Mothering

Two and a half weeks ago I watched two blue jays begin building their nest in the maple in my front yard. Over the next several days they gathered materials, brought them back, and built what looked to me like a precarious birthing suite. Since then, mama blue jay has been sitting on the nest, rarely moving. Through pouring rain and high winds, she’s there. Papa blue jay has chased off squirrels and brought her food each day. My husband and I have become quite invested in ensuring our tenants are comfortable and well. And each time we look, there she is sitting on the nest and there he is keeping watch on a nearby branch. 

My sister just had her second baby and we recently travelled to Virginia to meet baby Henry and spend some time with his big sister as her family dynamic has been recently turned on its head. After a couple of days of spending tons of time playing together my nearly six year old niece stopped and asked, “Meg…when you and Drew got married did you have any babies?” “No, we didn’t.” I responded. “Why not?” she asked, of course. “Well, we didn’t really want any and we thought we could just share you and Henry and that would be enough.” Caroline is the kind of kid who will mull that over and probably get back to me but in that moment, I’d given a satisfactory enough answer for her to move on. 

My husband had a vasectomy the spring after Trump got elected. When we tell people that, some nod in understanding while others laugh uncomfortably or look at us confused. We had both just turned 28. We knew we didn’t want kids and we shared worry over the fate of Roe v. Wade with Trump in power. (Although it is now clear that regardless of who is in power this was always a possibility). 

I was in graduate school the first time I met a person who described themselves as childfree by choice. The cognitive dissonance I experienced in that moment was something I’ll never forget. I’d been on the pill for years and taken Plan B a few times in college just to be sure. But those decisions seemed tied to being young or not married or not financially stable. No one had modeled, for me, the choice to remain child-free when grown and in a committed relationship. 

A friend of mine recently said that she knew having a baby would be difficult but she did not know it would be the hardest thing she’d ever done. I admitted to her that I DID know that and that was precisely why I did not want a baby. 

 If I were to get pregnant today (my brother was born as a result of a failed vasectomy) even in a happy marriage with financial security-I would still have an abortion. I still don't want children and being forced into pregnancy would not change that fact. 

I’m not here to tell you how to feel about abortion or give some satisfactory scenario in which you can make your peace with it that includes incest, rape, or a pregnant person’s own health and safety. People who don’t want kids should not have to have them regardless of their reasons. Period. It’s too permanent. And too important. 

Sometime in the next week or so our baby blue jays will hatch and we’ll get to watch mama & papa jay care for their hatchlings until it’s time for them all to leave the nest. But they’ll all remain together and spend the next month or two figuring out how to be independent and then they’ll part ways and I’ll wait until next spring when I can witness, at a safe distance, the miracle of motherhood again.