Beloved is getting a vasectomy as I write this post out, longhand, in my writing notebook. I don't travel with a laptop, don't like toting it around, so I find myself writing posts in airports and waiting rooms on paper, seeing my handwriting again, a forgotten part of me waving from the past, before typing became my primary form of documentation.
Beloved and I have known we don't want any more children since the little angel was one year old, but we waited to make any permanent decisions until now just in case we changed our minds. Knowing they're in there breaking the mold is a little bittersweet for me, because my husband has such fine qualities the world should weep he won't be siring a hundred offspring.
So it seems our reproductive career is sunsetting at 35. And with that, our focus turns to other things. We've rid Chateau Travolta of baby gear, save a few things reserved for visiting babies (a thinly veiled attempt to get friends to come over). Our daughter will be in kindergarten in the fall, and when I glance at her in the rear view mirror, I see a little girl with long, red hair and sequined shoes, a girl who knows all the words to Annie songs and can be trusted around a hot stove. A girl who is learning to spell and read and cross the street between our house and our neighbor's by herself as I watch in terror from behind the glass door.
There are no babies in our lives now. We're hanging up the procreation tools of the trade and taking life off that pause mode you instinctively feel when you're just not sure if you'll be pregnant next year or not. The music has started again, life returns to normal, albeit a different normal than we had at 28, the year before I got pregnant.
We are young people, and we've made up our minds, and I applaud Beloved for taking one for the team and relieving me of the burden of birth control pills, IUDs and condoms. I thank him for allowing me to experience fear-free sex for the last 10 or 15 years before menopause. I'm relieved I won't have to wait anxiously for my monthly cycle to begin when it's a few days late, hoping I won't have to face the sleepless nights again unexpectedly.
I'm glad to be able to focus on the family we have, to enjoy life and each other and writing and saving for the things important to the three of us -- my daughter's education, travel, a nest egg in case something goes wrong -- without wondering if we'll have to put another child through daycare. It's a relief, and I love and respect my husband for carrying out this decision for us, for taking the baby-prevention responsibilities off my tired shoulders for the first time since I entered puberty, my knight in bandaged armor.
A knight with very sore balls.
