Making Babies

Sitting and thinking are two things I do really well. Well, there might be more, but when I sit, which doesn’t happen often during the day, I think.

This evening my mind’s been churning. I’ve been sitting in the semi-darkness (probably part of my problem) in a quiet house nosing through others’ lives on Facebook, and growing weary of that I pull up my blank page.

I am inexplicably sad today, and it is partly to do with what I saw when I got out of the shower this evening.

I got out of the shower, pulled on some pajama pants a friend had gifted me with several years ago but were always just a little too tight (now they are loose), and a shelf tank top, which has never quite covered it all, if you get my drift. Tonight, though, everything covered, I stared into the mirror feeling like a skeletal shell of myself. It’s been nearly a year since my incident and I’m about 20 pounds lighter, and as I stood there with my nose more prominent than ever, my shoulder blades poking out, and my pants actually loose in my rear end and thigh area, I felt frightened and oh so sad.

I could just imagine myself with sunken cheeks and hollow eyes. I already have the dark circles. No amount of sun and shine can hide that. Is that what another year will bring?

People look at me all the time and tell me how healthy I look. But, I’m not. I’m not ‘in shape’ as I once was when I was running and lifting weights. After last weekend’s t-ball practice in the near-100 degree heat, followed by a day of t-ball games, and a Sunday afternoon game at the Ballpark, I barely made it back to the car; I thought I was going to conk out on the sidewalk. I know now that I was probably dehydrated, or close to it. My body cannot hydrate as quickly as everyone else’s, since I can’t suck down cold liquids; they come right out. I'm now one of those thin out-of-shape people and I loathe it. I want to run again, to have endurance, to play tennis and run the bases in a softball game.

I love the sun. I love the beach. I love being by pools. I can handle heat tolerably well. I should say I ‘could’ do those things. I can’t now and it’s yet another adjustment, my summer adjustment. Even taking the children out in the backyard to their kiddie pool for an hour in this June Texas heat is proving hard and I find excuses to pop inside or sit in the shade…which, if you know me at all from the past, I envied the life of a reptile, lazing away the day in the sun and slithering into the water when in need of a little cool-down.

That adjustment, as hard as it is, really isn’t my source of despondency for the day. True, all those thoughts coursed through my head as I stared at my dwindling body.

Today I faced mortality. I saw it in my eyes as it stared back at me, haunted, yet securely entrenched within the certainty of their depths. I saw the possibility of a shortened life, something I have not thought about in months. I saw myself slowly slipping away from life, one pound at a time, slipping away from my children because my body cannot supply its own need.

Tonight when I sang to them as they prepared to sleep, I couldn’t keep the lump out of my throat and I nearly choked trying to sing. The “what ifs” were crushing me because I know in all probability I will die of some complication due to the lack of intestine, but when?

Have I loved my children enough if I don’t make it another year? Will they remember me, or will I just be a smell or a fleeting impression to them? Will they someday call someone else “mommy” and if so, will she give them what they need? If I do live awhile longer, will I be sickly and unable even to go for a walk to the park with them? What if, what if, what if?

Lord Jesus, have mercy on this tortured soul. I know these fears aren’t from you, but tonight, they crowd my thoughts and take up residence in my mind.

My fear turns to anger as I am once again forced to accept this altered state of health. Every morning I wake up wondering if the diarrhea is going to do me in for the day, as it did yesterday. From 6-10 a.m. my insides were tormented, but not nearly as much as my exit-only hole. The burning fire and searing pain is almost too much to bear at times, and yet I have a lifetime to bear it. I do not want to bear it.

Tonight I am selfish and want it to be someone else’s burden, someone else’s thorn.

Tonight, I want to be pregnant again, and suddenly, I cannot even write because I can't even see through the wall of tears pouring from my eyes. God, I want to be pregnant again, to glow with health and the expectant beauty of motherhood. I want to get fat and happy and eat my way through a bucket of fried chicken. I want to chart the days, the growth, the milestones of another child. I want to feel the kicks, the discomfort sidling up my ribcage as he outgrows his sheltering home and fights his way out into this world and into my waiting arms.

It is not to be. Never to be.

Never is such an awful word. It’s so final, so determined, so brutal. I grit my teeth and ball my fists in helpless fury. FURY, which quickly subsides to a throbbing longing, empty and unfulfilled.

I curse inside my head, but it does no good. I scream in my head, but it does no good. I rage in my head, but it does no good.

Is this then what it’s all about today? I think it may be. My body is ripe for producing life, belying the truth of my situation. My mind is warring against the truth. My heart is sinking with the truth.

I was made for making babies. I shall make no more.