I have found it awkward being at this stage in my life where I'm pretty sure I'm not getting pregnant again, yet I'm surrounded by people who keep having babies. Maybe it's their first (my sister) or second or third (relatives and friends), but for me it's like going back in time.
Since having children, my life has been dictated by their presence. Especially moving around like we do, I often find friends who not only have children but have children the same age as my children. That's a pretty narrow margin of interest. But it works perfectly. So doing the whole baby thing again would be a radical shift.
Children change so quickly that my concerns and interests also have short life spans. I don't think about breast-feeding, sleep schedules or the best strategy for introducing solids anymore. I am at a loss when my sister asks for advice. I can hardly remember what happened only a couple of years ago because it's so other-worldly.
I can understand now why in Khartoum my good friend was simultaneously happy for me and bummed when I got pregnant. With three of her own, she was over it. And for much of the next two years, her sporty/party-pal was going to be a little less fun and a lot less available. Such is the personal life alteration that comes with having babies.
Seeing a newly born human being last week, I couldn't help but be moved - moved right out of my baby-free comfort zone. I have only been in Amman for 14 months, yet in that time I met her parents, discussed with them their thoughts on having a third child, saw my friend go through 38 weeks of pregnancy, and have now witnessed this baby's first moments. It does seem incredible that it can happen just like that. You don't know what you're going to get, you don't know about your own health and survival of a pregnancy and delivery...there are enormous risks. Yet, there she is.
My lack of primal urge to go there again is a mystery to me. That's what it comes down to. Of course, one weighs pros and cons and considers risk and sacrifices and the lot, but with me all rationale falls aside to the inexplicable green light.
With other women I know, there is a strongly felt revelation: I am finished with this. I feel whole. Or I am not finished with this. There is another baby who wants to be born.
It is rude to talk about this openly (and please forgive me, I hope I'm not insulting anyone) because there are many who don't have a choice. But there are also many like myself in this privileged modern dilemma. There's no familial or religious duty or economic need to have more. A third child wouldn't throw us over the poverty line. Except for the cost of an additional plane ticket, life abroad with 3 as opposed to 2 isn't too much of a hardship since house help is affordable. It is do-able - an excess of liberty to design one's own fate, as well as one's family and of course, the unborn. Ah, the "hardship" of empowerment...and one must admit, personal luck. Who am I (with my husband, of course) to make such an enormous decision?
Is it enough that I simply do not feel the undeniable desire to have another baby? Can I feel comfortable with my personal pleasure at not being pregnant or tied to a breast-feeding little one anymore?
The problem is that there is no powerful or true red light (except the limits of my biological clock, but there is adoption of needy children...). I can't say exactly that I feel it is truly and finally over. I'm by nature open to what may come, including my own gut feeling. In the meantime, I will quietly enjoy my 2 and celebrate (albeit from a safe distance) the courage and conviction of my friends and family who boldly go forward.
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