stuff. I am not ready for more kids yet. Though I can imagine it in the future, I can barely cope with what’s already before us. Like they say in those 12 step programs, woman, I’m taking this one day at a time.

E