You Are My Sunshine

I had just started a new job.

I was planning to have a preventative mastectomy so that I wouldn't get the same breast cancer that killed my mother.

We had two children in daycare.

It wasn't good timing. At all.

And yet, and yet, and yet...

When the pregnancy test came back positive, I was elated. I was shocked, I was nauseous, I was nervous. I was also elated.

He was not elated.

He was depressed. He saw the practicality of it and it made him incredibly anxious. More bills, more daycare, more noise, more mouths to feed, more sleepless nights, more noise, more messes, more college tuition, more noise.

He said no no no no no no.

Right away. Without waiting. He said no.

I said shouldn't we think about this? We already have two. Maybe three would be ok? Maybe just less vacations? Maybe just less sleep? Maybe I postpone my surgery? Maybe we should just think about it?

He said you can think about it. I don't need to. I say no.

I said what do you mean?

He said he would leave. He said he wouldn't be able to deal with it. He said he knew it would drive him over the edge, that he would be miserable, that everything he was stressed out about would be multiplied many times over. That he would retreat more. That he would retreat forever.

I said really? You would leave me and your three children?

He said yes.

I said that isn't really giving me a choice. Or it is giving me a choice, but it is a horrible choice, to choose between ending a pregnancy and ending a marriage. It was a horrible choice, to deny my kids their father because I chose instead to have a baby.

He said it was my decision.

I cried every night. I did not sleep. I did not know what to do. I was given a choice but it did not feel like a choice. It felt like loss vs. loss. And loss would ultimately win.

Loss ultimately won.

I gave up my pregnancy because I did not want to give up my husband and my children's father.

Every night after I made my decision, I sang my "You Are My Sunshine" to my children as a lullaby, and every night I cried through it. For three months I cried through singing a lullaby.

A year later, I got pregnant again.

This time he was ready.

This time he said I won't leave you. We can have a baby.

I said now you are ready?

He said yes. Now I am ready.

I said but I was ready a year ago.

He said I am ready now.

So we had a baby. A beautiful baby boy that made my husband very happy for 12 months.

Then my husband was not ready. Then my husband drank. Then my husband hung himself.