This may come as another surprise for those of you who know me (really know me). I hope you have recovered from hearing the news of me liking the N-Dubz album. But the news is, as it happens, that my biological clock has started ticking… Tick Tock, Tick Tock…
I was told this would happen, but I never wanted to believe it (in the same way as I never wanted to believe that my body shape would change after the age of 30, like my mum always warned me… Because I used to eat anything and never put on an ounce of weight… but it eventually happened that my body said “NO, this is it. Time for a change. From now on, you’ll get fat when you eat like this” And I’m not a fat cow or anything of the kind –I’ve just gone from a size 10 to a 14- but it really hurts not being able to fit on anything that I used to own)
So, yeah, I was told I would eventually want children and I always discarded the idea as something really crazy. Me? A mother? Never…! The deepest instincts inside me said “no way”. I never looked at babies and got all sentimental, I never felt the urge to touch them, cherish them, make them laugh, talk the crazy baby-talk to them or anything of the kind. To be perfectly honest, I was always more inclined to feel sorry for a poor stray dog than for a child who has fallen on the ground and is crying their lungs out. Indeed, this last fact tends to annoy me more than anything.
But I’ve noticed a change. Quite a noticeable change in me. Suddenly I wake up one day and realise that I am 31 years old, I am married to the most wonderful man on earth and I am very, VERY, happy. Yet, there’s something missing. I see myself looking at expectant mothers’ websites, smiling at babies anywhere, wondering what my child would look in these or those clothes… I can hardly believe it myself, but yes, I think I’m ready. I AM ready.
However becoming pregnant and having a child is quite a commitment and first we have to sort out a few things. We want to move to a bigger house, with all the economic effort that this brings. Then I would have to take maternity leave, and although it is much better in this country than in Spain, still it would mean taking quite a big cut in my earnings.
So, all kind of questions start arising in my head:
Is this the right time?
Are we actually ready to bring a child to this world?
What if we keep trying and fail miserably?
I don’t have any of these answers, and I wonder if they’ll just come naturally to me. I coolly think about it and I reach the conclusion that now is not the right time, we don’t have the space/time/money required to bring up a child. But then… when is it really the right time? We can’t really wait forever. I don’t want to be 60 years old when my child hasn’t even gone to University. However, if we wait 2 or 3 more years, I will be more than 50 when my child goes to Uni (or college, or starts work, or whatever) Sounds scarily old. In addition to this, I read on the NCT website that “On average, women’s fertility falls after the age of 30 and even more sharply after 35” Not fantastic news.
So, where can I find the answers? Are there really any answers?
I wish I had a friend of my same age in the same situation to talk about these things… But I suppose Jon and I will figure it all out at some point.
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