Fall and Decorative Gourd Season

And you just don’t get it, you keep it copacetic;

And you learn to accept it, you know you’re so pathetic

Local H: “Bound for the Floor”

I smiled after I typed “Fall” because of the dual meanings. Autumn! and also, literally falling. Which I have felt like with my legs. I think the two vein ablation procedures have helped some, but the doctor was adamant that it would not be a cure: at best a partial improvement. I understand that. And despite doctors saying this isn’t a thing, I can tell certain foods spark irritation: no more tortilla chips 😦

But there are lots of things to fall about and fall because of.

This is a rough time of year for me now. And I hate it because I LOVE Autumn. It started last Sunday with J’s birthday. And some other tough conversations. And it will continue for all of October.

And then I was sick this week. Not Covid (tested negative) – I think just a good, old-fashioned cold after a work trip to Chicago and a busy August and September. And I just feel exhausted. In every way possible. I’ve boarded cats, moved furniture, overseen contractors, given 4 presentations, travelled for work, vacationed…there has been a lot going on.

I said last year that I call this season “Deathiversary”. It is. I don’t think it will be as acute as last year, but there’s a lot focus on. To dwell on. To deal with. To feel.

And I don’t ever want to pretend that it isn’t fucking hard to try to do all this by myself. I’m trying very hard to be so good at everything but feeling like I am failing at everything. And failing everyone. And overall not feeling good enough.

I did some good things this year: I hired a handyman to do some painting and other improvements. I hired people to fix some things on the back porch. I hired floor people to do some major improvements. And I’m proud of myself for that. I can do this! Plenty more to do. But it’s hard. And often I feel like my decisions are second guessed and I need to run the gauntlet of how not to offend this or that person. And D is 13, and isn’t that pleasant? And be at minimum, a competent employee at a leadership level. Oh and maybe try to have somewhat of a social life – even simply hanging out with the neighbors. I keep rubbing my “Relax” stone.

I should probably delete all of this. It’s a vulnerable moment for me, and I dislike that. But. The entire point of this post actually was that I don’t think I’ll be able do my usual fall decorating: because of the floor stuff, I have no furniture in my living room. My furniture is in storage and I’m trying to decide if I want to bring it back or buy stuff *I* like. And you know what? I think I’m fine with that. But I did bring out one item, and I think that will do for now.

So thank you to my dear friend, Erin, for this. It was a birthday gift last year, and I laughed my ass off when I opened it. It will be a staple of my Autumn decorating for years to come.

Each day, I try to put one foot in front of the other and do what I need to do while also dealing with recalcitrant children and needy cats. And coworkers. And sometimes family.

Also I need to buy a new Christmas tree, but that’s a post for another day.

Also I got another tattoo. I will post about that too.

Thank you for bearing with me.

Meanwhile…

Believe me, I have a lot to say. Almost too much. I think some people may be rather shocked by how MUCH I have to say, but I’ve always been chatty. Always. My first teachers commented on it frequently 🙂

It’s funny because I don’t think I come across as especially verbose or chatty (or maybe I do?), but get me in the right situation, and I am super chatty (some of you know that better than others). But yes. I have a lot to share. We had a major anniversary as well as what I consider the end of “Deathiversary Season”. That’s not a pretty term, but it describes a not-pretty 6-week period of time this year that almost broke me. It was brutal. I’ll blog about it later. It was awful. I’ll return to that in another post.

So what have I been up to? Well, good thing I didn’t have to decorate the tree since it has been up in the living room for around two years! I know. I know. The cats love it. I have already had to extricate our youngest cat a few times. But hey…that keeps it interesting, right? I did buy three ornaments for it which will be part of another post.

I’m feeling rather generous right now. You’re behind a paywall? Sure, I’ll subscribe. Plus about 10 other sites. You have a favorite campaign? I’ll donate. It isn’t sustainable in the long term, but I like being able to give. I feel very strongly about paying it forward since so many people were so kind to me in the last year. It’s just money. That sounds horribly entitled, but I like being able to donate to good causes and to friends who are collecting. I’m trying to send good energy out into the world. If it comes back to me, wonderful, but it’s more about sending out good energy.

