Expressing her hope that I would be able to have more children, a friend of mine recently told me that my husband and I "make beautiful babies". It's a really sweet comment. But in my weird world of infertility, it's also a comment that doesn't quite sit right with me. Not that I don't appreciate it, just that the phrasing seems wrong.
I know my husband and I "made" our son together. But it almost feels like we didn't. It was like there were a bunch of cooks throwing ingredients in a mixer, scooping them up, and sliding them in the oven. We were present for the gathering of ingredients, but for the actual "making of" part, we didn't even need to be there. And as for the sliding in the oven, well, my husband often jokes about the fact that he actually watched another man impregnate his wife. (Of course we could take that a step further and say that a whole team of men were involved, but let's not get graphic...)
I know it's ridiculous to make an issue of this. But I often wish our son's "making of" documentary included something a little more romantic, a lot less painful, and involving just my husband and me. You know those people that name their babies after their conception place, like Brooklyn, or Dallas, or something like that? With my son, what comes to mind more readily is something like "Lab" or "Petri Dish".
Another phrase that bothers me: Because of my c-section, I don't feel like I can ever truly tell someone that I have "given birth". Yes, I've had a baby, and yes, I was there when they yanked my son out of my uterus, but were it not for the fact that my body was indespensible to the process, you would have thought I was sort of superfluous. Lying there on a sterile table, so numbed up from the epidural that my arm was paralyzed (and not even being able to touch my son after he was born because of it), not being able to see or be a part of the action - I felt a little cheated.
I know when it comes down to it, being a mother is not about having a perfect conception (though that would be nice) or a perfect birth (which would also be wonderful). It doesn't matter how the babies get here, and really motherhood is not only about having babies. But still...
Funny how my rational brain can understand this so easily, but my heart is still having trouble.
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Ya know, everything about pregnancy, from conception to birth, and well, even beyond into motherhood, is so emotional that it makes sense that logic sometimes just...well, doesn't make sense. I'm okay with how everything went with me, though I would love to actually deliver the normal way next time (and while we're at it, I'd LOVE to conceive the normal way, too ;). I do feel very doctored up. They put the babes in, they opened me up and took them out. Yeah, not quite very natural...It is an odd feeling to not be around for our children's initial physical creation.
I love D's joke, about watching another man impregnate his wife, haha! And "Petri" is a cute name, like that little pterodactyl on Land Before Time :) But I hear you. It would be soooo nice to just be normal when it comes to fertility!!
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