Why Motherhood Matters...to me.

I always knew I wanted to have children. Seriously. I even tucked in my Fozzie Bear at night when I was 3. I mothered everything. I stuffed pillows under my shirt, I nursed a rag doll when I was 4. (Ok. I was weird.)

Point is, I always wanted a luscious buttery sweet smelling chubby baby. Or two. Or five. Who can seriously resist a happy fatty that has drool sticking to it's fat fist? (Unless the fatty is over the age of accountability...then that is just Jonathan Winters as Mork's child weird...Although...I loved Mearth. There I was a tangly red haired preschooler tuning into the show waiting to see the "baby" I didn't care/notice that he was full grown.)

I don't think I ever rationalized that it wouldn't be 1.2.3 easy for me.
I didn't imagine that I'd ever get pregnant from a One Nighter...but I didn't think I'd not get pregnant...like the daring young man on the flying trapeze....with the greatest of ease.
Even though that song was about a guy so it's not like he'd get pregnant with ease either...although there was that circus case in People magazine back a few years ago where some guy had a baby...but turns out he was hanging on to the uterus 'just in case'. Greedy!

It could be because birthday number 34 is looming around the corner...and my husband and I have been apart since February....So not only is my biological clock flashing at me like a digital after the electricity has been out "set me! Set Me! SET ME!" but I can't do anything about it!
In lieu of being with my husband...I didn't the  next best thing...I reached for the internet. Don't be dirty!
I did some innocent searching on %s and such. As I read that a 34 year old woman has a 75% chance of conceiving naturally I stared at the screen and thought...is that what it comes down to? My fertility reduced to a statistic...a number....and a not-too-pleasing odd either. But still if the weather woman said there was a 75% chance of rain...I'd take an umbrella...I guess...but still...
Where is the romance in that, pray tell?

I decided right then that I was giving up the ghost of wanting someone in my life who has yet to be created. Just like that...
And oh, I was so smug, so self righteous about it.
I thought, I am happy. My life is good. Why screw it up with sleepless nights spent with a screaming infant? Cleaning up runny diarrhea? Projectile vomit aimed straight at me?
Why willingly lose freedoms like...sleeping in late, cereal for dinner, going to a late-late movie, going to any movie?
Why would I volunteer to have poison control on speed dial, boogers on fingers pointed right at me? Wiping someone's nethers until age  3 (it is 3 that people can wipe their own kit-n-kaboodle, right?)
I actually like making out with my husband right in the living room/dining room/kitchen/multi colored sofa, using off color language and making off color references, and the occasional few cocktails...in a row..., I like not having to censor my words, actions, life.

I proudly announced this to my husband. I could hear him smile as he told me about the weekend that he spent with a childful couple. How the 2 year old threw mammoth tantrums...and all he wanted was to go home.
I said "So, you're ok if we don't have a child?"
He said "I'm ok with it, only if you are."
Good enough for me!
We both high fived each other.
Well, the only kind of high five you can give via the telephone...but you get the picture.
We were on the same no-kids-for-us page.
I wore it like a girl scout badge of honor. The "I decided I don't want kids!" badge. If you're wondering, it's a little embroidered patch with a margarita smack in the middle ...and I sewed it like a good childless woman, right on the front of my modern day grown up girl scout vest.
Then I went out to do more good in the world.
I scoffed at mom's in target who had the annoying 3 pack of kids in the buggy, who were all simultaneously screaming for their lives. A trio of terror. Where was homeland security? I announced loud and proud that I was SO thankful I wasn't in that boat. And "oh sweet vishnu can't she DO something with that?" Yes, I was totally honestly 100% unabashedly objectifying the three caterwauling heathens she'd loaded into the Orangish buggy. I looked down my nose as I looked at the tote bags "Good Ganesh, she sould've used a condom."

And that resolve lasted....it did, really.

Then I saw Fozzy Bear in the back of my car...how he got there, I don't know. Well, could be I'm taking my prized possessions back to Georgia (Don't judge, Fozzie is prized to me!) and I tossed them all in my car.
But nevermind all that,  there he was...looking at me like "Waka Waka...you're gonna bail on me? What happened to all the gotta-tuck-fozzie bear in at night routine? What happened to lil' miss mommy?"
I pursed my lips and told him "I was 3 and you should count yourself lucky that you aren't in a warehouse in Virginia."
"I'm just saying...." He retorted.
I looked in my review mirror...there he sat, love worn, full of jokes. Eyebrows raised at me, questioning my newly embraced I don't want no kids crampin' style philosophy...

I thought of my own real life Fozzy Bear living la vida europa... who at that very minute was snapping a picture of himself and emailing it per my two days ago request.
"We both already decided. We like our life... I'm getting too old. Right?" I asked no one but myself.

Later I opened my email and saw Michael's ocean eyes smiling back at me from his self photog moment. So endearingly that I smiled back at the computer screen. Suddenly, the image of his sheer joy of having my best friend's child asleep in his arms came into my mind. I heard his excited voice whispering, to not wake the baby, "I really want us to have one." and all of our "I hope it looks like you!" "NO! I hope it looks like you!" conversations came rushing back.
My heart stopped beating, my eyes misted over....

And from the back seat of my car I heard a fuzzy worn bear lovingly say "Waka. Waka."