motherhood

On Becoming a Mom: Juniper’s Birth Story

Juniper Evangeline Dunn was born on October 24, 2019, at 5:49 AM at United Christian Hospital in Hong Kong. Big thank you to everyone who has supported and encouraged us on this journey so far. We can’t believe she’s ours.

This is really long and a bit TMI, and I know not everyone will want to read this, but I also know some of you are really interested in birth stories. I decided to write it all out for my own memories and share it here for anyone who is interested. I will write a separate post that is specifically about my experience with the Hong Kong public hospital system.

10:45 PM – My Water Breaks at Home

On Wednesday, October 23rd, I had a normal day at work. I met some friends for dinner afterwards and got back home around 10 PM. Around 10:45 I was sitting at the table, texting with my little sister. She asked if I was about to pop, and I said yes. Little did we know how literally true that was. A few minutes later, I felt a warm gush of fluid as my water broke. I turned to Jonathan with wide eyes and said, “Either I just peed my pants or my water just broke.”

We were both a little in shock. Even though we knew from 37 weeks on that she could technically come at any time, everyone always says that first babies are usually late. I had mentally prepared myself to go over my due date. I was scheduled to keep working until 3 days before her due date. I was only at 38 Weeks, 1 Day.

We had been told in our birthing class that if my water broke at home I might need to go to the hospital sooner than normal, but that I should monitor to make sure the fluid was clear, and unless there was evidence that it was mixed with meconium, we didn’t need to rush to the hospital and could still labor at home for a few hours. 

Jonathan and I both showered and started charging all of the electronics. I was wandering around the apartment trying to text and talk to people and pack up any last things. The amniotic fluid continued to come out in gushes for the next few hours along with my mucous plug. I went through so many pairs of underwear trying to stay dry enough to move around the apartment. 

About 15 minutes after my water broke, I started having contractions. The first two were about 20 minutes apart. Then 12 minutes. Then very quickly down to about 5 minutes. We were trying to time them in the middle of everything else going on. At that point they felt like strong period cramps and I could talk through them. They were lasting anywhere from 30 seconds to over a minute, but not consistently. Around 1 AM, my contractions were consistently 2-5 minutes apart, but the length and the intensity were both inconsistent. Jonathan and I decided that since it had already been more than 2 hours since my water broke and the contractions were close together, we should go ahead and go to the hospital.

1:30 AM – We Arrive at the Hospital

We took an Uber to the hospital (about 15 minutes away) and arrived around 1:30 AM. They had me fill out some paperwork and then hooked me up to some machines to monitor my contractions and the baby’s heart rate. The nurse said the doctor would come to examine me in about 30 minutes. The nurse asked if I had a birth plan. I said no, but that I wanted to do whatever bloodwork was necessary so that I could have an epidural later if I wanted one. She told me there was no guarantee I could get an epidural. I told her I understood, but I wanted to do the bloodwork so I would have an option. She said to tell the nurses in the labor ward once I was admitted.

I laid in the bed with the monitors hooked up for 40 minutes and then the doctor came in to check me. During that time I continued to have contractions every 3-5 minutes. At this point they were stronger than period cramps, but I could breathe through them. The doctor came in to check me (so uncomfortable) and after digging around for what felt like ages, she said I was 2 cm dilated, but that the membrane was still thick and it would probably be awhile. They would move me to the antenatal ward to wait.

At this point I was a little disappointed thinking we had come a bit too early, but I was glad that I was at least dilated a few centimeters. Part of the reason we wanted to avoid coming too early was because in Hong Kong, if you are not in active labor, you go into an antenatal ward with a bunch of other women and your husband cannot come with you. They wheeled me out and we met up with Jonathan in the waiting room. He was able to walk up to the antenatal ward with us, but then they advised him to go back home and wait there since it was the middle of the night. “Get some sleep, it will probably be awhile,” they told him. I would have my phone and would call him when things progressed.

I could tell that Jonathan really didn’t want to leave, but since it was the middle of the night it wasn’t like there were any coffeeshops nearby or other places for him to wait, so I told him I was fine, and he reluctantly left. 

