Fifteen

I got pregnant twice with X. The first time was early in our relationship before we were married and still just shacking up. It was a stupid accident, it happened one night while we were out of town visiting his college buddy, and it was a holiday and he was drunk and we just didn't use protection. I was terrified when my period was so so so late, and the little stick showed me the sign I did not want to see. He told me, I don't want any children, if you keep this baby I am out of here. If you want to be with me, you are going to have to make a choice between me or having the baby. Well, he couldn't have laid it out more plainly than that. So, at almost three months pregnant, I allowed him to take me to another city to secure our secrecy, and I had an abortion. He was such a caring guy that after the procedure instead of taking me straight home to bed, while I was still groggy and in pain, he left me splayed out across the back seat of the car while he stopped here and there around town to run errands, pick up dinner for himself. No one even knew I was pregnant, although I missed a great deal of work due to horrible 24-hour "morning" sickness, and lost my job over it. But I couldn't keep it to myself and told several friends and family members I'd been pregnant, and had a terrible miscarriage. I got a great deal of sympathy and all the cliches like it wasn't meant to be or don't worry you're still young enough to try again. My no nonsense sibling said, well good, you aren't married to him, you have no business having a baby with the man. To this day, only A knows that it was an abortion and not a miscarriage, not even my best friend in the whole world, or even my one sibling, knows that I had an abortion. I don't feel evil or ashamed for doing it, and I believe that every woman has the right to make that choice and to have that option available to her. I just feel it's not necessary for others to know, not even now. But at the time I didn't feel it had been my decision or my choice, I felt as though X had forced me into it, had cheated me out of experiencing pregnancy and giving birth. It's me or the baby, that's what he had said. His loving gift to me was the choice of an abortion and a continued relationship with him, or life as a single, unwed mother without him. Oh, afterward I cried and cried about that for months, even years, would sob until I thought my heart would explode with the grief and anger and emptiness- maybe even now I still hate X for it, still harbor serious thoughts of bodily harm against him in retaliation. Here, let me rip your balls off, see how much you like that- oh sorry, does that hurt, do you miss them?? And back then X would have the nerve to try to comfort me whenever I saw a cute little baby and I would bust out into tears, sad and longing for the child he'd manipulated me into destroying. Maybe I made the right decision, maybe I made the wrong decision. I don't know, I will never know. I say now that I don't like kids, but if I'd had that one, would I have changed? Would I now be a completely different and happy person, or would my depression be even deeper with more things to worry over? Would I have suddenly been filled with the sweet and caring maternal instinct I now lack? Or would I have given birth to a child and grown to be indifferent, or resentful because the child belonged to X and I hated him? Would I have even had another one? Would having children change our marriage, and I would still be- suddenly happily- married to X?? All I know is that I would now have a child who was about to enter college, possibly marriage, and even possibly with a child of their own- a grandchild for ME. On one hand, I'm glad I did not have this child, because I would forever be bound to the asshole known as X, and fuck it all but I can't even imagine that right now because he was such a bastard, and GOOD RIDDANCE. And since he did drugs, I could have ended up with a child who had health problems, or special needs, because his spunk was loaded with pot-filled DNA. The second time I got pregnant by X was later on, after we were married and older, and I did not and never did tell him I was pregnant, even after I lost it. What was the point? He wouldn't have cared, he probably would have said something super comforting like whew, we missed a bullet with that one. It happened quickly and quietly, as one day I was headed out to an evening