Chip off the old block...

I'm really angry today. I've been confronted with so many pregnant women today that I swear I must be a magnet for them. It's exhausting. Can't they just leave me alone? They're so happy and so full of hope. Last night I realized something and my mind just won't let it go. So on top of seeing a pregnant lady every which way I turn I've got this thought running in an endless loop in my head. I had gone Christmas shopping and bought this hoodie-type neck warmer thing that looks like a fleece - like a hooded sweatshirt without the shirt part. My husband put it on and we were joking around and laughing when all of a sudden I could see him as a little child. He has a very youthful face and when confronted with just that face inside a big hood he didn't look like an adult anymore. All I saw was a happy, rosy face with chubby little cheeks bundled up inside a big hood to go play outside on a cold day. And that's when it hit me: I'll never see my husband's eyes in my child's face. One of the things I had been looking most forward to in motherhood was getting to know my husband as a child - watching him in miniature confront life for the first time. Re-creating the parts of his life that I missed, necessarily, having grown up in different countries. Isn't that what parents love to do? See their spouse in their child? How many times have we heard the expression - or used the expression - "he's a chip off the old block" or "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree." "He gets that from you!" "She has her mother's smile..." etc., etc. Right? I don't need to belabor the point.

We've nearly decided to bag all the torturous IVF-type procedures that the doctors call our "options" in favor of adopting. It's an exciting proposition and would be so wonderful in so many ways. But it will never, ever be a substitute for having our own child. I could adopt a million children and still never see my husband in my child.