9 Honest Thoughts I’ve Had About Having Children That I’m Scared To Admit In Public

Apparently, I am going to have a baby soon. No, this is not my “I’m knocked up!” announcement. If I was actually pregnant, I would obviously post something on Facebook so that you’d be the first to know.

A majority of my ideas regarding getting pregnant, being pregnant and having a baby are whispered to my husband with the preface, “Do Not Tell Anyone That I Feel This Way.”

Yet, here I am Telling Everyone That I Feel This Way.

As a celebration of the person I am now, I’d like to capture the thoughts of the fetus-free version of me. I’m also curious to see if/when these well-researched and seemingly sound ideas will change once a mind-altering monster invades my uterus.

Here I go.

1. On more than one occasion, I’ve declared, “I just want to have a baby to see what it will look like.” The image of my future child is my husband’s bearded, adult-sized head atop a Cherub’s body.

2. Yes, I refer to an unborn child as “It” even if I know the gender.

3. With each birth announcement, I grow increasingly concerned that one of our names will be stolen.

4. If my eggs and my husband’s sperm do not get along, that’s it for us. No IVF or surrogates or poking and prodding. We will fill our home with four-legged friends and go on vacation whenever we want.

5. My expectant body is capable of teaching Pilates, going to Zumba, Running on grassy trails and practicing Pre-Natal Yoga. I haven’t checked with any specialists on this yet… But if I get a green light on Pregnant Pull-Ups, I will one-up G.I. Jane.

6. I am fascinated—dare I say, excited—by the challenge of giving birth. I am less interested in the eighteen years that follow.

7. I don’t want drugs or an episiotomy. I’m not scheduling a C-section.

8. Often, I pursue hobbies with vigor and enthusiasm for an abbreviated time until I proudly assert, I Quit! Regrettably, slipping my Mommy Resignation through a crying kid’s crib rails would not absolve me of this lifelong responsibility.

9. Uhhh, I may be considering using cloth diapers.

Now that this is in the open, perhaps other quiet voices will increase their volume sans fear of a non-maternal or irresponsible or batshitcrazy nametag. Perhaps other people approach the doorway to parenthood and turn around, stumble or stop when the red neon light of the Exit Only sign penetrates their eyes. Perhaps you’d like to celebrate the person you are now, before that threshold is breeched. Perhaps you’d like to make these notes now to remind your future children and yourself that before you were Mom, you were just you.

Go ahead, proclaim your ideologies on making babies, giving birth and child rearing before the cloudiness of parental authority surrounds you.