2:45 AM – The Antenatal Ward

They wheeled me into the antenatal ward where I was put into a room with 5 other women. All of the lights were off and everyone was in bed. By this time, I already felt like my contractions had ratcheted up a level. As they settled me in the bed, the midwife asked me, “How would you rate your pain level? 0 is no pain and 10 is you’re dying. So… like a 2?” she suggested. At this point I was thinking at least a 4, but I had no way to compare how bad it was going to get. She had she suggested 2 and I was only 2 centimeters dilated so I reluctantly said, “I guess a 2 or a 3.” Inwardly I was freaking out thinking, “Dear God, is it going to get 4-5 x worse than this?!” They settled me in the bed and said they would come check on me every 4 hours, but to come get them if I needed something before then. 

My contractions were about 2-3 minutes apart at this point and I could not understand how the other women in the ward were just laying there. I tried to lay down for a little while and “rest,” but during each contraction I had to fully focus on my breathing, and since they were so close together, there was very little “rest” time. I also felt like each one was stronger than the last. After about 45 minutes of this, I walked down the hall to the bathroom where I realized I had started bleeding quite a bit. I stayed there for awhile, just to be sitting in a different position, then went back to the bed.

I noticed several of the other women in the ward were sound asleep and actually SNORING. I was baffled. Were they feeling the amount of pain I was feeling? How were they sleeping through it? Was I just a wuss? Were we all feeling level 2 pain? I tried to lay back down, but the pain was steadily increasing with only 1-2 minutes break between each contraction. I writhed around for a bit, then stood up and leaned over the bed for awhile. Finally I decided to go back to the bathroom. Once there, I started to feel a strong urge to push. Like most people say, it felt like I needed to use the bathroom, only so much stronger it was almost impossible not to push. I remember sitting in the bathroom stall with my head leaning against the wall and starting to cry thinking, “I can’t do this for much longer.” 

Knowing they wouldn’t give me anything for pain until I was in active labor, I was a little afraid to ask and be told I hadn’t progressed at all, but I went to the desk told the midwife the contractions were much stronger, that I was bleeding. She asked if I felt an urge to push and I said YES! She said she would come to check me, but I could tell that she didn’t think it had been long enough, so we were both surprised when she finished the check and said I was 6 cm dilated. “Call your husband. We are taking you to a delivery room.”

I was in a lot of pain, but was also so relieved to hear I was all the way to 6 cm and felt somewhat justified that the level of pain I was feeling was definitely not a 2. 😉 

Poor Jonathan had been waiting at home for about 2 hours without hearing anything from me. He had expected me to be in touch once I was settled in the antenatal ward, but the combination of being in the room with all the lights off and dealing with near-constant contractions had made me forget entirely to get my phone out. I called him now and said, “Come now. It’s time.” He was a bit confused since it hadn’t been that long and I was not being a particularly good communicator, but I kept repeating. “It’s time. You need to come.” 

4:33 AM – The Delivery Room

My best guess is that I went into the antenatal ward at about 2:45 AM. According to Jonathan’s phone records, I called him at 4:33 AM. He got in an Uber at 4:38 AM and was at the hospital 10-15 minutes later. By that time, I had been moved into a delivery room. When I got there, the midwives asked about my pain level, “0 is no pain, 5 is ‘I want to cry,’ “ she said. “Six!” I shouted. 

They got me into the bed and asked if I wanted gas and air (standard offering for pain relief in HK). 

“Yes! I want something!” I yelled. They gave me a mask that I could self-administer by putting it over my nose and mouth and breathing in during each contraction, then taking it off when the contraction finished. The gas does little or nothing to dull the pain, but it does alter your perception of the pain in a way. 

 The gas was mostly effective because it gave me something to concentrate on during each contraction other than the pain itself. The best way I can describe it is that without the gas, during each contraction my mind was thinking, “I’m dying. I’m dying. Ow. Ow. I’m dying.” With the gas, my mind was thinking,” I’m breathing in. I’m breathing out. I’m trying not to push. I’m pushing anyway. I’m shouting. I’m doing these things because I’m dying.” Lol. The effects of the gas wear off within 20 seconds after you stop breathing it, so I was constantly taking the mask on and off.

By this point, I couldn’t seem to stop myself from groan/shouting at the peak of each contraction. I knew I wasn’t supposed to be pushing yet, but it seemed impossible to stop myself.

