What, me a dad?
by Lex Woodbury
My wife, Jessie, and I lived back then in a two-story, two-bedroom cottage in a nice part of town near a California beach. A nature boy at heart, I spent most of my free time backpacking, mountain biking, and surfing. Jessie would accompany me on my sports’ travels only if it meant “camping out” in a decent motel. I would join Jessie on her jaunts to the new, must-see hotel from the travel magazine if she picked one with a nature zone nearby.
We could afford this because of our success with an executive search firm we started after we’d married. With Jessie’s background in marketing and mine as a vacation rental manager and English teacher, we made a good team. Jessie, the headhunter, worked best in the fluid atmosphere of risk, relying only on instinct. I was the calm one, part relational, part technical, so I functioned as Jessie’s wingman. I kept an eye out for bogeys, gave her a listening ear, while handling the office operations, taxes, and cash flow management.
One more thing, I’d married the woman of my dreams. When Jessie wore an A-line skirt and penny loafers, she became my perfect Girl-Scout-Cookie girl — a little bit preppy and a little bit sassy.
One sunny morning in April, with wild flowers blooming and the smell of sage wafting down from the canyons, I packed the SUV for our spring getaway, all set to go.
“Jessie are you ready?” I called upstairs.
She came down, walked right by me, sat down on the couch, and pulled her legs under her.
“I thought we were going four-wheel driving today?” I said.
“I thought so, too.”
“If we leave in fifteen minutes, we can beat the traffic.” I pointed to the Southern California Off-Road Adventure Guide. “Did you see any good trails?”
“I’ve been looking at baby books. Is there any coffee?”
“We can get some on the road.” I pointed to the car.
She took a sofa pillow and hugged it to her.
“Don’t do this to me,” I said.
“What?”
“First, a dog. Now, a kid. The beautiful, independent, businesswoman I married is becoming maternal. This can’t be happening to me. What about our lifestyle?”
“It’s our lifestyle I’m thinking of,” she said. “Do you know how much a child could add to your life?”
“Yeah … bills! And who’s going to take care of it when we want to go somewhere?”
Jessie pushed back a length of her brown hair. “I want to have a child,” she said, “and I’m questioning the future of our relationship.”
That was bold. From baby books to all-or-nothing? If she wanted a baby and I didn’t, that left little room for negotiating, unlike compromising on a movie or a restaurant. My truck waited outside. I could get in and drive away. With the cash in my pocket and the stock I had in my own name from before the marriage, I’d be OK for a while.
Jessie had a right to a child, and she’d make a good mother. The issue was me. Could I adjust? After all, it had taken me six weeks to reconcile myself to the dog she’d brought home a few months before — a cute little Cairn terrier, just like Toto. But he got me so frustrated one night I almost took him out in the backyard and shot him. I would have done it, too, if I’d had a gun.
I came back cautiously, “So you want to change our lifestyle.”
“I want to have a family. I want to see what Lex, Jr. looks like. Don’t you?”
“In a way.”
I had fantasized about it, of course; most men have. But I had not accomplished my life’s plan. Some things, yes, but not enough to quit for a kid. But Jessie had a plan too: Career, husband, house, and family.
“Well?” she asked.
“We took the day off so we could get a head start on the weekend. What about Joshua Tree or Anza-Borrego?”
“We can go tomorrow. I’d like to do some personal errands today.”
“But…”
“I just have to do this, Lex.”
She got up, took her keys, and went out. When she returned, two hours later, she asked if we could talk.
“Sure,” I said and turned off the TV.
“Remember that operation I had a few years ago?”
“Yes,” I said, sitting up. Previously, she had suffered a bout of Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (PID) and an operation had cleared away most of the scar tissue that had wrapped itself around her intestines.
“Today, the doctor said…”
“You didn’t tell me you were going to the doctor.”
“The doctor said he did not want us wasting a year trying and achieving only frustration. With a laparoscopy, he could see if any scar tissue had grown back and that would give us some information to go on.”
I thought to myself, “Information… That takes time… Time means delay… Delay means derailment.” Inside I smirked, but aloud I simply said, “I can’t argue against gathering information.”
The following week, we went in together for her laparoscopy. Using fiber optics, the doctor surveyed her organs and checked the opening of the fallopian tubes. His report: One tube–completely shut; no dye passed out; the other tube–as good as shut; dye passing only when he squeezed on it. The odds of an egg coming through on its own from the opposite direction were awful.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “natural conception is not going to work for you folks.”
At home, I fell quiet. On the one hand, blocked tubes meant no kid, and no kid meant lifestyle preserved. On the other hand, I had always assumed I could have a kid whenever I wanted. That it was in my control. Now life was telling me it was not in my control. I was in shock.
I had never lost a big one before. I’d certainly had some setbacks in life but I had managed basically to stay on track towards getting the meaningful things out of life.
It’s one thing to decide not to have kids. But to be denied? Having a baby may not have been number one on my list, but when someone tells me I can’t do something, it gets me to thinking. I started playing with scenarios to see what I could do.
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Lex Woodbury has written columns for the Los Angeles Times, Orange County religion page. He, teaches philosophy, ethics, and world religion in Sioux City, Iowa. He recently finished a manuscript describing the Jungian ups and downs of his journey into fatherhood. This essay is from that forthcoming book. |
– is a deeply personal issue that everyone decides for himself. Sometimes the price is high, sometimes low. But this is not very important for life. Life is an interesting thing. And the price on Viagra – too.