college course I was taking, and I was running late. I was trying to swing a backpack over my shoulder as I ran across the deck of the house, and I tripped. I fell down the entire flight of steps in one long cartwheel, landing hard enough on my back that I got the wind knocked out of me and actually blacked out for a second or two. As I was on the ground in the driveway, staring up at the sky, I screamed for X over and over and over again, but he never came out of the house and I would like to believe he simply did not hear me and just wasn't ignoring me. After I could breathe properly again, I got up, brushed off my clothes, and went on my way. The next day I bled just a little bit, and then that was it, I was no longer pregnant. I don't know what would have happened had I not miscarried, perhaps X would have been a different man by that point in our life together. I do know I would not have had another abortion, not for him, not for anyone, whether or not he "wanted" me to, whether or not he threatened me again with abandoning me. We were married, much older, renting a house and not an apartment, although he was still smoking pot like it was free, and his job situation was shaky, as it always was. But perhaps he would have accepted a pregnancy, been happy about it, maybe a child would have changed his life around. But I doubt it, he was always the most self-centered man I'd ever met, even to this day. I can't imagine he would have been a good father, in fact I picture him as that man who runs around all night long while the frazzled wife is at home doing all of the child rearing. X refused to ever change for me, for our marriage, so I don't believe he would have changed for a baby either. Years later, when A and I started dating, one of the issues in our relationship was having children. I was already in my late 30's, he was slightly younger, but not much. He didn't have children either. In fact, I used the idea of having children together to convince him to marry me, although I would hope he would have made that decision on his own after 2 1/2 years of dating. I was going to be 40 the year we got married, so we knew our window was short for getting pregnant, and I used it against him, so to speak. And at that point, for an extremely short little time, I loved A enough that I also convinced myself I wanted children, with him, because he is such a beautiful and loving man, and I knew he would be a magnificent father. I told him if he wanted even a small chance at having a family, we'd better get married asap and start trying right away. I admit in the first few months, maybe the first year, I was very hopeful and I did everything I could to help us get pregnant and have a healthy baby- I gave up caffeine and soft cheeses and lunch meats and took folic acid, we used an ovulation kit to time our sex perfectly, I would even stay there for an extra twenty minutes in bed with my hips raised up (that's supposed to help the little spermies get to where they're going). He even gave up smoking and drinking while we were trying to conceive- wow, what a man!! After the first few years passed by and we didn't get pregnant, I grew more and more content with the idea of no children, and I think so did A. Now, at our age, we are both glad we didn't have children, both for the financial strains, the time constraints, and the carefree comfortable life we now lead. Life with children would be extremely different- no more jet-setting or packing bags for a quick weekend getaway, or spontaneous dinners out, or doing whatever the hell we want when we want, sleeping in on the weekends, having sex whenever the mood strikes and not worrying about being loud or worrying about the kids hearing daddy spanking mommy, cussing at the dinner table, watching porn right there in the living room. You can tell me about all the joys of raising children that I'm missing out on, how children would complete me, how children would make me happy and make my marriage stronger. Blah, don't care, don't want to hear it. A and I have no regrets, and instead of putting all our extra money into a college savings account for a child who may turn out to be an ungrateful unemployed dope fiend (like X) or a mass murderer, we put it all into stocks and 401K's and savings for OUR retirement, our life together, our future. Ours. Call me selfish, but if I'm happy about anything in life, it's that I do not have kids.