Jonathan arrived and stood by my side. The next part is all a bit hazy for me, possibly just because of the pain and intensity and possibly a bit from the laughing gas, but I remember him coaching me to breath and not to push. I remember him asking me if I wanted to change positions, but at that point I was so in the zone and the contractions were right on top of each other and I couldn’t imagine being able to move myself into a different position. I also remember that I had reached a point of not caring at all who was in the room, what noises I was making, or whether or not I pooped on the table. 

Probably 20 minutes after I got into the delivery room, the doctor came to check me. She told me to go ahead and try to push with my next contraction, then said I wasn’t ready yet and to hold off pushing and everyone left. After this, my contractions started to feel slightly different. I couldn’t really explain it, but there was almost a burning feeling to them. I wondered if this was transition. About 20 minutes later, Jonathan buzzed the midwife to ask if I could get some water. When the midwife came in, she asked if I wanted to push and I said, “ YES!” (I’d been wanting to push the whole time). The team of midwives and the doctor came back in to check again and said, “Ok, you’re ready to push. Go.”

I pushed for about 15 minutes, which was honestly a relief because I’d been wanting to push so badly the whole time. The midwives were coaching me the whole time and Jonathan was telling me he could see her head. That final big push when her body was delivered along with a huge rush of fluid was the most relieving feeling in the world. 

5:49 AM – Junie is Born

Juniper Evangeline Dunn was born at 5:49 AM on October 24, 2019 weighing 3.22 kg (7 lbs 1.5 oz). Remember that I called Jonathan from the antenatal ward at 4:33 AM and was 6 cm dilated. Which means I dilated the remaining 4 centimeters AND pushed her out in about 1 hour and 10 minutes.

The midwives took Juniper to a station on my side for a minute to make sure she was breathing and to wipe her off a little. She didn’t cry at all. Then they brought her back and showed me her little bottom, “See! It’s a girl!” before they put her on my chest, Suddenly I was looking down at this perfect little creature who had impossibly just come from my body.

She laid on my chest for a while, but eventually they had to take her away because they were having difficulty delivering the placenta. After 3 doses of pitocin, it still wasn’t coming out and the doctor eventually had to reach up in there and dig it out. Reminder…I had had no pain meds. It was…unpleasant. 

Juniper and Jonathan left and I spent about an hour massaging my uterus, trying to get it to contract and to slow the bleeding. Finally, the bleeding had slowed enough for them to stitch me up where I had torn during the delivery. 

The worst part of the actual delivery was that I tore relatively badly while pushing her head out, and since I did not have an epidural or other pain meds, I felt each rip very distinctly. The doctor did not give me an episiotomy, though it may not have helped anyway as the tearing was more extensive than just the perineum. Thankfully, they did give me a local anaesthetic before stitching me up. I vaguely remember the doctor telling me she used one continuous stitch to sew up all three layers, which might be more sore, but would heal better in the long run.

After what seemed like ages, I was moved to the postnatal ward and they brought Juniper to me. I am the last person who ever thought I would someday go through natural childbirth, much less in a foreign country. It was almost exactly 7 hours from when my water broke to when she was born. I am so incredibly thankful that labor went so quickly and so smoothly and most of all that my sweet girl is here and is healthy. 

And now, the real adventure begins!

About Juniper’s Name 

We chose the name Juniper partly just because we like it. 🙂 But the more we researched it, the more reasons we found to love it. Juniper is a botanical name, like mine, and it has a similar sound and rhythm to Jonathan’s. It means “evergreen.” One of our favorite connections to Juniper is from the Bible when the prophet Elijah fled to Horeb and was saved by hiding himself under a Juniper tree. We love the image of an evergreen – full of life and hope – also being a place of safety.

Her middle name, Evangeline, means “good news.” We’ve been pretty open about how much of a surprise her existence was for us. In the beginning, we (I) didn’t honestly feel like it was such good news. We love thinking of Juniper as someone who will bring the Good News to others, but the name is also meaningful to us as a way to speak over her that SHE is good news. To us. And to the world.

Evangeline also has special meaning to me because of its ties to Louisiana and to Cajun culture. I am originally from Lafayette, Louisiana, the place the Acadians settled when they were forced out of Nova Scotia for their religious beliefs. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote an epic poem called Evangeline telling the story of one of the Acadians, beautiful Evangeline and her lost love Gabriel. Evangeline became a cultural staple in my hometown and a symbol of Cajun heritage. The name is often used in the names of streets, businesses, schools, etc. So having Evangeline as part of her name is also a touchstone to where I came from.

