Resentment and Dream Killer

I was going to write about having kids and how I always joke that if I were to have two children, I already have their nams picked out: Resentment and Dream Killer. I was talking with HAM the other day about how I just can't imagine that there would ever be a good time in our lives for children, and that I really love dogs, but have never really loved humans. Especially whiny, selfish ones who I could easily beat up. I was never really one of those types of girls who fantasized about her wedding day and subsequent children. Not to say I've always been against the idea. I wanted to have a baby once. I did a lot of research on it. I was going to be one of those controversial parents who let their baby sleep in bed with them, despite warning that you could roll over and suffocate your baby in the night. The facts are that this doesn't happen. If you have the right kind of pillow to keep the baby from falling off the bed (which is much more likely) then you're golden. And that whole thing about leaving the baby crying in another room so they can learn to self-soothe - I think that's bullshit. My parents did that with me and how did I learn to self-soothe? Cake. I'd rather be overly dependent on my mom than overly dependent on cake. And I was going to have a waterbirth, free of epidurals, doctors, and hospitals. I was either going to go to a birthing center, or rent a tub and have my baby at home, in a birthing tub filled with warm water. I was going to hire a midwife and only use doctors and ex-rays when absolutely necessary, but I wasn't going to do what so many women are doing these days: scheduling their due date. It's so freaky! As if the sterile hospital setting with the poor mother-to-be spread-eagle on a hospital bed, strung out on opiates and being told to "push" wasn't disturbing enough, now women can choose to just "go under", get cut open, and wake up with a baby. That is just so wrong I can't even express my disgust for it. Doesn't anyone do anything naturally anymore? I mean, I'm all for a good boob-job (saving up for mine) but seriously - shouldn't birth be sacred? Isn't it an experience that will forever bond mother and baby? Why would a woman choose to be completely checked out of that experience. Your baby is entering the world and her very first experience is that her mother is not present, not there for her. She is zonked out under anesthesia and the baby is ripped from her stomach and taken away to be cleaned and snipped and who knows what else, and then mom comes to later to a nice, cleaned up, trimmed up baby. Fuck that. Anyway, my point is, I did quite a bit of research. I was going to teach my baby sign language so it would be able to communicate with me before it learned it form words, therefore lessening certain instances of colic. I was going to play soothing music against my growing belly for the baby to listen to in utero. I was going to feed my baby a vegan, organic diet so it wouldn't be subjected to the hormones in dairy and chemicals in conventional foods. I started taking prenatal vitamins, had my IUD taken out, and got off anti-depressants while my fiance was still in jail just to prepare for his release. And the they he got out we started trying to get pregnant. It took about eight months and I finally had a positive test. It hadn't been more than a few weeks since we learned of my pregnancy that we were going to visit his grandpa in Mendocino County, about a two hour drive from where we were living in San Rafael. He still wasn't officially living with me - he was living at the SLE down the street, Marin Services for Men. He went back to his place to get ready and I stayed at my place to get ready. Since it was August and we were going to Willits, which was guaranteed to be hot as hell, I wanted to shave my legs so I could wear a little skirt. I did my normal shower routine plus shaving and then got out and started drying my hair. ALL came back over and was ready to go. When he saw that I wasn't ready, he started fuming, asking why I was wasn't ready and yelling about how he didn't have much time. I told him that I shaved my legs so it was taking me a little longer than usual to get ready and that enraged him. Before I knew it, he had pulled me out of the bathroom and was yelling in my face. He grabbed me by the throat and threatened to choke me to death. We were now in the hallway of my apartment, his hands around my neck, his wide mouth open showing his missing bottom tooth, his forehead creased, his eyes filled with hatred. He squeezed tighter around my neck and I was pissed. I reached up and squeezed my hand around his neck. I figured, even though I couldn't hurt a 220-pound ex-con with a woman-beating problem, I at least wasn't going to bitch out. I was mad, too. All I did was shave my fucking legs! Of course, when I squeezed his neck, that made him go from enraged to blackout insane. He squeezed my neck so hard that I felt myself fading fast. I couldn't breathe and I went limp. After that I'm not sure exactly what happened, but I woke up on the floor, against the wall, in another room. Immediately, I started shouting, "You choked me until I passed out! You could've killed me! I'm pregnant!" He said, "I didn't do shit to you, get up." I wouldn't let it go. I was horrified by this. All the violence that had happened before was bad, but it all of it happened to me and me alone. This time, he wasn't just hurting me - he was hurting my baby. This was unacceptable. So I played along with him, let him try to make it up to me by taking me on a trip to the coast, cooking me breakfast, blah, blah, blah, all that bullshit abusers like to do to suck you back into their insanity so they can abuse you again. But secretly, I didn't pay rent that month. I stuck the money ($1000) inside a sock in my sock drawer and waited. He wouldn't let me out of his sight for days because he knew I might try to escape, but he finally felt secure enough that I wouldn't leave him, and he had to go back to the SLE or he would get kicked out, which would fuck up his probation, so he went back. That night, I called my mom and told her what was going on and she convinced me to leave. So I packed up my $1000, a picture of my dead dog, a framed serenity prayer painting, and a laundry basket full of clothes, and took off in the middle of the night. There's a lot more to this story, I ended up staying with ALL for another year in a long-distance relationship, and eventually moved back to San Rafael to be with him again (it only lasted two weeks after I arrived - then I had to escape from the bastard again) but for now, I'll just talk about the baby situation. I came home to Bellevue, to my Dad's house. He thought my best option would be to abort the baby. I went along with it, even though I wanted the baby and had planned for the baby, researched the birth, my diet, the sleeping arrangements, etc. I had the abortion, and I suppose it was for the best, but ever since then I've felt pretty anti-baby again. That was my one decent into baby-craziness and it ended pretty fucked up. So, now I'm older, I've got a great guy who I love, who loves me, who would NEVER hurt me. He's brilliant, stunningly beautiful, responsible, sweet, just a damn good guy, and I think - why would I want to screw this up with kids? That's what kids do. They make happy couples want to murder eachother. They turn hot chicks into short-haired soccer moms. They are the wedge between the man and the woman and they cause divorce more often than not. I like being thin and beautiful, I like having sex every day, sometimes twice a day. I like being able to get my hair done when I want, go to the gym when I want, not having to orchestrate my job and my appointments around a child. Besides, the world is overpopulated. That's not just something people say to justify not having children, either. That shit is real. There are too many of us here all breathing the same polluted air and driving on the same congested roads, eating the same contaminated food, and attending the same broken public schools. (This is the one area of my life where I become a Republican - if I ever did have children, you can bet your ass they'd be in private school.) Maybe adopting dogs would keep my relationship intact (and my thighs), save the planet of one more parasite sucking off of it, and it would allow me to pick names other than Resentment and Dream Killer. I've already named my new computer David Lee Roth and my external hard drive Eddie Van Halen, so this could take some time. Maybe Jerry and Pig Pen. But thinking about having children is definitely good for counting my current blessings. When I think about how awful life could be if it revolved around someone other than me, my current situation seems pretty damn sweet. No resentments, dreams in reach, and  stretch mark free.