Gah. I sound like I am all over the place. Maybe I am. I am trying to be a better person. A better mother. A better daughter. A better friend. A better coworker. I’m not exactly sure how those will manifest, but I will let you know.

I had to decide whether to end this blog here or decide to let it go on for several…several…more paragraphs and I decided to stop….while I was ahead? Ha!

Thank you for indulging me. And I will definitely be back with more to say.

I Don’t Like Mondays

I try not to air too much dirty laundry, but, well, sometimes I need to vent and share, and I like to think this is my safe-ish space to do so. I have no interest in being the poster child for “getting by” because I have lots of raw, ugly emotions here.

I hate Mondays. I think we can all say that to some degree, and a friend turned me on to “I Don’t Like Mondays” by The Boomtown Rats, and it sums it up.

I used to blithely say it, but now I really, really mean it. Mondays now mean attempted school refusal because it’s a PE day (note to self: another call I need to make). Lots of meetings. And putting on three hats: job 1, job 2 (marketing) and job 3 (mommy). It’s a long day. And it includes garbage needing to be dealt with. It sounds silly, but I don’t know…garbage symbolizes so much, and it is a huge pain. Garbage night symbolizes to me one of those tasks that I didn’t have to do previously but now must do now. And I fucking hate it. 

And my sweet boy. Mondays are a trigger for him because of gym class. He hates gym class. I hated gym class too. Do I look like someone who excelled in gym? Nope. Like I said, school refusal attempted. And then surliness at me. Demanding I speak to him a certain way. Nothing pisses me off more than being told to use a nicer tone or say “please” by my 12 year old. And this comes barely two days after taking him to a Lego festival, spending a lot of money and being told that it was the BEST day.

I am not good with this. I am too verbal and use too many words to be effective, and it angers me SO MUCH. This morning, once he agreed to go to school, he announced he was going to the woods. I muttered, “By all means, go live deliberately” and he shouted, “I don’t understand your slang.” I laughed and laughed. 

And then after I dropped him off at school, I came home and cried and cried.

I mention all of this not to shame him or myself (though the shame for me is omnipresent) but to point out the reality of our lives right now. It is not all great. It is not often great at all. 

I am lonely. I am alone. I often don’t know what to do. I Google a lot. We both have therapists. It’s just hard. And I’m OK with that being our reality because it is true: hard. But I wonder when it will be less hard. And I hope there will be a time.

I like to think I am doing my best, but when I don’t feel like I am doing my best at anything, I can’t believe I am doing my best at parenting either. But I know the tween surliness is developmental and I know that his rages at me are also due to him knowing I am a safe person he can rage to. I know that. Just not easy to take. And that all gets woven together with being the only parent and being alone and feeling alone and trying to do my job, and I just want to scream.

Me

We went to the beach for Labor Day weekend – a do-over from a few prior rainy trips and a “last hurrah” to the beach as well as an early birthday present for me. And it was wonderful!  But we did have a scary moment. The ocean was the calmest I had seen it in years and there were amazing sand bars that extended far out.  Daniel and I played in the water, swam (me) and overall had a great time. 

And then the scare happened: the closest sand bar disappeared suddenly. Daniel freaked out and wrapped himself around my neck. I knew we were only a few inches away from being able to touch, but the tide was coming in quickly and I had someone gripping me even though I tried to calm him down so I could walk or swim us closer. It was the scariest moment I have ever had in the ocean. Fortunately, there were swimmers close by that could help us progress the few inches needed, but I was devastated. Relieved. Humiliated. Grateful. Angry. I had talked to Daniel several times about not grabbing me around the neck if he was scared in the water. I know that panic occurs and how it makes our rational thoughts disappear instantly. But I could feel what could have happened, and it was terrifying. All I could think of was that this child who was berating me the night before for not doing something for him was now gripping me, hoping I would save him even though he could quite literally have drowned us both. We returned to our room, and I cried from the adrenaline and from feeling like a failure who couldn’t take care of her child and from feeling overall like a terrible mother and human.

So that’s where we are. If I’m not waving, I’m drowning. Sometimes literally; mostly figuratively.