 

A Letter to My Daughter: You’re Not the Best and Other Things I Hope to Teach You

People like to write sappy letters to their unborn children. It’s a thing. I get it. There’s something all mushy gushy about imagining your little person and all your hopes and dreams for them. I too have some hopes for my daughter. Mostly I hope she’s going to be a badass baller with a mane of red hair. But there are also some things I really hope to teach her. I decided to share them with you I guess so you can start judging my parenting skills before I even start parenting properly? Or something?

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Dear Daughter (who has a freaking awesome name that I can’t wait to use), 

These are some things I hope you learn from my words and actions in the next 18 or so years. 

You are important. And so is everyone else.

You are fantastically gifted. You are treasured. You are infinitely adored. AND you are an oh-so-tiny speck in a great big universe. 

What I’m trying to say is that the world does not revolve around you, Darling. We live in constant balance between our own wants and the needs and desires of the people in our families, our communities, and the world. 

We are so blessed to get to be a part of this big messy world. But we have a responsibility to God, to nature, and to the other humans we share this planet with to recognize that we are not the most important beings in the universe. 

I want you to grow to understand that each person you come into contact with is important and is loved, whether they know it or not. And because of that, they deserve your respect and compassion, just as you deserve to be treated with respect and compassion. 

You’re not the best at everything. And that’s OK. 

I promise that I will always be proud of your efforts in whatever you do. I will be proud when they end in triumph, and I will be proud when you put your heart into something and fail. You do not have to be the best to have done well. You only have to have given the best of yourself in the trying.

I will try to teach you how to be genuinely happy to see other people come alive doing what they are good at. Even if you suck at it. Especially if you suck at it. Because then you will understand how to love people well when they are not good at the things that come easily to you.

Mom and Dad love you enormously and unconditionally. But we love each other first.

We have a history. 12 years together before you even existed. You were created out of our love for each other (and also a little too much fun in Vietnam, but that’s another story). You don’t have to be jealous of the love we have for each other or the time we spend together. It is our love for each other that will help us to love you well.  

It’s OK to be sad.

Sometimes, Mom gets sad, but it’s not because of you. Sometimes it’s not because of anything. Sometimes you might feel sad and not even know why, and that’s ok.

Our brains and our emotions are weird. They don’t always communicate clearly. Sometimes the feelings come before the understanding. Sometimes the understanding comes and the feelings show up behind schedule. Sometimes you just need to cry a little for no real reason. So cry.  And then take a deep breath, take a sip of water, blow your nose, and keep on going.

Lies are not cool.

From day one, one of my biggest goals as a mother is to never, ever lie to you.

Even if you ask about something difficult. Even if the answer isn’t what you want to hear. Even if the truth makes me look bad. Even if it means admitting that I just don’t know. 

I will not lie to you about how Santa gets around the world in one night or where babies come from or what it means to die. I hope that practicing radical honesty with you will help you to trust me and to extend that same level of honesty back and to know that nothing is off-limits. 

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And now, here are a few requests I have for you. Because it’s cool to put expectations on the unborn, right?

Try not to have stupid hobbies or interests. Please?

I hope you never feel constrained by the ridiculous notion that certain activities are gendered. There are no “girl things” or “boy things.” If you like playing with dolls, awesome. If you like catching frogs, also awesome. I hope as you grow that you will find yourself fascinated by things I’ve never even thought about. I want you to develop passions that challenge and inspire you. 

But for the love of goodness could you please not choose something stupid to put your heart into? Mostly I’m thinking of activities your parents will have to sacrifice all of their evenings and weekends to help you participate in while wanting to tear our own fingernails out. 

I mean, if cup stacking is what really, truly lights your fire, I will support you. But…I will also probably tell you that that’s an objectively stupid hobby. But like, nicely.

If it’s a dumb sport, you get a pass cause Dad and I made an arrangement a long time ago that if we ever had kids that were into dumb sports that would be his responsibility.

Please, please, please love books.

I’m just gonna say it, OK? If you don’t love books, we can’t be friends. 

Of course, I will still love you. I just won’t like you as much. 

