you and me song

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this blog post is being written, after much hand-wringing, despite the fact that some or all of you may consider it TMI. maybe even WAY TMI. but, well, we'll see what you think. feedback is always welcome.


i'm not exactly sure why talking about a couple's thoughts and plans about child-bearing is such a taboo topic. i know for a fact that some of my friends think that this discussion is absolutely off-limits, even with close friends. maybe it is the result of my extreme ambivalence about the whole idea that makes it hard for me to understand why some people are touchy about it. i understand that it is an emotionally-loaded topic for a lot of people. i do. i apologize if you are one of those people and i have crossed the line. but i want to talk about it. i want to think about it. get input. ponder. pray.

and, for the moment at least, i want to do all that pondering and praying without worrying about getting pregnant.

and so, my doctor and i have worked out a strategy that Yale and i are comfortable with and i hope will be our 98.2% effective assurance for the time being. if you'd like to know more about this decision, please email me. i'm happy to talk about it, but i don't want any readers to never open my blog again for fear of reading about birth control. if you like reading about that kind of stuff, dooce.com is full of marginally-to-completely offensive overshare about all aspects of her fertility.

anyway. i guess this is as good a place as any to go "on record" with the revelation that Yale and i do not plan to have children any time soon. maybe, and i admit this is hedging, but MAYBE not ever. and i am thankful that he and i are on the same page about it. every once in a while we check in and see if either of us has changed our mind. but so far, we feel far more inclined to adopt at some point than to have our own baby.

i decided to write this post because i am one of the only woman i know who feels this way. i can think of maybe only 2 or 3 other woman my age who has expressed this same sentiment to me. i have a lot of mixed feelings about it, and i do sometimes think that i could change my mind. but this is not a small decision, and my current ambivalence about the idea of child-bearing is reason enough to keep the oven door padlocked. as i once read on the above-mentioned 'dooce' blog: having a baby is like getting a tatoo on your face. you better be really really really sure you want one.

it seems to me, from my own observation and from anecdotal and totally unscientific 'research', that the way i feel when i see a fluffy puppy trotting down the sidewalk is roughly equivalent to what many of my friends feel when they see a baby. a heart-racing, 'must-touch-that-adorable-thing-right-now', muscle melty kind of sensation. i do not feel that when i see a baby. i don't feel scared or repulsed or anything. i want to hold your baby! and smell it! and touch her cute little toes and fingers and giggle into her beaming smile. but i am perfectly happy to hand her back to you. and my heart doesn't race when i do.

watching a baby be born in october certainly boosted my relatively latent maternal impulses, but they left again pretty quickly.

i've been checking out the "childless by choice project" a bit, and think i may read some books about it. i already know that the decision not to have kids is a complicated one, and a potentially isolating one. and i reserve the right to change my mind. but first, i want a puppy. we'll see how it goes.

(and yes, i know that having a dog is NOTHING like having a baby. i know, i know. but it does require a lot of care-taking, which could result in some sort of mental or emotional switch getting flipped. right? maybe?)

for now, Yale and i are of the opinion that for now at least, a family of two will be just fine. not that you asked. but, you know, just so you know.