Sounds dramatic, doesn’t it? Well, it is, for the most part, entirely true. You see, about halfway through 2010, I got pregnant with Henry who is now 6. He was born in 2011. Then, in fall 2012, I got pregnant with Lauchie, who was born mid 2013. Again, in fall 2014, I got pregnant and had our third, Angus who's now 2. I was basically pregnant for 5 years, and let me tell you, I did not like it then and I am glad to never have to do it again.
We always talk about what women give up or lose when they start having families (if they choose to go that route), but we rarely talk about the amount of time that it takes. In the prime of our lives. Motherhood is challenging, but even more so when you think about the sheer physicality of it. Which we don’t. We don’t even talk about it, for the most part.
Instead, we focus on arguments about working at home, staying at home, working in an office and more. We argue about nannies vs. daycare. We argue about who has it worse and who has it better. Is this our way of externalizing the fact that for many of us, and in ways we can’t even really put into words, we’re having babies in the prime of our lives and don’t even know what to do about it?
While I'm sure so many women just absolutely ADORED being pregnant, I hated the way I lost control of my body. I hated the discomfort, the mood swings, the inability to do what I wanted. I also hated the way that people treated me. Like some delicate creature. HELL NO! I'm growing a person so I'm a badass, thankyouverymuch.
Starting a family is a choice – whether you plan on having kids, you find yourself pregnant unexpectedly or whatever other way, we make the choice to welcome people into our lives. But no one ever talks about what that takes and how it will truly affect us.
Which is why, I think, we’re spending so much time and energy arguing over things that don’t matter in the long run. No one should care whether a baby is bottle or breast fed. No one should care whether mom or dad stays home or goes back to work. No one should care whether baby has two mommies, two daddies or only one parental unit. Adoption, surrogacy, IVF, whatever. These things do not matter.
What matters is what's doing right for you. And I know what you're thinking: why did you have three kids if you didn't like being pregnant? Well, I'll tell you.
We were lucky. We got pregnant easier than most folks and didn't try. And we wanted three kids. We would have tried for them in any way, be it genetic or adoptive or foster. We wanted this family, and we got them. And even now, though they are still so small, the way that they love and interact with each other makes me so happy, that five years of non-stop pregnancy, breast feeding and postpartum care were worth it.
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