And in the midst of all this other drama, milestones occur. Last week, on Sept. 22, I realized it was the anniversary of when I met Jimmy. We’ve always considered it a significant date, and it felt weird to me that it took me almost the entire day before I realized what the date was. We met in 1996, so it would have been 25 years. Then, on Sept. 25, I took Daniel to BrickUniverse and gave the credit card a work out even though I hate Legos at this point. September 25 was also Jimmy’s birthday, so I thought indulging Daniel might be a good idea. It was a good day. It was a good way to honor Jimmy because he would have loved taking Daniel to BrickUniverse. 

I have lots of milestones this time of year: my birthday (9/9); our meeting anniversary (9/22); his birthday (9/25). Next month is the last week of his life at the end of October. Then we have the first anniversary of his death on 11/1. Our wedding anniversary is 12/1 and let me tell you what a gift last year was with the first month of his death arriving on our anniversary. I usually enjoy celebrating milestones and important dates, but I kind of want to put my head in the sand this year. The dates are a lot, especially as they come almost all at once.

I write this not to seek pity or even condolences. More of a rumination on what it’s like to be us … to be me mainly … right now. I try to keep a stiff upper lip, but to be frank, this shit is hard. 

But I try. I try so hard every day (maybe sing that to Flock of Seagulls’ “I Ran.” That would be amusing). It’s all I have and all I can do.

I joke that many days I feel like Sisyphus, and that is true. But I also think of this video, and it makes me laugh and feel better.

“Like Sisyphus, I am bound to hell.”

Sisyphus indeed. Better days will come.

Surliness and the Seventh Grader

Daniel started 7th grade (OMG!) in person last month. I must confess that *I* may have been tad bit excited for it. In person! Not virtual! Maybe actual education and learning will be had! Getting back to routines! To be fair, Daniel was excited to return too, so lest you picture me doing excited pirouettes around my house after I dropped him off…well, you’d be correct.

But wow was it difficult returning to the grind and routine of school. What are school supplies? I have to pack a lunch? We need new clothes! School starts when? Where IS the school? That last item is not exactly an exaggeration. Last school year – sixth grade – would have been his first year in middle school, and we were unable to tour it in the spring of 2020 due to that little thing called COVID. Last year was spent virtual, and I think I personally went inside the school twice. Things are SO weird, but I don’t have to tell you all that.

We went to Meet the Teacher night as usual, and Daniel loved his teachers and the classrooms (seriously, they may have been the nicest, cleanest classrooms I have ever seen). I did have a moment of amusement because his Homeroom and English teacher listed the books she was reading, and I was stunned to see she is reading a novel by someone I know from the fanfiction realm. I sidled up to her and whispered, “do you know she writes fanfiction? She’s really good.” She did not know this, so I have sent her some links. Reeling them into the fandom one link at a time…

So here we are about to start week 4. It’s going well. Academically, things seem good, but the school has also continued with the limited/no homework policy, so I usually have no idea what D is working on unless he deigns to share. Like last week he rocked social studies, so I heard about that. Otherwise, it’s pulling teeth to get information. But from the teachers I have heard from, they like him a lot and appreciate his enthusiasm. I’ll take it. I’ve always wanted nothing more than for him to do his best, and after the last 18 months, if he is enjoying school and actually learning, that’s all that matters.

Socially…well, we all know middle school is hell. If middle school had been a concept when Dante was writing The Divine Comedy, I’m sure there would have been an entire level of hell dedicated to middle school. And with good reason.

Daniel was disappointed that a few of his closest friends from elementary school aren’t in any of his classes, but he does have a few other former classmates, so he is slowly (slowwwwlllllyyyy) getting over that disappointment. He hates gym, but who among us did not hate gym? He feels bad because he cannot do a push up, and I’m promising to help because one of my weird splinter skills (along with serving a volleyball) is doing push ups.

