My “monthly” (a term I thought was just another Canadian word but turned out to be my husband’s reluctance to use the word “period” in a non-punctuation manner ) didn’t arrive yesterday, and I spent a sleepless night worrying about the possibility of being pregnant at 43. It was not a silly worry. Pregnancy, as I remember it, is physically taxing, and I have been running on fumes for quite a while. There is also the added degree of difficulty that my age presents. I remember being quite put out with my OB-GYN for referring to my age as a negative when I was pregnant with my almost five year old daughter. I thought, and felt, that at 37 I was in the best shape I had been in my whole life. I think that had my late husband not gotten ill, I would have considered that pregnancy, and even the first six months of my daughter’s life, a challenging but not overly taxing life event that could have been repeated, God willing. In light of the actual chain of events however, I am not as keen on anything to do with the creation of new life beyond the initial fun stuff .

Rob and I had talked about having children of our own early in our relationship. True, we are middle-aged by social standards (Methuselah-Like by medical ones), but the fact  remains that we are both still in ”working condition”. It would have been foolish of us to ignore the issue though in a way we ended up doing just that anyway. He was concerned that I be sure I didn’t want any more children. His own were in their twenties, and while he was committed to the idea of my daughter, he was reluctant to start from scratch. But I had already put the idea of another child to rest. I truly had. I have no interest whatsoever in going through another pregnancy or experiencing childbirth and those mind-numbingly exhausting first months of a newborn’s life. I had quite unexpectedly ended up one of those militant nursing mothers who let their children self-wean and having only just gotten my daughter to give up “nursery” and sleep on her own, I selfishly wanted my body back.  I assured Rob I didn’t want another child.

But, for two people who were looking forward to someday, before they were too old, being on their child-free own, we sure didn’t take many preventative steps to ensure this. I occasionally wondered about it. Even pointed it out, though I hardly needed to as he was as aware of the contradiction between words and deed as I. There was an ambivalence on both our parts about the whole issue. Perhaps we were hoping that fate would decide the whole thing for us. I guess it nearly did.

Although I kept my fears to myself last evening, a sleepless night is a bit harder to cover up. So when I finally ‘fessed up after lunch today and followed that up with the news that all was well, I was a bit surprised to hear Rob confess to a bit of disappoint. He wondered if I wasn’t disappointed to and I admitted to the tiniest of regret but it is a bit more than that. Like him, I wish that we could have a baby together. Blondish and bright blue-eyed. Just like his dad. And I won’t say it is a silly dream, but it isn’t one that the universe is likely to allow us and we both know that. We have our girls. We have each other. We have a  pretty darn good today and tomorrow to enjoy, and a future to look forward to together. I am happy with what we have.