I WANT A BABY. Baby! BABYBABYBABYBABY. BABY! BABAYYYY!! I just, really, really really really want a baby.
I DO NOT WANT A BABY. My life cannot handle a baby in any way except that we can afford a baby and we want a baby.
A surprising number of people have had babies in the last month, and I WANT THEIR BABIES. I do not. I want my own baby! Not like one I produced (although that would be easiest!) but I WANT A BABY.
In a SURPRISE turn of events, things are HARD right now. But, X2 is getting so big, and it’s hard to be done with babies. I honestly, really, truly, 100% want a baby, and I honestly, truly, 100% know that we cannot have a baby. I actually pretty much loved the baby stage and weathered it better than most that I know; but my partner did NOT, and we didn’t have two OTHER kids needing attention while we were exhausted and overtaxed with baby.
The fostering and adoption process was so stressful, that we swore not to do it again, ever. We said we would just pay for private adoption for another baby when we were ready.
Astute readers may then wonder why we keep going through the bullshit hoops of keeping our foster license…well, we are currently in BABY SCARE # 3. We have had X2 for a little over three years, and X3 2.5 years, and in that time their bio mom has had…NO LIE… THREE FAKE PREGNANCIES!
Educational Break:
Per Minnesota law the burden of proof on the state to terminate parental rights is VERY HIGH. Biological parents are given try after try after try – for very good (if painful and complicated) reasons. Taking away a person’s child is one of the very worst things a society can do to a person – and losing contact with biological families is truly traumatic even when those families are painful and awful. (As a survivor of a difficult family, I have a weird alternative view about maybe more babies should be removed to new locations and that people should prove fitness to reproduce FIRST and have babies second).
BUT, once you have a child removed through a “termination of parental rights” (TPR) then the burden of proof for all FUTURE children is reversed – the state and courts presume you CANNOT parent, and you have to prove why you ARE fit to parent.
So, any child born to a person who has had children taken forever, is immediately placed in foster care. The parent is then required to show how and why they are NOW fit to parent versus the past when they were not. Even with that burden, they are often given years of chances (I’ve known people at four years of waiting to determine which way it will go. CAN YOU IMAGINE? I do. Regularly. ) We also know FOR SURE (because she posts fucking VIDEOS of her DOING IT TO FACEBOOK) that bio uses illicit substances while “pregnant”, which is another basis for placement. And, to be sure that our kid’s bio siblings are not placed with someone ELSE and disrupted by multiple moves, we keep our license so we will be the first call if such a baby suddenly exists.
Educational break over!
The first time we went through a fake pregnancy, it was the end of 2018 (remember that year? it feels SO LONG AGO) and we GEARED UP into 2019. Bio was posting pregnancy pics and updates, and being upset baby daddy was cheating on her WHILE SHE IS PREGNANT WITH HIS CHILD and so and so forth. We were figuring out how to manage another kid, and what that meant for our lives and organizing the tiny baby stuff so we would be READY.
And then…it didn’t seem like that belly was popping the way you would expect. And after like 8 months of pregnancy (including an update a week earlier that she was pregnant) a weird statement of “oh I was pregnant but I had a miscarriage FIVE MONTHS AGO and did not notice”. Clearly, excellent prenatal care for this “pregnancy”. But also, there had been a like 10 minutes post of “I am getting an abortion” months earlier that was immediately deleted, so we assumed that was the story. And truly, that was the best choice for everyone, but it’s hard to go from “getting ready for possible additional baby” to “oh, no baby!” so quickly, especially when we are dealing with our own baby wants.
Meanwhile, we continue raising these amazing girls, and wishing we had another chance at the baby stage now that we are experienced old hands at this, while not knowing how we could ever handle another, and wondering if we should foster babies, or even try to get pregnant A-FUCKING-GAIN with all the expected miscarriages and misery that would entail… And my partner and I sit down and have a real and serious talk, and decide, together, we are letting our foster license go, and we are not adopting privately and we are DONE and it will always be a little sore spot but it is the right life choice. I get rid of all the tiny baby stuff, and start feeling confident in the decision, with little pangs here and there.
And then…spring 2020, bio announces she is pregnant again! OH GOODNESS! This has to be some bullshit, right? But she is getting mother’s day presents, and planning her gender reveal party and her shower, and showing her jeans not buttoning. We start to believe. Like, really, really, believe.
SO FUUUCKKKK, we go out and jump through a billion hoops, and take a ton of our hours of training at the very last minute to keep our foster license. We are texting photos and updates and a LOT of people are now discussing this woman’s stomach area because IS IT REAL? Hilariously, facebook commentators are asking her the same thing!
