I wrote, last Saturday, all of the posts you saw this week, save this one. This one started on Thursday morning, from my desk. All week I have watched what I wrote on Saturday publish, knowing I needed to write something for today.
To be a good writer you need a good beginning and a good ending. Sometimes the post flows because I have a beginning, and sometimes I start at the end and work backwards. I have a beginning – starting in 3 places: my happiness with my life, my feelings about powerlessness in pregnancy and finally coming to terms with how Gabriel died. What I didn’t have was an ending – for two reasons. The first is most simple, Mr. Spit and I were still talking about what the ending was.
Perhaps, if you have ever thought about getting off the merry go round of pregnancy attempts, you had a bolt of blue. Perhaps you had a vision from God. Perhaps someone said something, you had a moment of clarity, anything really. Me? I looked around my home office and decided that I had enough with it still painted yellow and green for a nursery. I want a space that is my own. I have a vision of an office/guest room, and I know what I want it to look like – which is not yellow and green.
Please don’t take this the wrong way – I don’t need a second opinion from another doctor. I’m not interested in their opinions, I’m interested in mine. Mine says that I’m done with pregnancy. I never want to be pregnant again. I’m not interested in adopting. If that was a great option for you, I’m pleased. I’m not interested in it.
Here’s the second reason I don’t have an ending. I called by OB on Monday, to book an appointment to have my tubes tied. The wait list in Alberta means I will wait just over 2 years. That doesn’t work for me. I need to be done – now. I need to know that there will be no miracle pregnancy. I need this waiting game to be over. I want to get on with my life.
The incentive for tying my tubes was because it left the door open, if only a hands breadth, for a pregnancy with a surrogate. Not now. We aren’t interested now. I was hedging my bets against five, ten years from now. A true hedge: it’s not the best of all possible worlds, but it does leave me some freedom to change my mind. But that’s not possible, not if I have to wait 2 years for a tubal ligation. The vasectomy is the quicker option. It’s the less invasive, the no fuss, no muss option. A tubal ligation gave me the option to realize I changed my mind. A vasectomy is permanent. No mind changing, no hedging. We’ve struggled all week against the hedge and the final decision.
That’s not life, is it? Life is about making the decision. Life is about being the guy in the room and making the call. Hedging postpones a decision, it doesn’t make it. Sooner or later, we would be right back in this place, trying to decide again. Here’s the thing about decisions – sometimes you make the right one, and some times you make the wrong one. But always, you make the call – you know that you made it and why. It was always your choice.
When I came back to this post at 10:00 tonight, I read the first bit to Mr. Spit. Then we sat and talked. In the end, it only took 15 minutes. 15 minutes to summarize, to discuss, to get back to the core of it. 15 minutes to choose to be the guy in the room, the one making the call.
Maybe, probably there is no right and wrong in this decision. Maybe you just make the call, and 5, 10, 30 years from now you look back and you realize that you did what you could with the facts you had. You faced a shitty situation and you made the best decision of equally bad choices.
I’m ending this post as the song In a New York Minute plays and I’ll end it the same way I ended phone call with Mr. Spit. All of that thinking, all of this writing, all of that talking.
“Babe, let’s be done now.”
This is a powerful post.
I love you, dear Mrs. Spit, & I hope this decision brings you the clarity & peace you seek. (((((MEGAHUGS)))))
Have I mentioned lately, just how much I love you?
This is an amazing post, Ms. Spit, and I’m relieved that you’ve made a decision and I get that totally. That need not to be in limbo anymore, and to just go forward in any fucking direction as long as it’s forward. And I hated waiting for others to make the decision for me, as if it would come printed on a lovely card detailing exactly what it was I was to do. I can tell you this: my spirits lifted the minute I made a choice to do something. My decision was different, but that’s no matter — at least it put me on a road and at the end of that I could say I did it. I went forward. I’ll defend your decision to the hilt.
Much love to you both.
Lots of love
Very well written.
I hope a peace comes with your decision.
I understand your need to be certain. I understand your need to look at the thing square in the eyes, and choose how you’re going to manage it. God bless you. I’ve been thinking of you today.
This is powerful post. I’m glad that you and Mr. Spit were able to come to a decision that feels right – I know it took much time and thought to get there. Thinking of you and wishing you peace.
I’m glad you’ve found the right decision for you.
Long time reader here, just wanted to say I’m glad to hear you are in a positive place and are finding you can take control of this situation and move forward in the way that is right for you. I also wish you peace from this decision.
Sometimes it just feels really, really good to be done with something.
Powerful post – I can sense the empowerment you gained just from making a decision. And I can fully understand your decisions, especially with the number of miscarriages you’ve had and the risks at every step for you and any babe. I know that you and Mr Spit will find your way in this world. Much love to you both.
That second to last paragraph has gotten me through many of my more difficult days. You did the best you could with the information you had and that’s what we did (if only the doctors hadn’t “wished” for the crystal ball so much).
It takes guts to make the decision, whatever that decision is, and whatever consequences come with it. You sound so…
Well, not sure, but, what is the word? Like you know, you understand yourself and what you can and can’t live with right now. It is a huge accomplishment.
You are a brave woman. I am shocked that it takes that long in AB, come to BC and be done in two weeks. Especially in my town, the gyne is very fast.
Wishing you peace, at long last.
This is an incredibly powerful post, Mrs. Spit. And this decision, I hope it brings with it peace and comfort. I know I always feels a sense of relief and liberation in simply moving forward in the direction of my decisions. Sending you and the mister love, as always.
At peace. It is good.
You have walked a very hard and difficult journey and you’ve made the best decision for you and Mr.Spit. I am so happy that you’ve arrived at a place where you feel you can make this decision with clarity. I pray that this decision bring you peace and comfort. That it allows you live your life, with out the “what if’s” or the “when this happens”.
Lots of hugs.
I think being in limbo land is not a fun place to be – all the wondering, the whys the hows, the ifs…
There is a sense of peace when a decision is made that must take the weight off your shoulders. Even if the decision is the best you could do given the facts you have, and the lesser of two evils.
Peace be with you.
I totally get your choice! Go forward!
I wish you both great peace.
There is peace that comes with a final decision. Hope and ‘what-ifs’ aren’t as good of things as most people seem to think they are. In TTC, hope & what-if are agony.
I’m happy for you. I’m happy you’ve made a decision and you can move forward without the what-ifs holding you back.
Much love to both of you.
Lots of {{{hugs}}}. I hope your decision brings you peace.
I wish you peace now that you’ve made that decision, left that limbo.
Much hugs to you.