By Kendra Tillberry
“While my friend and I are childless, we each carry something heavy with us every day, the weight of the future in our arms. I like to speculate that we are building strength to someday carry something else.”
At the edge of the pool, feet dipped in the water and resting on the ledge, I sit. I hate myself in this moment, like I always do when my feet first feel the cold water. Why am I here? I could be wrapped in a warm blanket in front of the TV rather than be half-naked, shivering on the pool deck. I start my routine: lean forward and dip the pink swim cap into the water. Turn it inside out. Let it fill, watching as every bit gets covered in water. Empty the water slowly while holding the cap high into the air. My ritual is to repeat this twice, mesmerized by the water dripping, droplets splash onto my legs, as I warm up to the idea of my entire body surrounded by the cold. Holding the inside of the cap at my forehead with both hands, I start the delicate maneuver to bring the silicon around my skull, tucking in my ponytail, covering much of my ears.
The thick black guiding line at the bottom of the pool in the middle of the lane stares up at me.
I savor one final breath unencumbered by the slosh of the water, as I lean down with one hand, grab the wall, and gently usher myself into the water, welcoming the cold. The discomfort. I submerge my whole body, all of me committed now. One more quick breath, then I take off – my arms in quick succession, my left whipped down at my side, my right arm sneaking to the top of my head as both legs push off from the pool wall. My arms meet, extended, at the top of my head leading my body in a perfect streamline, buttock tight, abs engaged, inviting a light butterfly kick: my whole body waving hello to the water.
∞
My mind wanders. Sara’s text flashes in my mind. I see the blue and white bubbles back and forth to each other. My best friend of sixteen years, Sara, is fourteen weeks pregnant and contemplating baby names. This is a baby of IVF, a miracle after two years of nonstop struggle. The decision of what to name her, like all Sara’s decisions, requires weeks of planning and deliberate rules. It must be a girl name. It must end in “a.” It must be compatible with the last name. It cannot sound anything like her sister- or brother-in-law’s babies’ names. I send her ridiculous ideas like Bella (the name of her parents-in-law’s dog), imagining her laugh at the prospect. At least once a week, I pitch “Kendra” again, praying this baby and I can share my name; wondering if it’s big enough for the both of us.
∞
A few strokes in and muscle memory takes over. Everything I do, I’ve done a hundred thousand times before. Halfway down the length of the pool, I start to get comfortable with the temperature of the water. My body blends into the cold.
It makes sense of course that I’d think about babies and the possibility of one day becoming a mother while I’m swimming. Motherhood and swimming are near-perfect opposites for me. I know exactly how to place my hands with each freestyle stroke so that I protect my shoulders and get the best pull. Being in the pool is the only place in the world where I feel tall as a 5-foot 3-inch-tall woman because I know exactly how to move my body and elongate every stroke. In the pool, I’m confident. At ease. But parenting? I wouldn’t even know where to begin. No muscle memory could help me. Every movement would be new.
The black line at the bottom of the pool turns into a T, indicating that it’s time to switch directions. Nearing the flip turn, I take one stroke with my left hand, breathe on the right side, take a final stroke with the right arm as I wait for the wall to approach, and whip my arms forward as my body throws itself into a somersault. The angle of my feet on the wall is all wrong, as it always is for the first flip turn of a swimming session. This time, I’m too close to the wall, like a spring wound too tightly, I push off with hardly any momentum. I break out of my streamline too early, my body still too deep in the water. My left arm fumbles, too deep to break the surface. Awkwardly, and frustratingly, I break out of the stroke and lift my body upwards, left arm pulling to the side, right side breath, right arm pull, left arm pull, right side breath. Body parts moving simultaneously in perfect rhythm as I rock from side to side at the top of the water.
∞
Sara’s voice still echoes in my mind from our conversation on the phone last week as I take another stroke. “That’s a decision you and Jordan will have to make,” she said. I asked her if she thought my husband, Jordan, and I should go through the IVF process just like she did.
“One thing you have to weigh is that you could go through this entirely invasive process and wind up with embryos with the genetic mutation,” she said. “There are no guarantees. $20,000 is a lot to spend for potentially nothing…”
The genetic mutation in question is CDKN2A, an autosomal dominant gene that accounts for the melanoma I developed on my back at age 29 and the yearly pancreatic cancer screenings I receive. People with this mutation have a 70-90% chance of developing melanoma and a 20% chance of developing pancreatic cancer in their lifetime. Four of my mother’s cousins died of pancreatic cancer – one at age 32 and another at age 40, painfully young deaths of a virtually incurable disease once diagnosed. The five-year survival rate for pancreatic cancer is 11%, meaning 11% of people diagnosed with pancreatic cancer are still alive five years later. I speculate about my odds, and the odds of my prospective children.
