I think I’m responding to the idea of having to really succeed career-wise if you don’t have children, because you have no excuses or something. And I used to feel a lot of pressure, not from anyone in particular, but I felt like, and I said this to my husband all the time, I was like “we don’t have to have kids. But we really have to take advantage of this or that, or freedom, or our time or whatever it is. And we really have to like, we gotta do it because I sacrificed this thing to have this thing. And it hasn’t been until pretty recently that I’ve been really over it.
I’m like, I’m just here. Like no one cares, and I’m living a pretty great life and there doesn’t need to be more. I don’t have to make up for anything. It was something that I think I imposed on myself for a long time, that I have to do everything I wanna do in my life because I have the freedom to. And that was my gift.
But now it’s just, I don’t know what happened. I feel like it’s this year and the politics and what’s happening in the world, and I’m just kind of like, it doesn’t even matter. Like we are here and in our communities and taking care of our people. And I think that’s enough.
So it’s a very recent thing. So that’s refreshing, I guess.
I am 43 years old and I’ve been with my male partner-husband since I was 23. It’s a long time, and we have always been very, not even on the fence. Like we just weren’t gonna have kids, and I think. We haven’t talked about it so much, but over the years it was very clear that if I really wanted to do it, we would do it. Or if he really wanted to do it, we would do it. But for sitting so firmly on the fence about it – it made it seem like we shouldn’t be doing it because it’s such a huge commitment.
And that’s always been totally great. There’s children in my life. And I have this genetic thing that’s happening with me where I’m more susceptible to uterine cancer, and the recommendation is that you get your uterus removed.
I’m going to this wonderful gynecologist, and she was telling me about the recommended procedures and I got very emotional and I was not expecting to. And I was like “wait a minute, so you, you have to take the uterus out?” She’s like, “yeah, that’s the recommendation. You don’t have to, but that’s the recommended procedure.” And I got really unexpectedly emotional because I think knowing now that it’s like not physically possible was something to reckon with.
I was speaking to her and I was apologizing for being emotional. She was like, this is a big deal. Like, when we do these procedures, we can do what- she was so generous- we can do whatever you want. We can have a little ceremony, we can take time. Whatever makes you feel comfortable in the procedure. We are open to doing those things because it’s a big deal.
And so that was really a nice thing to experience with that gynecologist. And that was maybe a year ago, and it’s been interesting to talk to friends about this procedure that is elective and it’s made me also feel a little bittersweet.
I wrote in the prompt that it’s been one of those things where I’m always like, “I’m too old to do this.” And I’ve been saying that for 10 years and now I’m like, “oh actually, that’s actually true maybe, coming up soon, that I can’t actually do this thing.” And talking again with my husband now about it, I’m like “this is our last chance.” Like this is really, we’re really, this is it.
And just, we love our life. We love our community. And things change when you have kids – the financial burden of it– and just like all the things, of being this age and kind of tired, and all the things. I mean, we’re not gonna have children, but it has brought some stuff up, which has been, again, just a little sad.