Timing

I talked on the phone with my brother, M., today. He started telling me about a home remodel that he and A. are thinking of doing, and before I knew it, he was explaining in detail their plans to have a third child. Highlights of the delightful conversation, during which I mainly concentrated on not bursting into tears:

• When they were trying to have Child #1, they got pregnant on the first try, miscarried, then got pregnant the very next time they were allowed to try.


• For Child #2, it took them two whole months to conceive, which really sucked.


• For both pregnancies, when they were trying to conceive, they "did the whole charting temperatures, testing for ovulation, timing sex thing" and the process was sooo technical and "nauseating" (M.'s word) that it drove M. mad. I mean, between the two kids, they had to do all of that crap FOUR TIMES. That's really rough.


• For a while, they weren't sure whether they wanted a third kid, but A. is adament that their family doesn't feel complete yet. M. was very descriptive of how horrible the heartbreak would be for the two of them if they only ended up with two happy children instead of three.


• This time around, M. refuses to do all of that detailed stuff, even if it means that they might not get pregnant during the first month. Even if it takes two or (gasp!) even three.


• A. wanted to start trying in January, because if they start trying now, she'll be in her third trimester over the summer, which will interfere with their camping plans, but M. convinced her to take the "see how it goes" approach and just start now. His view is that, since Child #1 was born 3 weeks early, and Child #2 took an "extra" month to be conceived, they obviously haven't been able to "time" births at all anyway, so why bother trying?
  

The whole thing was sickening. Listening to him complain about not being able to plan the exact month the kid would be born, and how inconvenient that was. The hassle of having to chart temperatures. The unimaginable sadness that would come with only having two children. The casual way he talked about everything, and the things he chose to complain vociferously about. I wanted to scream.

But, the bottom line is, A. went off the pill this month. They're assuming she'll probably be due with Child #3 in July. And it's likely to all happen before it happens for us. Sometimes, the world is incredibly unfair.