There are a lot of things you've been learning about life. This is what you do, you're a ball of tape that rolls and bounces and picks it all up as you go, and from time to time you check the adhesive to see what's on you, how it all adds up. Recent stock-taking would have you happy as you see what's settled on the surface-love. Security. Hope. Your recent liking of avocados. Amazing shit.

But sometimes the floor falls out from under you and despite the fact that you are well on your way to getting that healthy mental bill of certification, the one with the gold seal and watermarked signature, you are not prepared enough to handle some of what comes your way.

You started IVF because it was so desperately important to you to be a mother. He wasn't so keen to be a father again but agreed to do it for you, with you, because it was so important to you. You didn't know at the time, you should have checked the small print, that "agreed" does not imply graciousness. Agreed means reminding you on a regular basis that you have ruined your collective lives, and by "agreement" that means you are expected to sit there and take it since you are solely and utterly to blame.

You knew that you would be different to the other people out there, see. You knew you'd not have a partner desperate to get home and pat your stomach. You knew that joyously creating a nursery was out of the question. That's not what was in the cards for you, it wasn't even available in the deck. But you didn't know that you would get constant negative reminders of how angry he would be. You didn't know, not because you don't pay attention because you always pay attention, but because you didn't understand that success would mean such pain.

You knew that he didn't think pregnant women glow. He told you that, and to some extent you agree. Pregnant women are simply pregnant. What you weren't clear on is that he wouldn't find you attractive. You, this person that supposedly is what makes his blood run rampant, are now something he can't find attractive. It's a difficult one when you don't generally find yourself attractive either, but you always have done with him. You may not be classically beautiful but there's something about his reaction that makes you feel like a beauty, only that's missing now, too. You tell yourself that can come back and in the meantime you cover up.

You spend a lot of time trying to solve problems. With every new problem thrown up at you, you try to find a way to resolve it. That's what you do. And that's wrong, too.

You can't buy anything. What you have bought you have to remove from sight because he says it may jinx things. There are things you thought of buying but can't because he says they're gimmicks, you can make do without. Your mother had problems with baby things. You remember it, in that fucked up memory of yours, you remember her saying We have to hide the baby things, it makes him angry. The four things you've bought are removed from sight, too, because they depress him. Years later you were there when she said a big regret was not having someone in her life to share the joy of pregnancy.

You didn't know that you would repeat the patterns.

You are filled with anger at the fact that you can't even feel this way without them reading about it, too, because you live in a bubble.

You knew that he isn't a baby person. This isn't such a bad thing, you know others that aren't mad about babies. Some people think of babies like I do, like little tulips that smell of extraordinary things, that are a tremendous amount of work but the small weight of them is worth it. Some people look at babies as an inconvenient stage to childhood, which is where they get interesting, when they have opinions and reactions and give you cause for laughter. You knew that he isn't a baby person but you didn't know that he thinks of babydom as a great big black pit of despair, you thought it was a point in development that he simply didn't enjoy.

And all of these things so far, you can take them. It's really hard and you have screaming in your head but so far you can cope. Pregnancy will give way to you getting your body back, babies grow into opinionators that he will enjoy more, and you have hope.

But sometimes it's too much to bear. Your defense mechanisms are non-existent just now, you're at the point in your therapy when your defense is being built up, it's going to be that your defense is to believe in yourself enough to handle what comes your way. So when he tells you that all he can see for years to come is black darkness, you have to try to pull it together and be there for him. But when you hear that you are not even something that he looks forward to in the future, you lose it.

You offer not a hint of light.

All that you thought you offered - love, laughter, sparks and magic...it's just bullshit. It was nothing. You offer not even a single match to light up his darkness. The only positive thing in his future is building an extension which will take his mind off of you and off of his babies. You, who are naive and stupid enough to believe that your faith in him and in your relationship can get you through any black times, that how you feel about him will get you through hard times because it has before, now know that you're not enough for him. And when you ask why he doesn't just leave now, why would he want to be with someone he doesn't look forward to being with, you're told it's because he cares about you and he has a sense of responsibility.

And you have become that 1950's housewife, one without sparkle and magic, one who is an obligation and a duty, not a joy.

He tells you he hopes you prove him wrong, that you prove you will be something to look forward to. Although it never once occurred to you that you wouldn't be yourself when the babies are born (you'll still want to curl up next to him and still want to hold him and still bounce around and still buy him Fruit Rowntrees as a surprise) it gets added to the list of Things You Must Do. You now have to prove yourself to him. Again. You feel you need to reassure him that his fears are of course justified, it's worrying to think that one may slip in priority with the arrival of two babies but you have absolutely no doubt at all in your heart that how you feel about him is unwavering and limitless, that even on the nights when you're knackered and sleepless the hold he has on your heart is unchanged. And you honestly believe that to be true. You have to prove him wrong, and while you do so you have to know that you're now not a person to look forward to, not anymore, and you were a fucking self-righteous idiot to ever think that you were.

You know he's angry and scared and nervous. You are too. You know that maybe some of the things he says are being tempered by his fears so they're not coming out right. You had a fantastic holiday weekend in Scotland, you were close, so you hold on to that and to the fact that he often comes through for you. You cry a lot and feel lower than you have for a very long time and all you can see is darkness now, too.

You love him very much.

You can see he's depressed and he knows he's depressed, but he's not moving on from it, he's not anywhere but in the middle of the depression, embracing it, he's not trying to see a way through it in whatever small steps that emergence can come from. You know how that is. You hope he will try, soon.

You are torn into little shreds feeling like you are something not worth looking forward to.

You are 20 weeks pregnant and your stomach is a hard ball.

So is your heart.

You keep going because that's what you always do and that's the only choice that you have.

-H.

Comments are closed because I won't have anyone saying anything remotely negative about him. Don't email me trying to offer advice or opinions. Please. I really need some space just now.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 04:07 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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