Wave-Particle Duality

Last week found me at Dr. B's office, wearing the ultrasound gear: the gingham gyno frock and paper apron. In the dark, Dr. B carefully pointed, measured, and explained everything that was happening to me.

If you know me and you're about to have a heart attack, let me stop you here. No, we weren't looking at a tell-tale flutter, or measuring little shrimp buds, or estimating due dates. We were, in fact, measuring a large and very unwelcome ovarian cyst.

I wasn't really surprised by this diagnosis. I've had cysts before. And, despite the nagging sharp pain in my side, I wasn't really worried about an ectopic pregnancy. After much consideration on both our parts, my husband underwent a certain surgical procedure to ensure that we will indeed remain a family of four.

And (risking an over-share) it's been fantastic. A little renaissance of spontaneity. Although we've still got a toddler in diapers, we feel like we've passed something of an initiation. We are out of the yawning and seemingly never-ending forest of nursing, sterilizing, sleepless nights, fear of SIDS, rear-facing car seats. Now, it seems much simpler. We have kids.

Of course, I was well aware of the very permanent implications of a vasectomy. And I had no doubt that my family is complete. After Joseph came along, I toyed with the idea of an only child. I had myself half convinced that we could function very happily that way. I didn't seriously consider or desire a second pregnancy until Joseph was five. But consider it I did, and along came Henry, very shortly after I wavered. And when he was merely an infant, I looked into his beautiful wee face and knew without a doubt that I had borne all the children that were meant to be mine.

Henry, if you're reading this someday, don't take that personally. It had nothing to to with your babyhood, or your temperament. In fact, I remember being incredulous that I almost talked myself out of a second baby. You slid into every one of our hearts so effortlessly, it was like you had always been there.

But there's a feeling, in my mothering experience, of being Done. I knew it when I felt it. It wasn't the fatigue talking. I knew I had the two babies that were meant for me.

And yet, something at that office visit last week felt like a big, metal door clanging shut. I joked to Dr. B that this cyst wan't nearly as exciting to measure as a baby. He laughed, and then started talking to me about hormone changes, and what I can anticipate (read: dread) as I enter the next decade of my life.

It's probably worth pointing out that this is the downside to having babies in your late thirties. One day you're a cute little OB patient, and the next thing you know, you're looking at an ugly cyst and getting an introductory lecture on estrogen spikes that happen before pre-menopause, then menopause, and trading maxi pads for Poise pads, and Good Lord, you realize that any "fun" your ever had at your gynocologist's office as a childbearing woman is over. Not that cervical exams have ever been accused of being fun.

But truly, the reality crept over me. There won't be anymore OB visits for me. No more ultrasounds, no more hearing the hoofbeats on a doppler, no more feeling that unreal slipping and sliding going on just beneath the surface of my skin. I am Done.

How can that make me feel such utter relief and such utter sorrow simultaneously?

It's my experience that there really isn't anything about motherhood quite as staggering as the way two seemingly opposite feelings can exist in me simultaneously. And I don't mean one way I feel something, and the next day I feel the opposite (although that's sometimes the case, too). In their infancy, emotional exhaustion and elation went hand in hand. I can desperately need a break from my children and also miss them terribly.

And I can know that I absolutely do not want to be pregnant or have another infant, and yet, I am grieving that the chapter has closed, seemingly abruptly yet completely of my own choosing.