Kidding. (Not kidding).

Just promise me you’ll try.

Love,

Mom

 

To Be (or Not To Be) a Mom: The Continuing Saga

Back in October I wrote this guest post for my friend Brett over at his site, Irresistibly Fish. I had every intention of posting it over here as well, but somehow it slipped through the cracks. I’m posting it here today because I never had the opportunity to share it here and it’s something I’m still really wrestling with in my life right now. Brett has an entire series on his blog called “To Be a Mom” that you should check out if you want to hear some great perspectives on motherhood. (I was the only guest blogger who is not actually a mom).

I do want to be sensitive to any of you who may be struggling with infertility or grieving miscarriages.  I understand that it may be hurtful to hear someone else questioning if they even want children if you have lost deeply-wanted children or are struggling with infertility. It is so not my intention to cause you more pain so I wanted to post this “trigger warning” for those of you who may not want to read this one. 

Also, to be clear, this is not a criticism of people who choose to have children. I believe there are many people who are meant to be parents. This is just an exploration of my own sense of purpose and calling.

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To be a mom used to be something I dreamed of. As early as elementary school l I told people I  was telling people that I planned to have six kids (mostly girls with one or two boys thrown in). I regularly made and updated lists of my favorite baby names.

I grew up in a home where motherhood was valued and praised. I have a wonderful, selfless, self-sacrificing mother and my dad adores her. Since I have two sisters who are significantly younger than me, I started practicing my mothering skills at a young age.

To be clear, there was never any pressure or expectation placed on me by my family that my calling in life was to be a wife and mother. I simply had a natural bent towards domesticity and nurture. I like cooking and baking and I love small children. I think I “get” them better than I get adults. Maybe this is because there are parts of childhood I’ve never outgrown – for example, the urge to stomp my feet when I am frustrated or to sing tuneless songs narrating what I’m doing or to be scared of things like balloons that might pop at any moment – so I understand where they’re coming from a lot of the time.

I started babysitting when I was twelve didn’t stop until I was 25. I taught 4-year old Sunday school class at my church all through college and after college I transitioned into full-time nannying, which is the closest you can get to parenting without actually having your own kids. (Of course, this varies from situation to situation, but in some of my jobs I did the grocery shopping, prepared meals, did homework and school projects, washed clothes, bought clothes, arranged play dates, bought birthday presents for parties, and attended school functions so I honestly think it’s fair to say that this was part-time parenting).

I met my husband at 18 and was married at 22. Our plan was always to wait a few years before we started our family, but I still wanted a big brood of kids and felt pressure not to wait too long. As I was nearing 25 and nothing was happening for me career-wise I started to think, “Maybe we should start having kids.” I believed that having kids would be meaningful and frankly, I believed I’d be good at it. It was something I’d always wanted to do.

And then, about two years ago, something in me changed. I can’t explain exactly how or why, but I woke up one day and I no longer felt the desire to have children. People joke that nannying is its own form of birth control. I don’t think it was that nannying made me stop wanting kids. But I do think nannying made me want to be the right kind of parent.

To be a mom, to really be a good mom, you must be willing to die to yourself and to invest the best of who you are into your children. I have a mom like that, so I know what it looks like. I have worked with different kinds of families and there is a profound difference between the parents whose priority is their children and who are willing to sacrifice their comfort, their careers, and their dreams to invest in their kids and the parents whose priority is themselves or their careers or the image they want to project. I don’t doubt that these second kinds of parents love their children. But based on my experience with those kids, I don’t think they are being the kind of parents their kids need them to be.

I started to wonder why I had wanted a family in the first place. Why do most people have children? I don’t mean that in a flippant or cynical way. It’s something I asked very seriously. One of my deeply held beliefs is that WHY we do things matters tremendously. So I started to ask. Do I want children because I’m hoping they will give me a sense of purpose? Because it’s the next thing to cross off the list? Because nothing else in life is working out and this feels like the next logical step? Because I’m afraid of missing out? Because I believe it will express a unique kind of love with my husband? Because I’m curious about what a mini-me-and-Jonathan would be like?

For many people, the desire to have kids is probably some combination of those things. And that’s not necessarily wrong. I’ve just come to believe that, for me, those reasons are not ENOUGH. For me, there has to be a deeper sense of calling and with that a commitment to sacrificing whatever is required to parent well.

