Infant Insanity (or, "My Default Setting is 'Worry'...")

Content Warning/Trigger Warning:  Gonna touch on mental illness a bit and eating disorders.  As such, this is a little bit longer.

Chapter 8:  Children Learn What They Live (This was framed in a cross-stitch by our front door when I was a kid)

"Why the fuck do you want to have a kid?  What's wrong with you?"

Pretty harsh, huh?   Heyyyy! I liked the lists the last time and don't wanna waste your time...so here's a fun game called "Guess which of us has which issue?"

In our household we have:

-Depression
-ADHD
-Anxiety
-Body Dysmorphia
-History of eating disorders
-Panic attacks
-A dog with abandonment issues
-A cat with a tendency toward sociopathy*

I don't want to trivialize mental illness, and I'll stop you there and say that with the exception of the last two, it's pretty much all me.  (If you haven't figured as much, we're a family that's pretty honest and open and uses humor to soften the issues as much as, gasp, deflect/avoid)

Like talking openly miscarriage, de-stigmatizing mental illness is important to us for the simple reason of not wanting to mess up our kid should they develop in the world with some of their own chemistry slightly off.  Since both my wife and I have it, it's a safe bet she's going to have something come up during her development.  I'm sort of the last generation in a family that found dignity  and strength in suffering silently.

Which is hilarious because anyone reading this who knows me knows that I have the exact opposite problem- I am a LOUD open book that has a VERY permeable filter at best. I must have been a burden my folks.

For anyone who has or knows someone with mental illness , you already know there's still significant social stigma of having it perceived as a flaw or weakness.  (I remember a guy in college saying that ADD was just an excuse for people to be lazy and disordered.  I wanted to knock that motherfucker out on the spot.  Oh, hey!  Anger!  Good one, tough guy!).  On the flip side-  the same person who said the quote about "What's wrong with you" and was about as insensitive as they come, also admitted that they have to take General Anxiety Meds for their panic attacks.   We believe in our family that mental illness is very real, very individual, and complex thing that's still being studied and understood.

Never really having thought much about my ADHD my whole life (Mom used to say the doctors in the 70's used to think I was just a rotten hyperactive kid.  Truth.)  and not having my anxiety really manifest until my 40's meant I could shuffle most of my issues under the procrastination banner.  I never bothered to seek help because I never had to, and didn't really have the time. Literally, money was the *only* thing I would worry about regularly.

I figured this stuff would disappear as I got older or got married, but holy hanna...the body image issues are still there.  (How long have I been saying 30 lbs to go?  How many times do I work out?  How many times do I self-sabotage by eating until I'm stuffed and drinking more wine than is in a normal pour?  Or fucking hate pictures I'm in because I think I look like a moose?)   I've toned down a lot of the self-abusive language, but jeepers I still do a mental count of calories out of habit.  I still can drink a bottle of wine without a second thought, then make-believe a visit to the gym the next day is going to fix it.  Detox to Retox and all that.

It's cumulative.  I foolishly thought aging would magically help me get my shit together.  Except it doesn't.  Turns out, it's not about slowing down it's about trying to run headlong into something without realizing you're actually on a treadmill.  Somewhere along the line I met and worked with a therapist.  (Because my poor...poor wife.  One night we were talking out some shit and she said "Honey.  I think maybe you need to talk to someone.")

Which lasted appppppproximately 12 visits (and a lot of money later) until they went on maternity leave.  Speaking of wanting a magic pill, I was honestly hoping they'd say "Yup!  Let's get you trying different doses of things and see what works!"  Except that didn't happen.  And after our last meeting I just sort of gave up on it, even though it gave me some takeaways:

1) Helping me identify "blind spots".  They agreed, some of the shit I went through was egregious and awful, and in spite of bad things happening to everyone,  my shit is real and unique and mine and don't devalue it so that you can avoid/ignore it.
2) Asking for help is hard, but you probably aren't as much of a burden on people as you think.  If you are, they might tell you.
3) Since you experience fear of missing out, or that your friends don't like you/ignore you/think you're a piece of toxic shit to have around... or maybe you see other people having fun but not you, or just basically feel like you're some social pariah...have you ever thought that maybe *you* should try reaching out to them?  Or that maybe they have their own shit they're dealing with, and you could check in to see how they're doing?
4) Give yourself a break.  Stress is a killer, but if you're doing the right things like exercise- trying doing them without drinking.  (I admitted to them I stress eat and stress drink and doing so in the evening is just a recipe for shitty sleep and heartburn.  Also, if I'm drinking that much every night- it's never really out-out of my body.  So take the breaks from drinking or stop entirely if you *know* you sleep better and you know you feel better when you do.)
5) Try meditation to be present.  Worrying is anticipating a problem that doesn't exist, like wearing a snowmobile suit in July to be ready for Winter.

The last one he told me made me want to tell him to fuck right off.  (That, and not giving me drugs.  And to be honest, I was treating these sessions like stand up comedy, and I had him laughing so much he'd fall out of his chair.**)  And that was keep the door to forgiveness open to those who have tread against you.  

