early decisions

Some folks have read my blog and been confused. They read my rants as indications that I don't want to be pregnant, and if that's true, then, why am I? I understand their confusion. Beyond my unconditional love of ranting and my inalienable right to do so, this is my response.

Early on, when I was so very depressed about my condition, people asked me whether I had considered ending the pregnancy. Of course the option had occurred to me. But often my first reaction would be to tell inquiring minds what my husband thought. He was excited. He felt (suddenly and inexplicably) ready to have a child. The thought of aborting made him very, very sad. All my female friends, well-trained in independent and feminist thinking, would cringe. "But what do you want? It's your body. It's your life." Admittedly, it felt weird to me too to be spewing on about my husband's feelings, well-trained as I am in independent and feminist thinking. And they were right, it is my body; it felt invaded, an unhappy host. And indeed, it is my life. My life that includes at its center this amazing person I married.

In addition to seeing the implications on "my" life as inextricable from the implications on "his" life or "our" life, my husband's feelings were at least somewhat consolidated and identifiable, whereas mine were swimming in a panicked blur. So I found myself starting with his.

As I saw it, my choices were the following:

If I were to continue with the pregnancy knowing how I felt about it at the time, it would take considerable work to bring myself to a place where things were okay. It would take a great deal of soul searching and relationship hashing. Things would change for us dramatically, but we'd survive it.

If I were to choose to terminate the pregnancy knowing how he felt about it at the time, it would take considerable work to bring myself to a place where things were okay. It would take a great deal of soul searching and relationship hashing. Things would change for us dramatically, but we'd survive it.

We had discussed adoption for some time prior to discovering I was pregnant. We are in our mid-thirties. Even though everything we'd talked about was half-assed and theoretical, if we meant any of it, how much longer would we have waited, realistically? Did it make sense to call off this biological baby only to choose another a couple years down the road?

I don’t take any of this lightly, I just trust my husband's instincts impeccably (eventually); they have panned out for us in the past. I didn't see how we could have this baby when he did. And neither did I have the courage to see we should be together when he did. I wouldn't have been the one to sell my condo, quit my job of seven years, and leave my friends to follow someone I didn't know very well and had already shown herself to be a volatile ball of emotional baggage 3,000 miles across the country to a life unknown. But that's what Mike did. Following my husband's instincts and taking my indecision as enough reason to pause was the right thing for me. That's not to say there wasn't screaming and crying and hurting and flying accusations filled with resentment along the journey. It doesn't mean that I didn't have to come to a place where I felt like my feelings were understood and my choices recognized. There was all of that in both scenarios.

A part of me felt, and still feels, that you should take what you're handed in life. I feel also like something in me knew this was coming, expected it and prepared for it. When I look back on little things I said and did in the weeks prior, there are some eerie coincidences there. I have banged my head and lamented that we should have been more careful, or I should have known better. I knew well enough, but still we are here. My conscious mind would never have, could never have chosen this, but something else might have.

Summary and FAQs:
Do I want to be pregnant? No. Could I have ended a pregnancy that came under these circumstances and within the circle of this marriage? It appears the answer is no. Do I want to have a baby? This question is still hard for me to answer. That's partly because most days it is virtually impossible for me to separate my fears about having a child from my desire to have or not have one. Will I have one? Looks that way. Will I learn a shitload in the process? Clearly. Am I scared? Deathly.