October was busy. We went to Colm's birthday party. I love him, his lover, their dog and their friends. They have an extraordinary talent for celebration that I feel I lack. I drank wine and smoked 'til my feet felt funny and my tongue got thick, then asked Andrew to bring me home. "Need a seat for the lady!" he bellowed, steering me towards the couch. "I'm not disabled!" I hissed. "I'm not pregnant" is what I meant, but my words weren't coming out right.
I went to Holles St. later that week to have blood tests done prior to our appointment with the fertility clinic. I was shown to a waiting room full of heavily pregnant women queueing for weigh-ins and widdle tests. "What week are you?" asked the nurse. "I'm not" I said. So I was sent to another waiting room across the hospital where nobody was pregnant and two of the waiting women were crying. "Where are you in your cycle?" the nurse asked. "I don't have one" I said. I can't win, is what I meant.
The following weekend, Andrew and I spent the Saturday taking care of my two-month-old niece and I thought "I could do this!" and I looked at myself sneakily in the mirror as I cradled her, trying her on for size, trying to imagine myself as a beautiful young mother. I am not young to be a mother any more. We spent the day cosseted in the sitting room, making Tilly burp and smile and watching television when she slept. That night, I asked Andrew if he thinks we'll ever have a baby. The "ever" makes me sound like I'm impatient to be a mother. I'm not. I am just so tired of thinking about it all the time that I just want to be told, one way or the other, so that I can get on with everybloodything else. "I don't know, my love" he said.
Andrew turned 30 and I felt better for it. It bothers me that I'm older than he is. I used to tell anyone who asked that he was only 4 months younger than me, but I'd counted backwards instead of forwards and I'm actually 8 months older than him. I am not good with numbers, even the single digits. "Who do you think looks older?" I ask small children whenever I have an opportunity to. They invariably say that he does. They are smart enough to recognise that I am needy and that he has the thicker beard.
His grandfather sent him some silver serving spoons in the post as a birthday present. I am charmed that George bestows practical heirlooms upon us on significant occasions, and that he thinks to post them with a letter. His great heart and good manners are inspiring. Since moving to our new home this summer, we've been able to employ all of the chattels we'd been gifted when we married; cutlery and crockery, crystal and candlesticks, all of it pleasingly old-fashioned. I feel like I have arrived in the world, now that we have a spare bedroom and eat with our own cutlery. We have a happy home.
We took a holiday from it to celebrate Andrew's birthday and since our return, Biscuit, our half-baked cat, has started scratching at the bedroom door at night. Every night. At 5am. Scratching and crying and then running away to hide under the bed in the spare room or halfway down the stairs to the kitchen. I chased him off last Wednesday night and he smashed a sinkful of crystal wedding-gift wineglasses in the kitchen in retaliation. At 5.15am. I hauled on a dressing gown and stood barefoot on the cold kitchen floor, surveying the damage and feeling every minute of stolen sleep seeping out through the soles of my feet.
"Do you want a cat?" I asked Gimme in the pub the following Friday night "because I'm going to put him in the fucking Buy & Sell". "You don't want kids" said Gimme. "No" I said, and I lifted my pint, pinkie extended.
I went to Holles St. later that week to have blood tests done prior to our appointment with the fertility clinic. I was shown to a waiting room full of heavily pregnant women queueing for weigh-ins and widdle tests. "What week are you?" asked the nurse. "I'm not" I said. So I was sent to another waiting room across the hospital where nobody was pregnant and two of the waiting women were crying. "Where are you in your cycle?" the nurse asked. "I don't have one" I said. I can't win, is what I meant.
The following weekend, Andrew and I spent the Saturday taking care of my two-month-old niece and I thought "I could do this!" and I looked at myself sneakily in the mirror as I cradled her, trying her on for size, trying to imagine myself as a beautiful young mother. I am not young to be a mother any more. We spent the day cosseted in the sitting room, making Tilly burp and smile and watching television when she slept. That night, I asked Andrew if he thinks we'll ever have a baby. The "ever" makes me sound like I'm impatient to be a mother. I'm not. I am just so tired of thinking about it all the time that I just want to be told, one way or the other, so that I can get on with everybloodything else. "I don't know, my love" he said.
Andrew turned 30 and I felt better for it. It bothers me that I'm older than he is. I used to tell anyone who asked that he was only 4 months younger than me, but I'd counted backwards instead of forwards and I'm actually 8 months older than him. I am not good with numbers, even the single digits. "Who do you think looks older?" I ask small children whenever I have an opportunity to. They invariably say that he does. They are smart enough to recognise that I am needy and that he has the thicker beard.
