I will never reproduce
Recently, I’ve been working with my doctor to reduce my medication so I could eventually go off completely, and get pregnant. It’s been going... not well. I am miserable, I hate myself, and no matter how many times I make a good decision or do the responsible thing, I just can’t feel good or proud or accomplished. No resurgence of psychotic symptoms, but I’ve been horrifically depressed. I can’t imagine going through this for another year.
My doctor says it might just be withdrawal, and she is willing to wait another month to see if I improve. Maybe a month ago, I would have agreed with her. I would have said that is the logical thing to do. But right now, I just can’t take it anymore! I cry 100% of the time I’m alone. And I’ve started resenting Josh, because he wants bio kids much more than I do. I don’t want to grow into the angry, bitter person who hates their spouse for ruining their life. So I have to tell him I’m done.
It’s going to break his heart, to know he will never get to see a miniature him running around. It will break my heart to not get to name our own kids, after we already picked out the perfect names. And I feel really selfish and weak, because if I could just get over myself and deal with this, maybe I would be fine in a month and we could have a kid. But I’m scared. Scared that I won’t get better. Scared that I’ll get much, much worse, and it will take months to get back to stable. Scared that I’ll be fine until halfway through the pregnancy, and by then it will be too late. Scared that post partum depression will destroy my life and make me an unfit mother. It’s just not worth the risk, to me.
Josh says he wants to donate to a sperm bank if we can’t have kids, so he can at least know he passed on his genetic line. And I get that, and I don’t want to stop him from doing something that will make him feel more fulfilled. But it will kill me. Knowing some other, healthy girl gets to raise his baby without me. Knowing he was able to have kids when I couldn’t. That’s a decision we’re supposed to make as a team. We succeed or fail at that together. But instead, he gets to go out and have a kid with some random lady while I’m stuck barren and childless for the rest of my life.
And we have already looked into fostering, because we wanted to foster in addition to having a bio kid. And I’m really looking forward to it. I think I will love giving a home to kids in need. But it isn’t the same. I’m not supposed to think that way, and maybe I won’t once we are actually doing it. But it’s not. I will have kids, but I won’t know them from before they were born. I won’t know their first words, I won’t get to watch them grow and wonder which of their traits they inherited from me and Josh. I won’t get to see what we look like blended together. I won’t get to pick their names, unless they want to change theirs.
And I will have to face judgment from all sides, from people who don’t think my family is a real family. Grandpa is one of those people, he already made that clear. So screw him, but it still hurts. People will say things about us, we will get dirty looks out in public. Everyone I know will ask me really invasive questions about why we are fostering instead of having “real” children. Wondering whether my uterus is sad and broken, or whether I’m just some heathen who takes birth control, as though God would smite me down for giving a home to homeless children.
And I will have to know that my kids have been hurt. That the only reason they’re with me is because someone else didn’t want them, or wanted to harm them. And I will never be able to undo that pain for them, no matter how long they live with me. They might not even want to call me mom.
There will be good things about it, too. I will get to see them learn to heal. I will be able to help guide them on how to do that. I will get to watch as they slowly learn what true love is, and what it means to be safe and cared for. I will get to know that I helped two siblings stay together against the odds. I will get to meet their extended family, who may or may not be accepting, but who will have insights into who the kids are. I will have an excuse to never see my brother again, because it is against the law for me to knowingly let them interact with the subject of a child abuse investigation. And it will make Aria feel more like her family is normal, because she chose her mommy and daddy, too. We won’t have to worry about whether I gave the kid my schizophrenia, or whether Josh gave them his autism. If they do develop those things, we are probably the best equipped family in the area to deal with those conditions. And I won’t have to feel guilty about it.
Okay, Josh is on his way home. Time for the Scary Talk.
My doctor says it might just be withdrawal, and she is willing to wait another month to see if I improve. Maybe a month ago, I would have agreed with her. I would have said that is the logical thing to do. But right now, I just can’t take it anymore! I cry 100% of the time I’m alone. And I’ve started resenting Josh, because he wants bio kids much more than I do. I don’t want to grow into the angry, bitter person who hates their spouse for ruining their life. So I have to tell him I’m done.
It’s going to break his heart, to know he will never get to see a miniature him running around. It will break my heart to not get to name our own kids, after we already picked out the perfect names. And I feel really selfish and weak, because if I could just get over myself and deal with this, maybe I would be fine in a month and we could have a kid. But I’m scared. Scared that I won’t get better. Scared that I’ll get much, much worse, and it will take months to get back to stable. Scared that I’ll be fine until halfway through the pregnancy, and by then it will be too late. Scared that post partum depression will destroy my life and make me an unfit mother. It’s just not worth the risk, to me.
Josh says he wants to donate to a sperm bank if we can’t have kids, so he can at least know he passed on his genetic line. And I get that, and I don’t want to stop him from doing something that will make him feel more fulfilled. But it will kill me. Knowing some other, healthy girl gets to raise his baby without me. Knowing he was able to have kids when I couldn’t. That’s a decision we’re supposed to make as a team. We succeed or fail at that together. But instead, he gets to go out and have a kid with some random lady while I’m stuck barren and childless for the rest of my life.
And we have already looked into fostering, because we wanted to foster in addition to having a bio kid. And I’m really looking forward to it. I think I will love giving a home to kids in need. But it isn’t the same. I’m not supposed to think that way, and maybe I won’t once we are actually doing it. But it’s not. I will have kids, but I won’t know them from before they were born. I won’t know their first words, I won’t get to watch them grow and wonder which of their traits they inherited from me and Josh. I won’t get to see what we look like blended together. I won’t get to pick their names, unless they want to change theirs.
And I will have to face judgment from all sides, from people who don’t think my family is a real family. Grandpa is one of those people, he already made that clear. So screw him, but it still hurts. People will say things about us, we will get dirty looks out in public. Everyone I know will ask me really invasive questions about why we are fostering instead of having “real” children. Wondering whether my uterus is sad and broken, or whether I’m just some heathen who takes birth control, as though God would smite me down for giving a home to homeless children.
And I will have to know that my kids have been hurt. That the only reason they’re with me is because someone else didn’t want them, or wanted to harm them. And I will never be able to undo that pain for them, no matter how long they live with me. They might not even want to call me mom.
There will be good things about it, too. I will get to see them learn to heal. I will be able to help guide them on how to do that. I will get to watch as they slowly learn what true love is, and what it means to be safe and cared for. I will get to know that I helped two siblings stay together against the odds. I will get to meet their extended family, who may or may not be accepting, but who will have insights into who the kids are. I will have an excuse to never see my brother again, because it is against the law for me to knowingly let them interact with the subject of a child abuse investigation. And it will make Aria feel more like her family is normal, because she chose her mommy and daddy, too. We won’t have to worry about whether I gave the kid my schizophrenia, or whether Josh gave them his autism. If they do develop those things, we are probably the best equipped family in the area to deal with those conditions. And I won’t have to feel guilty about it.
Okay, Josh is on his way home. Time for the Scary Talk.