(Pre)Parenthood is a Series of Lessons in Radical Acceptance
Today I missed a call from my OBGYN while I was in session with a client. The office was calling with the results of the quadruple blood test I took last week, which screens for certain birth defects like Down syndrome and neural tube defects. With this being my first baby, I was especially eager to learn the results-specifically the sex of my baby. This call happened to be during my last session of the day before the OBGYN office closed and the nurses left for the day.
Now I am notorious for screening my calls, especially while I am at work and have my phone set to Do Not Disturb. The call rang through anyway and I chose not to answer it while I was in session because I consider that hour sacrosanct for the client. Although I know I made the right choice, this triggered some considerable internal anxiety that required an almost Herculean level of effort to refocus.
The nurse left a non-descript message asking for a call back to discuss the results. I’m not sure why she didn’t leave a more detailed message, as I’d indicated she could on the initial medical paperwork or posted it on the patient portal. I frantically called back after I wrapped up the session, to no avail-the nurse was out for the day. Then I promptly called my husband and messaged my bestie and some family members to prevent what was starting to feel like a full-on meltdown.
And here, I arrive at perhaps my first lesson in patience with this kid-babies (and the people they grow into for that matter) run on their own timetables. After some time (and some tacos), I felt calm enough to do what I always invite my clients to do-I got curious. Why was I feeling so anxious, and about the sex of the baby specifically? Admittedly other catastrophic thoughts entered my head as well, because the blood test included genetic markers for spina bifida and Down’s syndrome-yet these thoughts were tertiary on the list of what ifs bombarding my brain.
(And at the risk of sounding ableist here, I think every new parent to be hopes for the healthiest baby and doesn’t necessarily consider other alternatives unless presented with them directly. I thought that I had already worked through much of the old stories around my “advanced maternal age” and what that even meant for the possibility of this pregnancy and health of my future child. It seems a lot of old beliefs are being challenged today!)
So I am up late at night writing this because I am concerned about how preoccupied I am with the biological sex of my baby. I live in a culture that is obsessed with binaries, yes, but as a therapist I know that gender itself is just a social construct, an elaborate system of rules and roles, complete with color coded costumes. In my work with transgender clients, including teens and their families, I know how fluid a concept gender truly is. I also know how terrifying that fluidity is for those that don’t understand it, and the painful, humiliating, and violent realities trans folks face because of this ignorance.
I know there is a lot of time and resources being spent on reinforcing the gender binary in this country. I write this on the heels of Kansas passing a bill banning transgender athletes from competing in school sports. Frankly, I think we are focusing on the wrong priorities here when it comes to our children’s mental health at school; this is not new, although I find I am thinking about it differently knowing that one day I will have a school-aged child, and my husband and I will be faced with finding the safest place for them to get an education. (Despite my previous thoughts on the subject, I can see why homeschooling is appealing.)
There is no simple answer to these quandaries, and I am starting to see that this is just a small part of the beauty and complexity of becoming a parent. Even writing that sentence feels inadequate because I know this baby will grow and stretch me more than I can possibly imagine. So, of course I am impatient to learn everything about them—but all the information about illnesses and chromosomes won’t change the fact that they will be who they will be. The lack of control I ultimately have over my child is both terrifying and freeing. Talk about a radical acceptance lesson in patience!