I used to think I didn't want children. I remember late night conversations, over margaritas and a smoke, outlining my convictions. There is too much suffering in the world already, how selfish is it to bring yet another child, and even if you do want children - the only moral thing to do is adopt etc. etc.
But I'm older now. I know myself better. I know that really, it was the pain. I just couldn't imagine choosing to put myself through the pain of childbirth. Or in the words of Greg's mom, "I don't care what they say, a smart woman never forgets that sort of pain".
But, like I said, I'm older. Maybe wiser, maybe more emotional, maybe just more emotionally aware, but in recent years I've come to realize that I do in fact want to be a mother. Not that those reasons were not legitimate, or that I don't still agree with them. I guess the instinct for continuance just kicked in.
Mrs. Purple is a couple of years older than me. Her old high school friends almost all have children already. The obligatory visit after a baby is born is always so draining for me. It's not that I am not happy for them, or that I don't enjoy seeing the newborn, holding it and talking to it. Exactly the opposite - I do. But I want it too. I'm happy for them, but I want that happiness for me. For us.
I think my brother would be a fabulous uncle. I can't wait to send my mom a list of my favourite children's books. I am in awe at the thought of creating this...this human...with Mrs., and of being a mother with her. And therein lies the crux of it all.
See, nature played a little trick on us. It gave us each other, but at the same time robbed us of the right to do this amazing thing exclusively together. I will never be able to look at my child and see us both reflected in the same little person.
No, I have to search for my True Love's duplicate. So ok, there must be some generous blue eyed blond out there, but does he have that little crook in his smile like she does? Is he smart enough? Could he possibly have her soft skin? And how much of the personality is nature and how much nurture? Will our child have her sense of aesthetics just from being around her, or is that an inherited trait?
A close friend of mine told me she has stopped taking the pill. She and her man are trying for a baby. I know that baby will be amazingly smart, and I know it'll be cute. I know I will love it as if it was my own nephew. And still, I can't help mourn the fact that I can't do the same. Imagine, all it takes is just to stop taking the pill. That's it. Without looking for donors, without involving any clinics, without having to explain yourself and validate your life's choices to doctors and other strangers. I'm not even talking about facing society afterwords as two mom family, just about the act of conception alone.
Another friend had an abortion sometime last month. There's that clown Nature again. The condom broke, the morning after pill didn't work and in the end abortion was inevitable. I never told her, but I cried when she told me about it. Never told her because she had every right and reason to chose to do it, but cried because this 'accident' is denied from my wife and me.
Funny, the concerned nurse at the beginning of uni was shocked when I turned down the free condoms ("a third of the fresher girls get pregnant in the first semester of university!" She said), and I thought I was being so clever when I told her I have the best kind of contraceptive - only sleep with girls!
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