Fourteen

Since this is anonymous, I am going to say this phrase, which has always been buried deep inside of me but never uttered to anyone: I hate kids. Well, I don't hate them, but I don't like them. Well, maybe not the kids themselves, but I don't want to spend even one minute of my day talking about or listening to anything about your kids. I don't like hearing stories about how they are learning to pee pee in the big potty, or how they won their last soccer game, or what they are wearing to their first big dance with the boy from next door. I don't care about looking at their latest school photos, or hearing details of their upcoming field trip to the state capitol. I don't want to be invited to their birthdays, or graduations, or weddings, and not only do I not want invites, but I don't want to feel obligated to buy them gifts or see all the pictures you took of the party at the skating rink. I don't want to buy gift wrap or popcorn tins or cookies to support their team/marching band/scout troop. And please, don't email me with some kind of school project they are doing where I have to fill in the answers to twenty questions, then forward it back to you and ten of my friends- oh, this is fun and please keep it going, yadda yadda. No, I do not think it's sooooo cute when your baby spits up on my blouse or makes a stinky in his pants or throws his toy at my face. I find most children and stories/photos of them very boring, and I can't relate, and just because I'm a woman does not mean I can instantly fall into a stupor of joy while you show me what your child is going to wear for his first Halloween. Just because I am a woman does not mean I want to cradle your newborn baby in my arms or coo about how cute she is, and please do not invite me to any baby showers, I loathe them and everything about them- the gifts of baby clothes or breast pumps or teething rings, all the talk about being pregnant and what to expect, the oh-so-cutesy cake with pink and blue booties made from butter cream frosting, and the moronic games that get played at these shindigs- it's like nails on a chalkboard to me. And BORING!!!! I am offended by other women who believe that all women should love babies and toddlers, women who think there is something wrong with me when I say no thanks to offers of holding their child. Saying that, I'm glad I don't have children, and no I am NOT just saying this out of jealousy because I don't have kids and you do. I went back and forth all of my life with wanting to have a child, but fate pretty much decided it for me, and I'm good with scratching off a losing ticket on that lottery. Even when I was younger, I think I knew I didn't want kids. I never babysat, even as a teenager, because I didn't like kids even back then- while all my friends were racking up the cash with babysitting every summer. I tried it once, for a neighbor kid, and ended up calling my mom to come get me because I hated it and didn't want to do it, so she finished the chore for me. Now, I do love and adore all the nieces and nephews, and love to buy them gifts, get emails about them, and I even love to take my own photos of them during visits. Family is different, and we have a total of six kids on both sides of the family, to enjoy. But as far as friends' kids go, and even grandkids, I really could not care less. At my age, most of friends have grown children, so there isn't much to talk about. Some of my friends have grandchildren already, and when I would meet them for coffee or dinner, I really didn't want to spend the time talking about little kids I've never met and never will. But I would listen as politely as I could, and act interested, all for the sake of not coming off like a bitch to my dearest of girlfriends. One acquaintance always always brought me photos of her two boys, and talked my head off about them- all I could see were two very overweight redneck children who did poorly in school but were spoiled with every toy in the world, and I would listen to extremely odd stories about how her oldest son (in his early teens) would get in bed naked with her and she was perfectly fine with that, even thought it was cute and sweet. Oooh-kaaay, that's TMI for me, and a little on the fucked up side of creepy. I've found that people will say almost anything about their kids, like nothing is off limits, as though you're commenting about an object and not another human being. They talk about their damn bowel movements, for the love of Pete!! I do not want to know that your kid made a giant poop in his diaper just that morning. Hey, I took a dump in the ladies' room earlier, but I'm not talking about it over coffee in the break room!! I guess saying I don't like kids is a bit strong, what I should say is that when I'm with adults, wanting adult time, in adult locations like a nice steak house or Starbucks, I do not want to see or hear anything that has to do with your kids or anyone else's. And I sure as hell do not want to hear your kid screaming in the restaurant or see your kid running up and down the aisles at the movies on Friday night. Hey, have some respect and dignity, or get the hell out!! You do NOT have the right to fuck up my evening with your out of control kid- it's a public place that everyone is supposed to enjoy and if you can't keep your child quiet at 10pm in an R-rated movie, you really have no business being there in the first place. I have NO patience for that kind of crap, and I will despise you on sight if you allow your kid to act like a delinquent in public and expect everyone to just accept it and think they are cute when they are crying bloody murder. I don't want to cut into my fillet Mignon to the sounds of your child wailing and crushing packs of crackers on the table and throwing silverware- go to McDonald's if your cranky five-year-old can't behave properly, and you yourself don't belong in an establishment if you won't discipline your child, because you are a moron too. Kids are cute and say funny things, and your kid is on the honor roll or in the school pageant, I get it, I get it. Everyone's kids are! So when we get together to go out to dinner, let's just assume your kid has done something wonderfully clever lately, skip the details and photos, and get on with grownup talk like griping about our jobs and our husbands.