It’s been a while since I’ve sent out a letter. It’s been a while since I’ve felt like myself, actually. Summer does that to parents of young children, I think. It turns the days upside down; makes hours seem like years and September seem like a pipedream. It’s so brutal to be sick of your children and love them so deeply you want them around you until the end of time, all at once. Ah, summer.
Here’s a brief essay I wrote recently about having a third child. It came about (or should I say, was birthed…) in a wonderful memoir class. I’m hoping to put it in an upcoming book.
As always, thank you for reading. I hope this letter finds you calm and content.
Angela
Here’s the stupidity of parenthood: By the time you’ve become calmer, more relaxed, confident, equipped, and stable, it’s too late to have more kids. The children you have were your boot camp, only there isn’t something else you’re training for. That was the whole thing.
My friend had a baby girl six months ago. Her daughter is big-eyed and chubby, and smiley and responsive to cuddles. I held her at a house party last weekend and it was everything I remembered; soft and smooth, difficult, bouncy, all encompassing. And the weight of a baby is miraculous. There’s nothing like it. It fills your arms with all the kindness and temperament and love you possess in your body to cradle this small person, to keep it safe, if only for a minute. It doesn’t matter if the baby is yours or not. When a baby is in a room, it becomes, somehow, all of ours. It gets our attention, our time, our words, our hands, our love.
I detest the term “baby fever,” because it implies that it is something you will recover from, that once you’ve had the baby, the “illness” fades and cures itself. This is not my case. My ailment aligns more with the common cold, resurfacing every few months to bother me until I make a decision and then comes back full circle.
My children are hardly all grown up. Ben is currently 7, and Charlotte is 4. They are still, some would argue, babies themselves. And some would say that deciding on another child is a divine decision, one agreed upon with you, a partner (or not), and the universe (God, Spirit, Ether). That it really isn’t up to you at all, but an agreement made by all three. Is there another being looking to join our family? Can I be sure it would work out? If I had the answers (and the answers were positive), would I do it? In a heartbeat, yes. This all makes me feel sad because if I’m not living my life to experience it, what am I living it for? And the answer is comfort, stability, sameness. The fear of change, of “something bad” has always stopped me from taking risks big and small.
What if I were to hate having three? What if my hormones get unbalanced again? What if I can’t handle it? What if our marriage can’t handle it? What if we suddenly can’t afford it?
It isn’t too late, physiologically. I’m equipped, still, to carry a baby. And yet, still, there is a leaning towards no. Love the children you have. Grow your gardens, get your chickens, write your books, and teach you kids. You are enough right this very moment, these inner whispers tell me.
But it’s hard to let go. They are growing so quickly. I could rewind time with another. And once they start growing older too? What then? Just keep having children to deny the inevitable feeling of time?
I try to imagine what it would be like being pregnant again. It’s like a memory in the future, hazy and rosy. I am soft and round and baking bread and helping Ben with his homework and making Charlotte peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Joe is working but gets home and rubs my belly and my feet as we watch movies together at night. It’s the fantasy I’ve dreamt of with all the pregnancies I’ve had. There are moments of this perfectness, but it’s harder than that. But who’s to say harder is bad? The kids I have now are very hard, but they’re the best part of my life.
At the party, with my friend’s baby, I rocked and bounced as she cried for her mama. My friend forgot to bring her distilled water for the formula and had to run to the store. I liked soothing little Claire. That’s her name, like a tiny French woman. We danced to the music playing and I lifted her high above my head to get that perfect, toothless smile all babies have.
And when my friend arrived with a jug of Poland Spring and her powder ready to go, I handed over Claire, happy and distracted from her hunger for just a few minutes, while my arms slowly drifted to my sides, suddenly so heavy, even though I was no longer holding the extra weight.