Nah, fam.  If acknowledgement or apologies are deserved, I'm not going to turn around and say everything is peachy.  Hence, that little insensitive sentence that friend uttered?  "Why the fuck do you want a baby?"

I don't spend time with that person any more.  And I'm fine with it.

As for our kid- both my wife and I said we don't want them to get our issues or even grow up thinking they are anything less than a loved, beautiful person.  So we decided to make sure if she's going through her own shit that we'd try and be sensitive enough to pick up on it and give her all the support she needs.

I'll say this, though-  The number of people telling us we'll be great parents or that I'm going to be a great dad is a lot of pressure, and I have no idea what they hell they see that makes them think that.  Someone actually said that to me on New Years Eve when I was already a sheet to the wind, trying to suck in my gut while simultaneously bursting the buttons off of my last suit that fits, while barbecue sauce dripped down my front from hovering over the buffet table. 

Yeah, pal.  Imma be a guh-reat parent.  Self-doubt and self-awareness/consciousness is nothing right now.  Wait'll there's a baby in the mix, and you can ratchet all that up to "Crippling" self-doubt.

*I read all of these to my wife for content and clarity and permission.  That last bullet made her laugh, and utter the line "I think that just makes him a cat".

** Yeah, I know.  You can shop around for a shrink you have rapport with to find one that works.  I was just...he was fine.  With the exception of those bullets I mentioned?  I just felt like I was spinning my wheels.  Also, I wanted drugs.

Anticipation of resentment

Chapter 7:  "You trade one kind of fun for another, man..."

Another reason I really didn't think I was going to have kids, as exemplified by the following things which would never happen again should we have a child:

-Fun

-Sex

-Traveling exotically (erotically?)

-Seeing movie premieres opening night

-Date nights/Spending time with just my wife.

-Exercise

-Sex

-Karate

-Performing

-Seeing friends

-Sex

-Sleep

-Spontaneity

-Cooking things other than mac & cheese

-Partying, drinking, carousing, and general rabble-rousing

In my head, I can hear parents tell me that "No no!  You totally make it work!"  and...that's fine.  Except when you talk to the new parents who have that exhausted, radiating resentment.  And that's the side I worried I was going to fall on.

I have a skin-care routine, for pities sake.  And have you HEARD about how new parents sometimes go *days* without showering?   I *like* showering, yo.  If I'm going days without showering I'd better be in a post-apocalyptic world.  (Which apparently the GOP, GA, MO, and AL are trying to hurl us toward, HEY!!!!)  I still hadn't lost that last 30-40 lbs that would put me on the list of hot-husbands that other people covet but secretly have a shit ton of hang-ups (more on that on another post)  Kids also meant no threesome with one of my wife's open-minded unicorn girlfriends-  so HERE'S TO DASHED DREAMS!!!

Look-  to me, it felt like I was going to be subverting and doing a 180 degree flip on things that felt so fundamentally "me".  Things that I have been cultivating and changing about myself my entire life.  Things that I was (often times) slow to catch up with the rest of society due to my hardcore need to be weird, silly, and non-conforming.  I loved being a great husband.  Now I was going to forced to be like everyone else.

Normal.

No dropping things at the drop of a hat and running away- I literally need to give this kid all of my focus, attention, and sresponsibility even if the world is falling around me because it's literally the only way I will be able to keep them alive. So yeah.  It's fucking selfish.  The sense of self-preservation just put me right back on the state of high-alert I was living in back when my mom's health turned for the worst.  The amount of time and energy we put into taking care of her all those years just came rushing back into my life with 9 months worth of foreshadowing to imagine what you were going to lose by becoming a parent.

And that responsibility made me feel so goddamn isolated and alone.

So I'll leave it to the wise words of Randall up there, who I have partied and performed with.  Who is an acquaintance who I've bullshitted about working out and theater and sex and food and martial arts.  We ran into him at the State Fair around the time my wife and I started trying for a baby as he was working the AEA station over by the DFL building (always a fun game to watch MAGA hat wearing chodes try and argue the councilperson or representative du jour)  Anyway, Randall just had a bambina of his own which my wife and I congratulated him on. It seemed weird seeing him dad up, so I asked him (wink wink) if he still parties.

"Oh yeah, man.  It's cool.  You just trade one kind of fun for another!"

My wife and I have used that as a mantra quite a bit over the last few months.  My only other worry?  Is how my "other" hang ups were going to royally fuck up our kid.

What's in a name?

So I think I've exhausted most of the funny stuff regarding her conception up until this point so for the last few chapters here we'll talk about some of the stuff that was running through my mind as I learned what it was like to be involved in a pregnancy. 

Everything was new for both of us, so I had some questions that were probably weird sounding but not anything you'd normally ask your pregnant friends-  for example, what does this mean for the royal "we"?  Will we still be intimate?  (Again, I *know* know that you can- but I'm a big guy and already treating my wife like a sacred and delicate vessel) There was still a lot of stuff I wouldn't truly understand until I was experiencing it.  

