One

by Patti


2 weeks after S was born, I was ready for another baby.

Yes, I was one of those freaks that had the (almost) perfect pregnancy, and (totally) perfect labor and delivery.

So having had that utopia of an experience, and now having this glorious creature in my arms, I was totally ready for another one. Immediately.

But M? Notsomuch. Ever, even.

He was 100% satisfied with what we had (how could it get better, really?), and besides, the whole pregnancy had been scary for him: The world of what-ifs and worry that came along with it was too much for him to even think about going through again.

Plus, and most importantly! Babies cost money! And they grow up to be kids that cost money! He grew up poor, so he carries that Poverty Trauma that leads him to believe we will be destitute with the slightest tip of the security scale. And babies are a total tip of the security scale.

We probably should have had The Talk about babies before we decided to get married, but we met when we were both young, in total Woo-Hoo Party Mode, and marriage and babies did not even exist anywhere in the planes of our brains. And then time got away from us and suddenly we were in our 30’s and still not married, but totally together and with no intention of ever breaking up, so we made it official.

Without having The Talk.

1.5 years later, along came S.

The story that led up to her arrival is another story altogether, and one I will someday tell, but I can say that her happening wasn’t a neat and tidy decision. In short: S was the best Surprise Party I ever got.

So here I was, S in my arms, already dreaming of the next incarnation. When I was pregnant, we opted not to find out the sex, so we had 2 names picked out, one for a girl and one for a boy. Already, the name we didn’t use for a little boy felt like it needed to be filled out by a person. It somehow felt like it was floating in the Universe, empty and waiting.

But M didn’t want any more. He had his reasons, and they made sense to him, but not to my heart. “He’ll change his mind,” I thought.

But he didn’t, and we fought about it. A lot. We even talked to a therapist to see if we could find some middle ground.

But we couldn’t. Because it is kind of hard to compromise on something so definite. It’s either yes or no. Not maybe.

In the meantime, S continued to grow up, faster and faster. She was now 4 and my hopes of giving her a sibling were dwindling. Every time a friend had a second, third baby, my heart fell a little further into my body, and I felt more and more desperate. It’s not going to happen. What I am going to do?

I had choices, sure: some friends told me to trick him; he would forgive me and would love the baby. He even told the therapist, when asked what he would do if I happened to get pregnant again, that he could never leave his family. Others told me to leave him and find somebody who wanted the same things I did.

But neither choice felt right. I couldn’t make a family borne of deception, and…. I loved my husband, the father of our daughter. To leave him for somebody who wasn’t felt wrong.

So, slowly, painfully, I let go.

And now, 10 years after that day that I sat with my newborn in my arms, already dreaming of another, I am officially the Mother of an Only Child. There are days it pisses me off; I have flashes of deep regret and anger at having that decision made for me, especially when S feels lonely and complains that she has nobody to play with. I throw it into M’s face, the choice I felt forced to make, hoping to somehow wound him back.

But then I remind myself that, in the end, I could have used up another one of my “options”. But I didn’t, and by not doing so, I made my choice, and I can either choose to be okay with it, or regret it the rest of my life. Which makes for a happier existence?

And then there are days I feel it was my destiny, however painful the path to get there, to be the mother to one. Some days I am driven to the absolute very brink; I am all impatience and intolerance. And I am selfish, this I know and have proven to myself time and again, and I wonder how the even further lowering of my reserves by having had another child would affect my ability to be a good mother.

Funny, I have had people with more than one child tell me that if they could do it again, they would have stayed with one. I don’t know if it’s an attempt at helping me feel “better”, but they seem to admire the intimate little circle that M, S and I have formed. The 3 of us are a family, and we are very close. We do everything together. We have not given her the gift of a sibling, but we are giving her different gifts that continue to shape and define who she is becoming and who she will be. And I pray every day that she will cherish these gifts, and Please God not someday hate us for making her an only child – a lonely only.

It’s a lot of work, raising a person, and I only get one chance to do it right. And on the days I may feel regret or sadness over only having one chance, I remind myself: I am blessed beyond belief I got a chance at all.