I Wish I Was a Mother…and I’m so Glad I’m Not

I always wanted children. But sometimes, I find peace in my freedom.

I woke just after 2AM today to the sound of my phone ringing. My alarm was set for 4:45, giving me enough time to shower, pack up my car and head out to my brother’s house before he and his wife set off for the hospital where my sister-in-law was scheduled to be induced at 7AM.

But surprise, her water broke in the middle of the night and they needed me to come sooner than planned to watch over their 3-year-old, Felix.

“Do I have time to take a shower?” I murmured, still half asleep.

“Ummm,” my brother, Levi said, “you should just come straight here. You can use our shower.”

I don’t know why I asked that. I have 11 (now 12) nieces and nephews and I know when someone calls me in the middle of the night to tell me water has broken, you don’t pause for a shower.

I know that because I’ve been the “on-call” babysitter for six births over the course of the past ten years. Why me? Because out of my five siblings, only two of us don’t have kids — me and my baby brother, Jack. And despite Jack’s incredible gift with children, I’m the go-to when it comes to this sort of thing.

I used to love it. I always thought I’d be a mom. I think I would’ve been a great mom, in fact.

I was so excited when my younger sister started her family. Her first baby was born on my 30th birthday. It was such a gift. I loved being there for all of them — it felt like practice for my future babies.

I didn’t anticipate that a few years later, I’d fall crazy in love with a younger man who was terrified of commitment. Or that I’d give him almost a decade of my prime childbearing years only to lose him.

The things we do for love…

I crawled into the bed in the guest room after my brother and his wife left for the hospital. It was 3AM by then. I figured I’d try to get a few hours of sleep in before Felix woke, despite my sister-in-law’s insistence that he would be up and ready to go by 4. I assured her everything would be fine, thinking there was no way in hell that kid would be up that early.

After tossing and turning for less than an hour, listening to the cats scamper around the house and trying to block out the white noise of the bathroom fans that my brother left on to muffle the sounds of their exit from Felix’s ears, I heard my nephew calling for his mother. I went into the master bedroom, thinking I could soothe him back to sleep, but when I entered, he was already standing and I know enough to understand that a kid standing up in bed isn’t going to go back down.

I explained what was happening (he already knew his mama was going to have a baby that day) and told him what she had suggested I do — to ask him to play in the playroom while I slept for a little while longer.

He said okay (this is his usual routine) and headed into the playroom while I went back to bed.

About forty-five seconds later, I felt warmth on my cheek and opened my eyes to find Felix’s face hovering over mine. “Auntie,” he whispered. “When are you going to wake up?”

“Morning,” I mumbled. “I’ll get up when it’s morning.” I figured waiting for sunlight was a legitimate request and one that would give me a couple more hours.

Every three or four minutes, though, Felix reappeared, sometimes barreling down the hallway like an elephant, and sometimes as soundlessly as a cougar, making me gasp when I opened one eye to find him just inches from my face.

“I wanted to check on you,” he whispered at one point.

Another time, he said, “Can I have some of the kale chips you brought?” and then, after I said yes, “But I can’t get the container open. Can you get it open for me?”

Then, “Can I play with your hair? I like to play with Mama’s hair.”

Later, “There’s nothing to do out there, Auntie. Can’t you wake up and do something?”

And then my favorite, “Hey, Auntie, I am ready to have my diaper changed. I just pooped. A lot.”

Each time I heard him coming down the hall, I started thinking, Please, please, let him get distracted by something before he gets to me.

As you can imagine, my hopes went unanswered. I’m fairly certain he visited me at least 57 times in the course of an hour and once the barely noticeable light of dawn began lightening the windows, he jumped on the bed and screamed, “It’s morning! You have to get up now! You said you would! I need my tofu scramble!”

And that’s how the day began.

If you asked me what my biggest heartache is, I’d say it’s that I never had the daughter I thought I would have. I almost did. And then I lost her. Thankfully. Mercifully. That would not have been a good situation.

But I always thought I would have another chance. Life seemed so long back then.

And now, it feels like it slipped through my fingers so quickly.

I didn’t expect to be single at 38 or to face the realization that I would likely not have a child of my own at that point. I’m not very quick at moving into new relationships and I was pretty sure I’d be well into my 40’s before I found a new partner.

That was probably the scariest part of my breakup — not where would I go when I couldn’t afford to pay for our house on my own, not what would I do without my guy, or how would I go on without our dog who died just after the breakup… The scariest part was facing the fact that I was probably never going to have a baby from my own body…and maybe not become a mother, at all.

Everybody said if I wanted it, I had to charge forward. Go get a man, they suggested. Some encouraged me to pursue adoption. Others said to try sperm donors or surrogacy.

Despite the various suggestions, the one thing they all had in common was: Hurry the hell up! You’re out of time!

While urgency is certainly an issue, and though I appreciated their good intentions, I couldn’t help but wonder if they really understood what they were suggesting. Did these women with husbands and children get, at all, the enormity of these decisions?

Did they understand how challenging it can be to find a mate after 40? Or that perhaps one might not want to pursue a relationship just for the purpose of having a child? Did they realize how unfathomably expensive it is to adopt, to inseminate, to pay for a surrogate?