And hey,  do you remember that unwavering certainty that we were going to have a girl before we had a miscarriage earlier in the year? 

This time?  We were super positive that we were going to have a boy.  And his name would be...


Chapter 6  "They thing you need to know about boys that you aren't prepared for is the smell...*"

Here are some early conversations my wife and I had about naming our son:

"If we call him that, (so and so) is going to think we're naming him after him"

"So and so's kid already has that name".


"Seriously?  (laughing)  Why *that* name?"

"What the hell is a 'regnal' name?"  (Hey.  I wanted a cool name, but we already knew a bunch of Henry's and Robert's and even Adam's.  We were stuck)

Coming up with a baby girl name was almost as easy as breathing.  Coming up with boy name was proving to be a challenge.  It got to the point where we started making jokes about ridiculous non-names as a name.  "Chalupa Con Queso P-----"?  "Hewlett Packard"?  "Tater Tot Hot Dish".  Seriously, we probably had a list of 50 names that made us giggle and by the time we thought it'd be hilarious to write these down to show him when he was old enough, we had already forgotten the better one's.  Acura Quidditch was probably on the list.  (And if you wanted to know where *I* was landing with the name- I told my wife that he should be a straight up junior.  "HONEEEEEEEEY... don't you think it'd be Cah-UTE if we had matching Twins jersey's and mine said "Papa" and his said "Junior"?!?!  HONEEEEEEY?!??!?!"  This was actually the closest we came to a real conversation about it.)

So this time around, we were super cautious about how we revealed this to people and when.  We made our initial appointments with her Ob/Gyn and made sure to get past the 6 week mark before telling her parents.  We ordered chromosome testing which would help determine the sex earlier rather than later- and along those lines we both agreed that we didn't want to have anything be a surprise.  (We already had the well-meaning friends who asked us, weirdly, if and when we learned the sex that we should be okay with whatever sex our child identifies with.  And look, no shit.  But cart/horse and all that, I was like "Can we just get past the being born and healthy part first?")

Along those lines, we were sort of keen to avoid getting a lot of unsolicited advice.   We're happy to ask for help and like I said- I was still thinking we had parenting classes and books and shit we needed to read...In short, we never presumed to know it all.  But you hear stories of how some parents have super-definitive child rearing methods that in spite of their well-meaning and probable success (for them), can seem overbearing, overwhelming, and occasionally obnoxious.   (My wife told me stories about a mama group on the Book of Faces where "fights" would break out like between that one relative who wears the MAGA hat to Thanksgiving and likes to make racist comments on your super-liberal social media posts.   She eventually joined a group of mutual friends in the theater and has been really happy having a sounding board, FYI.)

A funny thing that might run contrary to my last comment:   I *did* have a friend that very recently had their own kid, and he reached out to offer a $.05 worth of valuable advice:  Namely securing child care as soon as possible (Waiting lists are stupid real, and they don't always line up when mommy's maternity leave is up.), and to remember to bring an extension cord to the hospital.  Go figure. That was probably the best advice we received.

And to double back...those first few months after she learned she was pregnant was still early enough that things like how frisky we were going to get wasn't an issue, but what did happen was that suddenly I found my finances thrown into sharp relief- which, after getting the day care advice from my friend, is most apparent when you see how expensive day care actually is.  We learned about parents that just opted to quit their day job to be a stay at home parent due to the fact that child care is basically the same as their annual salary.  (It's a fucking con, is what it is.  There's a built-in day care at my current office job and I checked out the prices for full-time care and it was $450 a week.  Yeah.)    And even part-time care with gramma helping?  Is almost 2/3rds of my salary. Suddenly I started wondering if I could get or have time for a second job.

I was a little scared.

As we careened toward the end of the year and my 44th birthday-  I eventually told my bosses at the temp gig who were (unexpectedly) excited and brought up due dates and necessary time off when it happened.  And it was on a beautiful late-Fall afternoon that my wife called me at work and I once again scampered off to a conference room with a little trepidation to take the call- this time with the chromosome test results.  Look, everyone wants perfect kids while they're growing them, but there's still a gazillion things that could happen before the actual delivery.  It would be peace of mind at the very least to know what we could expect in  about 7 months, and in all honesty if any of that was going to affect how we would need to parent.  And we both didn't really care, because we knew we would love him no matter what.

Except for the part when my wife said "It's a girl."

"Are you sure?"

"It's a chromosome test, babe.  Pretty sure."


So, I mean, at least we had a name picked out? 



*Today's chapter header was brought to you by a friend of mine from high school I met for breakfast at Perkins.  My 25th high school reunion took place the weekend we returned from Italy, but I knew I probably would be too wiped out to go.  (Jet lagged and jet hung over, I had decided then and there on the 9 hour flight after multiple delays to have some wine so I could unwind and relax on the way home.  Turns out, I didn't sleep at all and "some" wine turned into 4 stadium pours.  At least I watched "Infinity War" 3 x's...I guess?)  

