Thoughts on Babies and My Lackthereof

When I was 19, I had lofty goals for procreation. Knee-deep in my pathetic pageant career, I determined that I would like to have three children--all girls, naturally. They were to be named Josan, Jocelyn and Jordanna. The reason I needed to have three girls was apparent: they were to form a trifecta of pageant perfection, and take the state and national pageant scenes by storm. Of course, I also realized that in order to accomplish the high goals I'd set for Josan, Jocelyn and Jordanna, I would need to find myself a very rich baby daddy. Since northeastern Minnesota had a distinct lack of rich and available baby daddies ripe for the picking, I had to set other goals for procreation.

I gradually moved toward the idea of having two children, and ideally, by the time of my ten-year high school reunion, I would have one child and be round and jolly and glowingly pregnant with the second. As it would turn out, this was not entirely off the mark: I was pregnant at the time of my reunion, though it didn't go as I envisioned in my fantasies. It was my first kid. I didn't look at all pregnant until my sixth month. And I skipped the reunion.

As I moved through life, it didn't occur to me that I should think about having kids until I was in Cancun for my mother's 50th birthday. I went home and tossed the birth control pills, and announced to my now ex-husband that I would like a baby. He happily obliged, and it what would hauntingly describe our future, told me that he hoped it would take a very long time for me to get pregnant, because my attempts at getting knocked up meant him getting laid more often.

At first, I threw myself into my new project, dealing with ovulation tests and temping. After a year, nothing had happened. I can't say I was surprised, because deep down, I think I knew something was not right. Alas, I made an appointment with the OBGYN who would eventually become the biggest crush of my adulthood, and he diagnosed my infertility in one quick glance at my blood test results. He started with drugs, which meant calculated baby-making sex, a total downer for romance or fulfilling sex--not that I was having that to start with. Within three months, I was pregnant.

I had a semi-difficult pregnancy. Any pregnancy that is kicked off with fertility treatments is generally treated more sensitively, but I had no problems with the bonus ultrasounds. By week 18, an abnormal growth that had been present since my own birth was found in my uterus, a complication that could interfere with my baby's growth, so I got ordered to have ultrasounds every two weeks. It didn't occur to me to find any concern in this, as I was just ecstatic to know that I was having a girl. At 33 weeks, I got pregnancy-induced hypertension. Again, I wasn't concerned. This meant that I then got weekly ultrasounds and visits with the OBGYN, which suited me just fine, since my love for him was at an all-time high by then.

I had known for a long, long time that I would be having AC via planned C-section, because of the uterine septate causing my daughter to remain in a breech position. I could not be happier. I attended birthing classes, but snickered through the breathing exercises, knowing that I would not need them. I was only going to need the maximum amount of drugs allowed by law, coupled with the reassuring touch of my OBGYN, even if that "touch" was the slice of his surgical knife. From week 28 on, I asked at every visit when we could schedule that C-section. Finally at 37 weeks, I got to schedule it, and naturally, I chose Valentine's Day. Score! This allowed me to guarantee that he had no choice but to spend the "most romantic day of the year" at my side!

A week later, I woke up with an incapacitating headache. I took Tylenol. I took hot showers. I threw up in the kitchen sink. I finally passed out on the couch. When I awoke, I was so disorientated that it took me a bit to remember where I was and how I got there. It was only then that I broke down and called the doctor's office. I was promptly ordered to the hospital.

At the hospital, I repeated the obvious over and over, to every request: No, I would not have a cervical check, because Dr. W said I did not need them because I was having a planned C-section. No, I will not wait for you to talk to the on-call OBGYN, because Dr W is doing my C-section in one week, and anything else would not be acceptable. No, I will not pee in the cup every time I need to go, because I already did that once and that's fair--have YOU tried to pee in a cup with proper aim when YOU were nine months pregnant? No, I don't want the Lortab. I want the Percocet. No, I do not know why the Lortab doesn't cut it, and no, I am pretty sure that it has nothing to do with a pre-existing drug habit.

In the end, I was sent home with a bottle of Percocet and an order for bed rest. The next day, I had an appointment with Dr W. I had already made the decision to not mention my little trip to the Birth Place, fearful of ruining our scheduled February 14th date. In his typical laid-back fashion, we chatted and caught up on each other's weeks, before he asked me about the Birth Place visit. I explained I had a headache, hoping to fool him into thinking that it was a headache and not a pregnancy-induced hypertension headache that smacked "preeclampsia". After all, the Percocet took care of it. I was cured. Dr W asked if "it" was gone. I asked if he meant the headache or the Percocet. He said both. Headache yes, Percocet no. He told me I could sell the Percocet for $10 a piece on the street. I laughed uproarously, because here was a man who understood my dry humor. I proposed marriage. He proposed that he free up his schedule because I needed my C-section the next day.

I was returned to the hospital with not even so much as my baby daddy. In fact, the baby daddy finished his work day and then went for a hair cut before finally showing at the hospital. By this time, I'd been questioned several times by the nurses and the resident on duty about the location of the baby daddy. The baby daddy did eventually show, stayed for a few hours, then headed home. This was fine with me, especially the next morning, when Dr W showed up for a last-minute ultrasound, freshly showered and in scrubs. I was fully intoxicated, not with the idea that I was having a baby in six hours, but rather with the scent of Dr W's soapy bare skin so close to my own.

