|
|
I am putting away my pregnancy diary, the companion piece to the popular book about expecting which was a well-intended gift from my sister-in-law. I found that it doesn't exactly work for interrupted pregnancies; scratching through the previous dates of tests, appointments, and exams in order to add the new ones was just a little much.
My online buddies sent me a surprise gift in the mail -- a small, beautiful cherub who now sits on my bookshelf, next to my dog George's urn (yes, urn), the ultrasound picture of baby number three, and the paper airplane that I received from the nurses at my D&C. It's my little shrine to loss, I guess. I like the location in the house -- the little cherub looks down at me thoughtfully while I sit at the computer.
My email loop friends are the only ones who understand why I complain of being thirty-six and a half. It's funny, we all stop adding the "and-a-half" to our age sometime before we become teenagers; now, for me, it's a significant term again. I'd truly hoped to be a parent by now. First, by my thirty-fifth birthday, then by the time I turned thirty-six, now -- if I became pregnant today (which isn't going to happen), I would be having my first child at the age of thirty-seven.
Not that I think being thirty-seven is "over the hill", it's just later than I want it to be in the big scheme of things. I had a friend in college who had "older" parents, meaning they were in their very late thirties when they had her. She had nothing good to say about the experience. Her parents, she recalled, were always too tired to do much of anything, and she was embarassed at school parent meetings because her folks looked so much older than everyone else. Her little friends used to ask her "are those your grandparents?", and she grimaced just remembering that. My heart sinks when I remember her stories.
Recently, as I walked one of the dogs, I had yet another emotional experience in public (almost bursting into tears at the grocery store is becoming typical for me now). While the dog did her usual business, I glanced around me at the neighborhood and saw a little boy helping his younger sister ride a bike. He looked to be around eight and she, around four. As I simply watched them, the boy behaving very kindly toward this little girl who was trying so hard to get it right, tears began to well up in my eyes and fall down my cheeks. I didn't even feel it coming on, I was just crying suddenly. No "boohoo's", no wrinkled face, just big, hot tears cascading down my cheeks and nose.
As I paused to think about my tears, I was quickly stricken with the realization that I had always wanted to space my children around five years apart. I had studied birth order and observed the effects of various spacings in the families I had worked with and determined that, for me, I would prefer a five-year age difference. The little boy and girl were demonstrating before my very eyes one of the reasons that I considered this best.
Now, it was becoming clear that I may no longer have that opportunity. Regardless of whether or not I would ever manage to have a child, I have probably forever lost the chance to space my kids in the way I wanted. As if I needed it, I have something new to grieve....
© Tracy Morris
