Having children was not something for me. As an only child, I remember telling my parents that they needed to get used to not being grandparents, because there was no way I was ever getting married and having children. I repeated the same speech to my college friends when we talked about the guys we liked, proclaiming that these antiquated concepts of my hand being taken, my father giving me away, taking someone else’s name after spending so much time and effort to make my own name recognizable and respected, were just dumb.
I jumped from one long term relationship to another, never really settling into them. I never even had to have the talk of “do you want children” because I never allowed anyone to get that close to me. Sure, we could be cohabiting, but the doors to my heart were closed shut, even when I pretended they were not.
And then I met my now husband. It sounds cliche, and you might roll your eyes at me in disgust (I would if it wasn’t my own story) but the day I met him there was something so powerful between us. Something hit me in the face like a brick wall and I could not stop thinking about him. From the day we met until we started dating a couple of months went by, but immediately after our first date we were inseparable. It was like a magnetic force attracted me to him, and no matter what barriers and excuses I put up, I could not get away from him.
I remember the first time I saw him holding a baby. It was one of his friend’s newborns, a tiny blonde baby with the most adorable button nose. My ovaries did a summersault. My cheeks got hot and started to burn a little. Everyone urged me to hold the baby and I declined politely. Between us, I had no idea how to hold a baby and the whole concept of them not being able to hold their heads freaks me out (yes, even after having three babies of my own). It became more of a primal thing and less of a rational one. Must have babies with him.
We got married three times. He didn’t ask for my hand (he just told my parents he was going to propose, they cried of joy), I didn’t take his name (I’m Conz Preti until I die), and certainly I was not planning to get pregnant before our honeymoon (which was spent drinking Jack Daniel’s from a bottle and smoking accidental contraband weed while living in a van for almost two weeks).
~Let me pause to acknowledge that my first pregnancy was one of those annoying unicorn pregnancies, like the ones they show in the movies. We had passionate unprotected sex once, I went on with my life without a single worry, had a dream I was pregnant, took a test, positive, never had any annoying symptoms or complications. Yes, so rude. My other two pregnancies (one which ended in a miscarriage) were far different.~
I wasn’t prepared for the earth shattering change my life was going to go through once my son was born. I thought I was ready because we had cute clothes and an all-terrain stroller. But let me tell you, I was so far off being ready for what happened. I had an urgent C-section (as in, baby needs to come out today) and Ozzy was born. He didn’t want to breastfeed and I didn’t know how to read the signs. We struggled a lot. Him with gaining weight, me with bonding with this fragile little thing that belonged to me (but had his dad’s last name). I remember one night, swollen from head to toe, in so much pain from the surgery, while trying to breastfeed him for the 11th time that hour thinking “maybe we should get re-admitted to the hospital, I wasn’t made for this, what am I trying to even pretend to do?” It wasn’t a self-harm thing (yet) but more of a “I was not meant to do this, someone else should” type of thing. Later that day I stopped taking opioids for pain management and moved to lighter stuff and those dark intrusive thoughts slowly went away.
My love for Ozzy wasn’t immediate. I took care of him, yes. I would jump in front of a moving car for him, yes. But I was still getting to know him as days went by, and just like I had been guarded with other guys in my life, I was guarded towards my own son too. It was a mix of PPA and fear. Here I was in this new life I always said wasn’t cut for me, had I failed myself? Had I let the antiquated societal mandates win? My husband was able to go back to his day to day almost immediately, he didn’t have to deal with leaky boobs and a mid section that was numb and itchy for months (or maybe even years). I thought—for a second—I had ruined our marriage, we were both sleep deprived, I cried a lot, I wanted the fun life we had had up until his arrival.
But slowly, and then all of a sudden, I fell in love with my son. And not in a creepy “you will always be mine” and “the biggest break up you’ll go through is when you son gets married” kind of thing that just makes me want to vomit in my mouth over and over again. More like “I have a buddy for life”. I was ready to take him into adventures, discover the world together and teach him new things.
I don’t know why I expected my first steps into motherhood to be movie-like. Especially as someone who never wanted the life that society (and movies) expected me to have. My relationship with my baby had to bloom and develop at our own pace and rhythm. Our connection so strong and magical that I decided I was ready to do the whole pregnancy and childbirth thing all over again. It’s true what they say, that you forget how hard it was at the beginning just so you keep having children. The brain is powerful and also such a little asshole. When the twins arrived I looked at my husband thinking “what the fuck were we thinking? How are we here again?", but now that the girls are toddlers and starting to show off their own—very different—personalities, we are having a blast again.
I realized that it wasn’t so much that I didn’t want children, but more that I was terrified of the idea of someone needing me for the rest of their lives. I had never had commitment like that before. And yet here we are, and now I love (almost) every second of it. Except when they scream and fight like siblings do. That’s when I let my husband take over the whole parenting thing and I go drink a whisky.