End of an Era

We are done having kids.

This is not a news flash for anyone who knows me in RL.   And this is not the post to mourn this issue (I’m sort of telling YOU and MYSELF that at once, you see).  I’m saying this to explain that fact that I am in a sort of Craigslist Hell right now, because, well…we are not in need of keeping large bins full of tiny little sleepers and baby wash cloths and receiving blankets and bouncy seats and infant carseats et cetera, et cetera-aaaaaaah.

Side note, when we made the ‘done having kids’ thing official via a the big-ole V for Mark, I explained to Sam that “Daddy is having a little surgery so he won’t have babies any longer.”

To which Sam protested, “But Mommy, I LIKE Abby!  I want to keep her!”

ME…ROTFL!

(psssst…Mom, if you’re reading this…that’s Rolling-On-The-Floor-Laughing)

It wasn’t a choice, really, being done.  We don’t have the money for more treatments.  We really don’t have the money for more college tuitions – let alone more shoes and haircuts and soccer seasons and whatnot.  We DEFINITELY don’t have the money for another entire pregnancy with me out-of-commission again.  But more than money…my body is not only a poor study at getting pregnant, but it isn’t that great at actually being pregnant either.   I count myself extremely fortunate that I have two healthy children with the pre-term labor problems and other issues I had with both pregnancies.

But two doesn’t make up for losing Will.   I often feel our family is unfinished, but I know that having one more or two more or eight more kids would not make up the special place that Will has in my heart.

So we are at the end of an era.   And it feels sad – well – saddish like the sad you feel when you come to the end of summer or leave a good  job or something.   I’m not letting myself feel any sadder than that…or maybe I just now have perspective on true soul-ache.  And this does not feel like soul-ache.  It also feels incredibly freeing to know that I no longer have to pay any sort of attention to my menstrual cycle, or cervical mucus, or slap down large fees for rude, pregnant technicians to tell me that my cycle’s been cancelled because of a cyst…or that I could load myself up with all kinds of legal OR illegal drugs without care for the consequence to an unborn life (not that I would, Mom).

I’m sort of as normal (in a weird sense) as I get these days.

…of course, I caught the husband of our young couple quietly looking at Will’s picture on the piano as I did my best sales job on the Chicco Keyfit carseat and Snap N Go stroller (which I sold to them by the way) and remembered that I’m not so normal.

But then again…

who is?