Transparent Tuesdays

Issue 234

You guys,

At what point do Sam and I stop trying to have another baby? 

I was prepared to keep trying through December but one night I laid on the couch, my feet propped up on Sam’s lap, groaning without even realizing I was groaning, and he said, “You really want to carry around an extra forty pounds for nine months?” 

Earlier that morning I played tennis and after an hour my knees started to feel weird and wobbly. I kept squeezing them, bending and straightening my legs. It felt like something bad was about to happen. My friend just tore her ACL playing field hockey and I wondered, Am I about to tear my ACL? 

I’ve never had knee problems. My knees have always just been a part of my legs—strong, there. I did not like the sensation that anything could possibly be wrong. But I limped off the court and when I came home I grimaced and grabbed onto counters and couches as I made my way through the house. I proclaimed myself old—I’m forty!—and Sam told me to stop saying that. “You have tendinitis,” he guessed, since he just had tendonitis and my symptoms sounded similar. “You have to go to physical therapy.”

Back to physical therapy. I’d been there a lot this year. I had a stress fracture in my neck in March and for three weeks could not be upright without snapping at my kids. “Mama is in pain,” I told them. “No, I can’t pick you up.”

They’re four and two years old so I don’t want to pick them up all the time but sometimes I would. Sometimes I would like to scoop up my kids and hold them and carry them and keep them close and kiss their chunky cheeks.   

We were staying at the beach and for four nights in a row we worked on a puzzle. By the third night, no matter if I was standing or sitting it hurt my neck. The constant looking down, the straining. This is how it’s been since March. I have to do neck exercises every day and always be aware of my posture if I want to get through the day without pain. So my knees hurt and my neck hurts and I keep telling Sam I want another baby because if we don’t have one soon then we’re not going to have one at all. 

But now I’m not so sure it’s the right decision. I have two beautiful, perfect kids who are at ages where they play together and hold hands and make up games on their own like Airplane and Bedtime and I watch from afar as they waddle and discover and maybe this is everything there is. Maybe the responsible thing to do is focus on my health and my strength so that I can be a good Mama and partner right now. 

So what do I do? I’m about to start ovulating soon. Do we keep trying for four more months, as planned, and if it happens it happens? Or do we stop trying and in fact actively try to prevent another pregnancy? 

I laughed when Sam asked about the extra forty pounds. It would probably be closer to thirty—he didn’t need to be so dramatic. “I’m serious,” he said, as he stood to check on George, who was calling one of us to tuck him in and I told Sam to go because couldn’t possibly move from my spot on the couch. “You can barely walk. Imagine having a newborn.”

I let myself imagine it: A newborn, right now, tonight.  

I couldn’t. 

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Until next week,

Charlie