My child is a bit surly kind of a misanthrope. He informed me recently that HE is a man and the other students in the school are children, and he will not associate with them because they are less mature. OKKKK. I’m not sure what his definition of a “man” is, but this is where he and I butt heads because I want preciseness in language, so I do a lot of saying, “you are legally not an adult! There are laws about this!” I know this surliness is typical, but yeah, the next few years are going to be GREAT. And damn. I know I’m an introvert and joke about not liking people, but come on! I’m sort of proud, yet appalled? We have a lot of conversations about what is means to be polite socially even if you loathe the people around you. Sometimes our conversations – like much in the last 18 months – seem very surreal.

Ultimately, I spend a lot of time telling him that yes, middle school is hell and everyone is an asshole. Just do the best you can and ignore the ones that get on your nerves. That somehow seems like good advice (based on painful experience) and insufficient? I’m always reminded of a Teaching Fellows summer seminar I went on junior year. One of the keynote speakers was a middle school teacher and basically said this:

The students won’t like you or listen to you or their parents. They will only listen to their peers. They don’t care about school. But other than that, middle school is great!

Way to sell middle school!

We’re getting by. Yes, it’s only 4 weeks in, but I’m grateful he is back in school and that the district has a mask mandate (fairly red county and controversial, so I was pleasantly surprised). It is disconcerting to receive calls almost every day from the school about the latest positive COVID case. I told some friends that “deep disinfection and quarantining” is the COVID version of “thoughts and prayers.” And I’m grateful Daniel seems to be enjoying it or at least dealing with it. I’ve had the joy of experiencing afternoon pick up, and holy shit. I cannot believe how early people line up. I’ve taken entire meetings via Zoom on my phone on several occasions as I have waited to pick him up.

The first week of school, both water containers disappeared. Daniel was nonplussed (the current definition, not the definition I prefer). Then the second week, I saw his water container sitting on the bench outside the front of the school when I picked him up early. I guess it’s true what the say: “if you love someone (something) and set it free, if they come back to you it was meant to be.”

I’m all about signs these days, so I’ll take it in a water bottle.

Infertility Never Goes Away

When I read infertility articles, I goggle a bit because these are current POVs & experiences whereas mine are both technically current (endo & congenital issues don’t disappear) and in the past because we know our issues and with an almost 10-year-old, we have made peace with our family.

But yeah. Infertility never goes away- at least to me.  This article came to my attention this week and while the particulars are different, everything else is sooooo familiar.

I’m 41- almost 42 – years old and I suspect I will always find articles like this to be familiar. It’s a sisterhood, a club, without formal admission requirements or meetings (or even desire to join). Just pain. It isn’t omnipresent like is was before D was born but it is still there, lingering. I almost wrote “hiding”, but that isn’t true. I don’t want to hide this pain. That does a disservice to the experience.

I have a child, yet I still hurt. I will always hurt even if it is compartmentalized.

Is there a flag for “Infertility is Forever!”? Ha.

So, i’m trying to publish this from my phone, so things aren’t working 100%. This is the article I referenced: Infertility article

NYE 2018

It’s cliche at my age to talk about how fast time goes by and how it seems to go by faster and faster each year.  But damn it, it’s true. Here we are – somehow – on the final day of the year again.

Not a superb year, but not a terrible year either. Probably a normal year with normal ups and downs: car died; new car! Dryer died; new dryer.  Days off of school for hurricanes in the Fall (while we got off lightly, the eastern part of the state was devastated) and then a day off for an unusual snowstorm in December.  Two trips to the beach. A trip to Asheville and the Biltmore House for the second time, fast becoming an annual tradition for our family (along with a heated indoor pool and a continental breakfast). A good end to 3rd grade and a good start to 4th grade for Daniel.  The unexpected death of an aunt. Increasingly creaky bones and quickly greying hair.  My first salon highlights.  Work frustrations (always) but trips to DC to participate in Hill Day and to Kansas City to present at a conference as well as representing us at other meetings showed me I was becoming a trusted member of the team.  Extended family health issues and controversies. Family relationships and friendships renewed.

A normal year.

I’m not sorry to see 2018 go, though.  This year has felt taut and out of control as the news raged around us, and we cringed at each “Breaking News” alert (“the center will not hold” and all that). But I’ve also never been more in tune with the world around us.

