Maybe my medication works TOO well

Today was Girlday Giggle Baby Fever Roadtrip with my sister-in-law Lila, her mother and Lila's sister-in-law Sunshine. I know. Usually, I just introduce all of them except my sister-in-law as cousins, and that seems to satisfy the notion that we're loosely related without having to go into the kind of eye-stabbingly dull chart presentation one usually associates with the first page of a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel.

Sunshine is pregnant, due in September. This is her third pregnancy, fourth child and first daughter. She's so excited that her every pore is glistening with pink, sparkly honeysuckle nectar that perfumes the room and makes every woman in a 100-foot radius ovulate from the mere proximity.

Because we live in the sticks we have to drive more than an hour to get to that hallowed ground of expectant parent shoppydom that is Babies R Us. And drive we did.

I had never been in an actual bricks-and-mortar version of the store before, and I have to tell you that it is the most gratuitious, consumerist bacchanal of babyshopping I've ever seen.

Also, I wish I had had one of these when Buttercup was little. And one of these. And these. And I could still use this.

I have such a love/hate relationship with babyshopping.

First, I believe strongly that the capitalist powers that be have sold mothers of my generation a vision of motherhood that is hollow and expensive. It's not about parenting. It's not about the nurturing and development of a small, helpless human being. It's not about the efficient and intelligent use of resources to bring your children to adulthood in more or less one piece.

It's about accessorizing.

I hope I have a girl, because they're so much more fun to shop for.

I have known more than one woman who dreamed of motherhood for the shopping opportunities it would provide. The shopping and the built-in, guilt-free career change. And no one should be shocked to know that these are the same women who could be heard bemoaning most loudly the unforeseen agony of breastfeeding, the utterly unexpected anguish of sleep deprivation and the absolute and complete transformation of every moment of every day for the rest of your life that just sorta sneaks up on a new mom.

When they decided to have babies, they weren't thinking about that. (And, as the mother of a 3 year old and a 17 year old, I can tell you all that stuff is the EASY part.)

They were thinking about this. And this. And this. Oh,oh,oh and THIS. No, wait, two of those.

That pretty much covers the Hate part.

And the Love part is easy to guess.

I wouldn't mind having one of those fancy, lightweight urban strollers. Especially if it's possible to navigate one with a single hand. (Anyone?) And if someone gave me a Fleurville, I'd use it. And I'd probably feel pretty good about it, while simultaneously feeling kind of bad about myself.

And my next high chair will have the kind of sleek, user-friendly engineering that you can only get by paying a ransom to the Italians. (Or to whomever can make the best knock-off."

And there's the real thing. For a year and a half, I had expected that we would be needing a high chair of our own this summer. Summer is here, but there is no baby. There is no baby even on the horizon.

I had thought that today's girly shopping day would be a little hard for me in some ways. I thought that, in the midst of dodging Sunshine's laser-scanner and encouraging her to register for a range of ridiculous products she may never need, that I might pause by the high chairs or receiving blankets and willfully blink my misty eyes into stonefaced submission.

But I didn't feel that. I've been expecting so long now, that I'm barely expecting anything at all any more.

I did not look at the little lavender dresses or the pink painted changing table. And if I looked at that high chair or a $300 crib linens set, I certainly wasn't serious.

I'm not sad. I'm terminally disappointed and angry and exhausted. And if I hear myself say one more time something brilliant like "It will happen when it happens..." I'm going to punch mysef in the fucking head.

Being sad is much, much easier than this.

Comments

[moreena]

Dear BB,
It's so hard to come up with a response to this. I don't want to say anything trite and stupid, and I just don't have any advice or comfort. But I read, and I'm thinking of you.

[Mel]

I came via Mom's Daily Dose and am glad I did.

Best wishes to you. (I related on so many levels--I'm an adoptive mom, the mom of a girl after three boys, the kind of mom who realized that all I really needed was a set of functioning breasts and 20 receiving blankets for wiping up stuff, and I'm a mom who loves to shop with a daughter who hates Princess stuff because of the "Mad lady" found in every Disney movie.)

Well. That comment kind of got out of control. Sorry about that.