If I decide to have children, create them of my own flesh and blood, there is a 50% chance they will also have this mutation. Before even getting the chance to give them a name, I could pass along a potentially deadly mutation.
∞
After completing a 200 of freestyle, or down, back, down, back, down, back, down, and back, I begin my first set of the swim. Ten 100s individual medley style: down butterfly, back backstroke, down breaststroke, and to round each 100 off, back in freestyle. In my first butterfly strokes of the day, I feel loud on the water, protruding my body with each breath until I remind myself to correct my stroke, hover on the surface, and don’t come so far out with my arms. My whole-body kicks are powerful. It’s a dance where my shoulders press down, my butt pushes upwards breaking the surface, creating a strong wave, until my feet pop out of the water, and I start the pattern again. My arms pulse at the surface of the water in between kicks and then I move my arms down the span of my torso, pulling incredible amounts of water, trailing my arms wide at the top of the water as I begin again. Each stroke becomes a belief in my body’s ability to do hard things. Each lap reinforces that belief.
∞
Pancreatic cancer screening doesn’t really exist yet. It’s more of looking through either an MRI or an endoscopic ultrasound to inspect the pancreas. “We search for funny-looking lesions,” was how my doctor at Mayo put it.
But the risks are numerous. It’s possible they find a “funny-looking lesion” that is cancerous, they operate to remove it, and my life is saved. It’s also possible that they find a “funny-looking lesion” that’s benign, they operate and remove it, and I undergo a difficult surgery that requires 3-4 weeks of recovery in the hospital and could kill me, all for something that wasn’t medically necessary. Right now, my doctor, a world-renowned Mayo surgeon and leader of pancreatic cancer research, says sometimes the “funny-looking lesion” could be a 50-50 chance that it’s cancerous or benign. He’s working to discover biomarkers within the pancreatic juice (yes, that’s the official term for the fluids floating within the pancreas), which might indicate to researchers if the lesions are malignant or benign, but it’s still in the early stages.
∞
After a length of butterfly and almost a full length of backstroke, I see the flags and begin to count my strokes. I know it’s about 4.5 strokes until I hit the wall. If I’m doing a 50 of straight backstroke, I’d normally take four strokes, turn onto my stomach for the final stroke and flip turn. But because this is an individual medley, there are no flip turns. Instead, I take my four strokes – left, right, left, right – hold on my right side and kick with fury the last extra half stroke to the wall and push off. I hate that it’s 4.5 strokes and long for the certainty and reliability of just 4 or even 5 strokes.
∞
“But if I do IVF, I would know if the embryos have it or not,” I remember saying back to Sara on the phone that night. “I would know and could decide to move forward or not.”
Brené Brown said once that when people start polling other people about what they should do, it’s a sign that more self-reflection is necessary. “That polling habit has become my indicator light that I need less input and more silence and stillness so I can hear myself,” she writes in a Facebook post. “… when I can't connect with what I'm thinking or feeling - that's when I get into dangerous default territory (either standing too far back and not deciding, or letting others decide for me).”
It’d be easier to have someone else decide this one for me. I wish I could ask Brené: what’s wrong with others deciding for us?
∞
I hold my streamline, and there’s this moment of peace that only comes from the breaststroke pullout. I used to be able to hold that pullout half the length of the pool, letting the momentum of the turn propel me through. My capacity to hold my breath has declined in the years of not swimming daily. I take one light butterfly kick, pull my arms down wide ending beside my hips taking a massive pull of water with them. Then, I breaststroke kick my legs at the same time pushing my arms upwards, begin the arms circle pull and surface my head for a quick breath all while looking down at the pool floor, the black guiding line staring back up at me.
∞
Every year for the rest of my life (or until doctors change their screening procedures for high-risk patients), I’ll undergo an MRI and endoscopic ultrasound to look for abnormalities in my pancreas. Every three months, I see the dermatologist who often takes 10 moles each visit with almost all of them on the path toward cancer at varying levels. I’ve had six surgeries for melanoma or pre-cancerous moles leaving scars across my body. There’s a mole in my eye that my ophthalmologist just found so I must go in every three months to see if it grows. My dentist and gynecologist look for moles every six or twelve months respectively, because yes, moles grow there too. There’s a mole on my right hand, the bottom of my left foot, 10-15 moles they are watching, taking pictures of to see if they change. A tech at my dermatologist office described the moles they are watching on my back as a “constellation of moles,” and like the constellation of stars I rarely see due to light pollution where I live, I also can’t regularly see the moles on my back. I worry they are changing, growing, morphing into something new behind my back.
