When I was little, I remember telling people that I was going to be a young mom and that I was going to have 2 kids - 2 girls to be exact. Keep in mind that this was the early 90's and pre-"Teen Mom" and the MTV that exists today. "Young" to small Kristen meant 25. When I was growing up, teen pregnancy was reserved for after-school specials...not glamorized as a way to become a reality "star." To me, the perfect age of 25 meant that I would be young enough relate to my kids and be the "cool mom" (insert gif of Amy Poehler in a Juicy track suit here), but still old enough to be an "adult."
Well, as you grow up, a funny thing happens - you realize that the things you want when you're actually an adult sometimes aren't the same things you wanted when you dreamed about being an adult. Somewhere along the line I decided that instead of wanting kids at 25...I may not want kids at all.
Now, I've been with my husband since high school. When you're with someone that long, people feel entitled to bombard you with questions at all times about when you plan on taking the next step in life. Once people realize that your high school relationship turned into a college relationship and then you graduate college and you're still together, every time you see any sort of family friend and extended relative, the "when are you going to move in together" turns into "when are you going to get married" and then finally "when are you going to have kids?" The limit does not exist to people when it comes to how much they can insert themselves in your lives.
For the longest time I didn't know if I even wanted to get married. I come from a divorced home and I had been with my significant other since I was 16. Marriage just felt pointless...why rock the boat? Then people around me started getting engaged, as mid-20 year olds in committed relationships tend to do. At this point my largely dormant competitive nature kicked in. If everyone around me can get married, I can too...but I am for sure not interested in kids. So, after 9 years of dating, at the age of 26, I married my high school sweetheart. It's amazing how long everyone waited to start asking us when we were going to reproduce. I say "amazing" because I thought that common courtesy would allow for a week to a month...but it was pretty much right after "I do."
At 26 I just couldn't imagine being responsible for another human. In all honesty, I didn't want to give up my freedom. I didn't want a baby and I didn't see that opinion wavering. When you say you're not sure if you want kids, you're met with varying levels of support. My mom refused to accept this and would nag me every time we were together. That's always fun. Various relatives would tell me to wait until I was ready, others would say that I'll never really be ready. Occasionally, which is more to say rarely, I got the wondrous "it's your decision - do what's right for you." Everyone has an opinion. I find that they'll even share it with you whether you ask for it or not.
You always hear people talk about baby fever and their internal clock ticking. I often wondered what this meant because I never really had a maternal instinct. I didn't grow up around a lot of kids. I was an only child, the youngest grandkid on my mom's side, and the oldest grandkid on my dad's side with only one other cousin in town. I'm just not drawn to babies. To me, a baby is a baby. I don't feel an itch to hold a baby when it's in the room or a yearning to be around kids to get my "fix." By 30, I'd grown accustomed to telling people that I'm sure we'll have a kid, but we're in no hurry. What's the rush? We're young!
Then something weird happened.
I was browsing Facebook one day and saw an article someone shared about autism in children. This led me into a black hole of internet despair around health risks in pregnancy. (I won't get into it - It's out there if you're over 30 and brave enough) All of a sudden, I could feel my own mortality. I was acutely aware of my age and the fact that I'm getting older every day. I would be turning 31 soon. My husband was already 32. What the hell are we doing?! We're not getting any younger! "If I get pregnant now, I'll be 32 when our kid is born, 50 when they graduate high school, and 55 when they graduate college." I imagine this train of thought is normal...feel free to not tell me differently. It's as if the internal clock that people always talk about suddenly started ticking and I couldn't get it to shut up. It was time to have a talk with my husband that we've never had before. Were we serious about having kids?
We've led a life so far where we do what we want, when we want. We sleep in, enjoy time to ourselves both together and separately, go on vacation when and where we want. Are we ready to give that up? We liked being selfish. But I woke up the next day thinking about the idea of having kids and realized that I'm finally at the point in my life where I'm ready to give up some of my selfishness and be responsible for someone else.
I share my story and my journey, wherever it may lead, because everyone's story is different. It's okay if you don't want to ever have kids. It's okay if you've always dreamed of being a mom. It's okay if you started leaning one way and then changed your mind later in life. Everyone is so quick to judge everyone else's decisions, but the truth is we all have our own roads to walk through in life. I've come to realize that while a part of me was young and selfish, another part was (and still is) scared of the what-if's in pregnancy: miscarriage, infertility, and all of the other possible health risks for myself and baby. What if I let myself go all-in on wanting a baby and then find out that I can't? What if we start trying and experience a miscarriage? Getting pregnant and having a baby is terrifying. But I'm also scared of never trying and then waking up one day full of regret.
I write this in April with the intention of starting to "try" this summer. I'm waiting to reveal how my journey progresses because I want to keep the start of this adventure to myself for a while.
I hope that you'll ride this wave with me, wherever it may take me. Maybe you can relate to some of the things I say, maybe not. The most important thing to remember is to live your life unapologetically. Everyone will have an opinion - it's up to you to decide whether you let it affect you.
xoxo
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