Did they realize how terrifying it is to look later-in-life-motherhood in the eyes? Or, even more terrifying, the prospect of single motherhood? (All you single moms out there are my heroes.)

These were not decisions I could make in haste. Despite the necessity of haste, these are decisions that require thought, deliberation, and deep clarity. Alone, and struggling to make ends meet on my nonprofit salary, I was in no hurry to jump into a monumental decision like motherhood.

And you know what? The truth was, I was tired. I’d been mentoring teenagers, teaching, and taking care of nieces and nephews since I was out of high school. And before that, I was more a mother to Jack, 11 years my junior, than I was a sister. I had been taking care of kids my whole life and I was just worn out.

My morning with Felix didn’t much improve. I made us breakfast, somehow managing to make an unprecedented mess in the kitchen — with his help, of course. (I had hoped if I left all the tofu and hash browns he had dropped on the floor, the cats might eat it so I wouldn’t have to clean it up, but alas — that only seems to work with dogs.)

When I got out of the shower, I found he had opened the bathroom door and as soon as he heard me push the shower curtain aside, he threw himself into the room, Cosmo Kramer style, and said, as I stood there trying to surreptitiously cover my nakedness with my arms, “Auntie, where have you been? I’ve been bored this whole time!”

After I was able to occupy him enough to get dressed, I decided to take him to my sister’s house, where she has her own 3-year-old, and a giant house full of toys. Once there, I immediately swapped Felix for her 6-month-old baby, took him to her bedroom, put him down for his morning nap, and I fell asleep beside him.

I spent the rest of the day there, letting Felix play with his cousins, while I played with the easy-going baby.

When we got the news that Felix’s little sister had arrived, instead of expressing his excitement, he looked at me curiously and said, “Auntie, why don’t you have any babies? What do you even use these for?” He patted my breasts.

This is not the first time I’ve been asked questions like that — by kids and by adults (though the latter kindly leave my breasts out of it). Sometimes, the questions amuse me. Sometimes, I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut. I never know how I’ll react until it happens.

Today, I laughed. I told him everyone has a different amount of kids — sometimes zero, sometimes 2, sometimes 8, sometimes 12… Everyone is different.

The question didn’t hurt today. Sometimes, I can so clearly see the perks of being childless.

When I took him home to make dinner, it was jarringly quiet to be in the house by ourselves after spending the day at my sister’s wonderfully noisy, busy home. Felix was exhausted, and when he’s tired, he can be pretty sassy.

I was frazzled, myself, and barely functioning as I cooked his macaroni and cheese and cut up an avocado for him. After he took a bite, he let his fork clatter to the table, gave an exasperated sigh, and looked at me with a frustrated expression.

“More lime. More salt,” he said.

One of the cats was whining because I hadn’t refilled their bowls yet. The pan of cooking noodles was bubbling over. My brother was sending multiple texts to make sure we were okay since I hadn’t checked in with him in the past three hours.

“What?” I asked, breathlessly.

He pointed at his avocado, as if I was a dumb waitress who had mixed up his order. “Salt. Lime. I need salt and lime on this.”

“Oh shit, I forgot,” I mumbled, then corrected myself, as I turned off the burner. “I mean darn! Oh darn!”

He glared at me suspiciously as I squeezed a lime over his avocado and then salted it. Then he said, “I don’t think I’m hungry anymore,” and left to play in the playroom.

These are the days I’m okay with not being a mom. I mean, I love kids. And I love my nieces and nephews more than anyone on the planet. But…damn.

I can’t imagine having a baby at this point in my life. That doesn’t mean I’m okay with it. That doesn’t give me peace over not having a child. That doesn’t make me miss the child I lost any less.

But…sometimes, there’s a strength in just knowing that maybe my life is good without a kid. Maybe it’s okay at this stage in my life to not want a toddler watching me as I try to sleep in the morning or sassing me about his poorly assembled snack in the evenings. It’s cute as hell every now and then, but I’m guessing I wouldn’t enjoy that day after day.

Ten years ago, sure. But now? Not so much.

I don’t know how it’s possible to have such regret, sadness, and relief in me all at the same time. But I do. I’m heartbroken that I don’t have kids. I’m devastated that I never got to meet the little girl that I almost had.

But…I’m also happy. I also relish my freedom.

I told Felix a bedtime story just about an hour ago, one in which a family of deer wander through the forest looking for delicious things to eat. He interrupted me at one point and said he just wanted his mama — he wouldn’t be able to sleep without her.

It was so sweet. I can’t imagine another human being needing me that much. I had a little stab of that familiar desire for motherhood.

“I need some water,” he said, so I kissed his forehead and went into the kitchen to retrieve his sippy cup.

I was dragging my feet. I’d been awake (or semi-awake) for 18 hours, had changed four poopy diapers belonging to three different children, and was more than ready to hit the hay myself, though I still had hours of work to complete.

When I returned to the bedroom with his water, he was fast asleep. Even still wondering what it would be like to have a child who needed me more than anything, I was so relieved, I leaned against the wall for a moment.

He was asleep.

I loved him so much, but…thank God.

© Yael Wolfe 2019