“You know he’s not an actual baby, right?” my neighbor said to me as I bent down to pick up my puppy who had plopped his little tush down on the sidewalk, refusing to walk because he was terrified of the loud truck coming down the street. “Yes, of course. It’s just better to carry him the rest of the way…”my voice trailing off because why was I explaining myself anyway? What my neighbor didn’t know is that I’ve been trying to get pregnant for a few years now. His words stung. It was a joke I wasn’t ready for and I hurried to my front door as tears threatened to appear.
I long to be a parent. I long for all of the messiness, the play, the tears, the discovery, the poop…but, not the mucus. I draw the line there and my husband and I have already decided that runny noses will largely be his area. Notice how I said mucus? That other word makes me gag. Anyway, I want almost all of it and it’s been hard to reconcile with the idea that maybe I won’t have that opportunity. So we got a puppy. Ok, so we didn’t just get a puppy. We’ve wanted a dog for a while, but we didn’t have enough space or time before now. Now, we have a yard and we work from home; so hashtag puppy life, hashtag puppies of Instagram.
I love Lando. That’s his name, Lando. He has so much personality and every day he makes me happy. Every single day he brings moments of happiness into my world. I needed that. I didn’t know how much I needed that, needed him. For the most part I keep my longing for parenthood tucked away. I only really feel the weight of it every month when it’s confirmed that I’m still not pregnant. Then it hits me so hard that I think I’ll never stop crying and I often stay in bed for one day. Since my darling Lando arrived, I hurt a little less. Loving him and caring for him has healed me in ways I couldn’t have imagined. I get up in the morning excited to see what new things he’ll learn, how much he plans to challenge me (I know he plans it!) and the way he approaches just about everything with so much joy. I mean, he happily chases butterflies in our yard. It’s like a Disney movie around here sometimes.
We recently took giant leaps into making our dreams of parenthood a reality and I cried as I told Lando how scared I am of being disappointed again. He stared at me for a long time, barked in my face and then walked off. I laughed for about one solid minute. A moment of happiness. I needed that.
