I’ve been thinking a lot about kids lately. Yes, we’ve been here before, but I guess this is something I won’t get over anytime soon. The loss of my cat Daniel Tiger and the fact that it’s a brand new year has me thinking about things in a different way.
I’m 35-am I too old to have kids? Is it too late for me? Some people say yes. Quite a few, actually. Some of those people wouldn’t know their ass from a hole in the ground, so perhaps I shouldn’t worry about what they think.
Is the fact that I spent the last seven years with an injury that made it impossible for me to have kids (or do what it takes to make a kid), only to get it ‘corrected’ when I’m past the age some doctors would even *see* me God’s way of telling me that I shouldn’t reproduce? My doctor once said that he would refer me to a high-risk OB if I got pregnant because of my age and my bipolar disorder. The last one, I can see. As for the first…I remember telling my husband that I was concerned that the accident and our financial situation would make it so that we would never be able to have kids, even if we wanted to. We were prepared for the possibility that we might decide not to have kids because of our medical issues, et cetera…we might not like it, but at least then it would have been our choice. It wouldn’t have been because some wreck I don’t even remember getting in took that choice away from me.
Related to the above, am I an ingrate for being bothered by what the injuries made impossible when I’m pretty damned lucky to be alive at all?
Sometimes I feel left out because a lot of the women in the circles close to me all have kids or their lives center around kids. I feel like they’re in some sort of club that I will never belong to and that there’s something wrong with me because of it. That they will always feel like I am ‘left behind’ or something and will never *quite* have enough in common with them again. As much as I love my guy friends, sometimes I want to be around some women. I know it’s not a ‘contest’ or a ‘race’, but sometimes I still feel lonely because I’m in this weird place in life that most of my girl friends back home are in too, but no one here is.
What am I missing out on? Sure, I’m not having to wake up at 3am to change a diaper or spend hours connected to a breast pump. But I’m also not going to have anyone to take to a first day of school, anyone to make tuna salad sandwiches for, anyone to take prom pictures of, anyone to send off to college…you get the idea. Will my life still feel complete? Will it *ever* feel complete again?
I just finished writing a pilot for a kids’ sitcom. I got the idea from Amazon Studios and, while I’m not sure anything will come of it, I am grateful for the ‘push’. You see, I have all these stories going around in my head that I have yet to really do anything with. I sometimes will mean to write them down, but get distracted or discouraged halfway through (or sometimes not even *that* far). I had a great time writing this story, but it bothers me that I keep running through the final scene in my head. In it, the main character (a 14-year-old boy) is really excited because he just asked out a girl for the first time and she said yes. I keep thinking…you know, I’m not *quite* old enough to have a kid that age…well, not unless I had him at age 21. That’s still pretty young. But what if the kids I write about in this sitcom project are the only ones I will have? I love my cats like they are kids, but what if they are the only kids I have? Will I be okay with that? I’m really not sure anymore.
What if I don’t make a difference in the next generation? I’m not around my nephews much, although that isn’t necessarily through any fault of my own. We do go to see my sister-in-law’s little boy as much as we can since he’s here in town, but all my other nephews live at least 8 hours away in Virginia. I’d be with them all the time if I could.
Maybe I’m just being selfish.
Maybe all these questions are my mind’s of telling me that maybe I’m more ‘desperate’ than I thought. Or that I don’t have anywhere near as much time as I think I do; that I’m too old now to think of things in ‘maybe someday’ terms. I don’t know. I’m too young for a mid-life crisis! We talk about adoption, but we haven’t been able to make any sort of plan because everything hinged on being able to have the hip replacement surgery. We had to save up to afford it, we still have bills surrounding it, and it wouldn’t be fair to a kid to have a mother who couldn’t play with him or take proper care of him because she was recovering from surgery. Even if there were other people around to help, he would still need *me*, and I couldn’t be there. If that makes sense.
Maybe this is God’s way of having us wait for Him to bring the right child into our lives. Maybe there’s a child yet to be born (or already born to someone else) who we will be uniquely suited to parent. Maybe this is God’s way of having us wait for Him…period.
I don’t know. I never do. Hopefully I will someday.
January 13th, 2013 at 4:20 pm
My mum had me at 36, my sister at 39. No being over 35 does not mean it is too late to have kids. That only happens when you reach menopause (so around 50), it just becomes harder and there is more chance of certain disabilities.
January 28th, 2013 at 9:10 am
I’ve heard that too, that it raises the chance of disabilities and that that is why women 35 and older should not have children. Frankly that tends to come from people who enjoy preaching at everyone else about anything and everything…I’m glad to see that that’s not necessarily true because you turned out great!