She posts “TWINS!”
I have a nervous breakdown.
I think about the ways I am failing every person in my life, myself, my partner, the kids I have, the job I love, and how I am going to add a baby or TWO babies to this during a pandemic… My partner comes in to our room to find me sobbing on the bed. I want a BABY SO MUCH, and I do not want a baby like THIS at all.
We think EVERY DAY, about how entirely fucked up it will be if the baby comes us to us for a while (sometimes YEARS. YEARS!!!!), but then goes back to bio forever. How, when everyone starts finding each other as teens, it will hurt my kids to know that bio did whatever she needed to get keep this new baby (she actually did try to separate out X2 to keep her while losing the other two during the trial…) but refused to do that same work to keep them, and how much it will mess with the conceptual baby to grow up with abuse and neglect and unmedicated untreated mental health, just not ENOUGH to be removed, while the siblings live in privilege, and love, and care, and safety, but struggle with dislocation and abandonment.
Meanwhile, we are still like…is that even a baby? Or just some quarantine weight like we are all carrying? We know she is still messing with that new (supposed) baby daddy – and that it is a very up and down situation (surprise, again!).
And then bio posts that doctors keep telling her she is not pregnant, but she knows she is. This is at a minimum of six months pregnant. She schedules an ultrasound, and is unsurprisingly ENTIRELY SILENT for the next 60 days. We quietly sigh, cry, and more forward.
BUT WAIT! It’s a new day, and a new month, and a NEW claim that she IS pregnant, but “no you don’t need to know the due date”. SUSPICIOUS. But ALSO, entirely likely she HAS been trying to GET pregnant while lying about BEING pregnant to prove she was ALWAYS pregnant, and seriously, there is every chance she is with the effort she seems to put in. And so, here we go AGAIN.
It might be easier and better to not monitor, but I do not deal well with surprises, and a new baby out of nowhere is the kind of surprise I would NOT deal well with. I keep trying to just get rid of the baby stuff as a way of making a decision without making one, but my partner says he is not ready. I get it. I WANT A BABY SO MUCH. I truly do. I cannot tell you how much my heart aches for how much I want to snuggle and love and cuddle and rock a baby. I remember the exhaustion; I remember the difficulty; but I truly truly truly just WANT A BABY.
And I know how much I need to get a night’s sleep with the kids I already have. I am up twice a night EVERY night. Recently I am up 3-6 times (but that is a story for another day). I sleep with a three year old at least 1/2 of every night. I work an intense job. I have no idea how we could fit in a baby – but then, if we are ALREADY not sleeping, why not just go ALL IN AND GET A BABY?
If a baby showed up and it was ours, we would be SO FUCKING HAPPY and MAKE IT WORK. But we don’t even have that kind of option. Instead, we have the foster care/adoption math problem, of time, energy, love, ability, exhaustion, stress. With fake pregnancy number 2, it went on long enough we started trying to get the kids ready for the possibility of taking care of a baby (we will keep a baby safe for a while), because it would be such a huge disruption. X2 was ALL IN, she was READY for her Xmas baby! I think the reality would have been a big old problem for her, since she is a spoiled, adored, princess, of all attention and care. But she was really excited for a baby.
X3 was VERY clear that she did not want a baby, because she would not believe we loved her anymore. It was wildly accurate and self-aware, and we knew it would throw our house into pure hell to get this baby because of how triggering it would be on multiple levels. And, we knew there was a decent chance of seeing baby go back into a horrible life. With all that pain, and trauma to us, and trauma to our kids, and trauma to baby a part of you just wants to click “no thanks”…but we also could literally not imagine how we would tell our kids that we said “no thanks, life is pretty complicated right now” TO THEIR BABY SIBLING! Midway through fake pregnancy two, my placement worker said “you’re doing great; but how many kids do you want? She’s young, you could have tons!”. I’d like another baby, but I don’t want A LOT more babies- and that math is the same almost every time…
I always assumed that the hardest decisions I made would be my OWN. That the mistakes and hurdles I navigated would be ones I was directly responsible for. Our family cannot deal with the endless uncertainties of maybe-babies, and it will never stop being unfair that we are faced with life altering decisions, and endless emotional ups and downs, because of someone else’s either lack of responsibility and self-awareness or (and?) desperation for attention. And, I honestly, truly, so much, want another baby, and it will NEVER stop being unfair that I couldn’t just make one.