To Answer Your Question: Part 3

“Why Can’t You Just Grow Me a Brother?”

First of all, rude.

Second of all, this might be one of your most loaded questions.

You have harassed me for a sibling since you could talk. For a good two years in daycare, you had no idea what the word brother literally meant. You thought a brother was just someone who happened to be a little boy that was your friend. I didn’t correct you because several cultures use familial titles to address anyone, and it’s a practice meant to create unity and promote respect. It has been cute to watch you treat your friends as if they are your actual brothers or sisters, but it has also stung at times.

It doesn’t help that I was on my own with you when one of my closest friends found herself on her own with her young son, too. We did what seemed natural and filled in the gaps in our lives with each other. We took you guys everywhere and created a new dynamic that made the most sense to us while I’m sure it confused others. We were just two moms who took turns pushing each other through our jobs, your daycare parties, and the awkward holidays. So, the four of us did a lot together and you boys began to call each other “brother”. We never stopped you. In fact, we encouraged you to see each other as brothers. How could we not? You are both only children, you’re one year apart, and you were together most days of the week anyway. The funniest part to me is that you guys couldn’t be more opposite in looks. You’re tall and lanky. He’s shorter and actually eats chicken nuggets. You have dark short hair. He has curly golden locks. You’ve gone months without seeing each other, and that’s a significant amount of time in terms of childhood development. But, it never stops you guys from referencing each other as “my brother”. I’m still not going to correct you on this because what if you never have a brother of your own? If this is the closest you get to feeling brotherly love for someone, then I won’t take this away from you. It is a gift you have both earned.

To create and experience any kind of love is something to cherish and protect. You can’t buy those emotions or borrow from them from someone else. You either choose to participate or you don’t. And, you two boys have chosen to participate so easily in something that can later become so difficult as an adult. So, while I do feel badly sometimes that you’re an only child, I don’t pity you. Yes, siblings can provide companionship, but that’s not always the case. I’m very close with my sister, but the relationship we have was never a given. It was actually developed over the course of a shared childhood full of threats to separate us when we drove our parents crazy. My parents were big on making us learn to appreciate each other. They’d sit us down and say, “Okay. You guys simply cannot get along, so one sister will live here and the other sister will move to Samoa. Pick who is leaving.” This is all they’d have to say before Auntie Stacie and I would break down sobbing in each other’s arms, begging our parents not to separate us. Parenting you is an emotional rollercoaster, but I cannot imagine the extra layers that come with 1) raising multiple children and 2) teaching them to really value each other. I’m not a perfect person, but I know I will love my sister more than I love myself for the rest of my life, and that’s because of my evil genius parents. I don’t know how they pulled it off but, damn, if it doesn’t seem like a lot of work.

Now, could your status as an only child change in the future? Absolutely.

Do I want this for you? Of course.

Am I making plans for this to happen this week? Hard no.

I am not the type of woman that will gush about how much I loved being pregnant. I spent most of that time feeling like a stranger to myself. On top of the usual self-discovery I had yet to complete in my twenties, I didn’t recognize myself in the mirror. It’s one thing to not know yourself in an abstract way, but to have that confusion represented in a physical way felt doubly unfair. Instead of trying to figure out who I still was, I felt pressure to conquer my new identifier as “mom”. All other portions of me were put on pause, and I still don’t feel good about how long it took for me to go back and push play.

Aside from the denial of sushi and alcohol, I’m in no rush to deliver a human any time soon. That was an all day ordeal that involved a 5:00 AM induction, me tricking the nursing staff for 7 popsicles, a silent fear that I was going to actually die, a session of crying to my mom while pushing you out, half an hour of very thoughtful stitching, and a grand finale of me surviving it all only to stand up and immediately puke. It scared the hell out of a young nurse who thought I was vomiting blood, so imagine my immaturity when I had to tell her it was just 7 red popsicles.

Also, are you even mindful of the planning that goes into maternity leave? Everyone thinks teachers get paid maternity leave. That’s not true. I was allowed to take maternity leave for a certain number of weeks without losing my job. Instead of paid leave, you get a promise that your job will be held for you as long as you return by a certain date. The weeks that I took off were not compensated. Instead, I had to cash out any sick days I had accrued up to that point. Once I was out of sick days, the rest of the leave was time without pay. So, I went into planning for you by hoarding 25 sick days and cashing them out as five full weeks off work. I think I took a few weeks off after that without pay, but that was something I budgeted for ahead of time. The hope of having you came with an abundance of carefully laid plans made by yours truly.

I breastfed you for the first six months, and the scheduling of it regularly broke my spirit. Throughout the night, I’d wake up every three hours to feed you myself. I could’ve pumped the milk so that your dad could’ve fed you more often, but my body was constantly replenishing the milk supply anyway. If I wasn’t getting up to feed you, I was getting up to pump or else I’d run the risk of getting mastitis. Google that term. In fact, go ahead and search the images, too. Yeah, let that soak in for a minute so you can fully appreciate my goddess-like strength and discipline.

Since I was up anyway, it just seemed logical to feed you directly. Once we’d finally get through the night, I’d wake up at 4:30 AM and pump for 20 minutes at the kitchen table before getting ready for work. One time, I fell back asleep while doing this. I was topless (gross), with this stupid double breast pump attached to me, and my forehead was in my hands and my elbows were on the table. Your dad shook me awake and I woke up to find the milk overflowing and running down the counter, and I just immediately started crying…over spilled milk. I’ve never been so tired in my life.

Also, I’m in the worst profession to just randomly get pregnant out of wedlock. Could you imagine me explaining to my teenage students that I’m pregnant while they already know I’m not married? If this were my actual situation in the 1950’s, I’d be fired.

I say all this to show you that when you ask a woman to have a baby for you, you are asking her to do so much more than you think. You are asking her to lose sight of herself in lieu of another person, to relinquish her sanity to her hormones, to watch herself physically morph into something else, to reschedule her professional life, and to risk her grasp of who she has been in exchange for who a baby needs her to become. Trust me, I want our lives settled and to have our family grow just as badly as you do. I hope it happens sooner than we think, but just no sooner than I’m ready.

I would do all of this again to have you. You are worth every sleepless night, Mathias. I will even admit that, despite the offense I take to this incessant question, I do hope to have one more chance to do it all again someday. I am painfully aware of a clock that ticks for me.

But, tread lightly the next time you ask this of a woman in your life, whether she be your wife, your partner, or a surrogate. You are asking for so much more than you think. That woman will know it and feel it for the rest of her days while you will have the luxury of mostly forgetting an experience you never could have empathized with anyway.

Or, if you cannot be patient enough with my timeline, try asking your dad for one.