As promised, more thoughts on our trip

A lot of friends have asked whether I wished we had stayed in Playa longer than just 4 days. No, not really. It was sunny and beautiful, but aside from the sunburn and the GI problems (both of which I am still battling), another malady was lurking. I'll call it trop d'enfants.

There weren't that many kids at our hotel; most of the families with children were staying at the less-expensive place across the road, with the kiddie pools and self-serve everything. But there were some babies and young children in the dining room, and more on the beach, and they were all adorable. More so because they looked like the children I've dreamed of having -- brown hair, light skin veering toward the olive (D.'s contribution), big smiles. (Of course, our children would probably not speak fluent Spanish or Portugese, as these kids did.)

The last day on the beach, D. and I watched parents swing their beautiful little girl over waves crashing on the shore. She screamed with delight each time, the parents laughed fondly and grinned at each other, I blinked back tears behind my sunglasses and then noticed that D. was blinking also.

That night I dreamed that we were doing an IVF cycle.

Now we're home, where the ground is covered in ice not sand, and I'm struggling a bit. Fantasy and reality are duking it out, leaving me confused and resentful. I definitely never dreamed of taking my preschool-aged kids to a posh Caribbean resort -- that's completely out of expectation for a middle-class Midwestern family -- but there they were, our ghost children, on that beach, presented in a perfect Kodak series of idealized family memories that is possibly years and definitely many thousands of dollars away, a price that is seared into our minds but completely invisible to fertile people.

So, yeah, 4 days was enough to make my head spin, mostly pleasantly but a little painfully as well, and it wasn't just from the margaritas.

Comments

[Bea]

A haunting. I'm sorry no-one else could see them there with you. I'm glad you came home before it got too much.

Bea

[Mel]

It is haunting and I have chills right now from those images of a parallel world--the world that could or should have happened. I'm sorry, E. I'm sorry that it pops out when you least expect it too.

[Pamela Jeanne]

If it's any small comfort, I know exactly what you were feeling. It's so hard to know what experience will turn you upside down. You are not alone...