This week’s prompt (dug from the archives): Do I want a baby?
Every year in high school, some well-meaning guidance counselor would paper our desks with thought-provoking questionnaires determined to map out our future. What do you want to study? What subjects do you enjoy? Are you a group or individual learner? Where do you see yourself in five years? Ten years? What do you envision yourself doing at 30?
My answers were always the same: Writing. Writing and art. Individual. In college. Working and married. Writing and illustrating books, married with two kids.
Two weeks after I graduated college, I got married. I was 21 years old.
And I had no doubts, no fears. It was the best decision I ever made. I was in love and dizzy with hope for the future.
When I started my job at Primetime, my buddy Libby and I bonded over the fact we wanted puppies, not children. While I wanted children eventually, Ben and I had other plans. We wanted to pay off our house, stash away some cash, travel and live for awhile.
The only Babies I wanted had two wiggling tails and hot puppy breath.
”We’ll start trying around 27,” Ben said, and I agreed. 27 was years away. Eons away. I’d be a responsible, adult mature woman by then. By 27, I’d be able to hear tales of ripping and tearing during birth stories without screaming and covering my ears or looking at a child as something more than another creature to care for that, unlike my current Babies, screamed and would not be amused my my lengthy gym visits or random trips to the pool.
Then I turned 27. Ben turned 28. Everyone from the grocer to my father-in-law wanted to know why my stomach was still flat and my hands weren’t pushing a stroller. ”You’re not a career person,” one friend told me. ”It’s not like you’re wanting to climb the corporate ladder. So why aren’t you pregnant?”
It would be easy to be offended. It would be easy to be wailing and gnashing my teeth, revealing how we tried and tried and couldn’t or whirl around and spout my right to independence from childbearing. But instead, I just smiled.
The only thing I ever wanted in my life was to marry a man I loved and have puppies. Everything else is a blessing. I don’t deserve to have books published, I don’t deserve to paint, I don’t deserve to have babies. If I’m lucky enough to do so, then there’s only one person to thank for that. And even though I’ve plotted fun Christmas activities to do and have a running list of baby names and rules for governing their behavior, I know it’s no guarantee. But on some days, when I look at Ben’s eyes crinkling as he smiles, all I can think is, “If anyone deserves a kid, it’s him. And I want to give him that. I want us to have a family.”
On the same hand, I can’t lie and say I’m not worried, that I don’t fret about a child “taking over my life.” I know I’ll be the one doing the majority (all) the childcare because Ben’s busy providing. I understand my luxurious lengthy gym visits and hours writing and painting will be slashed. Instead of spontaneity, I’ll have responsibility. Instead of creativity, I’ll have spit up and dirty diapers and sleepless nights.
But after I got laid off and spent two years fighting with myself, trying to fight my creative urges to paint and write and dream, I learned I can’t control what happens. And lately, I’m loving following my gut and going with the flow. So instead of worrying about basal temperature charts and fertility drugs, I’m just letting what happens happen.
If you’re a mom, when did you know you wanted a baby? If you’re not a mom, when did you know you wanted to stay child free?
And for something tasty, come skip over to the Pond— we got a delicious recipe and book review!
When did I know I wanted a baby? Unexpected pregnancy. I suddenly knew I ferociously wanted this baby (NOT that there was any other option). It wasn’t until he was put into my arms that I knew my entire life changing was so going to be worth it, forever. Someone told me once that you don’t even know you really wanted that baby until you have that baby. Then you can’t imagine your life without that baby. He was worth all the changes, all the so-called losses and blessed my life with nothing but gains!
This is a good topic as I’m now 27 and I was sure that I would never be married but I would have children by 30. I always wanted to be a mom but with each passing semester of college, I promised myself that I wouldn’t have kids until I was stable enough to provide for them and when I mean stable, I meant with a college degree and a career. When I was first engaged and married, I would expect a “mistake” to happen that would’ve made me a mom, but I’m now glad that didn’t happen because I’m so not ready to be a mom yet. There’s so many things I want to do so I’m letting God take the wheel.
I think I realized a long time ago that if you’re going to wait until you’re “ready”, you will never have kids, and so I decided that I wouldn’t. I wanted to travel the world, own a real house, have a million hobbies. Kids just weren’t going to fit in with that.
When Kevin and I were dating I remember wondering how I would ever bring up that I wasn’t interested in kids. How would he see his future with me? When the topic finally came up, he sort of brushed it off saying, “You’re young.” The topic came up again after we were engaged. He said to me again, “You’re young.” I said to him, “You’re not.” When we were married I was 31 and he was almost 42. Kids were something we really would have needed to start working on right away. He even admitted then that while he liked the idea of kids, he didn’t like the idea of babies. He didn’t want to deal with diapers and strollers and car seats and 3AM feedings.
