Mean Mommy - almost a cautionary tale

POP AND DAD READ AT YOUR OWN RISK. SERIOUSLY. I MEAN IT. REALLY.

Gather round children and listen to the tale of a woman so dumb, she deserves every bit of blood pressure-raising, stomach-churning stress caused by her idiocy.

Um, yeah. That's me.

I'll cut right to the chase and tell you Mean Mommy thought she was pregnant, again. As you all know, I have vacillated between wanting a fourth child and being done with reproducing several times over the last year. And finally, after much soul searching, Hubby and I concluded three is enough and decided to shut down the factory. Permanently. His factory. That's right, I am lucky enough to be married to a man comfortable enough with his own masculinity to give his wife the gift of a vasectomy. So much so he had no problem telling the fellas at work why he would be out for a few days. Now this is a man so private I am not allowed to use his real name in this blog, so I, of course, questioned him abut his new found openness. His response, "Telling guys I'm having a vasectomy is practically telling them, after three kids, I'm still getting enough sex to have to worry about birth control." Well, then.

So appointments were made and Hubby went in for his neutering on the ominous date of September 11th. After a disturbingly short amount of time, he was home on the couch with a bag of frozen peas in his crotch and CNBC on the tube. I won't bore you with the details of the week following and the ensuing complaints of pain. While I sympathize, and thank Hubby for his choice, puh-lease. All I have to say is, nine pound baby, no epidural, third-degree vaginal tear. Oh, and shut up.

A week later Hubby trotted off for his follow-up exam with his sterile sample container and scratching his, now hopefully vestigial, testicles as the shaving began to grow back (Am I sick to be glad there was some form of humiliation involved even if it was only with an electric shaver? I pooped on a delivery table with people watching for Christ's sake!). And speaking of samples, he did that one on his own. I had fantasized about his having to do it alone in a doctor's office with a ratty old titty mag as away to equate above mentioned poop-related embarrassment, but alas, he was allowed to do it in the privacy of the bathroom. I still wonder how the aiming aspect of that worked out, but not enough to ask.

H returned home with the good news. H e was now shooting blanks and, following a second sample, in a week we would be officially "done". So since I was at the very end of my cycle and couldn't get pregnant under the best of circumstances, we celebrated in the laundry room while the girls watched Beauty and the Beast.

OK, fast forward ten days and my period is no where to be seen. I am officially late and, also, officially going insane. I couldn't do it again. The sleepless nights, the breast feeding, losing the baby weight. I enlisted the tried and true method of bringing on your period - spending $17.00 on a pregnancy test. Still nothing. I told H of the situation. His response? "If you are this kid better perfect cold fusion or bring about world peace." Translation? If we were going through the wringer a fourth time, it'd better count.

Two more days pass and just as I was about to call my doctor to get a blood-draw pregnancy test, it came. I have never been so happy to see my period in all my life. Sure I had a few "scares" in high school when I wasn't actually having sex, and thought the fumbling my boyfriend and engaged in could produce an Oprah worthy immaculate conception(R, is that test still buried in your back yard?), but this was the first time I was ever truly worried. And, yes, #2 was an accident (a happy one), but at that point I was already ready for another baby so I guess she just came to the party early.

Closing the proverbial barn door after the proverbial horse, I took Hubby's second sample in yesterday and, yes, he is shooting blanks. And while I did not enjoy the acute stress of the past few days, it did show me how absolutely, completely done I am having babies and I thank the fates, along with Hubby's and my inability to keep our hands off each other, for that clarity. And while this does not exclude the possibility of posts further down the line reminiscing about the feeling of carrying a child inside me, it does exclude any real emotional trauma associated with those feelings. Mean Mommy is done and happy to be. Everyone's on board our ship and it's time to move forward. At least now we can push the crate of condoms overboard.