Understanding what parenting really means and what it requires has convinced me that it isn’t something that should be undertaken lightly. I genuinely believe that God took the desire for children away from me for a season because it isn’t the right time. Not long after I’d had this total change of heart, the opportunity for my husband and I to move overseas came up. Our move abroad has been one of the best decisions we’ve ever made, and we wouldn’t have made it if we’d had a child or even been trying to have one.

I don’t know if this feeling will last forever or if God will bring back that desire again at the right time. I do believe that God is ultimately in control of my family and that whether or not we have children depends on him much more than on me. But as much as it depends on me, I want to make sure I pursue motherhood for the right reasons. And if I should get pregnant unintentionally, then I will embrace that as a clear sign of God’s timing and will trust that he will equip me for what he’s calling me to.

I used to long for motherhood, but now to be (or not to be) a mom is something I strive to hold with open hands. I want to keep it in proper perspective, neither looking at it as a means of personal fulfilment nor refusing it out of fear or selfishness. To be a mom is a high calling, but it isn’t everyone’s calling. I want to be sure I’m listening to mine.

 

Image from; joannagoddard.blogspot.com

Ain’t Nobody Got Time For That (catching the anti-baby bug, or an update on the state of my uterus)

For as long as I can remember I’ve wanted to be a mommy. Not only did I play with baby dolls from toddlerhood to embarrassingly far into my preteen years, but I also routinely made lists of the names I would give my children, updating them as my tastes matured.*

Not only did I want kids, I wanted a lot of them. Six! With a set of twins! Preferably redheaded! I said before I understood the dark realities of pregnancy, childbirth, and child-rearing. By the time I graduated from college I had bagged myself a red-headed sperm-donor husband and had brought my hopes down to the more reasonable goal of three to four biological children and at least one adopted child to break up all the little redheads.**

I wasn’t entirely naïve. I had done A LOT of babysitting in high school and college. Mostly with very young children. At one point my senior year I was getting up at 5:30 AM to watch kids for a few hours before school, heading to another family’s house from 10:30 – 3:30, and then finishing my day with a third family from 4:00-6:30. And after college I worked for a year as a full-time nanny, which I extensively chronicled earlier on this blog. I got burnt out and exhausted from working with small kids all the time, but no matter how tough it got, never once did I waver in my conviction that I wanted to have kids of my own someday.

About a year ago I got baby bug in the worst way. Everyone was getting pregnant and having babies and, being in a meaningless corporate job at the time, I found myself wishing for motherhood more than ever before. I knew that the timing wasn’t right. And I knew that the sudden, overwhelming urge to quit my job and grow a baby was not a good enough reason to bring a human into the world. But the logic of the situation did not stop me from hoping against hope that the baby fever was God’s way of preparing me for a surprise pregnancy. And even though I wasn’t trying to get pregnant (in fact, I was actively preventing) I still managed to feel disappointed every month when it became clear that God had not miraculously intervened and made my body defy science and logic to conceive anyway. Jonathan and I agreed that we would re-visit the topic of baby-having in a year or so and see how we felt about it then.

For several months I continued to have baby-on-the-brain. Then I decided that if getting pregnant in a year or so was a possibility, I should probably do all of the things I really wanted to do pre-baby. Hence the commencement of Operation Lily Runs a Marathon and Operation Lily Goes to Grad School. I really wanted to undertake Operation Lily Travels the World, but sometimes even I have to be an adult and realize that I can’t have everything, so I settled for last summer’s vacation to the Dominican Republic and my marathon trip to Disneyworld. I also decided that before I had kids I wanted to be healthier, which led me to a radical diet change where I cut all sugar and starch from my diet and started eating lean meats and vegetables. I lost 20 lbs in 7 weeks and have a lot more energy and much fewer health problems than I did before.

I’ve made a lot of changes and a lot of progress over the past year: I quit my job, started grad school, ran a marathon, changed my diet and lost weight, did some travel, grew out my hair, and stopped biting my fingernails. But something else changed too. Starting in about October and growing steadily ever since has been a strong feeling that I no longer want to have kids. Not just right now. Maybe not at all. Ever.

