Baby Proofing

If I had a dollar for every time - during my 20's - that I hoped against hope that I wasn't pregnant.....well, let's just say there'd be no need to justify the purchase of expensive ovulation predictor kits and digital pregnancy tests that have started to break my bank as a mid-30s married lady now toying with motherhood. It's a silly thought that passes along side very heavy contemplations every two weeks, usually while sitting on a toilet with a stick in my hand, about whether or not a baby is in my future.

Like my friend the Baby Maker who hopes to soon join the ranks of the Ovary Achievers, I've had babies on my brain a lot for the last six months or so. Though the alarm on the BM's Clock has already sounded, I'm still snoozing when it comes to this spermination bit, but I don't have that much time on my side (according to the experts) as I have just one year between a birthday that brings me to the dreaded number for women and fertility: 35. If only my emotions on taking the parenthood plunge were as consistent as my cycles that I've been charting since May, then I think I could allow myself to completely embrace the idea of becoming a mother.

Every two weeks since going off The Pill - even in months when my husband and I weren't even really trying - my world has been pretty preoccupied with getting pregnant. Or not.

Ever the hypochondriac, I have experienced so many faux pregnancy symptoms I feel like I should write the book What To Expect When You're Not Expecting But Always Think You're Expecting...Because You're Sort of Crazy. When I think I'm pregnant I am hopeful and excited and planning in my head the way I will share our big news with family and friends. Then, when pink and blue become null because there's, well, red...once again I put up baby gates around the idea of expanding our family and return to a place where it's okay that I'm not yet pregnant or a mom or even certain that I will be able to bare children.

We’ll still have a great life, I tell myself – and we will. It’s not that I don’t believe it…but will I always wonder what I’ve missed? Is there a stick I can pee on that can tell me that?? That'd be no...which is precisely why I every two weeks my heart rises and sinks….and my mind starts to justify why it's totally fine if I never know what it feels like to carry a child, raise a child or love a child as a parent.

I have all the normal fears about becoming a mother, but I have just as many, more probably, about not becoming a one. I think there’s something deeper in my mind breeding my reluctance to embrace this journey. As legitimate as my reasons are for claiming – especially to others, but also to myself – that I’m “not quite there yet” when it comes to having children, if I knew, without a doubt, that I had the ovaries of Michelle Dugger, I’m pretty sure I would stop baby-proofing my heart.