Glimmer

It’s standard operations on blogs like mine. In fact, I’ve already talked about it more than once. You know where I’m going with this, right? The old “will we or won’t we” question. And of course I’m talking about having more babies. I feel sort of like a douchebag even bringing it up again. Honestly, what sort of gall do I have to possibly but probably not but maybe but no I DO NOT but YES I DO but I probably don’t want another baby? The whole thought pattern is annoying even to me, the one who is having the thoughts in the first place.

I had my annual OBGYN visit last week. I love my doctor. When I was about 12 weeks pregnant with Liv, I switched from the practice who delivered my first 2 babies because their founding doctor and my 2 favorite midwives had left leaving a creepy man doctor, and the remaining OB that I’d never liked. I’d had really good experiences with the resident in the hospital who was on hand when I’d delivered both Bud and Lucy, and had heard that she joined a practice so I took a leap of faith and switched. And that doctor was just as great as I’d remembered, but I ended up clicking with another doctor in the practice, and she became my primary OB. She’s fantastic. She gets me. We’ve had some really great conversations, and even when I go more than a year without seeing her, she always remembers me, my big babies, and that I hate birth control even though I’ve tried some things at her suggestion. So yes. Love her.

She’s recently started performing that in office lady sterilization that seems to be getting so popular and is a strong proponent of it. I told her how Hub is terrified of the old snip snip and she wholeheartedly recommended this procedure, should I decide I am ready to take permanent action. And if I’m not, she told me, she would expect to see me back in her office pregnant before Liv goes to Kindergarten. She knows me. She knows my fertility. She doesn’t think my handy dandy app will work forever. So of course I left there with my mind racing and many things to think about.

Here’s the thing: I am reasonably certain that I don’t want to have any more babies. We’ve come so far. Liv is still…well, Liv. I don’t think she’d do well with a younger sibling. Really, I’m mostly ok with being done. And so, I brought all of this up to Hub that very evening.

“Do it.”, he said before the words were even out of my mouth. “ You should get it done.”

There was something about him making this decree, regardless of the context and regardless of me asking his opinion. The second he uttered those words, I went ballistic. As in who the hell do you think you are, to tell me to shut off my babymaker? What happens if you drop dead tomorrow and I meet someone else and want to have his babies? What if what if what if? Of course, this was the very moment Liv picked to parade through the kitchen, pants on the ground, dragging the dog behind her yelling some jib jab at her sister who had scorned her.

“Another one of those”, Hub said.

And really, the answer is no. I don’t want another one of those (nevermind that for as crazy as she makes me I think that Liv’s inappropriate tenacity and difficultness is kind of…charming). But I don’t want to never be able to change my mind. I don’t want the finality. I want to keep my babymaker intact. For now. And I certainly don’t want my husband or anyone telling me what to do with it. So I think that’s what the choice is here, whether I want to shut down the factory and know that it’s over for good or to keep that glimmer somewhat alive.

How do you decide? How do you know when is when? The arbitrary restriction I placed on myself years ago was 35. I don’t want to have any more babies after I am 35. That’s always been my personal cutoff. I’m a year and a half away from my 35th birthday. Is this enough time for me to decide once and for all? Or if I gave myself until then would I feel differently? Would I say to myself “well, I’ll be 35 for a whole 12 months…I still have time!” and then end up putting it off and putting it off until I have a late in life baby at something like age 45 when my other kids are grown?

I just don’t know. If I don’t want to make this decision and I don’t want anyone making it for me, it means I have to keep thinking and thinking about it, mulling the “what ifs.” What if it’s meant to be? But what if it’s not? Ack.