Owen, Ethan, & Evan

In November we found out that Margie was expecting a little one and I thought that was awfully exciting. A few weeks later we found out it was twins and that seemed wild and exotic. In December my cousin Chelsea had a baby boy. On New Years Eve, Laurie Hon told us that Will and Katie were expecting a baby in June, and seemingly moments later, cousin Alex delivered a sweet baby girl.  

My mind got hung up on babies. I started to feel overwhelmed with pressure and deadlines. I want my kids (and lets put a pin in that) to grow up with their cousins. I grew up with mine and we were always in and out of the same classes and schools and I felt infinitely more comfy knowing that at least one of them was in the building somewhere.

If Brett and I got on it right away, all of our little children might enroll in Kindergarten in the same year. I really mulled and toiled and felt bad feelings I hadn’t prepared to feel so early in my marriage. 

Now let's talk about the pin I mentioned earlier.

I don’t like children and have never wanted to have them. Even as a child I was confused and burdened other children. I’m put-off by loud noises and stepping on something wet ruins my whole day. I do not approve of the world my child would have to grow up in. I am not strong enough to love something so much and have no control over it’s fate. I do not wish to be that vulnerable. I am selfish and lazy and would undoubtedly leave my crying baby neglected in it's crib if I was trying to enjoy my lunch. My life will not stop to serve you, you ungrateful all-consuming blob. What about me!?
I’m afraid to love something so much.

Additionally, I do not see birth as a miracle and I see no use for more humans or valid reasons to force other people to live life without having agreed to it first. I scoff at people who have children to give themselves a purpose or fulfillment. People don’t seem to have kids because life is a gift they want to share. For a while now, I’ve seen having children as a moral dilemma for many reasons I’ll outline later in life.

The point is, suddenly in January I felt pressured to rethink my thoughts which made them feel not so concrete because why did I have to rethink those thoughts at all? After two weeks of toiling and mulling and feeling bad feelings, I realized that Jordan has always been four years older than me and we have always been friends so it’s ok for "my kids” to be a few years younger than their cousins. So I stopped worrying about that.

Watching Margie’s belly grow week by week is the closest I’ve been to pregnancy. Each week we’d research to see what size piece of fruit the babies were now. They were tomatoes and then mangos and then a bottle of Sunny D which made both of us mad somehow. That’s not produce.

I felt Baby A kick my hand and I watched Baby B’s foot move across Margie’s belly. I visited with Will Hon twice and harassed him for every detail I could think to inquire about. I learned what not to eat and drink and how much to move around and to make sure you feel them moving more, never less. I stared at the twins' tiny noses in the ultrasound photos and worried that Baby B was too small and at some point I realized I loved them. Not the way you love a cute puppy in the park but in the way that you need these kids to be healthy and happy because you won’t recover if anything happens to them.

But I still don’t want one. The noise. The poop. The chaos. I feel no envy towards parents, strapped with worry and burdensome love. I’m happy for a woman to be a Mom and I’m happy for a woman to forgo having kids because she has her own dern life to live. I’m proud of those gals for not succumbing to peer pressure. Maybe a gal can't have kids. You’re not less of a woman. You are wild and free. I want to be wild and free. I have things I can do, contributions I can make. I don’t need to be a Mom also. There are plenty of Moms. There are Moms that really blow at being Moms and those Moms might be the reason I am not particularly in awe of Moms as a concept.

On Sunday, June 23^rd, Brett and I entered the postpartum ward of MUSC and met our tiny, three day old, twin cousins Owen and Ethan. At the same moment in Virginia Beach, Will and Katie met their dark-haired daughter for the first time, Evan Laurel Honbon. 

I touched Ethan’s tiny toe and he pulled his foot away and then I felt queasy and had to sit down. Brett made faces at him in his incubator. I’ve never seen a human so small. I’m not entirely sure how he exists. His shin was the length of my pinky. He was just under three pounds. Margie looked awfully proud. She wrapped Owen in a blanket and placed him in my sweaty hands. It was like holding a loaf of bread with the most perfect skin and tiny nose. I couldn’t stop staring at him and I’m certain I could have sat there in that chair and held him until at least his seventh birthday. What’s that all about?

We left the hospital and received pictures of baby Evan, sleeping in Katie’s arms and I thought about how Will and Katie must be feeling in that moment because I felt so insignificant in a special, parent-y kind of way and none of these babies even have anything to do with me.

I didn’t really care about grocery shopping that afternoon. I’d held one of my two marvelous baby cousins. I thought about what was coming up this week and I sighed an exhausted, indifferent sigh.

None of that crap mattered before but now it really doesn’t matter. Suddenly, I really really don’t care about all of the other people I’m supposed to tend to. Get out of my face with your wants and needs. Your statistics and innovations. I have baby cousins and they’re way more important than you.

I spent the day in a dreamy, weird sad-delighted daze. I decided Brett would be in awe of me once he saw me make a human. Men can’t do that you know.

I started to think about how I thought I loved Brett before we got married but then time passed and I love him now in a way so different and solid that I can’t believe I agreed to marry him with such retrospectively flimsy love to stand on. It’s like when you buy a new pair of shoes to replace your beloved worn-out ones and when you put your feet in them, you can’t believe you walked around so unsupported for so long. Maybe that’s a bad metaphor. Brett’s very supportive. And worn out shoes have been loved into that state they’re in anyway.

I realized this definitely has to happen again once you have kids with a person you love. You’ll jump another love valence that you couldn’t have fathomed before. So I began to pout that Brett and I won’t jump the love valence unless we have kids and I don’t want to do that whole deal so now our love will be limited.

Brett laughed at me and made mashed potatoes to make me feel better. I love mashed potatoes.

Today, a few days after meeting my nephews and seeing the next generation Hon’s face, I’ve thought about those three kids all-day- each-day since and I’m really hating being away from them. What's that all about? I also keep thinking about those two amazing Mamas. And to be honest, I’m mad that I think they’re amazing. They didn’t actively do anything to grow those babies. People grow babies by accident all the time. But I get it now. They’ve just given the world something so wonderful to believe in and I’ve never understood that before.

My contributions to life suddenly seem awfully stupid.