Anyway, he had skipped it too- and we picked that particular Perkins due to it's vicinity to the reunion and hoping to maybe spot some hungover classmates.  I still had that woozy, off-center sour feeling from only having had 6 hours of decent sleep.  As such, and for as much as my wife and I decided on waiting to tell people until after we were sure a baby was happening- I let it slip that we were pregnant and that we were, again, positive it was going to be a boy.  My friend only offered the above sage advice, as he has 2 sons and they're both in sports and at the age when you start getting funky.  "Seriously.  I had to buy extra-strength Glade plug-ins for their rooms.  You open the door to go down their and it knocks you over.  Boys smell."

Viva Italia! Vivo Bambino!

I would love nothing more to have a story I could tell our daughter one day about *where* she was tastefully conceived.  "We-ah made-ah the sweet-ah love-ah in-ah Venice-ah, and-ah ya mama had her belleh blessed by the Pope-ah when at-ah the Vatican-o..beepa boppa boopa..."

As it stands, my version of "How I Met Your Mother" is definitely not a story I can tell her until she's at least...well, I think I'll just let my wife tell her the sanitized version. 

Anyway, I love travel.  I love traveling overseas.  And gods, I was stupid excited to spend a week treading the streets of Rome/Florence/Venice for just the historicity of it all.  I thought that if a week in Paris had my head spinning with joy a few years ago, this was going to blow my mind:  Collosseums, Huge Statues of Naked Dudes, Canals...


And then my wife promptly proceeded to throw up all over it.


Chapter 5

"Drinking for 2?"

I think having a healthy and calm mind is important when you're trying to make a baby.  Time was passing and we were starting to return mentally to the baseline of normalcy, and resume our efforts earnestly in trying to make a tiny human.  The trip to Italy was quickly coming up (right after Labor Day, 2018), and while we were doing that last minute travel fretting of getting house and pet-sitters in order, reviewing itineraries, checking passports...2 weeks before we left...we...oh heck...I'd love it if you guys heard my wife tell it:  (Transcribed with permission)

So on August 26th my best friend was in town from Milwaukee.  We decided on lunch and a shopping trip to Marshall's,  and as we were perusing discounted fitness-wear I said "I JUST need to say this out loud to someone: I'm three days late and my boobs hurt".

So, my best friend being my best friend said what you need your best friend to say in these instances when you're in the far away suburbs of Blaine,  and she said "OK.  Let's go next door to Wal-Mart, go to their pharmacy section, and get you a pregnancy test."  (My wife, knowing what they're about to do adds) "We need to make sure to find a check-out lane with the most awkward teenage cashier there is".  To which her BFF said:  

"OK.  Then let's make sure we do it RIGHT in the Wal-Mart bathroom to complete this high-class circle"

So it was on this fateful day, that I peed on a pregnancy stick in the Wal-Mart Bathroom- while at the same time in the stall next to me some mom was wiping the butt of her screaming child.  I don't know why that seemed funny to me at the time, but you can write that down too.

Anyway, the test was a "Positive", but the *control* line never showed up.  So I told my BFF who then said we were going head over to Brick's Restaurant and have a big glass of wine and then pee on the other stick. 

And this turned out to be the last glass of wine I would have for 9 months..."

And that, my dearest daughter, is the story of you.

She came home with the test(s), which for some weird reason (surprise) I put in my nightstand and asked if she'd take another one the next day.   (Which meant three plastic pee strips in my nightstand and don't judge me)  Having gone through that last bout of hope and heartache earlier in the year left me a over-cautious and not wanting to take chances.  (Also, is this it?  Are we ready?)    At that point, part of my own re-balancing was getting back to the "just the two of us" mentality...plus plus...we were going to a country that is famous for wine, and you don't just up and get pregnant right before international travel!  It wasn't lost on either of us that our first attempt at child-growing coincided with her dry South Padre Spring Break vacation earlier that year.

Hence the joke "drinking for two".  Yay, we're pregnant, AND on an overseas adventure!

To conclude this chapter, I want to mention that Costco travel is fantastic.  Part of our hotel package was a full continental breakfast.  We anticipated this would mean coffee, juice, and a couple of pastries to tide us over until lunch,  but our concierge brought us back into a room where we were greeted by what can only be described as "First Hogwart's Meal in the Sorcerer's Stone" sized breakfast buffet.   Me, being a Hippo McBoom-Boom was in Heeeeavan- We had fruit, eggs, thick bacon, sausages... they even had amazing smelling vegetarian food (CHANA MASALA FOR BREAKFAST? DON'T MIND IF I DO!) toast, chocolates...it's like your mind says "Yes, you're on vacation and screw your diet because you are going to be horsefooting all over Saint Peter's relics in 2 hours and seeing the Sistine Chapel with your own eyes so it's time to fuel up, mo-fo..."


Oh crap...