When you’re married though, there is a feeling that doing something so tremendous and special together would be an amazing feeling. It’s not as if I have never dreamed of an accident.
The thing is I really do like my life as it is. If we had kids, I wonder what would happen if they weren’t interested in horses (likely if we had a male child). I can only imagine the fights we would have over who gets to go to the barn and who has to stay home and take junior to ballet/soccer/friends on weekends. I don’t want to drop my dance classes or my theater group. Our home is not big enough for 3 people. If I were to have kids, I would want a real house and not a 2 bedroom condo. I often say that when Kevin bought his horse Jenna, he made the decision himself to not have kids. She takes up far too much money and time to allow us to be parents to anyone or anything else.
NOt having kids makes me a black sheep in the family. Among the Z grandchildren, I am the only one without 2 kids. I remember in the last years of her life, every time I saw my paternal grandmother she would ask me, “When are you going to have a baby?” I would reply, “We’re not ready yet,” and she would say, “If you’re not ready, you shouldn’t have one,” and stay quiet until the next time I saw her. Then I realize I’m a black sheep in so many other ways as well. I’m the only one among the cousins/brother who married outside the Catholic church as well. My family forgave me for that.
Some of the longest-lasting, happiest couples I know, with the strongest marriages, are child-free ones. I have always wanted to emulate my happiest friends.
Do I still wonder what would happen if there were an accident? Yes, I do. At this stage of the game it would be unlikely and very high risk.
You can’t plan your life over what other expect, or even what you think you are supposed to expect. There are no patterns to follow. You follow your own happiness. Your family is exactly what you make it and what you want it to be.
I honestly don’t think there is ever a time that you will truly “be ready”, but that being said, I always knew I wanted children. And when it got to a point in our marriage that it was time, my hubby and I both knew it.
It sounds like you have a good plan in place, which is to say that you are going with the flow…lesson one of motherhood!
I love your honesty here. It’s so hard when everyone asks, not everyone wants or can have children, it’s a very personal question.
Growing up I always said I wasn’t going to have children for a variety of reasons, but mostly to break the cycle I saw between my mother and I, her stepmother and her, and so forth. It just wasn’t pretty. Plus, I was never really child–not the “old soul” saw, I just grew up very fast and, subsequently, don’t know how to interact with children. They boggle my mind.
I waffled a little in my 20s, going back and forth on whether I wanted children or not, but I always came back to not. Now, at 36, I’m grateful I didn’t give in to earlier second-guessing because my life, now, is how it needs to be for me to accomplish the things I want. I used to say I was too selfish to have a child, too selfish of my time, but my art and my work is my “child,” it’s what I want to leave behind.
I always knew I would want kids, which is funny because I didn’t LOVE kids. I didn’t go out of my way to hold babies (in fact I avoided it if I could – so fragile), I never babysat. But I just knew that was part of my life plan. I didn’t know I wouldn’t meet the right guy until I was almost 30 and that kids wouldn’t arrive for a couple more years, but the timing seemed right at the time. We didn’t struggle with fertility, but I did lose my first baby when I was about 17 weeks pregnant. That was very difficult and my next pregnancy was very stressful for me. I think your plan sounds perfect. Sometimes the best things happen when we are not focusing on them.
I didn’t make a choice; my body did. At 33, I had to have a hysterectomy, and that was that. I’d had GYN problems since… well, yeah… and I never had felt certain that I was meant to be a mom. However, I’m going through the same struggle with so many of my friends… It’s a highly personal decision that absolutely everyone in the world has an opinion on!
I adore the honesty in this post. I’ve wanted to be a Mom since I was wee. When we got married, J. and I knew we had to wait for the “right” time. There was always something (money, house, school etc.) stopping us. Then his aunt casually made a comment that stuck: “You don’t get to keep your fertility forever.” We now have 2 sons, six and one.
Enjoy this “whatever happens, happens” time. The unknown can be delicious!
Oh my goodness…this is such a great post! I am so glad that you are at a place where you are willing to accept whatevery happens, happens. So few women could say that.
My story is really complicated, but I always wanted children. In fact, I wanted an even dozen (or even a baker’s dozen…for real), but I was blessed with two. There are physical complications that I cannot have any more children and though I would love, love, love to adopt and get my dozen, there are financial complications there too. So…while I am happy raising my two, I do look forward with a great hope of many, many grandchildren.
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