A Tooth, A Vasectomy, A Quarrel, and Time

Last Monday I did my regular-occasional, finger-in-the-mouth perusal of Sami's gums, checking for teeth, and stunningly, I found one this time. Yep, first tooth! It is her bottom left front tooth. Sharp as the edge of a serrated knife--there it was. Making absolutely no sense at all, I felt something akin to--I don't know--pride? Why pride I've no idea. I mean, all babies get teeth eventually. And she's right on schedule to get teeth. But if you're a parent, then you get it... you feel this bizarre inexplicable sense of pride as they hit these milestones. A tooth, for heaven's sake. It somehow felt so gratifying.

All their changes and developments happen in such tiny increments that it is difficult to guage them, to feel them; but give yourself something substantial like a tooth -- a hard little depiction of their advancement -- and it is so abrupt-feeling. Bam! Sami has "teeth." Okay, technically it isn't the plural... but you know what I mean.

So we've passed other of these little "growing up" milestones, but this one... I don't know why... well, in light of the entire week, I guess I do... but this one kind of kicked me in the gut.

All the moms of grown-up kids that I know warn me over and over that I'll turn around and Sami will be in high-school and I'll have missed everything in between. I beg to differ in that I think my advanced age allows me a certain perspective that younger moms don't have--allows me an appreciation for savoring moments and the sweetness therein. But nonetheless, this one made me draw back and recognize that I'll no longer experience the little tiny baby moments that are so sweet. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy each new stage of Sami's more than I could have ever imagined, but all of a sudden on this one I saw in my mind's eye these fleeting moments of her being this totally dependent infant and now I envision her eating like a big girl, then walking, then talking and on and on. And it wrenched me in a way-- her "infanthood" is gone. And I already feel this weird longing for it. You want them to grow and thrive and become a little person, and then when they start to exhibit it, it causes these heretofore unexpected pangs of longing for those pieces and moments of her curling into you and being a little baby. She isn't one anymore, and it kinda hurts a little.

Then, this week was the long-schedule V-Day for Michael. Let me pave the background... about a month ago I had this little anxiety attack wherein I thought maybe, it could be possible, what-if, Oh God, I might be pregnant. I went and bought a test kit, and I wasn't. And the relief was profound. I was so frightened of being pregnant again I can't even verbalize it. But at the same time, when it turned out negative, I felt this weird, awful, teeniest bit of sadness. Because I knew the vasectomy day was looming, and that that of course, was the end-all and be-all.

In bits and pieces, without ever coming right out and pronouncing ourselves to be talking about It, Michael and I had agreed we couldn't have another baby. Due to lots of things that make lots of sense. I feel so bad for Sami on so many levels that she won't have a sibling (I can't get into all that here), but I also knew I could not face another pregnancy at 42, birth at 43, and all the myriad horrendous things that could go wrong with a pregnancy at such an advanced age. You want stuff to worry about? Talk to high-risk pregnancy doctors when you're already pregnant past 35. Forget 41 -- the odds of bad things increases exponentially with each year and it is just unthinkable all the things they can think up to tell you that can go wrong.

So anyway, vasectomy day draws nigh, and I kept imagining that prior to it, that I would have an opportunity to talk to Michael about my self-denied longing for another baby--you know, for Sami of course--and that while he was listening I would deftly talk myself out of it. And he would feel great empathy but would intelligently agree with me on every logical point, and we would reach together the conclusion that we were doing exactly and without option, the right thing. But wouldn't you know, the night before V-Day arrives, and I've still got all these stupid feelings roiling about inside me, instead of having the opportunity to conduct the melancholy, sentimental conversation I needed in order to therapize myself out of my misgivings, we instead manage to have a spat that night. A totally unreasonable, unusual, unexplainable, horrible evening of escalating bad feelings and mean words that while we rarely have them, when we do, are of heart-sickening consequence to me.

So he goes to the doctor's office the next day, and we're barely speaking, and I'm feeling just sick that we're not talking, and he has the "procedure" and we're on our way home, and for 3 days I'm taking care of him, and all along I'm feeling this idiotic stuff.

In deference to Michael, at some point, and I don't even know when it happened in this whole mixed up week, I did weakly attempt to verbalize all these conflicting feelings to him, in a very abbreviated fashion, and God love him, he made this thoughtful reply when asked by me, "Do you know what I mean?"... he goes, "No. But then I'm not a woman." A more insightful statement never made.

We made up and made things right between us, but there remains this finality to it, and this realization that now, no matter anything else, I'm not having another baby (which, don't get me wrong here--I by no means in my head wanted to have another baby) . But aren't I allowed to feel sad about it anyway?

I'm such a goober.