Even if a family
doesn't stay together, the tripod is linked for life. All kinds of
shit can transpire between and among this unit, but the unit's
original bonds don't change at the core. The facts of mother, father,
child are set in stone until death and beyond – even if one parent
flees to an ashram for 15 years. If a century of psychotherapy has
taught us anything, it's that an absent parent can influence a
child's psyche as much as an attentive one.
So yes, a family
is my dream, my ambition, my desire. All those things. It's what I
want. My own goddamn family. Happy, dysfunctional or anything in
between. But for me, it hasn't been so simple. And obtaining it is
becoming more and more complicated and unlikely by the month.
Statistically, time is fast running out, if it hasn't already left
the building.
The big decision I
have to make is do I stay or do I go. Do I stay with my boyfriend,
who I love, but who will probably not want to be my babydaddy? Or do
I break up with him to give myself a Hail Mary chance to find a guy
who does want to take this crazy, low-odds journey with me?
The statistics of
the latter option are probably even lower than my odds of conceiving
a baby. Imagine the scenario. A man is ready to meet someone and have
a baby. Maybe he's also in a hurry, which is a bonus for me. But then
he considers my age and chances of becoming pregnant. To a man who
wants offspring, he can't help but calculate my odds like a manager
reviewing a baseball player's stat card. I'm not really what you call
a safe investment. The odds are low, the risks of investment high,
but is the home run payoff worth the trouble?
The only counter to
that, of course, is love. The other elusive, unpredictable factor in
this complex equation. The one with star quality. And powerful
magical properties! It's certainly all I would need to solve my
babydaddy problem. Right? If there is a prince out there for me, a
guy who will fall perfectly in love with me, a guy who will want to
live his life with me and create a family, that guy will shout, Fuck
the stats! I feel this one in my bones. He will take my hand, and
say, It's you and me, babe. Let's climb this fucking mountain
together. Let's storm the castle at the top. Swoon.
But I'm way past
believing in fairy tales, so let me take off my Cinderella dress and
describe for you the cold creaky attic room I am in:
- Women my age have a 20 percent chance of marrying before they hit 50. (Better than it was in the 1980s, when the stats said our chances of dying in a terrorist attack were better, and that was pre-9/11.)
- About 75 percent of men my age are already married and many more are in long-term relationships. (Plus, the majority of them already have kids and let's face it, how many people want to go through that again at our age?)
- Single Los Angeles men only date 6-foot models under 30
Right, that last
one came from an unreliable source, but I still suspect it's got a
long sexy leg of truth. Going back out into the sea for another fish
is an option, and the payoff for finding Phish Charming would provide
big dividends of all sorts for the rest of my life and my potential
child's life, but the greater odds are I'll be paddling on that raft
for a long, lonely time, still hoping, still longing, still waiting.
So that's my
dilemma: Throw away a real and good thing I have with my boyfriend –
a stable, supportive, loving long-term relationship, that maybe maybe
maybe could grow into more – or set back out to sea alone in search
of a dream.
Let me pause here
to say a little something about dreams, the kind of stuff that fills
our lives with hope and ambition and drive. I've always been a dream
chaser. With caution. I was raised to go after what I want, to work
hard for it, to believe I could obtain it. But in 42 years of life, I
know too well dreams don't always come true, which is why so many of
us choose not to chase them.
Dream chasing can
be a scary balancing act. Some people are better on this high wire
than others. I think of our dreams, especially the big risky ones, as
the wire and reality is the gravity constantly pulling at us. The
threat of failing is a long fall that can irreparably break us.
I am afraid of
being alone. I admit it. And there's a very good chance I will be if
I fail in the low odds chance I'll find my fantasy Phish Charming.
One of the deepest urges for my wanting a child stems from my desire
to ensure I will always have someone who is connected to me in that
unbreakable way. Unless my child dies, I will never be totally alone
in the world again.
Of course, now my
chance of actually having a child is also in the land of low odds.
So after discussing
it with The Boyfriend, who suggested I not end our relationship
before I learned whether or not I'm even still fertile (a logical
assessment I agreed with), I decided to stay.
My boyfriend, who
is very understanding of my need to chase this dream, also asked for
time to “get his head” around my newly urgent desire to have a
child. He said he did not want to lose me over this...the kind of
words any girl wants to hear.
OK, so while I wait
to find out the real deal on my remaining fertility, I will give D and I a little while longer to see if something shifts, if
something like a family option opens up for us. Meanwhile, I will
learn far more about my reproductive process than I'd care to know...
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