The B Word

It is perhaps one of the earliest fears I attained...and the longest in my life history, save for spiders and tornadoes and rabid animals. It's a four letter word that makes my stomach do more than somersaults. It's an uncomfortable topic of discussion.

Baby.

Before I continue, let me assure you, dear reader, that I am not pregnant.

But I think, at my tender age, this fear might be one I need to revisit. The fear of having a baby. Of motherhood. Of any sort of maternal moment or connection. That's striking, odd even. Kindergarten and elementary students throw themselves at me regularly, loudly proclaiming "I wish you were my mom!" And while this is high praise from a six or seven year old, in my mind I find myself thinking, "I am glad I'm not!" The thought of having a child of that age whom I could potentially fail to be a great parent to is terrifying...too terrifying to even begin to understand or rationalize.

I suppose if I were seeing a therapist, he'd ask me where I think these feelings come from, and I'd ramble off a bunch of reasonable suggestions. I tormented my mother in my teenage years. My parents helped me pay for college. I wanted for very little in my life. That's hard to compete with, when you have an excellent upbringing with few blips in the road. I only seem to have just begun making mistakes. My first few failures in life didn't occur until I was out of the nest and out of mommy and daddy's care. How in hell would I care for a little one, then?

And let's not forget the other factors at hand. I'm a husky woman, and husky women have terrible times with pregnancy- my mother told me so. She says I will be miserable and a constant risk to an unborn child with my obesity. She also frequently tells me that having a child is the wrong decision for my life- my father reaffirms this. There is no discussion of grandchildren in the family house. My parents have affirmatively stated that they are not interested in becoming grandparents. Any time a discussion heads even an inch toward children, my parents remind me that raising a dog is a lovely alternative.

Pregnancy is something to be feared, and something that can happen at any moment through any form of sexual contact. Children are nothing but growing burdens. Labor can result in an audience watching you soil yourself in a birthing room.

So clearly, you would think my mind is made up.
Well, it was, until a couple weeks ago.

You see, in order to improve some of my other health conditions, I removed myself from prescription birth control. No one tells you, of course, that most/all birth controls also tone down your hormones, libido, and other such things, so when I started having regular, non-drug-induced periods, things got a little wacky. I suddenly became a horny teenager again. I was on predictable roller coasters of emotion. And something else clicked off in my body, too.

I felt my biological clock make its first tick.

I don't know how you really explain it. One afternoon I was walking through the mall and a woman was pushing her adorable infant, who looked up at me with big smiley eyes and I just...melted. I like kids, mind you- even love them at times- but this was very different. This was a big swell in my chest, a little flutter in my stomach, and a genuine reaction of "Oh...I want one!" This from the girl raised to understand that sex is dirty, babies are leeches, and pregnancy is scarier than tarantulas in your duvet.

Naturally, I desperately shrugged it off as a day I might have forgotten to take my meds.

But then I spent a day with my best friend and her 3 week old daughter. And I held this tiny thing as it stretched, smiled, cooed, and snuggled into my chest to sleep. I watched in amazement as my friend told me she was glad that baby was so comfortable with me. The little one slept soundly in my arms for an hour before waking abruptly and planting a strong open-mouthed kiss on my clothed bosom. And rather than be horrified by this breast contact, I just laughed, repositioned her, and handed her back to her mother.

I wasn't breast fed as a child, and my mother confesses that she finds it horrifying, so you would think that I'd be horrified too. And I have been. For many years. But when I held this little one, there was that inescapable feeling again, that flutter about having a child. I've been trying to stuff it ever since.

What's happening to me? I was only just starting to get used to being married!


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