Diving Blind

[If you've experienced infertility, this may not be the post for you. I don't mean to be insensitive or make light of a painful topic. I often face fear with humor. I am writing about something that is a struggle for me right now and I am only capable of writing from one perspective. Mine.]

I've gotten some sad, scary calls lately. A friend having open heart surgery. A friend (really a sister) who lost her Dad. Calls like this leave me pondering for days about life and how it sometimes seems like its happiness is bookended by those calls, those moments. The ones that change everything in an instant with no going back.

I have a weird superstition about scary things happening that I thought was my very own private neurosis. Come to find out that I share it with Jenny the Bloggess. I have always thought that if you think about a terrible thing happening, it can't possibly happen to you. Because what are the odds that it would hit right when you thought about it.

When I used to work late, late nights at a law firm in downtown D.C., I was often one of the last to leave. I had to enter a dark, creepy parking garage under the building by myself. I would pause in the same spot, just outside of the elevator every night, take a deep breath and think, "great, sucky long day and now I'm probably going to get mugged." Exactly the same ritual every single time. It was my talisman. I honestly believed that I would not be mugged if I followed the ritual just right because, come on, who is mugged after thinking about how shitty it would be to be mugged?

Do you know what? I have been mugged. On a brilliantly sunny morning, out in the open, with people all around me on a street in Madrid. Didn't see that coming. Didn't say any talismanic protective charms before I exited that subway. Therein lies the problem. There's a famous quote that hits the problem directly between its proverbial eyes. Something like: It's not the worries that keep you up at night that are the real terrors, it's the ones that blindside you at 10:00 a.m. on a sunny morning. Exactly. You'll never see the really big ones coming.

Lately, my superstitious talismanic soul has been in hyper-alert. A charlatan fortune teller in New Orleans planted the seeds and I've been in a downward spiral ever since. I've decided to write about it. To get it out of my head, so that it writhes on the page in its embarrassing ridiculousness. How could my current fear come true if I've written a blog post about it? Right? Just say yes. Please, no laughing.

I have developed a full-on, obsessive-compulsive, possibly-psychotic neurosis surrounding our inability to have a baby that we haven't tried to have yet.

When Cue was born, barely over a year ago, Matt and I talked about the future and whether or not he should make an appointment of the surgical sort. I am done forever with the crazy pills that prevent pregnancy, so if we are playing defense from here, it's all him. We both smiled a little over the head of our newborn. We knew that we weren't quite ready. That we'd wait. I don't ovulate while I'm breastfeeding anyway.

I told myself that the decision was postponed, but being truthful, I knew right then. My heart latched onto the idea that we were open to a fourth child and it's never let go. The knowledge was fleeting. It retreated to my subconscious. There were sleepless nights to endure, three babies to wrangle, naps to nap, classes to attend, wonders to experience, tantrums to throw and suddenly it was a year later. I had to close my eyes for a moment of dizzy disorientation and blink away tears as I filled my baby's bottle with cow's milk.

Not long after, my cycle started right on cue. My heart fluttered a little. I whispered to Matt late at night. Will we really do nothing? Just let things happen as they will? He nodded. There it was bubbling back to the surface unbidden, the excitement, the possibility, the secret internal snuggliness. Then, I thought of that fortune teller in New Orleans. No more children, he told me. You're finished having babies. My whole body filled with a dark unreasonable terror.

It's dumb. My rational self knows that an impossibly thin, nervous man in a dirty back room of a New Orleans tarot and occult shop has nothing to do with whether Matt and I can have a fourth child. He was trying to pick up on what I wanted to hear. He figured that a woman with three small children wouldn't want more children. The truth is that he hit on a secret fear. Because, underlying our casual 'happen as they will' decision hid an intrinsic problem. How will they happen? What if they won't? Am I really all right either way? I have to admit that in the secret inner boxes of my heart, I am not. By happen as they will, what I mean is happen as they have, quickly, effortlessly, without much time for question or longing.

