May 18, 2006

Family Planning

I’ve noticed recently that a couple of my favorite bloggers have been wondering to the Internet whether it’s time to have a second child. They each have a toddler and are thinking about the usual things: spacing of children, financial considerations, what if you get two babies instead of one.

Comments are pouring in with all sorts of advice.

Family planning has never been my strong suit. In 1995 I went to the doctor complaining that something was wrong. Despite the fact that I couldn’t zip my pants and had fastened them with a large safety pin, my boobs were tender as hell, and I was so exhausted that every day when my boss left for lunch I snuck into his office and took a little nap on his plush couch, I requested a mono test.

Fortunately, my doctor was smarter than I was, and sent me home with a printout of a sonogram that showed a nine week old baby hanging out in my uterus. That night I taped the picture to a beer and handed it to Bill, who freaked out, too.

When Finn was 18 months old, I was diagnosed with hepatitis C, which I had gotten from a blood transfusion during my first spine surgery for scoliosis. The doctors were unanimous: the disease would require a year-long course of interferon to treat. They couldn’t be sure whether my fertility would be affected as a result. Because hepC is a slow acting disease, the doctors advised us to go ahead and finish our family pronto if we wanted any more children before I began my treatment.

So we left the medical center and headed straight for the mattress. The details are fuzzy, but at first my doctor thought I was having trouble getting pregnant. I went to his office one day for a consult to see whether I needed to be referred to a fertility program, and he performed another sonogram which revealed the presence of two babies we reffered to affectionately as “Baby A” and “Baby B”.

The twins came early. In yet another illustration of the fact that I am not a natural mother, I did not realize I was in labor. Bill and I went out for Thai food, then he fell asleep while we watched “The Usual Suspects” in the den. Sometime later I started feeling like something needed to come out of me, but the movie was getting pretty exciting at that point — Keyser Soze! Soon it was evident that I needed medical attention.

I woke up Bill, we got to the hospital, and thirty minutes later, after an emergency C-section, Porter and Drew were born.

I don’t remember much of the next year and a half. Thank God I took lots of pictures.

But for those of you who may have the same concerns as MetroDad and Dooce, I just wanted to remind you of a few things you may not have considered when thinking about adding to your family.

Buying shoes for one child is challenging; when you must do the same for additional kids you should bring a good supply of gin and tonic with you.

You have to deal with it each time one of your kids gets disciplined at school. Even if it seems funny, you must try not to laugh and act like it really was a punishable offense.

Go ahead and set aside a patch of lawn for the pet graveyard. If you live in an apartment you need to ask someone in advance what to do about guinea pig corpses and so forth. They don’t flush.

Being The Tooth Fairy is an awesome responsibility, and it’s hard to remember, especially when kids start dropping teeth like leaves in the fall. Name a designated Fairy who will not drink on the appointed night so you don’t have to go through crazy shenanigans to keep up the charade.

And my least favorite part of childhood? Dealing with the weekly hell that is the assignment called Letter Share.

So to sum up, I don’t know when I’m pregnant OR in labor. I can’t help Dooce and MetroDad or any of the rest of you plan your families. But I do think you should consider all of the above when making these life-changing decisions.

And don’t forget the laundry.