Not Going It Alone
Like Bobby Brown, I too have my prerogative. I am changing my mind about having children. Of course, I still want to have children. But I think I am now choosing not to. And I think I want - no, need to write about why, for I am just now beginning to understand.Maybe I'll start at the beginning, and finish this in stages - as long as it takes to sort out.
When I was a little girl, I had a school assignment to cut out pictures from stacks and stacks of magazines and glue together pictures of what our lives would look like in the future. Like most kids, I cut out pictures of my house and furnishings, a dream partner (who mysteriously looked a lot like my dad). I cut out pictures of cats, and I cut out a picture of two brown-haired, brown-eyed children - a boy and a girl. I named them Jason and Jennifer - very middle-class white America, don't you think? I liked this image of my family. I thought then that I would be a ballerina, or a singer. I thought my husband would be a doctor. I figured even then that our children would be beautiful and brilliant. I loved dreaming about these things!
My dream to have a family stayed with me until after my first marriage, when I was about 23. I'd met my girlfriend, Amber, and fell in love with her three children. But I saw how her husband and children often made her unhappy. I also started graduate school, and every message I got about being successful as a woman told me that children would be the death of my success - and if they weren't, they would be the death of me. I did not maintain a positive relationship with my father, who worked more than anyone I'd ever met, and who never seemed to like me much, let alone approve of me and the choices I made (and I craved his approval and longed for him to truly like me). My mother did not seem happy with my father much during that time in my life, but she always seemed happy that she had my brother and I. She never seemed to regret that.
My marriage to my first husband, Brian, was a blast at times, and a painful crisis at others. As I moved back into the swing of graduate school and we grew further and futher apart (spiritually, physically, and intellectually), we committed to never have children. When asked about it, we would just reply that children we not a goal of ours, nor the foundation for happiness. I carefully crafted the perfect "non-breeder" feminist response to any question. I always answered with confidence in my/our decision, and the more I said it, the more I believed it. We would see children, or our friends would have children, and we would talk about how grateful we were that we were not burdened by that. Whenever he lost a job (which I need both hands to count), or whenever we moved to a new city, we would tell each other how glad we were not to have children. When we went on vacation to Las Vegas, or even Disney World (how ironic), we'd remark about how lucky we were to not have to tote children along. We never changed our minds in the rest of our 9 years together.
When I finally decided to free myself from the chains of a bad marriage, I felt so many things I either had never felt before, or hadn't in a long time. Yet it took a while for my answers to change, and for me to articulate them to anyone - even to myself. It was around this time that I began to really get to know the man who would become my current (and hopefully last) husband. We had almost-nightly phone conversations, and we e-mailed (or I e-mailed him and from time-to-time he would acknowledge them) and talked about many important life issues, including children. I knew that he had recently ended a relationship with a beautiful, successful young woman - and that a main reason for the break-up was her desire to marry and have children. The marriage part he seemed to have less of a problem with, as they had planned to eventually marry. But he made it clear that he had no desire to have children. He made jokes and condescending remarks about people who wanted, or had children. When he talked about his friends or colleagues who had recently had children, it was with great bewilderment. He presented himself as somehow having become more intellectually evolved for not "needing" anything - especially children.
I told Michael that I did not want children either. Imagine his delight in knowing such a woman might exist - and she's pretty and smart and successful too. Imagine my confusion. I was 30 years old, educated, fairly attractive, and moderately accomplished. I could now freely choose the course of my life. And the man I had no come to love did not want children. "That's OK", I thought to myself. He had everything else going for him - he was a Christian, well-educated, extremely successful, brilliant, and beautiful. He came from a nice in-tact family, and didn't smoke, drink, or cuss. And he hated the very thought of children - second only to the thought of marriage, I think.
But I soon grew to want what the old Tamara had wanted all those years ago - a husband and children - a family of my own. In ways, I felt more free to go out and get this than I ever had before. In other ways, I was scared to death. Little by little, I tried to tell Michael about my feelings. While he seemed to listen, he did not seem to understand. Still the comments about female (and male) friends and co-workers who had or wanted children seemed to reveal his true feelings of disdain and contempt for anyone who wanted children and made that a goal in life. I cringed every time I heard these comments, and tried to brush them off as jokes. Then I began to cry about it - sometimes alone, and sometimes in front of him. I am certain he had no idea what I was so upset about. The more I tried to communicate my feelings to him, the more misunderstood I felt and the more frustrated Michael became. He ended our relationship in March of 2003 and would not agree to even see me until October of that year. He kept telling me he couldn't give me what I wanted, and that we were not the right people for each other. I am sure my newfound desire to have children was a part of it - my desire to get married was another.
In March 2004, my mistake or divine intervention, we somehow managed to get married. Michael wanted to wait until we were living in the same place for me to go off of birth control pills. I did as he wanted. Then late last year he agreed that it would be OK if I stopped taking them. He said he did not want to "try" to conceive, but that it was OK to not try to prevent it. At the time, I did not see the difference. I do now. Since then, a lot has been different. Michael is depressed, overwhelmed, anxious, and unhappy.
About 4 months ago, I was diagnosed with PCOS and found that my own fertility might be an issue. I started on Metformin, and now have regular cycles. In the meantime, my husband learned he too has fertility issues that are far less treatable. We do not discuss it. I test my fertility to see if I am ovulating. I chart my cycles, and feel crazy for doing it. All this I do in secret. My husband and I do not talk about trying to have children. He says whatever I want is fine, and that he would be OK with it. OK. Fine. Not happy, not excited, not joyous - fine. And his desire to be intimate with me is all but gone. I'm sure all of this has killed him mentally. I am sure he prays every month that if we are intimate, that I won't get pregnant. So, maybe this is why I need to change my mind about this...
There is a young man my husband works with, and he and his wife are having their first child soon. We saw them at a picnic recently, and they were positively inseparable and grinning from ear-to-ear. He stood behind her with his arms around her, and they talked about how excited they were as they made preparations for the baby to come. They even talked about planning the pregnancy so that he would not be teaching when the baby came. It was nice to see a couple where the woman was not the only one excited about having a baby. I wish I had someone to be excited about trying with. And the lack of having someone to be excited with has me changing my mind...
Every month there is disappointment when I learn I'm not pregnant. It's not horrible, but this month I was really down because I thought I had managed to time sex pretty well last month with my ovulation. I sense that my husband is relieved, and I have no one to be sad or disappointed with. I have no one to talk to about it. My best friend knows I want children, but she has no idea of the feelings I have each month to learn that my efforts haven't worked. I am sure she is tired of hearing me talk about my fertility issues. And so...
Now, as we spent the weekend in Alabama at my brother-in-law's graduation, I wondered what it would have been like to tote children on a trip with us. I wondered if it would be all that bad. It wouldn't be, if I had a partner to be happy with me. But I can't become a happy mother without a happy father - a happy partner. And I know it won't work with a partner who says, "Whatever you want is fine. I don't want it, but if you do, then we'll do it." I've decided that having children just can't be like that.
So, this week I'm going to the doctor for a checkup, and I'm asking to get back on the pill. Because for as much as I truly wanted to have children, I'm not going it alone.
posted by No Longer In Crisis @ 5/10/2005 02:21:00 PM
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