The fear has settled in to stay. What if we can't? I'm not a young mother. My statistics get worse by the hour. What if it just never happens? What if I go into this thinking six months at most and find myself sobbing in the bathroom over cramps and a stain in my panties two years later? I know that women endure this pain every day. I know I have three beautiful children and yes, they are enough. I just don't want to end my baby years like that. With sadness. With longing that gradually fades. It frightens me so much that I've actually considered having Matt go and get the vasectomy. To take way all possibility that I won't get to have the baby that I'm not even trying to have for fear that I won't be able to have it. C.R.A.Z.Y.

I can't help what I feel, regardless of how irrational it is, and I can't tell you how much I fear this. In part, it stems back to our first pregnancy that ended in miscarriage. I had no idea about pregnancy before that moment. I hadn't yet realized the potential for pain and loss to which I had exposed myself. I got pregnant easily. I still had a bit of an irresponsible, flippant attitude. When the ultrasound technician couldn't find the heartbeat at ten weeks, I suddenly understood. I was crushed by understanding.

The kick in the head, a friend called it. I'd been kicked all right, by a Clydesdale aiming with both back hooves. How much I wanted that baby. How much I'd lost. It crushed me. The pain that millions of women have endured squeezed my heart in it's vice grip. I realized how blissfully ignorant I had been. For the three months that it took to get pregnant again, I hated my obsessive, fixated brain. I just wanted to turn it off and wake up when I was back to my blissfully ignorant pre-I-know-let's-have-a-baby-I-think-we're-ready self. Back to that girl-woman who never knew where she was in her cycle and was always a little surprised by the start of her period. I didn't want to be this woman who woke up every morning and knew, before any other conscious thought, what number was assigned to this day. Like so many things in parenting, there isn't any going back, not wholly, not completely. You will never be who you once were.

After stewing in my nuttiness for a few weeks, I decided to see our midwife and ask her some questions about my fertility. I broached the subject with Matt in bed one night.

Me: I think I'm going to make a doctor's appointment.
Him: Why?
Me: I don't know. I want to talk to my midwife before we start, you know, having sex the right week.
Him: Okay. Why?
Me: I have some questions about my, you know.
Him: Imaginary infertility? Brought on by a charlatan fortune-teller in New Orleans?
Me: (Bit lower lip, flared nostrils and crinkled brow in displeasure because GAH, he's so blunt and to the point. And right.)
Me: Yes.
Him: Okay. Call her please. Take your crazy to her.

One week later. I hung on the verge of tears.

Me: I can't find a sitter. I need you to stay home.
Him: You're just asking her questions. Can't you just take them with you.
Me: NO.
Him: I don't see why not. I don't have enough days, I can't take off for this.
Me: I just can't.
Him: You're not getting an exam or anything.
Me: I know.
Him: So, what's the problem?
Me: I don't want to take them.
Him: It doesn't seem like any big deal, you've taken them before.
Me: It's a big deal to me. I don't want to take them this time.
Him: WHY?
Me: I can't take three children under three to the gynecologist to ask about how best to procure another baby. Who will be under three. Making the tally four. Capiche? I just can't do it.
Him: Yeah. Because taking the kids will make you seem crazy.
Me: Right.
Him: Whereas, without the kids, totally sane.
Me: (Silence. I have nothing.)

After contemplating my craziness some more, I thought, I can't be the only woman in the history of child bearing to feel this way. Surely others have felt this fear. Have you? Will you share because I am immobilized?

Because, here I stand. At the edge of the platform. Toes tense. Heart pounding. My midwife can't help me (you have to try, dear, I can't help with a problem we don't have yet). No one can help me. I just have to dive. I honestly don't know if I can. I love the thrill of the free fall. I long for the feel of the sweet water on my face. But, I'm older and wiser than before. This time, I know the pain of a flop. The crushing pressure, the inability to catch my breath. The terrible sting. My fear of that pain may outweigh all else, even the possible joy of that last tiny child. I am so happy where I am right now. We are so happy. Is it worth the risk? Maybe I should just climb down the ladder and find my fluffy towel.