His grandfather sent him some silver serving spoons in the post as a birthday present. I am charmed that George bestows practical heirlooms upon us on significant occasions, and that he thinks to post them with a letter. His great heart and good manners are inspiring. Since moving to our new home this summer, we've been able to employ all of the chattels we'd been gifted when we married; cutlery and crockery, crystal and candlesticks, all of it pleasingly old-fashioned. I feel like I have arrived in the world, now that we have a spare bedroom and eat with our own cutlery. We have a happy home.
We took a holiday from it to celebrate Andrew's birthday and since our return, Biscuit, our half-baked cat, has started scratching at the bedroom door at night. Every night. At 5am. Scratching and crying and then running away to hide under the bed in the spare room or halfway down the stairs to the kitchen. I chased him off last Wednesday night and he smashed a sinkful of crystal wedding-gift wineglasses in the kitchen in retaliation. At 5.15am. I hauled on a dressing gown and stood barefoot on the cold kitchen floor, surveying the damage and feeling every minute of stolen sleep seeping out through the soles of my feet.
"Do you want a cat?" I asked Gimme in the pub the following Friday night "because I'm going to put him in the fucking Buy & Sell". "You don't want kids" said Gimme. "No" I said, and I lifted my pint, pinkie extended.
10 comments:
I will resolve not to say anything about children and the wanting of them (or not) for the second time today, less I make people want to punch me in the face, but will confess that this story affirms my decision not to have a cat.
Lovely to have you back Ms Exposition. 10 years on, no kids in our world. I don't know if you'll arrive where I am but it's better than I thought it would be! All the best with the cat. At least small kids can't leave cradles, for a while! XX D
if you ever decide to get a cat, Jo, treat yourself to a new hoover and a wardrobe to coordinate with the cat's coat.
alternatively, get one of those baldy cats and dress it in little cat jumpers.
(oh, if only i'd thought of that at the time)
thanks, Deirdre. i am really encouraged by that. i don't hear enough from or about people who don't have children and are happy.
You need to meet my friends who are in their 40s and childless, by choice. They are amazing, happy people with wonderful, fulfilling lives and I want to be just like them when I grow up. You're exactly like me - no matter how awful the news, I'd always rather just know NOW so that I can start getting on with things. Wishing you only good things, Rosie; whatever they may be x.
I'm in my *deep breath* late forties, don't have children and am more than happy about it.
I had a door-scratching-at-5am cat and bought some transparent strips that you stick along the bottom of the door (they came in a packet and were called something like 'Paws Away'). It worked, the furry bitch stopped.
I had a cat that used to scratch the door at 3 AM or whenever he decided he was hungry/bored/in dire need of attention for about 20 seconds. A water gun didn't work (it bought half an hour of peace,
which was replaced by more furious scratching by a damp, angry cat.) A baby gate did the trick until the furry bastard learned to squeeze through it. Then we reinforced it with chicken wire. That worked.
As a result, I'm in my mid-30s and don't want children, thank you very much.
While my friends are dealing with tantrums, I go on holiday a few times a year and have never had to ask someone "Does that look like puke or snot to you?"
Maybe I will want kids later on. I don't know. That's the funny thing about life. What's going on now is no indicator of how your life will turn out.
Keep trying!!!!
I don't know how they do this in Googleyland but the word verification is emiticat, almost making comment superfluous.
Cats are made up of neediness and independence in equal measure - open the door to a scratching cat and it's inevitably 3 yards away looking into the distance. There's three at the Drummspot and you couldn't be up to them. And that's how they like it, the fighting, thieving, killing dotes.
I can't really speak to the reproductive impasse having been thrice accidentally successful on that front. The thing is, I imagine, to work on it without letting it upstage the rest of your life together. Easier said, of course...
thanks, Niamh. i like that even in my thirties i meet people that i want to be just like when i grow up.
the cat has more or less quit the door-scratching, but i'm glad to hear that ours isn't the only idiot cat who's made a nuisance of himself. i was worried i'd raised him all wrong. he's got a girlfriend now, a little tabby stray kitten who visits that he hoots at and shares his food with, and he's too busy sitting up all night staring out the back door at her to come and bother me.
as for babies, i have discovered the cure for broodiness and fertility anxieties: twenty minutes in the checkout queue in Tesco on Prussia St.
If you get pregnant, you should be aware that that you're letting yourself in for a life of guilt. From what I can tell, my son is a fine, well-adjusted young man. But I'm still riddled with guilt for all the things I did wrong. When I was pregnant, my father told me the first 15 years would be the worst. He was short by about five years.
The thing about cats is that they never see a closed door they don't want to be on the other side of. We just leave the bedroom door open. Occasionally, the resident moggy comes in and sleeps on the end of the bed. Mostly she doesn't.
I've read very little of the infamous internets for the past few months, but now that I've returned, I'm, as always, glad to find you here (and relieved not to have much on which to catch up).
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