Amongst the many things I didn’t expect about having a child, there are two things I want to talk about today as I’ve decided everyone out there should know.
- Our water and electricity bills have drastically increased. I had no idea that 3 human beings and 1 dog could consume so much water and power. When I think rationally about the water, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised – we now do more loads of laundry, seem to wash more dishes, give frequent baby baths and wash bottles like it’s going out of style. But the electricity bill increasing, I just don’t get it. It’s not like we are using more power to run most items in our house, like our fridge, stove or computers. Those are consistent regardless of the number of people in the house. And if we factor in the fact that I rarely blow dry and/or flat iron my hair most days, I figure we should actually see a drop in consumption! But, I guess, not enough to off set the baby monitor or our dishwasher, or washer and dryer which all claim to be energy efficient.
- The amount of garbage we produce has skyrocketed. Like seriously, we now fill our recycling bin and our garbage bin every single week. And some weeks the lids don’t even close! The only time we’ve ever done this in the past is when we’ve done home reno projects. Usually we barely filled our bins, and now it’s insane. I am absolutely amazed at the amount of packaging baby products all seem to use, and the fact that we shop on amazon clearly doesn’t help as we receive so many things in amazon boxes. But, at least those are recyclable. I’m most astounded at the amount of waste that we now create – diapers are insane, I get why people choose not to use disposables. Given that we’ve both been working nearly full time since Baby MPB was born, we decided to go with the convenience of disposables. But seriously, I cringe whenever I think about the damage we are doing to the earth on a daily basis. I’ll also admit that the amount of garbage byproducts for formula feeding also surprise me – everything is purchased in boxes and we use about 2 tins of concentrated formula per day – it adds up very quickly! But, regardless of this, what gets me is that it’s not like our garbage has just increased by the equivalent of one more person – our garbage/recycling has easily increased 3-4 times. It’s ridiculous! Thank god for recycling to help ease my conscious, but seriously, I am struggling with all the garbage. It’s beyond ridiculous.
If you like this post, please feel free to share and please click the follow button on the side or return to myperfectbreakdown.com to follow my journey.
I never want to be pregnant again.
I didn’t think I’d ever actually get to this point, rather I thought my heart would always long to experience a successful pregnancy. To experience first kicks, giving birth, etc. But, I’ve now realized that I never want to be pregnant again.
I never want to see two pink lines again.
I never want to go through beta blood testing hell again.
I never want to go through a miscarriage again. Or worse, I never want to go through a termination for medical reasons.
I never want to walk into an abortion clinic again.
I never want to carry a child that I know my body will slowly kill again.
I never want to walk into my old fertility clinic knowing that they will treat me poorly and place their desire for money of my well-being.
I never want to know that feeling of immense loss again.
And for me, pregnancy means each one of these things are very real risks. In fact, given our history and my medical issues, one of, if not all of the above would happen again.
Truthfully, now that Baby MPB is here, I simply cannot fathom going through any of this again. How can I literally risk my life at a long shot of having a second child? How can I gamble his future on the hope of another child?
I will acknowledge that I do not know if this feeling is permanent or if it’s one of those emotions that will ebb and flow and come and go. I really don’t know.
But I do know, the thought of knowingly doing something that will jeopardize Baby MPB’s future, simply isn’t an option in my heart or mind anymore. I have too much too lose, and so does he and so does my husband.
And at the same time, I also feel as though I’ve spend the last 1.5 years fighting hard to get my healthy life back. Counseling, excising, work, eating healthy, having fun for the sake of having fun, etc. I’ve been fighting to rediscover the me that I lost. Yet, truthfully, I don’t want to be just the old me, but rather a new me who has learned from all of it. So, I am also fighting to discover the new me that I have become through all of this.
And so, I’m investing in my families future and working to live in the moment. I’m by no means perfect, I know I still have so much work to do. But, I can already see my hard work paying off and I won’t want to give that all up, and I’m truly afraid another pregnancy would take away all the progress I’ve made.
I do not want to go back to living in a state of perpetual loss and heartache. In fact, I literally don’t think I can.
I realize I need to focus on life and living.
And so, right now, I’m done. My body is officially out of any future family planning*. And I’ll admit, just saying that last sentence is almost liberating, as though in some way I’m reclaiming my body.
And today I feel like I am saying that for the first time with real confidence and true conviction.
* Note that this doesn’t mean I’m completely shutting the door on a second child, it just means I’m confident that my body will not play a part in having a second child in the off chance we decide to have another.
If you like this post, please feel free to share and please click the follow button on the side or return to myperfectbreakdown.com to follow my journey.
My Perfect Breakdown 