Disclaimer: I shall not be apologising for anything I write in this blog post. This is MY space and these are MY views. If you don't like them, please feel free to go and find another blog which has a different viewpoint (there are lots of them, I can recommend some if you wish).
So last weekend I went back oop north to visit friends. I always have mixed feelings about returning to the-city-I-never-called-home. I lived there for over 11 years, it's a huge chunk of my life. Going back brings back some amazing memories (that's the bar I drank in many times with my best friends!!) and some awful ones (that's the restaurant M and I ate in just before he told me he was going to leave me). Yet what it brought me this time was new. It brought me babies.
Obviously not ME. That would be bad and weird. But of the 5 close girlfriends I saw over that weekend, 3 are pregnant. And I have also recently found out that L-the-ex-best-friend-who-married-M's-brother is also pregnant. I wish her no ill will, I hope they are happy. But it's just such a huge contrast between that and where I am.
I can remember with total clarity the moment when I realised I wasn't sure I ever want to have kids. M and I had been dating about 6 months and I knew I was head over heels in love with him but wasn't sure how he felt about me. We were having dinner at one of our favourite restaurants and out of nowhere, he said 'Babe... One day when we have a son, can we call him John after my dad?' Me 'er... #%*+\€$¥}>!!!!!!!' A feeling of total, unexpected panic started swirling around my brain.
Because of what I do I interact with children on a daily basis. It's the part of my job I find toughest. They're noisy and messy and smelly and before they can talk they're really frankly quite dull.
The biggest factor though is how children would actually impact on my life. I am SELFISH. I like late nights and long lie ins and lazy Sunday mornings. I like being able to go to Asia for long trips, not spend a week in a cottage in Yorkshire (or worse, in a tent. After the Inca trail I swore blind I'd never sleep in a tent again. I intend to stick to that).
I like drinking gin before spending the evening in the theatre. I like my shiny, glossy 1 bed Central London flat which is totally unsuited to a baby. Most of all I like the fact that after 10 years of studying and training to get to where I am in my career I'm finally financially stable and can afford to buy a new top or go out for dinner without stressing about it. Or in this context, without worrying if it'll mean I can't feed the baby this month.
Friends having babies is obviously wonderful for them. It goes without saying that I'm delighted for them. But it's weird when you realise how different your lives have become, that they're prepared to give up all that stuff for a tiny, dependant being and I'm just...not.
People keep telling me that that time will come, that I'll feel differently 'soon'. My manager at work says it all the time with a knowing smile on her face. I just smile politely back and say 'maybe'. Because actually, again doing what I do, I'm all too aware it might not be my decision anyway. I've never been pregnant, I might not even be able to get pregnant. But even if there's nothing medically wrong with me now... I turn 33 in 2 months exactly. By medical standards my ovaries are old and tired. They've been busy working for almost 20 years and soon it'll be time for them to start drawing their pension before finally stopping altogether.
At the moment, this concept doesn't actually bother me. If it never happens for me, that's fine. What I really hope doesn't happen, is that I'll feel like this for the next 5 years and then all of a sudden, BANG, the baby craving will hit me. And what if it's too late by then?? I have no answer to that one.
