He wants to buy a Jeep

We sat in bed giggling about the day that had just passed. The kids have been behaving, we're in love and life is good. The heavy cloud that had become a permanent fixture at the top of my head, has been replaced with sunshine. 

I was the happiest I've been in months, until he mentioned he wanted to buy a Jeep. 

The question

As I sat looking at this gorgeous Jeep model online, I found myself asking a simple question. First jokingly, and then, with the mortified realisation that I was in fact onto something. Where would we put 4 children? 

My better half turns to me and says, "We'll fit in 3 for now and worry about the 4th when it comes". The hurt tore through me as I realised, he has his own children and he's not banking on having 2 more. 

The conversation escalated quickly as I found myself fighting back tears. "You're not banking on the 4th are you?" My words came out boldly and then softer as I swallowed my pain. 

"Of course I am, but that's 4 sets of school fee's!", he retorted, contradicting himself. 

I had put boundaries in place, or lets just say, a very loose and subtle ultimatum, which had included my desire need to have 2 kids of my own. You know, because the ones I'm raising right now are swell, but they don't 'belong to me' (as if your biological kids are ever really yours anyway. Pfft!)

The point is that with such a big age gap between the two boys, and then our first child, I wouldn't want an only child to feel isolated, I want my pigeon pair!

But the comment that he made left me cold, as the steel clang of reality hit me in the face with unexpected force. He wasn't banking on a 4th child, albeit his protests, albeit his explanations. In his mind, number 4 wouldn't exist if he had a choice, but he was merely cooperating with my ultimatum to keep me happy. That's how I saw it anyway. 

The numbers game....

In my attempt to paint a picture, I grabbed a piece of paper and a pen. I calculated our individual ages now, including the boys, and then worked out a 2 year engagement/marriage plan, and a baby chart. You know, just off the cuff. A visual, projection of our lives. How the hell would we afford a Jeep, let alone 4 sets of school fees. 

As I started forging through the numbers, I realised what so many people had been trying to tell me. I realised why so many people, including my mother, had been urging me to have a child (for the last bloody 5 years) and it's because, as I could see it, I was running out of time. 

Yes, I know that I'm still a spring chicken at 34 years of age, but when I put pen to paper the reality hit me in the face, and as I calculated a possible 2nd child of my own, it took another swing for good measure. 
I'll be old, I'll be 70 by the time my child is in their mid twenties. What, the actual, fkk! This was not my game plan, but has this whole life lesson over the last year and a half been all roses? Have I not yet learned that life isn't linear?!


....followed by the blame game. 

Immediately I felt myself sink into victim mode. "Maybe I shouldn't have kids, maybe it's best I just live my life raising these two boys as my own." As I heard myself say these words, I felt the resentment well up inside me once again, my life seemingly stifled because of my choices. 

"I should have had kids when I was younger, I should have chosen someone without children of their own, I've failed at life!"

I felt every bit of resentment towards the kids all over again, then him, then myself. It felt as if everyone was against me, as if everything was against me, as if time as running out and there was/is nothing I can do other than accept that fact. 

As I lay in a pile on my bed, lights out and sniveling, his hand touched my shoulder and his voice met with my ears as he tried to console me. 
"We'll have our 2 children, we'll have our family, we'll make it work." 

This made me angrier, as if "making it work" was something I was subjected to, because of the choices I made.  Needless to say, I woke up bitter this morning, until I realised that my age is against me, not anyone else. It's no ones fault that I've waited this long. Thank the heavens I didn't go procreate for the sake of it with one of my exes, the love I feel now would have been a sought after dream, yet now I get to live the reality of being with my first, only, one true love. 

Perhaps it's already okay. Perhaps, while the clock ticks so bloody loudly that my ears are aching, there's a plan going on. Perhaps, my children, that will be 3 and 5 when I'm 43, will be the reason I stay young? Perhaps, there are stories yet to be told and a plan yet to unfold, while I sit here trying to control my whole life and work out on paper how it's going to be. It never is.

Perhaps, what you want the most, is achieved even when you don't have control of the 'how'.