As the day dragged on, I began to resent Dr W. I could not have anything to drink, and it left me feeling near death. I would go into the bathroom under the guise of brushing my teeth, simply so I could suck the water off the bristles of the toothbrush. I imagined Dr W drinking can after can of Coke, while I suffered dehydration. Finally it was time for my C-section, and AC was born at 1:40 pm, precisely seven minutes after surgery started. Typical protocol calls for a heavy shot of Valium to knock the new baby mama out for the stitching-up portion of the event, but I sure as hell wasn't gonna succumb to any federally controlled substance when I had a full 45 minutes to monopolize Dr W's attention. It took all the strength that I had to fight off the drowsiness, but I indeed carried on a normal conversation, all while Dr W meticulously stitched up my innards. Best. Surgeon. Ever. The payoff came at the end, when after he'd finished up, he squeezed my hand. Beautiful. Even though he'd just seen my reproductive organs in a far more graphic way than anyone else ever will, I KNEW he wanted me, and now I had proof.

After an hour in recovery where I was fully awake--an experience I do not recommend for anyone--I was brought back to the nursery to meet AC. I held her for a moment or two, and then asked for a glass of water.

In retrospect, I still wonder where that "moment" was. You know, the moment where the heavens open and angels sing and you look at your baby and are completely consumed with love? Why hadn't this happened? Was there something genetically wrong with me? Was it because of my physical problems--that my body never went into labor and I somehow missed a hormonal rush that would've caused this feeling?

After I had AC, each day that passed made me feel that I wanted more kids less and less. When she was two, I made an appointment to have Essure permanent birth control coils placed--one of Dr W's specialties, so he recommended it over traditional tubal ligation, a phrase I later came to understand as, "He recommends it over traditional tubal ligation because he is reimbursed more for that in-office procedure than for an in-hospital procedure". I was still married at the time. The baby daddy wanted more kids. I was sure that I did not. I was also sure that I did not want the baby daddy himself, and figured I was doing him a favor. If I had the procedure, it saved him from a vasectomy, so he could still have kids with his next wife. He told me he had never been so insulted in his life. I thought I was being as unselfish as humanly possible. Rule number one of marriage: do not indicate to your spouse that he is welcome to have children with his "next wife", no matter how unselfish you think you are being.

After I had my procedure, I had no regret on my part, but I did have "survivor's guilt", as I term it. I have been so very fortunate to form friendships with a handful of women who have the same infertility condition that I do. They struggle with painful and expensive infertility treatments--and often painful and expensive emotions--to try and have more babies, and the failure rate of such procedures is high. I got pregnant quickly when I did have first-line treatments, and could possibly do so again. The irony that I could potentially have what my friends want so much but CAN'T have is not lost on me. Just this morning, I talked to one such friend. She has a beautiful little girl, who is slightly younger than AC. She herself is one of the beautiful-est people I have ever known, and in my future life, I hope I come back as her. She is never not happy, never not smiling, never not sweet, never not optimistic. She loves her baby, she loves her baby daddy and she loves life. She continually asks me to visit her in the Bay Area, promising a getaway filled with waffles and freshly-made cream, hot cocoa with Kahlua and horse-drawn carriage rides. I warn her that if I did indeed visit, there is a strong possibility that I may never leave. She is the purest form of mothering perfection I have ever known, and brings out all of my "I am not worthies". She makes Mary Poppins, Dr. Spock and SuperNanny look like slackers. You can be sure that her little AN-R is not sitting around watching Spongebob, as I guiltly admit to doing with my own AC. And since we had our babies, she has lost four more, four babies that she loved with all her heart and all her soul, and could not possibly been any more wanted and cherished from the very moment of conception. I know very few people who are worthier of having more babies than R, but despite all these setbacks, she stays sunny and optimistic and beautiful and loving. It brings survivor's guilt tears to my eyes, knowing that I could've maybe had what she wants most, and wishing that I could remove the scars from her heart and simply add them to the scars in my fallopian tubes that will prevent me from ever becoming pregnant again.

Last night, I was shopping, and in front of me was a little girl about AC's age, twirling around on the poles designed to keep shoppers separated and from kicking each other's asses during this mad holiday season. I knew from eavesdropping that her name was very similar to AC's. Suddenly, she stopped twirling, looked me in the eyes and gave me a gigantic smile, and she wouldn't stop. Eventually, we were eye-to-eye at the register, where she was sitting on the counter and, with help from her grandmother, paying for her purchases. Shopping Girl again stared into my eyes and smiled, and suddenly, I was hit with a deep, soul-crushing sadness: I will never again have a child like this. In her eyes, I could see my future babies, those I could've had with that elusive "The One" I keep waiting for. But now, no matter what, I will never be able to share that bond with The One, even if I found him today, when I am still young enough to reproduce.

Looking back, it makes me wonder: did I really not want more kids, or did I simply not want more kids with the baby daddy I was married to at the time? In my mind, looking into those tiny little blue eyes of the Shopping Girl, I caught a glimpse of what it could've been like to have a baby with someone else: a baby daddy who would've kissed my baby bump and talked to our baby through my tummy. A baby daddy who would've been at the hospital with me instead of getting his hair cut. A baby daddy who would pay attention at doctor's appointments instead of spacing out, only snapping back into reality when Dr W called him out on his inattentiveness. A baby daddy who wouldn't have left me at home less than 24 hours after we came home, so he could go ice racing.

The poor marital decision was easily remedied by divorce. The scarred tubes and the endless wonder of what future babies I could've had if and when I finally do find The One? Not so much.