Today I am thankful that Daniel wrote something that made me feel I was falling in love with him again. It had nothing to do with me or us or romance or home or domesticity. It was simply brilliant and wise (not the same thing) and slightly sad and perfectly expressed. I am not thankful for Daniel’s good qualities often enough. When I got home and was annoyed about the domestic workload and unbearably sore and stiff from yesterday’s workout, I reminded myself that none of the things that were vexing me were Daniel’s fault. Many of them (like snagged tights from carrying a laundry bin and basket upstairs at the same time) were the result of my own choices. So it made no sense to be pissy at Daniel because of them.
My sadness and rage and confusion all the rest of the rattling emotions about not having another child used to be a fire-breathing dragon. Now they are more like one of those hideous, poisonous desert lizards. Manageable, but stinging. On Saturday, I babysat a friend’s 4-month-old baby, who is precious. My friend and I were trying to get pregnant at the same time (actually, I started before she did. She had a better ending, but a much rougher time getting there). Her baby is big-headed and skinny, like Milo was at that age. Daniel was delighted to have a baby in the house. We cooed and fussed over him, I gave him a bottle and talked to him. It was a joy. That’s not what tripped me up. I was very clear when he was in my house that he wasn’t my baby. To the extent I thought about my situation at all, I thought, “Wow, babies take a lot of energy, even when you aren’t really doing anything with them.” I felt a little sad, but not desperate for a baby. I just thought, “Damn, we should have had more kids.” Then I took a nap.
Then on Sunday the NY Times had a story on yoga and infertility (surprise, surprise, it’s the most-emailed style story) that brought up so much of the old crap that boils down to one nasty question: did I do enough? Alternate versions: Did I do the wrong thing? Was not getting pregnant somehow my own fault? I didn’t do special get-pregnant-via-infertility-treatments yoga, although I did yoga. My acupuncturist always worried I was doing too much, and in the weeks when it was possible for me to be pregnant, I didn’t do strenuous, twisty, suck-in-your stomach poses (my friend with the 4-month-old, on the other hand, did mat Pilates till the 2nd trimester. I thought she was nuts.) But I did somewhat vigorous sun salutations and standing poses because I couldn’t not. So much was taken from me — agency, confidence, money, time, ease, joy — I couldn’t give up motion as well. Would it have made a difference if I had? (The infertility nurses said no. They said, yeah, go ahead, live your life, have a glass of wine, do stuff.) I hate that I am still vulnerable to that question. I hate that I still don’t believe 100% of the time that I did everything that was truly in my control to do.
And then I read Tina Fey’s article in The New Yorker about her own tumultuous feelings about whether to have a second child. I will confess now that as I’ve gotten older, I have become more interested in celebrities and more likely to see them as role models than I did at 20, or 25. (How can I even say that? I have two graduate degrees! I am a feminist! I am very good at standardized tests!) I would like someone to tell me that this is a common phenomenon, that as life gets more tiring and more hemmed in by duties smart women get more escapist, that we look for princess stories in modern forms, even if we hated them as rambunctious little girls.
Anyhoo, Tina Fey is all in a knot about whether or not to have a second child. (By the way, writing for TV doesn’t make you a great essayist. Maybe she should have put it on YouTube instead.) Reading her article I thought,”Oh shit, she’s going to have that second baby, and I won’t have her to look at so I can say, see, this is normal. This is not an aberration. Some people even choose to have just one. I am not some forsaken outlier.” I knew damn well Tina Fey had only one child. Tina Fey is cool. She’s smart. She’s my age. Someone once told me I looked like her (meaning, I was female and had dark-rimmed glasses). Tina Fey was making it okay to be in the world with just one. And now she’s going to go and have another, maybe, because she can’t stand the pressure of all the people telling her she must. (She says very little about how she feels about having another child, and a whole lot about how she feels about working and how other people feel about her having another child.)
If I had a dollar (okay, $100) for every time some near-stranger asked if we were going to have another one, we could have afforded an IVF round or two. People act as if children are potato chips — you can’t stop at just one. Closer friends didn’t even ask, they just insisted. “You have to,” they said. Okay, but WE CAN’T. So what the hell do we do now? We’re the weirdos with one potato chip.
I lost a friendship over the choice to have one or not, although the friend in question probably doesn’t know it. “Emily” was pretty clear that she and her husband would have one. She defended her choice to nosy relatives and their insistings. I had always admired and liked her tremendously. Her defiance, her active choice to be in the situation I was in unwillingly was very, very important to me. I clung to it. And then one day Emily and her husband changed their minds, and a few weeks and no doctors later she was pregnant. I got her a baby gift, which I crammed into a yellow padded envelope and mailed to her with a scribbled and ungenerous message: “If I stop to wrap this, I’ll never send it. Every happiness, D.” And since then, I don’t seem to want to be in touch with Emily, even though I really like her. I feel like she betrayed me, which is ridiculous and indefensible but true. I fear that my envy and sadness will swamp her and me and everything good if I ever see her face to face again. Since Emily had her second child, many friends have had second and third babies and I’ve been fine with it (well, there’s one exception, but I think I don’t really like her very much anyway). But I can’t forgive Emily, even though she didn’t do anything wrong to me. This is another cost, added to the pile, of infertility, and it’s completely self-inflicted.
I feel better today than I did yesterday, but I am certain that Tina Fey is going to break my heart. Lucky her.
Another Door 
I too lost a friendship because of a second pregnancy. I was still trying for the first and she easily was having the second and we seemed to mutually know that we had nothing in common anymore.
You, my friend, are braver than I am. I couldn’t have read the Tina Fey essay.
I didn’t intend to be brave (who does? Aren’t people only brave in situations that they wish they weren’t in?). The cover line said something like “Tina Fey on Motherhood and Hollywood.” And, as the post says, Tina Fey is cool, etc. I think I was interested in what Tina Fey had to say because I identified with her. And then the article was so twitchy and scattered that I was well in to it before I realized I needed to get out. And then I didn’t want to get out because by then I desperately hoped that there would be an ending that would make me happy.
I hope you and your friend had a lovely visit. But I confess I am eager for a new post!
“My sadness and rage and confusion all the rest of the rattling emotions about not having another child used to be a fire-breathing dragon. Now they are more like one of those hideous, poisonous desert lizards. Manageable, but stinging. ” – This describes me to a tee with my infertility. I am now down to a desert lizard.
It is annoying how people assume it is so easy for everyone to pop out multiple kids no sweat. I just don’t understand how people are this thoughtless about fertility, but they are. People always are saying to me “Oh, well, you still have your eggs. So, you can do a surrogacy or adopt.” As if a surrogacy and adoption are like going to the store for some milk.
You are a very strong woman. I really enjoyed your last entry on your “ego” as well. Let that ego show itself, I say. Keep up the beautiful writing and thoughtful posts.
You’re very kind. People who say things like that are just repeating a formula of words they heard somewhere. I used to try to educate people a little, and now I just smile at them as if they are a bit dim, and find someone else to talk to.
Yes. I agree, most people don’t think about what they are actually saying. Since most people don’t know I can’t have kids, people tend to say to me “oh when you have kids” . Ross (my partner) generally says “She’ can’t have children” where as I generally smile and then walk away.
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