Letters to the Editor
-
Importance
Is having your sister's baby important? It is to you; from the sound of it its as important as a kidney donation, possibly more important than your husband. But that's a relative term. Is it important to the world? Nah. To your husband? Apparently not. To your sister? Quite possibly. You get the idea.
I ask you, the LW, to consider this in these relative terms then. How would you feel if your husband wanted to do something that was:
- Expensive (five figures easily, with six figure potential if things go right/wrong)
- Time consuming (increasing over the next year, then somewhat ongoing for life)
- Dangerous (small but noticeable chance if injury in 6-9 months that could leave him incapacitated for quite a while)
- Not at all important, and didn't make any sense (to you).
Now how would you feel if he decided that this decision was his to make, regardless of how you felt? I'm sure that there are some wives who would just automatically stand by their fella and endorse him no matter what. I'm also sure that most of those women would be lambasted by most Salon readers.
Besides, you're nowhere near as sure that this is a good thing as you're making out to be in your letter. If you were, you wouldn't be writing to Cary. You wouldn't be trying to get your husband to agree. You'd just do it. But you haven't. If your husband wanted to stop you from donating a kidney to save someone's life, would you have asked anyone else's opinion? I bet you'd have just scheduled the surgery, right? But this... its not so cut and dry, not even in your mind.
-
more babies = more well-maintained uteri
Truly a brilliant post, womb with a view! (I really mean it.) Keep spreading the love. It really brightened up this sodden soggy day.
. . . . . . .
Cary, all the growing belly discussions aside, have you ever had a pregnant wife....?
-
Darling, I do not understand What Is Up with your husband.
Gracious, dear, would that I were half as brave as you. I have a sister in a similar predicament; I am a cowardly quisling. I could have jetted to Mexico last summer, gotten a former swain to knock me up quite painlessly, and delivered a lovely café-con-leche infant up to my darling sister, right on cue. However the swain proved perfidious, making last-minute plans with yet another incognita (a lamentable habit of his) and thus the plan came to naught.
Perhaps this is for the best. Such genetic predisposition toward irresponsible philandering might overbalance our family tree.
However I digress. I do not understand Why your husband is up in arms about this. Are you a Terrible Pill when pregnant? Have you, all unwitting, caused him to Suffer Silently during the course of your last three pregnancies? Perhaps you should address him, honestly and forthrightly, on this issue. Oftentimes we mask a serious concern for our own well-being and comfort under a more socially acceptable concern for others.
Or perhaps your husband simply does not Get Along with your sister and her husband? Perhaps he feels that he is the only Solid Citizen in the bunch, solidly impregnating wives and enduring pregnancies enough for all three of you, while your feckless fraternal duo mucks around with test tubes, in an anti-Darwinian way? Perhaps he believes, at core, that your sister and her husband are better off withering on the vine.
In any case, I believe a Serious Talk, perhaps over a half-bottle of Maker's Mark, is in order.
-
Couple of things
Here's a solution: Jerks, stop breeding! All of you!
And Pretty Lady, please never write anything ever again. Thanks.
-
to: Independentlpaz and the other idiots who feel
the husband has no say in this and is just a wallet to be raped. GFY. He will held financially resonsible as she would be carrying a baby in a circumstance where he is the husband. Paying for this bullshit, the liability, the inherent risk, the problems. Again, GFY. I hope you know what I mean. Marriage is supposed to be a team effort not one when it's fuck you to the husband and get whatever you want for the wife so she can cornhole him later financially. Jesus, another good reason NOT to get married.
-
I'm 40 and pregnant. Do NOT do this without the husband
The first trimester is exhausting, far more so than when one is in the thirties. The odds of life threatening complications like ectopic pregnancy go way up. Stomache pain, nausea, etc, all are accelerated. My husband wanted this, too, and he's picking up the slack. But things don't get done, or must be changed. It's harder for me to travel, to do a whole host of activities. And I'm having a good pregnancy for a 40 year old. Mood swings can be regulated, but it takes more effort.
The second trimester will find you buying maternity clothes (you probably gave the first away), with backaches, headaches, things you didn't have in your thirties. You show faster. There are a host of invasive tests to consider. Will abort an imperfect child? Not all tests will show?
Your children are the most important thing here. You have three. What will happen tot he Mommy Taxi? The attention? In the middle of the night, will you have the energy to attend to them. I have one, and I have to work past my energy level to give him adequate attention and also do my job. The result: Braxton Hicks contactions.
DO NOT DO THIS> It is selfish. Your children here need your energy. You will need your husband, and he will rightfully be mad about the imposition he never signed on for. If you die from preclampsia or something like it (and your risk is higher- consult a newer version of What to Expect When You are Expecting and look at Chapter 20. p. 491. Rread the WHOLE chapter. Think of going through it alone, and putting your children through this for a child who will not be their sibling. Think about the pain you can inflict on your children, LW.
Cary's right in that you sound like you are going to do it anyway. Think like a mother. Put yourself away, and think of your kids. DOn't do this without your husband's support.