Skipping the Party

This morning I woke up unable to face a baby shower for three of my neighbors, all of whom had (or, in one case, adopted) baby girls within a week of each other. I was planning to go, but am apparently having an emotionally unbalanced day, so I stayed home.

Over the past months I've been trying to face up to the fact that barring some sort of miracle, Jack will be an only child in our family. While he has half-siblings who are with his birth mom, he will not have anyone to commiserate with about all of the dysfunction Roger and I create in his life.

I have always been ambivalent about motherhood (though I must say that I’m not at all ambivalent about being Jack’s mom—that’s absolutely one of the best things in my life). Growing up I figured I’d have two or three children, and that being a mom would just be a natural part of my life. I didn’t stress about or fear becoming a parent, but I never had a sense of urgency about it either.

When it became fairly clear in my mid-thirties that I probably would never give birth to a child, Roger and I went through the process to adopt Jack. Ironically, Jack was born nine months after the agency approved our application. When Jack was a year old, we went through the process again, but years went by and we never got a call.

Throughout those years, we never made any herculean attempts to grow our family. No medical procedures, no international adoptions, no adopting older children or taking in foster kids. Nothing. We did not feel inclined or inspired to take those extra measures so we didn’t.

Then after Jack started school and Roger and I were firmly in our forties, we let our approval status lapse—in part because there were so many other couples in the pool for so few children and we knew they really hungered for them while we were ambivalent.

I’ve often thought the three of us make a fine family together, and I’ve only rarely yearned for another child despite the fact that I live plunk the middle of a culture that values and encourages large families.

But as I approach my 44^th birthday, I realize I’ve got a lot to sort through. Should I have fought my ambivalence and worked harder to have more children? Have I just been lazy and selfish? Aaagh, all of the regret and guilt tied up in that line of thinking!

Or has my ambivalence really been a blessing in disguise—a coping mechanism of some sort? I may well have gone through one herculean effort after another and still ended up with one child. Maybe my ambivalence is a result of knowing deep down inside that I would never really have any control over how many children we have. If I didn’t really care too much, my heart wouldn't break.

Where I think this may lead to in the end is succumbing to Jack’s pleas for a dog. And let me tell you, that’s a big, big leap for me!