The Child Void

I'm laying here, tired, very much wanting to go to sleep. But something Meghan said today is echoing in my mind keeping me awake. She relayed a story to me about one of her classmates (she is working towards her Bachelors right now). The classmate has a 5 year old and has been trying to have another child ever since. Instead, she's been riddled with miscarriages. I would like to say I have enough faith in God that this story does not frighten me, that I do not worry the same fate will find me. I look at Missy and she is magnificent. Yes, I feel absolutely blessed to have her and I am so grateful for her happy little self. But in my heart I know she is not enough. Does that make me greedy? Insensitive? It pains me to know that if we never did have any more children there would be a void in my heart, an emptiness in our home. I hate saying Missy is not enough. It is no fault of hers. Nothing she could do would make her more perfect as our child or more satisfying as a member of our family. It is nothing that she lacks. I just cannot imagine a life without siblings for her.

It used to seem so simple. A woman would announce she wanted a baby. It felt as if mere moments later she was announcing her pregnancy. Her belly grew, her ankles swelled, she waddled and complained of back pains, but again, in the blink of an eye the big day would come. She would send out photos and emails of her healthy child, the astonishing weight and length scribbled in the corner. The most difficult part seemed to be birthing what amounted to a human watermelon. But then reality set in. As an adult, pregnancy seems more a game of luck and perseverance than a walk in the park. It is not just a means to an end, but a desperate scramble to an uncertain conclusion. I know more women who have suffered miscarriages than I have fingers, a few who have suffered multiple. Even more horrifying, if you are lucky enough to sail through the first trimester, find yourself at 12 weeks where you can "safely" and proudly announce your pregnancy, you still cannot truly breathe a sigh of relief. A shocking dose of reality chilled me to the core even in the humidity of the summer. A friend's baby suddenly and unexpectedly died soon after birth. It was a moment that took my breath away. The truth was unfathomable. I read the email multiple times, just knowing I must not understand, I had to be misreading something. No one's baby dies, the worst thing that can happen to a woman is a miscarriage, right? I had heard of a woman's child dying, someone I had met only briefly a few years back. A few weeks postpartum, her baby died of SIDS during the night. But she was a smoker. She smoked during her pregnancy and after her baby arrived as well. It made it easier to shrug the incident off. As callous as it is, in my mind I could blame her. She did something wrong, so her baby died. It was easier than accepting the crushing truth that abominable things happen for no known reason or cause. I did not have the same shallow comfort with my friend this past summer. She did absolutely nothing wrong, and she still lost her baby.

I think of the early crossings on the Atlantic. The wooden ships crashing against the tumultuous sea, hoping to avoid shipwreck, pirates, disease, famine, mutiny and a multitude of other ill-fated ends. A leap of faith truly into the unknown where the best one could do was say "damn it all" and bear down, hoping for the best. This is the image I have when I envision pregnancy now. The journey into parenthood is more fearful than parenthood itself. When I do find myself pregnant again, I can already hear myself rationalizing in the back of my mind... "just as long as I have a healthy baby, it will all be okay". Not an overbearing shout, just an obstinate whisper mocking all faith.