tick tock tick tock
Feb 17th, 2011
by Alexis Novak
I must confess that babies used to freak me out. I wasn’t the type to oooohhh and aaahhhhh and shove new moms aside to hold their barfing bundles. I loved the idea of “baby”; the fantasy of teeny pink clothes and tiny fingers and beautiful sleeping baby coos. I just never understood the attraction to the littlest beans who scream incessantly but can’t tell you what’s wrong. I preferred toddlers, teenagers and a few more communicative ages in between until I had my own little birds. Now I have officially joined the club of weird baby holders. And I hear that tick tocking for a third time.
This week as my youngest turned one a familiar bitter-sweetness snuck up on me and I found myself thinking about one more. (I got pregnant the week after my first daughter turned one). Is there a mental disorder that makes women want to collect babies? Am I the Lady Gaga of pregnancy or is it my wacky hormones? These were just a few of my thoughts. It may not be just hormonal though, as my husband practically knocked me over to hold our dear friend’s angelic 5-month-old son last weekend before me.
Now, part of my Baby Lust problem was that well-meaning Tanya bought me this fertility book a few years ago that scared that bejesus out of me so much that we conceived that very month. It was either called, “Damn Girl, Your Eggs are Old!” or “Older Moms Birth Circus Freak Babes”. I can’t remember the exact title but the thesis from this frightening book which altered the very course of my life was that if you want babies, you had better try to make them today before your eggs are too fried…and they will be fried sooner than you think. The entire book was comprised of interviews of highly successful women across multiple career fields (Diane Sawyer types) who admitted they wanted families but never put their careers on hold long enough to actually plan them. Then they woke up one day in their 50’s, highly-accomplished, but missing spouses and children and living with regret. Even though I was only 30 reading this book and had no reason to worry about my own fertility, I knew my future babies needed to be planned ASAP. The book encouraged women not to wistfully waste away their fertile years thinking that science could ensure their older eggs get fertilized when they wanted children later. It argued that the media gives false hope to older moms by focusing on rare success stories but gave the grim “true” stats of the trying-to-conceive aging woman which were in fact depressing.
So I had one baby. Then another one. I could exhale. I didn’t forget to have the kids we really wanted. But the urgent feeling didn’t go away for long.
Maybe some women have unending Baby Lust and nine kids to show for it but my case comes on strong right after first birthday cake candles have been blown out. Urbandictionary.com defines Baby Lust as “When a woman is really in love with the idea of having a baby and thus wants to ogle every baby or baby-item she sees. She may not mentally want to get pregnant, but she has the physical and emotional urge.” Yep.
Now we are mulling over the idea of expanding our brood. I might or might not have already retrieved my fabulous maternity wardrobe from storage…
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