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I have so much I want to talk about that I haven’t been able to decide on the topic for a blog post. So I’m just going to update you on all of it in one big muddled post. So there!
Thankgiving was amazing. An old friend from Nova Scotia recently moved to the Okanagan for a temporary internship, and she and her brand spanking new husband drove down to visit us this weekend. Since Perfect Husband and I are trying to lure them further West, we took them straight downtown on the skytrain, took them through Stanley Park and the Aquarium, and then finished our seduction with a meal of high-end sushi. They are now willing to admit that they might like to live here for a couple of years. Not to settle, of course, they say hastily, but maybe… just a little while.
Mwahahahahahahahaha.
Since my main complaint about living out here is how isolated I feel from my friends and family, this is a huge step. I was in pure delight all weekend. I love turkey dinners, so I spent all Sunday happily puttering about in the kitchen with my friend and looking forward to a big dinner with people I love. It was grand. I was so happy. Thank you, Wellbutrin (or possibly Placebo Effect)!
Speaking of which, yesterday was my last pill. I have an appointment today for a recheck in the hospital’s Care Clinic (where they referred me since my family doctor is patently useless).
Next: People are having babies again. I wish they would stop that. This time it’s an old acquaintance from the days when my ex and I were still together, who still reads my LJ and is on my Facebook. This is her second son, and I find it unfair that she gets two while I have none. What’s more, the baby is cute. I don’t get bothered so much when people have ugly babies. A girl I went to high school with recently had a baby too, but either the pictures are lower quality or the baby is missing some essential cute-factor, because it didn’t make my uterus squee the way this other baby did. I’m willing to blame lower quality photos. In any case, I’m sure this newest influx of babies was behind my dream last week. Over the weekend I dreamed that another, very unmaternal friend of mine had a baby. Even she has a baby, I remember thinking.
It’s stuff like this that makes me feel like a crazy person. When I worked at Sketchy Vets, two of the vets were pregnant. Both were women in their mid thirties who had hit a plateau in their careers and decided to have babies out of sheer boredom with life. Both freely admitted to never having planned to have children, and I believe them, because in the four months I worked there, they still didn’t plan for children. They talked pregnancy a lot. Pregnancy yoga, pregnancy pilates, lets-check-the-ultrasound-machine-to-see-what-my-baby-is-doing-in-there. But never once, in the four months I was there, did they talk about what they would do with their fetuses once they exited the womb. They didn’t talk about parenting methods, or whether they would read to their babies. They didn’t talk about sleep training or attachment parenting. They didn’t talk about parenting period. They were pregnant, and that was fun. Trendy even. All the celebrities are doing it, don’t you know? But even half way through their pregnancies, they still weren’t thinking like parents. I’m sure that all changed once the babies arrived, but they thought it was bizarre that I already planned to be one.
I have always planned on being a parent. I got attached to my Baby Think It Over in high school. I remember reflecting on the name Matthew when I first read Anne of Green Gables at age eight, and how I might like that for my son’s name. I remember having second thoughts when I discovered that the nickname for that name is Matt. I wasn’t sure I wanted to name my son for something you wipe your feet on. Even now, I love the name Matthew though I probably won’t use it. Perfect Husband and I had the Great Name Conversation before we even got engaged. For weeks we would be driving in the car and someone would say “Jeremy?” or “Hazel?” and the other would accept or veto it. We had our children’s names agreed and decided on before he ever proposed. After all, how could we get married if we couldn’t agree on our children’s names?
The vets at Sketchy Vets thought this was bizarre. Here I was, engaged to be married, only in my mid twenties, and I wanted a family. When a cat named William came in, and I said, “Oh, that’s what I want to name my son,” they said “you have a name picked out?” like they thought I was crazy. When I said once day that I’d like to own a King Charles Spaniel some day, and maybe name it Ramona, they said “You have your whole life planned out, don’t you?” and they did not seem to think that was mentally healthy.
I’m sorry, should we all just get pregnant out of a “sure, why the hell not? I’m 35” sentiment? Is that a better way to become a parent, or just a different way?
I haven’t seen these women in nearly two years, but I still keep defending myself to them in my head.
“You know babies are false advertising, don’t you?” a woman said at my current workplace last year, condescendingly. Yes, thanks. My goddaughter is now five years old. I walked the floor with her during her bouts of colic. More and more women I know who are my age are becoming mothers. I read Mommy Blogs. I am aware that babies scream, and poop, and ruin your social life and your personal life, too. It’s crazy to want one, I know that, but I do. And if having children was really that terrible, I wouldn’t know so many women who purposely conceived a second time.
Maybe it’s unfeminist to want to procreate. Maybe it is only considered acceptable if you are in your thirties and simply want to try maternity fashions. Maybe actually wanting to rear and raise a child is considered far too humdrum unless one is nearing their midlife crisis. But here’s the thing – it took my parents eight years to have me. They just celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary. My mother has always refused to explain why it took them so long to have me, but has admitted to having to seek “professional help.” She has frequently apologized to me for not being able to give me siblings. Maybe the problem was on my father’s side of things, but I don’t know. Maybe I’ll have problems conceiving too. And I don’t want to find this out when I’m 34.
Or maybe I’m simply a product of peer pressure and genetic urges.
But I want to be a mother, dangit. I’d even take a girl at this point. That’s right, folks, I’ve hit that point.
If By Yes 