Another Vote

For an election I'm not ready to have.

The Lev family left this morning, a very bittersweet event. Considering we have never met in person before I am still stunned at how well we all got along. Even with the limitation of one bathroom for four adults and two kids, we found a rhythm to sharing space. So while we are enjoying the quiet that normally is found here, there is also a hollowness that feels just a bit lonely.

The boys are some of the most amazing and wonderful children I have ever met (still waiting for permission to post photos of these lovely creatures) and I am deeply attached. It seems odd that I have no idea when we will meet up again. So many times I wished I had written more (okay, at all) during their visit to capture the delicious moments and the amazing comments from the kids.

Ari left one of her books, and had wanted to leave the other, but it was mistakenly taken during her presentation last Saturday. I am eager to read the Transgender book, not that I am projecting a lot of future clients in this area, but you never know. The parenting guide is exciting because there are a number of blurbs written by folks I know in person and from online- so it's a unique opportunity to glean something more about them. She was kind enough to inscribe the book, however there in lies the election issue. "For Dharma & The Girl Friend: Thank you so much for your warm home and kind spirits. I look foward to knowing you as your family expands + you have no room to house ours." Sigh.

There is a part of me that believes all parents want their friends to have children and join them on the roller coaster ride of parenthood, so I always take these statements with a large grain of salt. I do have a reasonable amount of faith in my friends to believe that my friends/good acquaintances wouldn't make such statements if they felt I would suck at being someone's mother. I have gone on my own rollercoaster around this decision. Over a year ago came to as close as I had been able, to resolving my ambivalance, and deciding against children. Then TGF landed in my lap, as it were. She would do it in a heartbeat. If she could, I'd be knocked up already. I will say that I greatly enjoy her concentrated efforts in this arena, even though we know her finger and dildoes will never spurt sperm.

Timing of life, of body clocks, and resistance to doing what I consider heroic efforts to achieve pregnancy make for a limited span of the calendar in which to reconsider such earthshaking matters. If TGF and I had met earlier and could have several years of alone time before becoming parents, maybe it would be easier to decide. But if we had met much earlier than we did, we probably wouldn't have been ready for the intensity of our relationship and huge life changes we made to be together. The reality is my hormones and eggs would probably laugh themselves silly if I were to inform them of plans involving insemination. I'm sure the day I started taking my temperature again (I remember a time when I thought I would do that forever since I started long before I tried to conceive and continued for at least 8 more months during which I had no intention of trying but couldn't break the pattern for fear of, I have no idea what exactly) my cycle would tarantella all over the damn calendar.

Here I am, just two years into a relationship, after ending a 12 year relationship, still knee deep in graduate school hell, heavier than I want to be -even pregnant, a house full of fur babies that fill my heart to overflowing, and hormones poised on the edge of the precipice of perimenopause. It's funny, I don't have the same ambivalance that paralyzed me and made other shake with fear that wrapped around me for five years. This time it's different. Don't get me wrong, it is ambivalance, it just isn't so paralyzing. Right now.