It was the year that made 2009 hell for me. In 2008, the announcements were coming fast and furious:
• An employee was expecting his second child.
• My cousin was expecting her first.
• A friend and his girlfriend were expecting their first.
• A former coworker was expecting her first.
• A comrade from the parent company was expecting her first.
• An employee's daughter was expecting her first.
• My high school sweetheart (and good friend) was about to become a daddy for the second time.
I made baby blankets for all of them except the employee (who got one on his first child's birth). I made a bunny for his daughter so she wouldn't be left out once the baby came. It was this rash of babies that later led to the "only personal friends get blankets" rule.
Making the blankets was a form of therapy for me. Making them gave me something to do with my hands while watching movies, but doing so also helped me to channel the inevitable pangs I felt. Everyone, it felt, was moving forward in life, progressing, growing. And it felt like I wasn't.
These people would get to embark on what I think is life's greatest adventure. But not me. My path is different. Mine is the road less traveled.
As the babies arrived, so did the emotional pain. In 2009, as the packages were delivered, my clock started ticking... furiously. One night, my husband and I were watching an episode of House. It was the Maternity episode, and as the babies cried, I felt something I had never felt before: an incredibly intense desire to crawl into that television screen, find those babies and comfort them, hold them, get them to stop crying. That was quickly followed by the urge to cry.
There was standing at a trade convention with one of my best friends and the comrade from the parent company, who was probably 6 months along. After a couple of minutes, the conversation inevitably turned to being pregnant and being a mom. They chatted excitedly. I said nothing; I had nothing to add to that conversation; I had no common ground with them at that point. After what felt like an eternity (but really was only about 5 or 10 minutes), I slipped away and found something else to do, managing not to break down in tears.
There were dreams; Dreams so vivid that when I woke up, I could remember the sensation of giving birth, and it took some time to remember that it was a dream — it wasn't real. But it was clear — I gave birth to a boy with a thick head of black hair in that dream. It was my son. I woke up before I saw his face. In a dream prior to that, I had a bizarre (so weird I won't describe it) dream in which I had very tiny triplets.
I told very, very few people about any of this. One of my best friends (my soul sister, a mother to three) knows. My husband knows most of it.
My husband and I had several, all too brief conversations once the friend and his girlfriend (who married before the baby arrived) had their child. Many of those conversations standing in front of their apartment.
He conceded in one conversation that he does think about having children, but the notion scares him. He worried about not being a good parent. I tried to tell him that the mere fact that he had such a concern meant he would be a much better parent than most. And then I pointed to the apartment. "Do you think he's not scared right now? Because I guarantee you he's absolutely terrified." We talked some more, and he gave me a long, heart-felt hug.
As I move closer to 40, I really do become more and more okay with not having children. But when there's a change in the structure of our social network (i.e.: friends having children), I become sad for a little while.
It's more complicated than "the clock is ticking." It's sadness; mourning for something I can't have, but that my friends can.
So I put my heart into the blankets. And brace for the next round of baby bombs.
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