By Rachel Perkins of thewelladjustedadult.com
The decision to have more children should probably be approached with even more consideration than the choice to have one child.
For some people, the choice is made for them via medical complications making it impossible or a drunken night away from the kid resulting in Mom and Dad creating Baby Uh-Oh on the living room floor. Or maybe you want to create a playmate for your toddler so you don’t have to pretend his games are fun anymore.
My first child was born 8 years ago in my first marriage, and during my pregnancy, I realized that marrying and procreating with that guy was a less than stellar life choice. Eight years later, I am re-married to someone wonderful who also has a child from a previous relationship, and we are anxious to have a child together. This baby would be our second chance. It’s the opportunity to get it right and be excited about who we are having a child with. This baby would be like symbolic glue, binding our little blended family together in a cross pollination of the love and happiness that the four of us have found in each other.
While we are currently still in the baby making progress, my cousin had a new baby, and I’m finding her to be quite intimidating.
Riley is adorable, she’s chubby, and she fills me with dread.
She makes me question whether or not I am truly ready to embark on this journey to create another new life. She is the reminder that I haven’t handled an infant in 8 years and the realization that I have developed amnesia about the hard times of the baby days. She is the manifestation of all of my new baby fears, and now I am questioning if I really want to do this again. It’s like she can see into my soul and telepathically communicate that she knows all my secrets and sees that I am just too far gone to turn back now. It’s a painful, mocking laughter in my brain that I hear coming from the soul of this smiling cherub.
I’d have to go back to sleepless nights. I had forgotten how awful it was to not be able to sleep because some baby is demanding I feed it every 2-3 hours. They say “sleep when the baby is sleeping,” but I have found that to be a complete crock of shit.
When the baby is new, it takes forever to feed and clean it back up after it liquid poops all over the place and vomits all over itself and you. By the time you’ve accomplished those tasks, you may have enough time to use the bathroom and maybe have a bite to eat and then it’s time to feed again.
When was there time to sleep?
Even if you manage to get the thing fed and cleaned in under an hour, when else are you supposed to clean the house or do laundry or any other thing you need to do if you’re napping eight times a day, trying to get a combined total of five hours of sleep?
I’d have to relive the days of wiping someone else’s ass. Back in medieval times, being Groom of the Stool was actually highly regarded, but as my child is not going to be a monarch and won’t be paying me jack shit, it’s actually a little degrading.
My cousin’s baby liquid crapped all over herself, through her clothes, leaving a pattern of what appeared to be a pea green poo-poo tutu around her waist. She was all screamy and judgmental as I just stared at her, puzzling how I was going to get her shirt off without getting shit in her face. She knew I had no clue.
Our kids are 8 years old. I haven’t had to manage poop in a long time. I am reminded of the days when a diaper blow out would always occur five minutes before attempting to leave the house or five minutes after putting the child in clean clothes.
I’m stressed out listening to my cousin go through the difficulties of breastfeeding with chapped nipples, concerns about production levels, and being forced to sleep on your back so you don’t wake up in a milk-soaked bed, crying because it took so long for your body to make those precious ounces of liquid gold.
Listening to Riley loudly suck the life fluid from my cousin’s boob reminds me of those first few weeks when it felt like someone trying to saw my nipple off with a butter knife: ineffective and painful.
I remember feeling a bit less than human when my boobs would just start gushing milk everywhere every time I took a shower. It’s less than peaceful when you’ve got to stage containers near the shower to grab the moment you exit to catch all of the milk you’re uncontrollably spilling all over the place.
Lately, I’ve found myself seeing imaginary babies running around my house, spending all of my money and breaking all of my things. I swear I saw a tiny fat person run behind the curtain with a fist full of cash, and when I frantically whipped back the drapes, both the baby and my sanity were nowhere to be found. The only thing there was a remote control with no back and the batteries missing.
My brain is now screaming at me all the reasons I should not have another child when just 4 months ago I was tracking my ovulation, trying to get that egg fertilized like I was planning some kind of serious military mission. The egg is in position. Ready the fleet. Go!
The strange phenomenon remains that despite my fears of everything that can go wrong and all the ways my life will change again, there is an ache inside of me that urges me forward anyway. It isn’t logic. It’s love and hope.
You scare me, Riley, but maybe that’s ok.
*****
About the Author
Rachel Perkins is a working mother and wife living in the Philadelphia area. When she isn’t busy with her career as an accountant she is blogging on The Well-Adjusted Adult where she tackles the challenges of being a grown up with the all of the grace of a drunken T-Rex. Follow her at thewelladjustedadult.com and on Facebook.