Most mornings my wife would wake up a shade of palish green.  She would generally start her morning sucking down Preggie Pops* and just praying to hold down a bowl of dry corn flakes.   This is in addition to the shift into pregnancy that demands you dial back the caffeine intake- so she was nauseous, *and* had some low-grade headaches.

In the subsequent re-tellings of our trip, my wife will tell you she liked France much better than Italy.  If you have a social media subscription and look through our pictures from Italy and see my wife?   You're looking at a beautiful woman who is fighting morning sickness on the daily, followed by ravenous hunger by about 11am.  In short, it was still a dream trip.  Albeit one where a developing human had a marked effect on our individual enjoyment.




**Preggie Pops are a thing.  They're these citrusy, sour hard candies that my wife told me about after we learned she was pregnant.  She tried picking some up at Target before we left- but couldn't find them.  But I hunted them down.  And thankfully, they helped get her through some of the worst mornings of our trip.  Just not the shitty risotto at that one place.  Ugh.

In which we talk about the missing carriage.

(Content warning/Trigger Warning.  I'm gonna talk about miscarrying.  I've read that the world is still demystifying it, and even having had the extraordinary misfortune to have been present when family has lost children very late during a pregnancy I don't feel like I'm overtly qualified to throw any new commentary on the matter- but something I learned was that there are a lot of different levels of what it means to miscarry.  Here's what happened to us.)


Chapter 4..."Honey?  I Think We're Pregnant!!!"


  On February 10th, 2018 my wife woke me up to say she was pregnant. 

  On March 26th,  I got a phone call while I was at work that said that it wasn't going to happen.



Dates become very important during a pregnancy.  I learned that it wasn't just the developmental milestones (You've probably seen new parents do the whole "gauging their pregnancy based on what kind of produce the kid is" pictures)  but after you pee on the stick and the initial euphoria (Or terror?  I seem to remember a cautious fugue state setting in.  I asked if my wife was sure, as she was crying holding a piece of plastic that had only recently had engaged in water sports.) after all of that you start to consider things first on the 9 month timeline- but there are many other important dates to consider as well.

Developmentally, you get the initial exam/meeting with an Ob/Gyn to tell them you're pregnant where they have you pee on your hand  again (Just go with it.  Feigning disgust as my wife waved the pregnancy exam was something we did for a giggle.) and then see if you like them enough to be the one prodding your spouses nethers during subsequent visits.  Each of the follow up appointments (6 weeks and onward) and ultra sound visits are going to give you a fetal heartbeat, and generally how your kid is looking until it gets down to the 36 weeks and the visits become more frequent until you're finally admitted for delivery.  Basically, I learned that you don't get a hello and handshake at month one, then one terrible black and white ultrasound where your kid looks like an awful blend of Skeletor and a Rorschach test to post on social media and give to your family before you finally meet them in the screaming crying flesh 9 months later.

But the big thing is that 1st infant heartbeat.  It's usually after that appointment when you are able to more or less safely say to friends and family that yes:  a bambino/bambina is on their way.

Impatient and more than a little excited, naturally we told mom and dad more or less right away.  Her brother and sister in law followed suit somewhere around my wife's birthday.  (Having been trying for their own kids for many, many years meant steeling ourselves to tell them.  To paint a picture, I was holding my crying wife before her birthday brunch outside of the restaurant telling her that we just had to take the band-aid off and tell them.  Little did we know they had an announcement to make of their own shortly after, and hey... We've been loving up my niece now for the last five months as I type this.  Things were just that crazy.)

We even had a hilarious Spring Break trip to South Padre Island where my wife lightly kvetched that she wasn't able to drink the entire time.  That's one...I mean, that's not relevant to this story, but we'll tell you about it sometime because the trip was a hilarious cautionary tale.  TL:DR, I'm old and people need to cover up their naked buns.

In spite of mentally committing to being dry for the duration of her pregnancy, I got tipsy at a party and before I knew it we were telling our entire friend group of our upcoming pampie party, along with a lot of "WOO!!!" and hugs and telling people that I have the BEST support group and the most AMAZING group of friends to raise our kid around...  I mean, I'm a superstitious fella by nature, and even though we were a little premature in announcing it, this was my friend framily- many of whom had kids of their own and we love them and wanted to share.  Ok?

Ironically, it was at the follow-up visit when we chatted with the weird, heavily-accented German Ob.Gyn that we had previously met at our 1st appointment (Who *I* thought was hilarious and my wife didn't really care for much.)  who also acted like... she... had... never met us?  Not like we're perfect, hilarious, and memorable....not even a big deal, but then she started asking the same questions as our initial visit like we had just found out we were pregnant and we're like "Noooooooo, we were here a few weeks ago" and she's like "Huh, and what are you here for again?"  My wife was squeezing my hand as if to say this is the most absent-minded doc around, but we finally told her:

"We're here to hear her heartbeat".