I read the fewest books this year that I’ve ever read: only 16. I read a LOT of fan fiction (another whole post could be devoted to that) because it was a much-needed antidote to the world around us. I also read (and recommended) tons of articles. Surely that mitigates somewhat the lack of reading actual books? Despite the stack of unread books on my nightstand?

We’ve watched some good movies and good series. Things that make us laugh and provide escapism (although Avengers: Infinity Wars left us devastated even though we know it is only part 1).  Some dramas seem too real these days, and I found myself turning away from even my go-to Law & Order: SVU reruns in favor of something else.

We sent no Christmas cards this year. I had every intention of doing so, but we just couldn’t make it happen. We didn’t have the large in-law family Christmas on the 27th this year for the first time in…decades? But we all breathed a sigh of relief, and our small lunch on Christmas was just right. I didn’t even bake cookies for the holidays, instead buying scrumptious cookies from a neighbor.

Sometimes I wonder if we have given up and are letting go too much, but sometimes it’s also nice to have quiet holidays. You have to recharge your batteries, right?

Daniel was happy, and that was what mattered.  Also, 9-year-olds are moody beasts.

I don’t think I’ll make any resolutions.  I have a list of things I “need” to do. What I need to do is to be more forgiving of myself and others and be more generous. More open. I think many of us could say the same thing.

Goodbye, 2018.  Welcome, 2019.  May it be good to us all.

My favorite picture of us in 2018.

 

PS: I really hope to write more here in 2019. I’ve missed it.

Fourth Grade

He’s knobby knees and sharp elbows.  He watches Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Doctor Who instead of Thomas, Peppa Pig and Super Why. In the car, he sits next to me in a booster seat instead of in a car seat in the back.  We listen to the news, and he asks me to explain things like “hush money,” “witch hunt,” “flipping,” “stabbed in the back,” and “human punching bag.” I should probably change the station.

He is so tall, yet he cried when his bean plant died. He is both afraid of and in awe of his two kitty cat sisters.

He wants me to read to him still.

He is 9, and today he started the 4th grade.  We are in a bit in shock.  When did he get so big?  Where did the time go?  I can feel time’s inexorable march, but it is bittersweet. Right now, he still loves kisses and hugs, but conditions have begun to occur. Not at drop-offs. Or in front of friends. But at night, we can still hug and give kisses. Mostly.

Happy 1st day of 4th grade. Fingers crossed for a good year.

 

Parenting in a Time of Existential Dread

We held the fifth and final Listen to Your Mother:Raleigh-Durham on Friday. It was a magical evening. Great, responsive audience. Amazing pieces. Lots of emotion and laughs. It was very bittersweet. I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about the final show and this final season, but I need a few more days to unpack it all.  The biggest change for this year’s shows is that there was no requirement to video them. Each city could hire a videographer if they wished, but there would be no possibility of sharing or distributing the videos. As a result, we chose not to video our show.

So here is my piece.  I know that my few posts on my blog this year have been political or a response to the situation in which the USA is in, but I can’t help it.  It took over my LTYM piece this year, and the show overall had a decidedly political tone as readers shared going to their first protest, parenting children of a different race and keeping them safe, helping children cope, etc. I was a little nervous to read the piece and was afraid I would be heckled, even in fairly blue Raleigh.

I guess this is our reality now.  So, here is my final LTYM piece: “Parenting in a Time of Existential Dread.”

***

I’m sitting at my laptop, trying to write my piece for the show. I had planned to write about being a working mom. Well, a working-outside-the-house mom, because as mothers, we all work and work damn hard.

The problem is that I can’t focus on writing about the difficulties of registering for summer camp, and my experience of being a working mom seems trivial.

Because the world is fucked up right now. Do you feel it?  I do. It is the anxiety that gnaws at my gut every day. It is the existential dread when I wake up in the morning and wonder what has happened over night, what tweets have been sent. What new revelations have come to light.

And it bleeds into everything. My job is in jeopardy. My organization is funded by the government to help manufacturers stay competitive, profitable and most importantly, in business. And POTUS wants to cut us.

