When MacTroll and I decided to have a baby, it wasn't instinctual... We had been together for 12 years and neither of us was felt strongly about whether we wanted a kid or not until 2004, when MacTroll came home with his first real superhero car. The car, similar to the one Wolverine drove in X-men 2, is a sneaky sportscar. It's sneaky in that it hides the fact that it really has 4 doors and is, therefore, a sedan.
You're probably wondering 1) how a sports car = baby and 2) how was I obviously not included in this purchase decision concerning thousands of family dollars...
Well, the answer to 1) is in my husband's words, that it's a family car because the backseat is equipped with the Latch system and 2) is that before the purchase was made, MacTroll had just risen in the ranks in the Legion of Superheroes commanding a salary that no longer required joint signings at the bank (and giving me adequate proof and fear as to why after divorce women get 74 percent more poor -- thank you Dr. Troy -- it's the one statistic he gave that stuck in my head for 10 years from his 200-level Sociology class on the Family.).
This was MacTroll's car, purchased with MacTroll's money... and after getting rid of the 1994 Corolla with 180,000 miles on it and ice tea stains on the passenger seat from his days playing Jimmy Olsen for the Booth Newspapers in Michigan (where the only real big pluses were free laundry and working with Jef Mallet, who is now known for his cartoon strip Frazz), who was I to argue?
I mean, when I spend my miniscule earnings on things like Dana-only trips to Montreal to watch Roy Dupuis movies and eat at Schwartz's, do I want him to say anything about how I spend that money, just because he might have chosen another destination, had he been included in the conversation? No. (And he would never argue with me about being a Quebecaphile because he's an awesome guy who understands me needing to get out of dodge for a while in a place I feel happy.)
We were due for a new car. At least it wasn't some giant SUV...
Anyway, when he came home that day with his new toy, he opened the backdoor and showed me the symbols indicating the Latch system so proudly. "Look, car seat stuff!"
It felt like he had heaved a big medicine ball at my gut. "I don't have a kid. I have a dog." I offered.
"Yeah, I know, but I thought this was the better purchase in case we had a kid in the next five years," MacTroll answered back with a lot of enthusiasm.
In case you don't know me, I'm a sucker for practicality. Give me a choice between bringing me flowers and bringing me a Target gift card, and I will always go for the gift card. MacTroll is not often a practical kind of man. So when he said this to me, I knew this was him planting the seed in my head. The instant curl of my lip probably told him to stop talking, which he did, bless him. Suddenly, I knew I was going to have to make a decision whether I wanted to go down the road of motherhood or not.
And the next six months were spent with me making that decision. I spent a lot of time talking to my friend Lori, who was baby crazy, just working up the courage to use the word — "baby."
When I met that achievement, I worked on talking with other people bringing up the idea of babies. Mostly I chatted to strangers. But I broke down and gave it a testing ground at my friend Patrick's 30th birthday party two months later. His mom, Glenda, picked up on the word immediately. "Are you trying to tell us something, Dana, 'cause you're using the word baby a lot."
I bowed my head turning bright red... "No."
When I finally decided I'd like to be a mom for sure, we headed into our doctor for the pre-baby discussion. I think we freaked out our doctor a little. Because her first words during the discussion were, "I usually don't get both the potential mom and dad for this kind of consultation. Usually it's just the mom, but I think it's fabulous that you're both here."
And then she nearly fell off her chair when two people, closing in on 30, asked her how to make a baby.
After over a decade of doing everything possible NOT to get pregnant, the idea of not using birth control was so foreign it was like our brains just couldn't wrap around the idea of procreation.
Plus, Joel and I had always been through health classes as teenagers where the eerie music would play in the stereotypical health film as the pregnant girl realized her world had ended because she chose to have sex... with the narrator (who should be shot and laid next to the hanged writer) saying something like: "It took only one irresponsible act for Lindsay to lose her childhood."
You know... it was one of those films that blames the girl, damns sex as evil, curses babies made from teen pregnancies as "bad" and gives no actual discussion to the health topic of sex and its repercussions, no real information (other than trying to scare you into abstinence) on how to prevent pregnancy nor any discussion about how to raise a baby (like mentioning services to look into), how to find information on adoption (Go Juno) or information on abortion.
Either way, it didn't stop us from having sex... it just made us the two most responsible birth control friendly people in the world.
And bless Dr. Jennie and her, "Don't be surprised if it doesn't happen on the first try. It could take months. If it takes longer than a year, come back and we'll see if we can help."
After the encouraging pep talk. We decided to start in June. And damn it if using all that birth control for over a decade wasn't a really good idea. MacTroll, superhero that he is, managed to get the job done in the first round of attempts.
Now we have a 2 year old, and I see the photos of my dear friends' new babies, and I remember what it felt like to smell X-man's cool, clean George-Clooney-esque baby hair. I remember giving him baths in the sink. I remember the cute little clothes and watching him devour a bottle, learn to turn over, eat rice cereal... And they're all good, positive memories. But when I see the pictures, I realize I don't want another baby... I would just want to have X-man, as a baby, all over again.
I'm in awe of the steps my friends have taken to love and provide for the little ones in their lives. MacTroll and I feel like parenting one is really pushing our limits.
I guess it's just the way it is. Some people have six kids and rock as parents. Some people are just super dandy without having any. And I think it's awesome nowadays that a growing number of people are able to make such choices. Because apparently the ability to make choices, like family planning, doesn't always hold true for all.
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