If you know me at all, you know how weird that is. Like I said before, all I have ever REALLY wanted in my life is to one day be a mommy. I mean, I’ve wanted to have a meaningful job and a good marriage and to write and help others and all of those things too, but even when some of those things have been unclear or I have felt directionless, I’ve always had this deep desire for motherhood someday to hold onto.

In fact, my desire to be a mother has driven me to the point of fear sometimes. Thinking of having a house full of kids has made me feel a lot of pressure to figure out what I want to do career-wise as fast as possible because I don’t feel I will have the luxury of going back to school or trying to figure that out once I start having kids. I have put a lot of pressure on myself to get these things figured out because, after all, I’m 25, and if I really want to have 4 kids, I’m going to have to get started on that in the next few years.

But for the last 4-5 months I’ve found myself wondering if I really want to have kids, and I’ve concluded that what I really want is to have babies, not children. In other words, I love the idea of carrying a baby and then having this tiny little creature who is part of Jonathan and part of me and part something all his own. But I don’t want to bring an 8-year-old to dance class or fight with a 10 year old about cleaning his room. And I certainly don’t ever want to have a teenaged son.

Frankly, there’s a part of me that doesn’t even understand what the point is of having children. I know most of you won’t get this, but sometimes I think, “I could spend most of my life raising these kids who may or may not turn out to be good people, regardless of how good of parents Jonathan and I are, and for what? So they can go out and have their children that they spend their lives raising those kids so that those kids can grow up and have their own families.” There’s just something inherently narcissistic about it to me. I mean, if we just wanted children out of a desire to give of ourselves and our love and raise great men and women to right the wrongs of the world, there would be no more orphans. We would look at these millions of parentless children and find exactly what we were looking for. But that’s not all. We might want those things, but we also want mini-me’s made in our own likenesses.

Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful that there are parents in the world. After all, if my parents had felt this way, I would never have existed. And I like existing. I’m just not sure that, for me, the reasons above are good enough reasons to have children. I’ve been thinking a lot about parenting and how, to do it correctly, it really does require you to sacrifice everything for the sake of your kids. I see the family I work for now where the parents aren’t willing to self-sacrifice for the kids, and how their kids suffer for it even though they have all the material wealth in the world.

And I look at my own family. I have two parents whom I respect and admire deeply. Not once in my life have I ever doubted that they loved my siblings and I and that every parenting decision they made was genuinely out of a desire to do the best for us. And yet, I look at my siblings and me – my brother who has wrestled with addiction for at least 10 years, my sister, whose entire understanding of her world has been rocked to its core since leaving home, and me, who has lived believing that my best would never be good enough and that no matter how good I was and how hard I worked, fault would be found in me. My youngest sister is on the brink of adulthood now and we have yet to see the things she carries.

My point in saying all of this is not to rag on my parents. It’s to point out that even having some of the hardest-working, most self-sacrificing, godly and loving parents in the world, we have reached adulthood deeply scarred. If this is the reality for a family so committed to raising their children well and loving them deeply, I am utterly terrified to think of what I, a much more selfish person than either of my parents, might do to my theoretical children.

When I started to articulate how I am feeling about all of this, it sort of freaked me out. I mean, I have ALWAYS been the one who loved kids and couldn’t wait to have a family. And more than that, I’m really good with kids, especially really little kids. It’s one of my main skills – something I pride myself on. Jonathan and other close friends are convinced that this is a phase I am going through and that I won’t feel like this forever.*** They might be right and that will be ok. It may be a phase I am going through that will last 6 months or a year and then it will fade away and I will go back to the way I was before. But for now, this is where I’m at and I’m embracing it instead of fighting it.

So what does the future look like for the girl who spent her whole life planning on being a mommy only to discover that she might not want to be one? Honestly, from right here it’s looking pretty unlimited.

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* If I had named my kids at age 11 they would have been called Chloe and Oliver. But then, of course, we named our dog Chloe so I couldn’t use that one anymore.
**Because I am convinced that all of our children will be redheaded, recessive genes be damned!
***At least, Jonathan is certainly hoping that’s the case. I can’t really blame him, I mean it’s sort of false advertising for him to pick a wife based on the fact that she wants to bear him 4 sons, only to find out after the deal is sealed that she really doesn’t want any. Bad form, Me. He has assured me that he will still love me if I do not bear said sons. But I can tell he still thinks the whole thing will blow over.