Oh yeah.  We were positive it was a girl.  The name we picked out almost effortlessly, and figured if we were wrong about the sex, we'd burn that bridge when we came to it.  New parents are weird.  And after reading the last few of these chapters- you might've gotten the impression I didn't want kids and was fist-pumping any time my wife menstruated, but at this point mentally?   I was committed to seeing it happen.  We were going to have a girl.   She was prrrrrobably going to be born on my late mother's birthday in an ironic twist of fate.  She was going to smash the patriarchy and take names.  My wife- who wasn't even showing yet- was already doing that mom-tummy caress.  And as soon as Doctor German-Funny Lady started acting perplexed, my Spider-Sense started going off the chain the same way you just know a phone call is going to let you know some bad news.

The wand ultra-sound didn't show anything.  So they scheduled a follow up with my wife with an actual "ultra-sound ultra-sound" at another clinic.  My job being my job, meant I couldn't take the time off to be with my wife for that one, but she assured me she'd call as soon as it was over.  And like I said- mentally, I was already preparing myself for not great news but decided to keep that to myself in the hope that I'm wrong.   And the shitty impotent feeling as I stood in a meeting room taking a phone call from my wife made me wish I was home right then and there.


I  held my wife all night long that night.  After we finally went to sleep and after she told me she needed me here to help her through this, I called work and said I wouldn't be in the rest of the week- almost guaranteeing I'd be out of the job.  In order to make sure my wife had a clean slate to attempt having a kid, we had to go in for something I had never heard of called a D & C procedure.

So-

If you have a faint memory of your biology classes from high school, you know that once insemination occurs it's a matter of attachment to the uterine lining and then magical mitosis starts the process of all those microscopic cells dividing and sub-dividing before becoming an infant.   A presumption is that miscarriage means being farther along/closer to full term and something goes terribly wrong.    In our case, the cells just...stopped changing.  And their hanging out and not doing anything is bad for you.  And they have to be removed before you resume follow up attempts.  And to give a lot of credit where it's due,  I just want to point out that the incredibly kind and sensitive manner with which the Ob/Gyn who performed the procedure that explained it to us- who (I may add) even asked if we wanted to have a "service" for the cells... made her our Ob/Gyn for (SPOILER ALERT!) my wife's pregnancy later .

So it was on a really beautiful and sunny day, March 28th, that my wife was placed in a Bear warming gown which she comically said made her look like Grimace, then placed under general sedation as I held her hand and joked with the doctor's about their colorful footwear, and was then led out into the waiting room for what I anticipated was going to be a insufferably long and anxiety-riddled affair as my wife had surgery for her miscarriage...only to have the doctor come out before I could even put my ear buds in to tell me the procedure was wholly unremarkable and fine, and led me back to a recovery room while my wife came out from general anesthesia.

I helped her get dressed as she started rousing, realizing that I found myself moving sort of mechanically and dispassionately the whole time- taking in details like the overhead ceiling light having a tropical picture superimposed on it to help people as the woke up.  I found myself dressing my wife, the object of my affection, the one who I love and whose body I adore, in the most clinical but gentle way I can.

Before you leave, they give you a prescription and some instructions.  You need to wait several weeks before making any attempt at procreation, and to wait until after you've had a full menstrual cycle so that you know your body is ready to try again.  Any attempt at intercourse within 3 weeks is not-advised, and you should wear a condom.  (A condom.  A CONDOM?  It's weird, right?  Just hearing them say you need to wrap it up.  Suddenly I'm 14 and back in health class.) 

This all meant more time constraints.  And doing the math, after a year of trying it'd be another 2-3 months before biologically she was prepared to become a sacred vessel.  No more Mommy/Granddaughter matching birthday.  Tick tock.  Would I be fifty before I had a kid?

Mentally, the hurdles were more challenging than even the surgical procedure.  For what felt like many months, my wife struggled to even get up and go to work and in spite of having a crappy job*, I found myself being the one to get her up and going in.  The self-blame she experienced was exhausting for her, and there were many nights where I would just hold her while she cried before she went to sleep.  Surprise...I didn't have the same issue, but still felt awful not only because my wife was suffering but because in the big picture- what had happened didn't feel like it was even real.  Like...was she ever even "really" pregnant?  Like the pee stick lied, and our baby didn't even make it out of the gate, much less have a chance to be "proven" (to crib a line from the "Great British Baking Show".)

In her grief, and having admitted these feelings to her- my wise wife reminded me that it was "real to her".   I was 43 years old, and still getting schooled on sensitivity.

There was one night shortly after the D & C where we tucked into a magnum of wine, and fueled by tears and emotion we tore the TV room apart and slurred on about making changes and fresh starts.  What ended up happening was waking up with a Costco membership, and a vacation to Rome for our 3 year anniversary.  We figured if we don't have a kid, then we'd spend our money on a little culture and travel.


Also, in spite of doctor's orders and emotionally not feeling like we were ready yet-  we disregarded the post-surgery instructions and risked intimacy sooner rather than later.