We are in crisis mode, and I’m also trying to hire for my team. Imagine how fun it is to tell candidates, “oh, by the way, the grant you will be supporting has been targeted to be obliterated. Don’t you want to come work with us?”

Yeah, that goes over well.

And then we come home and listen to the news, dumbfounded at the amount of corruption and the horror story unfolding that is even more horrible than the horror story we thought we had already.

And my son hears all this.  He’s 7. He’s very black and white in his view of the world. You either like or hate someone. So simple. He asks us, “Do you wish someone would hurt the president?” and exclaims, “I hate him!” We have to answer those questions, address his feelings to make sure he knows that we don’t wish harm on anyone. We have to explain that it is one thing not to like a person and another to want them to come to some sort of harm.

He’s only 7, and he is already more involved in politics than I was at his age.  Before the election, a classmate told him that if Trump didn’t win, Mexicans were going to take our house from us. This is also the same classmate that terrified him by telling him that those damn clowns were all around, so yeah, I’m a big fan of hers.

On Election Day, he sighed, “I think Trump is going to win.” When he woke up the next day, I had to tell him he was right. He replied, resigned, “I knew it.” We had to have the same conversation about the Atlanta Falcons and the Super Bowl. I’m beginning to worry that he believes he can’t trust the positions his family holds because they never come true.

We listen to the news in the car, and he asked exasperatedly, “Russia! Why is it always about Russia?”

Why indeed.

These are difficult conversations to have. I can’t even have these conversations with family members who are several times his age.  How can I explain it to him?

On quiet news days, I want to exhale and think that it will all be OK.  Maybe we’re just hyper aware of everything in 2017 thanks to social media and the Internet.  On other days, I feel like that poor guy in Munch’s painting, screaming into the void.

On those days, I want to lock all the doors, grab my son and never leave.  Maybe those preppers have the right idea.

And I want to apologize to him.  What kind of world are we making for him? What is he growing up in? Will there be a world for him to grow up in?

I always dismissed the Cold War-era fatalism as quaint and something that could never happen again. We know better.  Instead, here we are again.

My son is still rather innocent. We’ve sheltered him more than we should probably. In his world, the Lego cops always catch the Lego bad guys. He has been watching Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter recently, and to him, the president, Voldemort and Sauron are the same things.

The difference is that Voldemort and Sauron are fictional characters. The good guys win.

I don’t know how to explain to him that in the real world, that doesn’t always happen.

15 Years

Today is our 15th wedding anniversary. What? 15 years already?!?! But it is true. Fifteen years ago on a similarly unseasonably warm day, I walked down the aisle, almost caught my dress on a pew and gripped Jimmy’s hands so hard that he joked the imprint of his ring would be visible on his bone.

You might think we spent this milestone anniversary having a nice dinner out or doing something special.

We did. Sort of.

First, I picked up takeout hibachi for about the zillionth time this year. Who needs the teppanyaki show when you can get the same food to go without the time commitment?

Then, we had normal nightly chores to do. School papers to sign for Daniel and practice for the next day’s spelling test. Lunches to make and kitty cats to be fed and treated.

Finally came the main task of the evening. We are having AT&T fiber installed tomorrow. Jimmy is very excited about it and we needed to do some wiring before the installer comes out tomorrow.  And I use “we” throughout because I helped (not always graciously).

Our living room is in disarray because we took apart the entertainment center earlier in the week for the fiber installation. Our bonus room is filled with pieces from the entertainment center. The TV is in front of our coffee table. And in the middle of it all is our Christmas tree, begging, hoping to be decorated soon.

Tonight, though, was devoted to wiring. Tonight Jimmy was in the crawl space underneath the house after drilling a hole in the wall to the crawl space. I fed him 50 feet of a bundle of wires with only a tiny bit of discord (we don’t do projects like this well).

It felt like that scene in Poltergeist in which Jo Beth Williams is preparing to go into the other side to get Carol Ann, and the scientists see the rope and tennis balls coming through the ceiling covered in ectoplasm.

As I was feeding the wires to Jimmy, it took all my restraint not to start chanting, “Cross over, children. All are welcome.”

The wiring is ready, and even though the house is still a wreck, we will fix it this weekend. The tree will be decorated.

