family-makin' magic

We have so many friends right now who are building and growing their families right now.   One set of friends just finalized their second adoption last week.  Another set had a baby last night.  And yet another set of friends are due any day now.  And another set of friends just started the process to adopt a second child.  Kids and babies everywhere.  Stinking beautiful gorgeous kids and babies everywhere.  And of course, these occurrences turn our hearts to total mush, because we love our friends so much, because growing families is so beautiful and miraculous and magical, and maybe a little bit selfishly, because seeing others growing their big queer families makes us feel less alone, less different, less isolated, too.

On the heels of all of these wondrous and soon-to-be wondrous occassions, we got some mail from our AART clinic in Halifax, where we still have a few vials of the good ole donor on ice, so to speak.  They want us to pay up for another year of storage, or donate the vials to research, or have them destroyed.  Shit or get off the pot, so to speak.  And wham - the heart (so previously sure we were done) hits me with a sucker punch that chants 'baby! baby! baby!'.  It doesn't help that Boy-o has begun asking for another sibling (a brother in specific), which makes me feel all kinds of guilty that this kid is the only boy in his family (this is silly and irrational, but let's think about who we're talking about here).   And my dwindling egg supply starts dancing that 'try and see' dance.  And those two vials feel like desparately unfinished business.  I hate, hate, hate loose ends.

And my head knows how ridiculous this urge is.  I haven't slept in years.  (Almost two years, to be exact).  I'm tired of breastfeeding.  I need to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.  I need to be more than just 'mama'.  It's possible I'm not so great at that with the two I already have.  I'm kinda fried.   I"m a puddle of worry.  Car pool turns me into a raving lunatic.  (Okay - so many things turn me into a raving lunatic). And not to sound more narcissistic than, you know, usual, but my face has aged in the last two years of sleeplessness.  Like, a lot.  And I'm just getting close to fitting all of my pre-pregnancy clothes again.  We can't afford a mini-van.  We can't afford the kid costs period.  We don't have room in our house.   Post-partum depression and general nuttiness really sucks.  It would be nice to get to a place where L. and I could focus on our grown-up relationship a little more often, not just our parenting relationship.  Take some trips.  And we're probably way too old for this.  And would it be fair to the two great, amazing, stupendous kiddies we already have?  This list goes on and on and on. 

But by God, I loves me some family-makin'.  I love being pregnant.  I love giving birth.  I love them babies and kids.  And that's before we even get into considering the idea of adoption, which I've tossed around a lot, too. 

And it's hard to let the idea of growing go ... no matter how long the list of cons is.