*I did have a meeting with my boss after I came back to work, btw.  They forgave any and all missed work.  At that point, and feeling how I did, I was skeptical and almost angry that I wasn't fired for having missed so many days.  Moreover, having struggled with my role there, I was even angrier that they showed that much sensitivity toward what I was going through.  Like I said, things were really weird.

The trying is the hardest part

"Do you want to know what sex is for women?  Poke Poke POKE and then you're done!  Where's the satisfaction for HER?!?!*"

"Kiddo, they used to tell us that we could get pregnant eating cabbage or straddling a fence**"

- *My mom's unsolicited advice, circa 1993 when I was in high school hanging out with a bunch of my friends.  I may have attempted to will myself out of existence in the moment, and "Poke Poke Poke" became the tease-du jour the rest of the year.

- **Mom, again...telling me the kind of sex education bullshit they were told back in the late 50's.

Chapter 3

(Content warning- boners n' stuff)


In case you are wondering, sex ed wasn't anything we shied away from in my family.  Mom, being mom and being a nurse, meant we had a pretty open door policy when it came to the birds and the bees.  She LOVED telling everyone the story of watching a child birth documentary with me when I was 5 years old, and when the baby was being delivered apparently I screamed and cried and told her that  the "mommy was pooping a baby!!!"  There was also the time she checked out "Where Do I Come From" via our local library.  Ever read that one?  A detailed cartoon look at procreation, albeit where they all look like characters from "The Family Guy"?  Horrifying.

Even in middle school/high school the instructors were fairly candid about sex.  (Eff you, abstinence-only teachers)  In the late 80's, topics were covered such as AIDS, teen pregnancy, and safe sex.  (Even though we seem to be living in regressive times, there was an era where people imagined they'd contract HIV  by public toilet seats and a host of other bullshit we now know to be false.)  I'm sure many have endured the awkward giggle-inducing lectures and sex-ed videos which included an actual (internal camera) point of insemination, which one  kid in our class called "Live eye in the pie."

 The funny thing was what we learned was that getting pregnant?  Was, like, suuuuuuuper easy.


I've joked about how my dad had a very strict set of rules when I was a kid about dating which amounted to:  "Don't embarrass me" (He was a cop, and he said if I did anything illegal he'd know by morning) and "Don't get a girl pregnant".  If you can remember any of  those scary after school specials like 'Too young to be a Dad" or Madonna videos like "Papa Don't Preach"...basically the idea was that if you even...fucking...hugged someone of the opposite sex too tightly? Spontaneous reproduction was inevitable.  (Versus, say, educating kids of the fact that that consensual sex?  Can be really, really awesome, enjoyable, and fun.)

Also important to note, and I hope my high school classmates reading this will get a laugh, but starting my sophomore/junior year- my mom staretd put condoms in my Christmas stocking.  (STOCKING STUFFER JOKE) Honestly, it's probably the best thing she did to get me over the stigma of buying prophylactics, but there was still that burning awful embarrassment of taking out candy bars, socks, fruit, and gift certificates on my birthday only to find a small black box with an oily muscular man's torso pulling on a rope that touted 3 spermicidally lubricated rubbers while my father videotaped the whole mess.  I mean, yeah- we were a fairly sex/consent positive family, but the message from my parents was pretty clear:  We know you're going to be getting frisky, and we'd like it if you didn't graduate from Park Center with an infant.

ANYWAY,

Absolutely nothing happened in 2017 of note, baby-wise.  Sure, we had started telling folks we were trying.  My wife started taking pre-natal gummies.  (GUMMIES FOR BABIES).   When she apprised her lady doctor that she was trying, she was told to anticipate a "Geriatric Pregnancy".  (The fuck?   Suddenly the stupid joke from "When Harry Met Sally"-remember?   "Charlie Chaplin had kids when he was 73!" had a whoooole new meaning).   We tried adopting healthier habits like drinking less and exercising more.   People gave a lot of advice on the matter ("You have to make her orgasm.  A lot."  Done and done.) I mean, the trying bit?  That's the fun part.  Sorry to chuck the rubbers, ma.  But see the last entry to my first comment about having unprotected sex with the goal of making a tiny human.

Still... I didn't really feel a massive hurry.  I was sort of convinced, as a guy who was sexually active since high school and avoided any scares or mis-haps* that I might just be...too old.  Sure, I was 42 years old and still feeling, y'know... active and virile.  And yet, month after month in 2017, my wife would get her period and I'd hold and console her as she cried- while mentally breathing a sigh of relief that parental responsibility was off of my plate.  However, I attended a fertility consultation with my wife, and before I left I was handed a cup and told that if it didn't happen this month, that maybe it was my turn to have the swimmers inspected. Suddenly you start to notice more friends getting pregnant.  And as much I can/could joke about masturbating in a cup and rushing off to deliver it in 45 minutes to the University Ave Sperm Clinic like a pizza delivery driver's hot and ready guarantee?  (DOUBLE DOWN ENTENDRE!)

