maybe not.

I have been thinking about writing this for awhile. So. Here goes:

I have always wanted to be a mom. I remember telling Meghan that when we lived in Brighton, how I didn't have big career goals like she did, that I would be happy with a husband that I loved, a couple of kids, and a garden to grow food. If I had to have a job, all that I could ask is that the job didn't make me miserable. I wasn't looking for too much, I didn't think. I mean, sure, the American Dream, isn't it what we all want, right?

So I just kept moving through life, trying to pin down something, or someone. Working retail, like lots of art school graduates do. Being a serial monogamist, hoping that eventually one of these dudes would be the ONE. Most relationships had a two year time limit, and then one of the two of us would realize we weren't happy. Usually it was me. When I moved back to the city after one of those endings, I realized that a guy at work, who I didn't like for a long time, and then became my friend, I actually DID have feelings for. Turns out, he had them for me, too, and thus we began a relationship that would make it PAST the two year mark. It was good for awhile but then it wasn't good. Because I am an east coast kid at heart, and I always will be, and he had a love affair with California. Unfortunately, things dragged on WAY TOO LONG. He was not forthright with his feelings. He knew about my wanting babies. I remember one conversation that stung... in the morning, he said "Last night I had a nightmare." I asked him what it was about. He said "You were pregnant. " OH. Thanks. Glad that would be a nightmare. This was after we had been together for over three years. Nice, real nice.

I should mention here that I was on hormonal birth control from the age of fifteen until the age of 27, when I finally had had enough of the bullshit. I went off the pill and I never looked back. Purchased a copy of Taking Charge of Your Fertility, asked him to read it with me; he didn't. He didn't like condoms, didn't want to learn about my cycle, didn't trust me, or biology. So basically our sex life dried up, in a major way.

Here now I will cut the story very short. No one needs to hear all about the long sad year it took for us to finally break up after over four years of being together. But there is a point in that year that is the reason for this post. In a last ditch effort to save something, save us, I decided that we needed to have more sex. At this point, we knew he was moving away to the west coast, and had talked about what this meant for us, supposed plans involving me following him there. (puh-lease, we both knew that was a lie, he didn't want me to, I wasn't going to drive my old lady cats across country) Our time left together was short. And I didn't want to not have sex because he was afraid.

So I made the decision to get an IUD.

I should say now, before I go any further, that I have lots of friends who have them, the hormonal and non-hormonal kinds, and they love them. Rave about them, in fact. And despite what happened to me, I am still an advocate for IUDs, and I wanted so badly for it to work for me. But it didn't. You know in those commercials for drugs, or, hey, IUDs, they mention side effects and the small percentage of people that have serious problems? That was me. I got my IUD, went through the painful insertion, had cramps for a couple days, and then waited to feel normal again. We tried having sex. It hurt. Walking hurt. Sitting hurt. Basically everything hurt. I went a couple weeks, the pain slightly eased, but never really went away. So I called my obgyn (who I love, so much) and made an appt. Turns out, my uterus was trying to expel it, as it was pretty low down, but otherwise, everything appeared fine. I had a decision to make, either leave it in and hope that my body got used to it, or take it out. I said TAKE IT OUT, cause I didn't want to be uncomfortable anymore. Decision made, IUD removed, body back to normal.

Or so I thought.

We were staying at my sister's house while she was on vacation with the rest of the family. It had been maybe two days since I had it removed. We were driving in to the city, and on the way there, I had these terrible pains in my abdomen. I mean, gut-wrenching-tears-down-the-face pain. Made a couple calls to my doctors. I had taken my temp in the morning when I woke, it was normal, and by the time we got back to my shitty little apartment in the city, less than an hour later, it had spiked to 102 degrees. Called the doc again, she said for me to come right in, and when I got to her, she pretty much just looked at me, and said that I had to go to the hospital right away.

Turns out, an infection in your uterus is pretty fucking painful, and also, pretty dangerous. I spent three days hooked up to three different IVs of antibiotics, in hopes that we caught everything in the nick of time, so I wouldn't have any problems in the future. My friend Jenny visited me in the hospital. She drew me a card with a uterus on it. We made up a song called FU IUD. My boyfriend, he was there for one day. He never was that good with illness or taking care of me when I needed it. My sister called me from Maine, and ask me if I was "ruined". I couldn't answer.

That was August of 2009. He left for the west coast that October, we broke up. I dated some dudes. I drank a lot of whiskey. I moved. Had some shitty roommates.

And in February of 2010, I met Trever (aka Cat Dad) and we fell in love.

He is a family man. He loves his sisters, he loves babies. He would be the best dad. I know he would. I never went back on any birth control. We used condoms in the beginning, until we both knew we were together, and then it was all timing, knowing that if anything happened, we would embrace it and make it work. Sometimes, we are intentionally careless. It's not that we are trying to have a baby, but we are not trying not to. I am thirty-three years old. I spent twelve years putting hormones in my body, started doing that before I was even done developing. I can't imagine what that does to a young girl's body, not to mention brain (hello, crazy all through college, I wonder why) Try to get back on a natural path, only to nearly destroy myself with an IUD. My periods are painful now. I worry a lot. At my last pap smear appt, my ladydoc and I talked about it, the prospect of my being "ruined", and she said there is a test I could do, but it involves shooting dye into my parts, and there are possible side effects, and quite frankly, I am not willing to risk it. Everything "appears" to be in working order, but since I have never been pregnant, we won't know if it is, until it happens. I sit with these thoughts often. I try to imagine having a baby. It's getting harder to imagine it. So I am now moving forward with other aspects of my life, figuring out what will make me happy, what I want to do with my life, and trying not to dwell on it. It's easier when I read the news and focus on how fucked up this country, and this world are, and how I don't know how I would explain the evils of it all to a little kid, or how I could raise them to not be assholes, like so many tiny brats I see every day at work and in the world. Not to mention, there are already enough fucking people in this world, who am I to be selfish and want to add more?

It may never happen for us.

So we will go through this life being cat parents, and we will be okay with that because there are SO MANY CATS in the world that need love. And we have so much love to give them.

FIN