It may not have been the anniversary night one sees in movies or reads in books, but it was certainly real.

Happy 15th to us. We got shit done.

Plans in Pencil

This was the post I read for the 2016 Listen to Your Mother: Raleigh-Durham show last week.  Can’t believe the show is over already!

Last week on the way home from school, my son, my sweet 6-year-old, my baby told me he had a girlfriend.  This girlfriend is an older woman, having turned 8.

He broke this news to me by telling me that he and this girl, Rose, were going to get married (what????), they would work as a veterinarian (her) and a doctor (him), and that Rose was afraid of having babies cut out of her. He then asked me if he had been cut out of me.

Deep breaths.

I had no labor and delivery with him myself, vaginal or otherwise.  My son was the result of gestational surrogacy. I was able to sit back and observe calmly while our surrogate delivered him. If you believe that sentence, well, I have a few other things I can sell you.

It was time. It was time to have the talk with him about how he came to be.  We hadn’t intended on keeping it a secret – absolutely not at all – but sometimes there isn’t a simple opening or Hallmark card for this type of conversation.  We had blown it up in our minds to take on epic qualities; how would he react?

Later that evening, we brought up the topic again. I gently told him – trying to use simple language – that he had not been in my belly because it didn’t work and that another, wonderful woman had carried him for us. We waited for his reaction.

“Oh, OK, “ he replied. “Can I have ice cream now?”

I asked him how he felt about this information.  He placed his still baby-soft hand on my stomach. “Mommy, are you still broken?”

Broken.  Yes, I am still broken. My reproductive organs don’t work and never will. My son is our miracle child, made possible by the kindness of a stranger who carried him.

I never wanted only one child. I grew up as an only child. I didn’t have a miserable childhood, but I felt lonely, and I was envious of my friends with siblings. Maybe I would have been more socially competent with a sibling. Maybe I wouldn’t feel so alone in the world. Maybe I would be a different person. The possibilities of what might have been are endless.

While I have one child, I also have five frozen siblings for him. Siblings isn’t quite the correct word.  We have five frozen embryos, five bits of potential. In the infertility community, we call them frosties, or my personal favorite, “totsicles.” It is amazing to have any embryos to freeze, and I have five after a horrible IVF cycle in which it seemed I’d be fortunate to create any embryos. These are embryos created from barely 31-year-old me and gave us our son. Our only son.

I’m very close to 39 now.

We receive the bill for cryopreservation of our embryos annually. We don’t talk about it but pay it automatically every year. Our other options are to destroy them, to donate or adopt them out to other families or to allow them to be used for research. We can’t do any of that. Yet.

We always wanted more than one child, but circumstances made that difficult.  Having a second child would require a major financial outlay as well as significant changes in our lives. Are we too old for that? Are we too old for bottles and nightly feedings? For daycare costs? For potty training? For all the energy and money infancy and toddlerhood require?  And what about my career and increasing responsibility? What about the child we already have and his needs, his future?

I’d like to say we could swing it, but I FEEL tired. I AM tired. We are in a groove, and our sweet boy is more independent every day.

We know the answer, but we keep kicking the can further down the road.

When I let myself think about it, I get angry. I feel like I was robbed of choices when it came to family building and the choices we did have were difficult and came with heavy implications.  There is a part of me that still simmers with resentment and anger: WHY US? WHY did this have to be our reality?

Very few of us realize the lives we hoped to have. Regardless of what our dreams were, reality slaps us in the face.  We are obligated nothing, and our notion of control is an illusion. I need to bottle my resentment and anger, my caustic bitterness, and put it away.  Yes, we were dealt a shitty hand reproductively, but what can you do? We did what we could. We rolled the dice and won once. Nothing guarantees we would win again.

I have one son, and he is wonderful. He is sweet, bright, energetic, and sentimental. He is exhausting, argumentative, and stubborn. He is everything I wished and hoped for and so much more.

Instead of lingering on what I can’t change, I need to focus on what I do have. My son tells me he and his future wife plan to name my future grandchild “Sprinkle”. I smile. It’s nice to have plans, but I have learned it is wise to plan in pencil.