I’m being chased and tempted by newborns. Or at least that’s how it feels. Pictures of my babies keep popping up on my Facebook memories. And everywhere I look, someone has a round pregnant belly or a tiny baby. Like a constant reminder of something I’m trying to forget.

I’m feeling so stuck in between, as my own body begins to close down it’s baby-making shop, and my oldest daughter is presently growing me my first grandchild.

And my husband has a vasectomy scheduled for August.

All of this plays a part in these feelings. But mostly, it’s about to be so final. And I want it to be final. I begged and fought to make this vasectomy happen. But it’s still closing the door on something that’s taken up 22 years of my life. It’s hard to let go of so much in one quick snip.

I keep thinking about bringing my first baby home. Georgia was so tiny and I was scared I couldn’t take care of her since I couldn’t even keep houseplants alive. I remember learning to nurse her and comfort her and how to become a mother inside our log house in the mountains. There is inevitably so much fear and success with our first babies.

And the days after Holly was born, sitting in the hot hospital room in Denver, amazed how love multiples with each baby, like magic. Bringing my sweet, quiet dark-haired baby home to the cool mountains, to our little family comprised of her sister and me and my mom. How she completed us and made us whole.

And our tiny apartment on Park Avenue here in Beaver Dam with Brice as a newborn. The god awful heat that summer, and Brice’s little bird mouth, constantly nursing. The girls and I watching episodes of DeGrassi and passing his sweet, jaundiced little body between us. Those were some of the sweetest times of my life.

I feel like I missed a lot with Savannah. I’d lost a lot of blood during labor and was exhausted for weeks after the birth. I broke my foot 3 weeks postpartum. Both Brice and I picked up a bad stomach flu that first month. Georgia graduated high school. We had lots of photo jobs with deadlines and we were in the midst of buying a house. And I was caring for my mom and was so worried about her because I knew she was not going to be with us much longer. I didn’t watch my last baby slip away into not being a baby anymore because I had so much to do. And I was too busy watching my mother leave this world.

It haunts me now, as my uterus and it’s baby-making shop shuts down and my husbands vasectomy looms closer. The minutes click by and I keep thinking that if I don’t rush out right now and make it happen, there will be no more babies.

And that’s okay. In reality, I don’t want more babies. I don’t need any more babies.

But it’s still so very hard to let that go.