I’m Never Doing This Again.

The other night I made a decision. 

It was after the sky had turned black and the piling snow had extinguished any remaining thoughts of leaving the house. After Jade had been bathed, lotioned, and zipped into a sleeper for the night, forehead shining and dark curls tucked behind her ears. After her father had gotten home from work, kicked the snow from his shoes, and joined us at the table. 

I was spoon-feeding her and she was making her new favorite “ooooo” sound and David and me were both just staring at her in awe. This impossibly beautiful, impossibly happy creature that the two of us — a notoriously flawed pair of humans — had somehow created.

“I don’t think I can ever do this again,” I said.  

David assured me that he would be more than okay with Jade being our only child. I knew he would. 

But it still felt bittersweet to acknowledge it out loud. Bitter because…I actually can’t think of anything. So maybe just sweet. Here’s why: 

I only have so much love to give. And I’m aware of it. I am putting everything I have into mothering Jade. I am giving her the very best of me — all the good I didn’t realize I had. That is not the kind of thing I am going to be able to repeat. 

I was what the kids are calling a “glass child,” meaning I felt invisible in the shadow of my older sister’s debilitating seizure disorder (in other words, please feel bad for me!!!). It is important to me that my daughter never, ever feels that way. Or anyone I love, for that matter. 

Pregnancy and postpartum suck. Loss of bodily autonomy? Terrifying. Having to overthink every workout, sleeping position, and food choice? Awful. 

And don’t even get me started on postpartum. There is simply nothing like it. It’s intense as fuck. There are these moments that nobody talks about where you have to accept your new life and make the conscious choice to continue living in it. It’s not suicidality, per se, but it’s something similar. You truly have to fight every day to be an active participant in your new, Black Mirror-esque reality instead of a passive husk of who you once were. Or maybe that’s just me.

Completing a family is empowering. It’s not giving up. It’s saying I am perfectly happy with just you guys, and I am going to spend the rest of my life trying and probably failing to make you feel as cared for and loved as you are worthy of. 

At 25, it feels like an accomplishment to have already completed my family (before even getting married! How scandalous.). I still have my whole life ahead of me to do all the other things I feel like doing. 

But for now, I can bask in the peace that comes along with deciding when is enough.