Baby Not on Board
I have never wanted to have kids — like, ever. Well, that’s not entirely true; there was a moment, ironically when I was on birth control, when I thought that I’d want them eventually. It never happened. I don’t know if my proverbial clock never started ticking or if the thing just isn’t even there. And the aversion to the idea started long before I even knew how babies were made. There was an incident when I was about six and I was walking with my mom, when a very pregnant woman passed in front of us. I pulled on my mom’s skirt and announced, “mommy, I’m not doing that!” I don’t remember the moment specifically — my mom told me about it years later — but I remember the feeling.
The whole thing has always weirded me out.
So it’s funny that whenever I hear about someone having a baby, or even if I see it on TV, I get pretty choked up. It’s very brief, but it happens. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not sad that I didn’t do it. When I really contemplate the idea of pregnancy, childbirth, etc., I end up making the same face I make when I smell anchovies and that scene from Alien runs through my head. And don’t bother with the line about the beautiful thing you end up with — babies weird me out too. Obviously they’re cute and I generally love kids. I just need someone to give them back to.
It’s a shame because I come from some pretty solid stock, as does my boyfriend. I’m convinced we would have had beautiful children, but they for sure would have been serial killers. We’re both rather twisted in our own special way and neither of us is long on patience. In fact, I’m sometimes surprised that we’re both still walking around and one of us doesn’t have a suspicious dirt patch in our back yard.
Yet I absolutely adore my nieces. I’ve loved them since the moment they were born — possibly since the moment I found out they were on their way. But even with all that love, I’ve liked them more and more with every passing year. And now that they’re fully grown adults, they’re my favorite people on the planet. They are the reason I completely understand why people want to be parents; it’s fun to see how they grow and change, how their minds develop, how their senses of humor develop. I’ve just always been perfectly happy to do that observing from a distance. Which is especially easy these days — type “laughing baby” into any search engine and you can find enough to entertain you for a solid week.
Despite my distaste for the thought of pregnancy and babies, I feel a deep and sharp pain in my heart when a friend loses a baby. To have that joy and expectation so cruelly (and literally) torn from you just seems so cosmically unfair. And it has happened to so many women that I know. So many that I’m sometimes amazed by all of the healthy little tykes running around these days. It seems as though the profundity of that type of loss would be crippling, yet most of them try again (hence all of the healthy little tykes). I have to say that I have a great deal of respect and admiration for those women. I have a great amount of respect and admiration for moms in general. I can only tickle the surface of imagining how hard it is, both to lose a baby and to actually have one.
Truth be told, I think fear is the underlying factor in why I never wanted to do it. Not just fear of the actual pregnancy/childbirth (although, EEEWWWW!), but fear of raising a human being. I tend to be a worry wart as it is; I’m getting better, but anxiety has been a struggle for me for as long as I can remember. So if there was this being running around that I grew inside me and nourished from my own body and was responsible for for the rest of my life? Yeah that makes me anxious just thinking about it.
I suppose this post is about a week late. It wasn’t supposed to be a tribute to moms — it was supposed to be a resolution to a nightmare I had that I was pregnant (luckily, the parts required are no longer there so, whew!). But there you have it. Cheers to the moms out there. I’m glad I don’t have the job, but I applaud your courage and your tenacity (tenfold for my own mom cause I was kind of a rotten child…).
