What Really Scares Me About Motherhood

I'm late, and I'm eighty percent sure I'll miscarry if I don't seek medical treatment. I've had three miscarriages already and would be considered high-risk if they were the right kind of miscarriages. My tender, loving health insurance representative informed me that the hypothetical "they" wanted me to have three spontaneous miscarriages before "they" would consider me a high-risk obstetric patient. Unfortunately I have only one spontaneous miscarriage under my belt, along with one chemical pregnancy and a corneal ectopic. So I'm not technically high-risk, just the victim of a series of unfortunate events. The shunned applicant of a club whose prerequisites I fail to meet.

The first time I miscarried it broke me. Us. We had names and hand-me-downs and well-wishers, a special diet, before pictures, and a calendar of pregnancy events through week ten. The second, the chemical pregnancy, was like being startled awake from an otherworldly dream, but forgetting it by lunchtime. The third was a sick joke. From Doogie Howser's diagnosis of "fetal demise" to the weekly blood draws for beta levels and several shots of methotrexate to flush the dead baby out of my fallopian tube, it was God just not knowing when to say when. After five months the phlebotomists cringed taking my blood because my inner elbows looked like they were covered in blackheads.

It's three years later and my awesome husband and I have not only accepted our baby situation, but learned to love, flaunt, and relish in our babyless marriage. We drink on Tuesday nights if we see fit, and night starts the minute he gets home from work, so around six. On the weekend we sleep in until one. We prance around in our skivvies and spent one entire Sunday in our Garden of Eden wear. We go on road trips and change our plans frequently and without notice.

During the week I go to the beach while he works. Sometimes I get maternal watching young mothers reading while their little boys dig holes in the sand. I get over it quickly when I realize they're not digging holes with their boys or even acknowledging the remarkable depth of the hole, the variety of shells excavated and painstakingly lined up on display from the hole, or the pride of the digger of the hole. Some weekends my husband comes to the beach with me and we start off shopping for which kids we'd like. Eventually we feel nothing but pity watching mothers and fathers and children show up hauling buckets of toys, backpacks full of diapers, three kinds of sun block, and extra clothes, strollers, lawn chairs, coolers full of bottles and Lunchables, and shelters with poles that set up like tents. Once they finally get settled, a child starts shrieking like an eel or throws sand at passers-by one too many times and everything is packed up and they load into their clown car and go home before I've even finished a page of my book.

No, we're fine without kids.

If necessary, I'll rescue children from the horrible people I meet, like two of the worst parents I've ever come in contact with. While lounging around a bonfire, they recounted a story about their six-year-old asking how he could beat Freddy Krueger in his dreams. He would have to conjure up some power, they told him. "But what if I don't wake up?" "Then you die" was their loving response. They went on to describe the awesome look of horror on their son's face. The story brought all his fear back and he looked terrified and embarrassed while they laughed at him. Throughout the night, they kept trying to send him to fetch things out of dark closets in the empty house or from the shed out back. If he wanted his sparklers, he would have to go get them alone and hope he came back alive. When they found out we didn't have kids, mommy (a cutter whose nervous breakdown required her husband to be the only Marine absent from his platoon in Iraq) barked "Good. Don't bother."

Because I'm married and live in a military town, everyone assumes we have children, and the question of if and how many is second only to requesting my name. With most of these meddlesome mothers I can just answer in the negative and the subject is dropped. But a ballsy few insist on poking and questioning and belittling me about it. We went to a Fourth of July barbeque with some guys from my husband's shop and their wives and kids. When the subject predictably came up that there were no toddlers humping my leg and no puking infants gumming my boobs, I gave my usual perky "Nope. Not yet" and hoped it would end there. But from out of the din I heard one obtrusive skank ask, "Why not? How old are you?" Usually the only second comment I get is a reassuring, "Don't worry. You will. It's not your time yet." But this chick was taking nosy and offensive to a whole new level. "I just turned thirty" evoked a mass of tilted, bewildered heads. Children cried and clung to their mothers' pant legs. Bottles fell to the floor. And that bitch kept going. "Oh, did you guys just get married?" This was the only logical justification-the nodding heads agreed. I informed my audience that I had been married for five years and they were stumped and silent for a moment. They awkwardly turned back to their mommy talk and I went outside to drink and smoke and swear with the guys.

I am always restrained in these situations. I do not use my misfortune as a weapon to make others feel like shit for being so nosy. When asked about my uterine activity, I could always respond with a dejected, "Well I've had three miscarriages and now we're having a hard time getting pregnant at all" but that would make them feel bad. And the last thing I want is to be the source of someone else's discomfort. So I only pull that out for medical professionals. I am good-humored during these inquisitions, knowing that these trashy twenty-somethings with their mistake babies consider me selfish and unfortunate and missing out. But here's the kicker: their kids love me. After they are pushed aside and told to pack their bags because nobody wants their whiny asses and they're going to be sold, I hit them with pillows and carry them on my shoulders and make them laugh. I push them on swings and answer their questions while the other wives gossip, probably about me. And when their mothers aren't around, I whisper that I would never sell them and that they rock. They may not remember me the next time we meet, but I'll keep being the nice guy so they know that not all moms are bitter and annoyed.

I've adjusted to life without my own kids. I know that thirty is not death and my womb isn't drying up. But I'm just not in the mood right now. And so far nobody's making me want to rush out and join the club. If otherwise pleasant young women turn into crotchety, catty, interlopers once the kids start coming, I'm not so sure I want to participate. But at this point it's not really up to me. I'm late, and I might be pregnant. All I can do is use these girls as examples of how I really, really don't want to behave as a mother. I don't want to treat my child as an accessory or a burden or an organ grinder monkey. I don't want thoughts of babies and conversations of babies and pictures of babies to occupy so much of my brain that my forty-thousand dollars' worth of knowledge gets pushed out my ear. And I really don't want to act like having a child makes me superior and entitled. If you ever see me asking a woman why she doesn't have any kids yet, please-I beg you-smack the shit out of me.