The moles on my face scare me the most. My mom regularly gets moles frozen off her nose just like her mother. My aunt has a three-inch scar at her jawline from her melanoma. Seeing my grandma’s, mom’s and aunt’s scars remind me to be just as tough and brazen as they are. We share this journey wherever it might lead.
Every day I look at the moles on my face in the mirror and wonder which ones will do me in, how many more will grow from nothing, which ones will get cut off, and which ones will do nothing but haunt me the rest of my life.
It’s not a bad deal, I reason to myself. As far as diseases go, this one is heavy in prevention, but it’s not all bad. It could be worse.
But then I imagine my adult child. I speculate what kind of a person they will be, how much of me will pulse through their veins. I imagine justifying this choice to them while staring into their beautiful blue eyes that look just like Jordan’s. That I had more than enough money in my savings account to prevent this. And wonder, did I make the right decision?
∞
Arms and legs in syncopation. I move my arms, my head and my torso lift for a breath, I kick my arms forward and begin again. A mothering voice in my head tells me, “Catch your breath – get what you can here, because the next length, we push.”
I hit the wall, open face turn and sprint back to the wall. Freestyle is made for sprinting. Breaststroke with its single breath for every stroke is made for reflection and pause. With freestyle though I can take as many strokes as I want and breathe at least every two strokes if not three, four or even ten.
Breathlessly, I get to the wall, take ten seconds of rest, and begin again. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat until I’ve done 10 or what I think is 10 because sometimes I miscount, probably often deliberately.
∞
There are three options. Well, these three options present a million variations, but for simplicity’s sake, there are three.
Option one: Have children. When, how many, at what time, and under what circumstances are all variables to this plan. It’s a terrifying endeavor. What if I regret it? What if they die before I do? What if I physically can’t handle giving birth or taking care of another human that is so fundamentally needy? And of course, under what circumstances is incredibly important – IVF or naturally? Are we fucking with genetics or just fucking? Might we choose to adopt or foster?
Option two: Don’t have children. It’s simple. Life goes on as it has for the last thirty-one years. Jordan and I take on projects, I write books, and we travel extensively. But what will I do with all this extra time? What if I regret it? What will my legacy be? Children aren’t the only way to build a legacy of course, but without them, I’d have to shape and be more deliberate about what my legacy would be.
Option three: Delay the decision. This is my favorite option. Being 31 years old means I have the luxury of sitting on the pool deck with my eyes on the water for at least another four years at which point doctors have scared women into believing they can no longer reproduce. Is that enough time? What if it’s biologically too late? What if I can’t or don’t want to ever jump in?
∞
It’s time for my second and last set of the workout. This one is my favorite: 5 x 200 lung busters. The first 50 I breathe every three strokes, the next 50 I breathe every five, the third 50 I breathe every seven, and the final 50 I breathe every nine. By the time I get to the last 50, I’m breathing just twice each length of the pool.
I kick off. Right arm pulls, left arm pulls, right arm pulls, lean to right and breathe on my left. The first breath on the left side feels uncomfortable like my body is fighting muscle memory, everything it knows to be true.
∞
One summer night a year ago, a friend of mine who was trying to get pregnant and I were crowded around a bonfire in my backyard, an orange glow lighting up our faces. I’d been wobbling back and forth about the idea of kids for many minutes as we talked and speculated about our futures.
“If you aren’t sure, you shouldn’t have them,” she said in a sharp, indignant tone. Her words stung on my face, a slap of shame for my indecision. I tried to remind myself that this wasn’t personal – she has wanted children all her life and can’t have them when she wants them. It’s as though I was sitting on the pool deck wondering how the water feels, and she was sitting beside me wanting more than anything to jump in but couldn’t. I realized I must hold more care and concern when I talk about this decision because people are dealing with the complexities of their own choices and decisions.
While my friend and I are childless, we each carry something heavy with us every day, the weight of the future in our arms. I like to speculate that we are building strength to someday carry something else.
∞
Flip turn, and I’m suddenly in the second 50. I’m always amazed at how quickly I move when my breath is restricted. Each stroke is a demand on the body. I exhale at the fourth stroke, every bit of air releasing from me at just the right time so that when I turn to my side to inhale, I’m ready to receive the air.
