Baby Steps

Getting married opens the door to something, and it's nothing I ever really considered until I got married. Getting married means that if you get knocked up, it's not shameful. It's what's expected. Not that you should be ashamed either way, but you know what I mean. And it seems like once that door is opened, it's hard to close it.

I've always known I wanted children some day. I was a longtime babysitter, and during grad school, I nannied to pay my bills. I love kids, but nannying as an adult, particularly one who saw marriage and kids on the horizon, really altered how I feel about children. It made me not want to have them. So imagine my surprise when I got married and I started to think about babies. It didn't help that so very, very, very many bloggers that I read started getting pregnant/having babies, too. And while I have cheered on all of those pregnancies (some more loudly than others) and it is fun to read about everyone going through their pregnancy and labor and parenting, it hasn't felt like something I really wanted to do. Yet, anyway.

Lately though, I can't seem to stop thinking about it. Let's be clear, it's incredibly inconvenient to have children now.

A. We don't own our own place yet, and we live in a small 1 bedroom apartment.
B. We like our freedom.
C. There are some things I'm not quite willing to give up yet.
D. I'd like to reach some more financial/personal goals before I start trying to get pregnant.
E. I'd like to reach some more professional goals before I start trying to get pregnant.

So what am I to do? Hitting 30 meant thinking about it pretty much all the time. I have no one to talk to about it, either. I'm too scared to bring it up with my friends that are parents. Well, some of them anyway. And A.P. is certainly not thinking about it. It is getting worse, too. The other day I almost blurted out the words, "I think I want to have a baby," even though I don't. It was almost impossible to control myself.

I know a lot is changing with me, hormonally anyway. Lord knows I've talked about the crying before. So, am I to assume this is another hormonal change? Or is this really something I want, but can't really do right now? Who knows? Have any of you struggled with this yet? Especially you newlyweds...I'm curious how you've handled/plan to handle the kids after marriage issue.

PS. I'm hoping that next week, I'll be back to blogging 5x a week. I'm still working some overtime, but not as much, and so my schedule is still all screwy. But I'm going to work on it this weekend. Fingers crossed.