ADVICE&REAL LIFE Essay
At a crossroads I knew without a doubt that my family was complete as soon as I had my second baby. But once I weaned him, my certainty became murky. Then, an unplanned pregnancy turned everything on its head.
“THE EMBRYO IS LODGED IN YOUR RIGHT TUBE,”
the OB/GYN told me. I looked down at the silver-zippered black leather boots peeking out from his scrubs. “It’s big—about five centimetres. You’ll need to go in for surgery today.” For a week, I’d been waiting to hear if my surprise IUD-defying pregnancy was miscarrying, ectopic or viable. We were two weeks into a global pandemic shutdown, and the world vibrated with uncertainty. “So you’ll remove the pregnancy?” I asked. “And the tube,” he said. I burst into tears. “If you’re done having kids,” he offered, “we can remove both tubes.”
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todaysparent.com November+December 2021
I cried even harder. The tears made no sense. Dan and I were done having kids, weren’t we? It was back to the original two-existing-kids plan, with the added bonus of a forever, ironclad birth control solution! I should have been relieved. But your heart pretty much drowns out your head when you’re losing a pregnancy, body parts and—possibly—your entire reproductive system. I had not been prepared to consider: No more kids. No going back. The End. I’d been saying I was done ever since my second, Charlie, arrived. While my first year as firsttime mom had elated me, two kids under two had toppled me. Between breastfeeding, toddler tan-
PHOTO: DAN BORSLIN
When Calgary’s Sky England, mom of Charlie (le ) and James, heard moms of three say they couldn’t imagine their lives without their third born, the comments affected her in ways she hadn’t expected.
