Closed.

It's been a while since I've posted. I mean, technically I post here and there about some fun event happening around town, or some awesome experience my kids and I have had recently, but for the most part, I haven't been very introspective of late. It's not that I don't have opinions - anyone that's been around for a while knows all too well that's not the case. But I find myself lost in the hustle and bustle and the daily comings and goings of everyday motherhood, where I'm just trying to keep my head above water, and time to sit around and dwell on something in much detail? Yeahhhhh....no.

That being said, I found myself with some time this past weekend, as I recovered from surgery. I'd by lying if I made it sound like I wasn't looking forward to this surgery the way that most people look forward to child-free weekend trips! Twenty-four hours where I was expected to lay around in bed, take painkillers, and generally not be in charge of a single person except myself? Sign me up! Why don't you take my spleen or gallbladder or any other optional organ while you're at it! Need a kidney? I've got two! Help yourself!

In all seriousness, though, I was so looking forward to the brief respite from daily life, that I didn't really give the surgery - an endometrial ablation to treat severe endometriosis and the resulting pain - that much thought. Imagine my surprise, then, when I found myself laying in bed, twenty-four hours post-op, and noticing that, though the pain was subsiding and becoming much more manageable without the aid of several prescription bottles, the awareness and subtle grief of the fact that one of the results of my surgery was that my baby makin' days are over was increasing.

We all know how much I HATED being pregnant. I see a pregnant woman, and I immediately feel like I have PTSD - it's like I'm back in the trenches of severe, all-day-long, all-nine-months morning sickness. I had no intention of having another baby, as much as some days my arms ache at the fact that Jack is growing further and further from the baby and toddler stage and becoming a little boy. I have known since I found out that I was pregnant with him that each new milestone and each new stage would be his first, but my last. And yet, as I lay in bed that day, the knowledge that I could no longer choose; that I'd no longer be able to change my mind and have just one more, closed in on me, and it made me sad.

My family, as it is, is absolutely enough. I have more than I could've ever dreamed. Just the same, though, it was harder than I thought it would be to know that there was no longer the opportunity to change my mind.

For those whose families are complete, did you grieve at all the end of your childbearing years? Were you surprised by the way that you felt once you were no longer able to have children?