Escaping the Present Moment...in Two Lines

Another test.  Will there be two lines?

Two lines.

Calling my husband.  Telling him there were two lines.  A moment I will never, ever forget.  The joy.  The excitement.  The immediate expectations.

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I don't know what it is about those few seconds you wait until your urine travels up the stick to read a positive or negative pregnancy result.  It feels like years.  Watching.  Waiting.  The anticipation.  Hope.  Excitement.  Will there be two lines this time?  

I am finding that the most common way for me to escape my present moment is to think I might be pregnant.  The symptoms haunt me, and I wonder.  Wonder if that could be the missing link...put the seal on the "have another baby" stamp in my perfection passport...and then I could feel safe...feel like I have it all...feel happy.  The anticipation of wondering if we will have another, forget if we actually want another child, I bolt from my current reality and obsess...about what it might look like...what it might feel like...what I might be like...nothing like the current me...I would be content, fulfilled, loved. 

So here I wait,  impatiently yearning for two lines, over and over again, sure that it's positive this time.  

The pregnancy symptoms are there, but always explained by something else.  It is my thought pattern of escaping the present moment that sets me up for disappointment when the test again reads negative.  Am I creating a way to punish myself?  I don't want this.  I do want this.  I suppose the question I need to be asking myself, the awareness I need to stay present to, is the moment I start to bolt from reality.  What am I thinking?  What am I feeling, in my mind, and in my body?  Why do I feel the need to escape?  

I would love to have more children.  I don't, however, want the expectations of more children carried in my body.  When someone asks, "When are you going to have another one?"  Never thinking there might be problems.  Never thinking you have wanted another one all along.  Never thinking it is none of their business.  I carry the anticipation of that moment, the defensiveness, the anxiety, the stress of it, in my body, waiting, ready.  Ready to shame myself.  Ready to explain, justify, defend, something I have no control over, something that is no one else's business.  I don't want to carry that reaction in my body any longer, but I don't like staying present in that moment either.  It's not a nice one to feel, to realize, to know.     So, I suppose that's the true reality I am escaping.  

I also know that I would value me more if I were pregnant.  Like it gives me time and reason to take care of myself, as if, in and of myself, I am not worth it, but pregnant, sure, take a nap, put your feet up, eat good meals, and pay attention to me, all guilt free...because the baby deserves it, not me.  

It's really no way to live, no way to treat myself.  I know it.  I just want the escape.  The escape from the pressure I feel to be perfect, to do it all, to be happy.  The distance I sometimes feel from happiness, and the ease with which I tell myself I could have it if I were pregnant.  It is all a false pretense, the worst of false realities...not to mention, the immense expectation the child would have, even while still developing in my body.  I don't ever want to give a child the burden of my own self validation--the burden of telling me my body is healed, my body is resilient, my body works.  And yet, it is exactly what I am imagining.  

I don't know the real truth yet.  Right now, my pattern is to simply sit here, and wait for the urine to travel up the stick.  To wait for that moment when there will be two lines.  When will I realize I don't need the test?  When will I trust living in my own body?  I look forward to that moment...