Baby Lust (And How It Clashes With Mean Mommyhood)

If I were as mean a mommy as I profess, if I were so hooked on schedules and eager to turn my little babies into independent boys-to-men, if I so valued my me-time and my work ethic, then I wouldn’t want a third child quite so badly, would I?

But I do.

And I’m not going to have one. The reasons not to range from the silly to the sublime. Here they are, in no particular order:

• I’m 43 years old. I don’t think that’s too old to have a baby. And in fact, my instinct, my health, and my family history indicate that I’m likely as fertile now as I was at 36 when I had Daniel. But I remember the difference in how I felt pregnant at 36, and pregnant again a mere two years later. I’m not equipped any longer for that level of wrecked.

• I already had two C-sections, and (though I don’t want to gross you out with the details), let’s just say that I can feel the ridge of scar tissue under the surface scar, and I don’t like to think about what a third surgery would do to it. I tried like hell not to have the second, but ended up going under the knife again, and I’m not sure I have the energy to find the one health professional out there who’d risk letting a 43-year-old double-section-gal labor.

• We happen to have health insurance right now (not a given in our lives, or in this country as it stands), but it’s not terrific insurance. We had “good” insurance when I had James and that STILL cost us $6,000 out of pocket. I mean, he’s worth every penny, but still…

• We have small cars. (I said some reasons were silly, right?) With a third, I’d need another row of seats, and I’d have to be dragged kicking and screaming to do so. Plus, we can’t really afford a new car right now.

• I’m freelance. I don’t have the luxury of maternity leave (and I use the word “luxury” with a heavy coat of irony, seeing as how 12 weeks of mostly unpaid leave is more barbaric than luxurious). I’d have to do what I did when I had James; resume my work within weeks. (Typical conversation with editor back then: “Is that your baby crying? Do you have to get him?” “No, he’s fine. It’s fine.”) While I may fantasize about the idea of sending my two older boys off to school while I bond with the new little one, letting him nurse while I write, I know it wouldn’t really be that way, and one or both of us would likely be crying a lot.

• And even more selfish/economic reasons: I finally stopped paying for childcare now that James is going to kindergarten. I don’t want to buy any more cases of Costco diapers and wipes. Thing is, and this really sticks in my craw, we can “afford” another child in the long term, but not so much in the short term.

I’m smart enough to make the totally obvious connection between this surge of baby lust and what’s going on in my family right now: a mini-babyboom has expanded our extended group by two new babies in the last three months — and there’s another one on the way this fall.

Yesterday, I visited the newest, my one-week-old, first-cousin-once-removed, Martin:

Me holding week-old baby Martin

Also in attendance was my second-newest first-cousin-once-removed, three-month-old Robert:

My sister holding Martin, me with baby Robert.

Martin’s tiny size (it was like cradling a sleeping kitten, or a roasted chicken; he barely breaks 6 pounds) made holding him surreal, because my babies started out bigger than this. He never opened his eyes while I held him, and the usual chaos of a baby visit at an already child- and baby-centric house  swirled around us. (Aside from me and my two boys, there were Martin, his parents, and his three big sisters; my other cousin, her husband and the toddler and preschooler they have in addition to Robert; my sister and her youngest daughter; my mom; my aunt and uncle; two au pairs; and two elderly poodles.)

Later, I held baby Robert, the three-month-old, who at 18 lbs. triggered a trip down memory lane, reminding me how it felt to heft my Daniel at that age, when he was all rolls of fat and drooling, toothless grin.

When the head-spinning nature of a few hours in that cacaphonous company died down, sometime last night, in the silence that was left, I felt an ache so strong I started crying on the couch. It wasn’t because I wanted another baby, though that’s part of it — the elemental urge that any woman who’s smelled the sweet head of her own newborns recognizes. It was because I knew I couldn’t, and wouldn’t.

When I had my newborns, I wasn’t blissful. I couldn’t let myself drown in their weirdness and their newness and their bottomless needs. I loved them, but I mostly survived them. (I wrote about this once, in an essay for American Baby called “The Big Lie.”) It’s only in the remembering, such as when I pulled out the black and white marble notebook I used for Daniel’s baby book (I was doublechecking that he was indeed as chunked out as cousin Robert at 3 months), that I realize how fascinated I was by my babies’ growth, their discoveries, their antics.

But I can’t go through the non-blissful part again — for the reasons of age and of exhaustion, of finances and self-hood — just for the smell of a new baby’s head, or just for the times I watched a 6-month-old figure out how to get across a room on his belly, or an 11-month-old work out how to take a step, or decide which of the two toys he has clutched in his fat fists he wants to drop in order to pick up a third.

I recognized that dull look of fear, pain, and exhaustion in my cousin’s eyes, baby Martin’s mom. Did I mention she already has three children, daughters who are 10, 8, and 5? Did I mention that she’s 42 years old? Did I mention that I’m probably one of the few people close to her who’s willing to agree with her that it sucks, to agree with her that while the baby himself is beautiful and perfect and a miracle, that meeting his needs means putting off her own, again?

Being that only person — the person who can ooh and ahh with the rest of them and breathe in the baby smell with the best of them, but who can still feel the dread and the fear — is part of my “mean” mommyhood. The practicality gets me, every time. It’s my mommy-burden, knowing precisely what my limits are.

And apparently, finally, really, my limit is two.