| A Note From Jon... |
| 11 June 2002 Hi, I just wanted to say a little as the husband of a woman who has had a tubal reversal, or as the other half of the "team." As you already know from reading my wife's accounts, she had her tubes tied when our son Jacob was born. I don't remember when exactly she came to me with the idea of having her tubes untied and having more children, but I do know that I was not the warm, understanding person I should have been. I pretty much rejected the idea outright. I didn't even consider the possibility seriously for even a second. I suppose there were a lot of reasons for it. Money, for one. I thought it would cost a fortune. I thought it would cost a lot more than it actually did and I never am convinced that we have enough money to do anything. My wife, who is an accountant, has found a way around this by keeping me completely in the dark about our financial status. She's better with money than I'll ever be, so it's probably for the best. Another reason is that I was probably reluctant to go through all of the worry of having another child again. With Jacob I was hopeless. Having spent most of my adult life as a Sergeant in the Army, I am a person who likes to be in a position to be involved, to be able to take charge of things if need be, and with a pregnancy all I could do was watch. For nine months, I worried constantly about how the baby was developing, I wanted to know. Of course, as soon as my wife got pregnant, all that was on TV were shows about dwarfism, co-joined twins, and children with ambiguous gender. I spent many a night staring at the ceiling and obsessing about what was going on in my wife's uterus. Once Jake was born, I worried about SIDS. The poor child probably didn't get a decent night's sleep for the first year of his life. I checked on him at least five times a night just to make sure he was breathing. If I wasn't sure, I'd poke him until he moved. Five times a night, that's a lot of poking. Once he was officially out of the "danger zone" I let up some. I'm sure he's thankful. What happened to change my mind? It was more of a process than any one thing. In the fall of 1999, we left the Army and became civilians. Rebecca got a job immediately and I studied at home and was "Mr. Mom." I got an opportunity most men never get, to take care of my children all day every day for six months. I sure am glad I got the chance to do that, since I got to bond with my kids in a way I never could have otherwise. Eventually I got a job and the kids went to day care. Somewhere in there, Rebecca approached me again about the idea of having more children. This time I really thought about it. I thought about how much I enjoyed taking care of Jacob when he was a baby, and how much of his growing that I missed because of military deployments. I thought about the money issue. Having a house would be nice, but if we were going to pursue having more children, there was no time like the present, the biological clock was ticking. I used to have all the money I could spend and I was lonely and miserable. Now, I rarely have any money at all (though I think my wife plans it that way), but I have a wonderful wife and children and life is awesome. The house and all those stupid guy toys I desire could wait. I could also tell that this was something that Rebecca really wanted. I could be selfish and put my foot down, but at what cost? Years down the road I didn't want to see Rebecca looking at some kids playing and see in her eyes that she was imagining what might have been. I didn't want to know that the only thing that stood between her and her dreams coming true was me and my selfishness. |
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