∞
Jordan and I talk about kids more and more lately. I have a list of baby names. Two girls’ names that I don’t tell anyone anymore, because those are the ones. Bits of poetry I’ve come to wish on, little prayers that I whisper in the air. I pray the names expand, grow from a beautiful idea into something more. I hope the names are big enough.
Jordan finds one of those names acceptable.
∞
Sometimes I like to think about this ceiling light fixture in my office. I replaced it myself. My dad taught me how to rewire fixtures and do simple electrical work when we remodeled a room in my basement. I have enough knowledge about electrical work to be dangerous. When I replaced the fixture, I first turned off the breaker for that room, tested it to make sure it was no longer live, removed the screws from the old fixture, and began to hastily disconnect the old fixture. As a sloppy handywoman, I realized when I looked at the wires hanging from the ceiling, that I no longer knew which one was the hot wire. I should’ve marked them off as I was disconnecting the old light. With knob and tube electrical wiring in my old house, both wires were black. With a big sigh, I knew what I had to do. I called my dad.
After sheepishly explaining my mistake, I asked, “So what do I do now?”
“Well… you guess.”
“What? No…”
“I’ve had to do this before. You could kill the fixture, but you don’t really have any other choice. You have a 50/50 chance of getting it right. So… guess.”
“Well… okay,” I responded in disbelief.
“Call me back after you try it.”
I chose one of the wires to wrap around the black wire of the fixture and another to wrap around the white. Then I went downstairs to flip the circuit and came back up. The moment of truth had arrived. A flip of the light switch would tell me if I guessed correctly. Either the light would just turn on or it would spark and blow the light. With a big inhale, I willed up my courage and turned on the light. I realized my hand was covering my eyes, and I slowly removed my hand to peek.
The light cast a beautiful glow into the room. The brown wicker shade of the new light fixture was a perfect addition to the space. I moved my hand from my eyes to cover my wide-open mouth as I gasped.
I remember thinking as a tear rolled down my cheek… Maybe having a child will be just like flipping a light switch.
I smiled as I called my dad back with the good news.
∞
The third 50 is where the exhaustion sets in, but the adrenaline creeps up. As I round the second to the last flip turn on this 200, I begin my fourth and final 50. I need air. Stroke, stroke, stroke, stroke, stroke, the pain sets in, stroke, stroke, let all my air out that I’ve been so carefully holding onto, final stroke, and breathe. Pull, pull, pull, pull, pull, my body wants to shut down, pull, pull, pull, and seeing the T at the bottom of the pool, I lean to the side to sneak one quick breath before I flip turn and begin my final length of the pool. I rest a while at the wall.
I repeat the four 50s. Again. And again. One last time for good measure.
∞
I think back to Sunday morning when Jordan and I were in bed, thick duvet cover up to our shoulders. My arm crooked up under my face, I stared at him as he started to wake up. I combed his two gray eyebrow hairs with minds of their own, wild eyebrows he inherited from his grandfather, and I gently smoothed them into place. We talked about the plans for the day, the whole day available to us, nothing but possibilities before us, if we choose to get out of this big comfortable bed.
No decisions were made, except for one. We pushed back the duvet and started the day.
∞
With my workout done, I take a few more lengths just to float and play. I move in the water with no specific stroke in mind, no rules, just me and my body moving through this gravity-less space.
I float back to the wall, taking as long as I can to reach it. Every muscle aches. I take off my goggles, peel back my swim cap and take out my ponytail. Leaning back, I float, letting my hair spread wide on the top of the water. The thoughts start to dissipate, detangle, and release. I imagine them floating away from me. After a few minutes, I pace to the edge of the pool deck and slowly, painfully peel myself out of the water.
Worrying about the future can easily lead to an unproductive spiral, but speculating allows for the storytelling part of my brain to ignite. Speculation offers the tools to build a vision for the future I want. I chose the braid of lap swimming in this essay to ground the experience within the body and to remind myself that I am both a body moving through the world and a mind trying to make sense of it. The guiding black line at the bottom of the pool symbolizes wanting that kind of clarity in my direction in life. Which way should I go? As I reread my essay, I wonder how being in the water might be like a kind of womb -- a perfect place for me to speculate about one day becoming a vessel for someone else.
Kendra Tillberry holds an MA in creative writing from the University of St. Thomas. She was awarded an Artist-In-Residence from Crater Lake National Park in Oregon in 2019. Her work has also appeared in How We Are. Kendra lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, with her partner Jordan and little dog Nana.