The idea that it was my fault some how really hooked under my skin.  More anxiety.  More worry.  And then what happened just before Summer 2017 was a whole new kick in the dingus:


I was laid off .

And if we talk of stressors, distractions, and excuses?  How about "How the fuck do I try or even want to  have a kid when I don't even have an income?"

* Yeah, I know.  I've also driven after having maybe one too many and played those stupid odds, too.  Basically, Imma PSA here and say:  Have and enjoy safe and consensual sex.  Don't play make-believe and raw dog and pretend that you're sterile or infertile just so you can avoid wearing a condom, males and male-identifiers.  Again.  Consent.  Condoms.  I've had the privilege to be in long-term monogamous relationships since 2000, and my partners and I have candid conversations about comfortable levels of safety.  Rather, I should say that I think talking about your privates and the naughty acts you engage in with them can and should be a hot conversation that's part of the experience.  Ok?  I also think I missed my calling being an educator on sexuality.

The part where we make the decision

"Sorry folks, the pterodactyl ride is only for children or an adult plus one child!!!"

Chapter 2


I hope if you're on chapter 2, you know I'm hoping not to be cruel with subjecting you to the minutiae of my memory.  Overarchingly, the world landscape had just as much of an effect on our decision to have kids as did anything personal, financial, or...wanting to foster pets?  I don't know...

Distractions are my nemesis.

One of my least favorite traits I can acknowledge I inherited from my mom and dad, besides the procrastination, is the inability to think in a linear fashion.  Although we had had the conversation about what having kids meant to each other when we began the next phase of our relationship, the distractions- like stressors- contributed no small part.  Ever read about stressors?   Learning about stress in a college psych class opened my mind as to how even innocuous things can affect us.  Stress isn't always just, y'know, stress.  It's the amount of energy that can be invested in an activity or anticipation of an activity.  Moving can be stressful.  First dates.  Falling in love.  Going to a BBQ.  Watching TV.  My point being, even positive things can be stressful.  So when you factor all that in, and you've been practicing avoidance for most of your adult life, the accumulation of it all has an affect. 

There is comfort in not having to think about raising a family.  About having it just be my wife and I for a change.  After all, so much had happened in a very small span of time.    Losing mom.  Karate.  Marriage.  Traveling abroad. Work changes.  The intervening years between my wife moving in and the point where we decided to have kids was in no way organic, and moreover it wasn't one where we had even a chance to sit down in talk about how each of us felt about it.  Life had just been life.   And when you feel like someone put a brick on your accelerator and you feel like things are out of your control, the last thing *I* wanted was to talk about family planning. I felt pretty devalued.  Like other people, dad's, family's...like they all had their shit together and I didn't.  And if I didn't have my shit together, what kind of life was I supposed to afford a kid? 

I woke up with one of the worst hangovers of my life on January 1st, 2017 and of course that day my wife asked if this was the year we wanted to start trying for children, even though all I wanted to do that day was either drink ice water, vomit, or sleep.  I literally...hadn't even thought about it in a long time. 2016 was such a kick in the crotch in so many ways, I felt numb to the possibility.   Except traveling was something we still loved doing together, and gave us something to look forward to.  And so when it was suggested that we make a trip to the happiest place on earth, I welcomed that particular distraction.  Welcomed it bigly.

Oh, did you think I meant Mouses, and tea cups and Space Mountains?  Oh no no no no.  No, the vacation we went on where we began attempting to pro-create in earnest?   Was to Harry Potter World!!!*  And in spite of that cloudy inexplicable fug that follows you when you have anxiety and depression- that can cloud up your day even when the bright sun is out and you're floating in an outdoor pool in March?  We decided to go for it**...

...even though I didn't think anything would come of it at the time?  And even then, I was hoping a little that it wouldn't happen at all.


Expecto Familia!

*It's...it's fucking Universal Studios Orlando, okay?  And she keeps, no...stop...she keeps saying it's Harry Potter World like it's its own park, and I had to explain that it was the "Wizarding World of Harry Potter" and it was just one part of the larger park, and she admitted that she only does it to see me get so fired up.  Fired up?  I didn't think we'd spend 7 days at *one* park, and I thought we'd get Disney and the beach and Epcot and FUCK!!!

It was great though and I wouldn't trade my wife's joy for anything, although I'm able to comment that if we head back down we are, in no uncertain terms, going to by the expensive ride pass and get on the Millennium Falcon when the Star Wars park opens.  Sorry.  I meant to say STAR WARS WORLD!!!  HA!  TAKE THAT, HONEY!!!

The employee at the Jursassic Park section can suck it, tho.  That Pterodactyl Ride looked dope as all get out, and it was for kids only?  Lame-biscuit.


**I promise I won't go into sordid details with my readers.  This isn't a Penthouse Forum letter, but as I was bouncing the idea of writing this off of my wife, she started laughing and told me it was okay to add what I said after that first try.  (She actually remembers what I said.  And that, friends, is both weird and why I love her so much.)

 "I don't know if I was ready for that".