On Learning Something New About Yourself

It's been a really stressful two weeks. I'm okay saying because the danger has now passed.

The truth is that I had a wee bit of a pregnancy scare. Not for any good reason but for a broken condom on what is the most fertile day in my cycle. So I fretted for 2 weeks.

But something good came out of this stress. For the first time in my life. I really thought about having kids. You know, just in case I ended up having one of my own.

For the last...well, all of my life, I knew that someday I would end up with kids in the distant future, but I didn't ever see myself being ready for them, psychologically speaking. I never felt that biological urge to be a mother. I just assumed that I wasn't mature enough; not grown-up enough. I mean, I'm having trouble with a dog, for goodness' sake! God forbid I should be responsible for a child!

But after thinking things over, I realized that I'm not 16 anymore. Having a baby wouldn't "ruin my life." I have a house and a good job with benefits. While being a single mother is not ideal, it's far from impossible. And so, it dawned on me. If was WAS pregnant, that would be...okay.

I mean, I didn't WANT to be pregnant. The gentleman involved would most certainly be a good father, but I have no desire to raise a child in a single-parent home. It's not bad, per se (I know plenty of amazing single parents), but I'd rather be a part of a team when it comes to child-rearing. AT LEAST a live-in boyfriend, if not a fiancee/husband. I'm kind of traditional that way. So I was hoping and praying that I wasn't pregnant, but at the same time, comforted that if it DID happen, well, I'd be alright.

And that really threw me for a loop.

I've never really had any faith in my own maturity (an unfortunate side effect of comparing myself to others). According to my observations, in order to be "mature", you had to be engaged/married, have a car, and own a house. Also do womanly grown-up things like wear nice clothes that fit properly, put on make-up before leaving the house, and regularly visit a hair salon. Anything else and you're still in that ambiguous limbo between adolescence and adulthood.

But with this new discovery that I'm quite ready to have kids, I realized that I'm there. I'm grown-up. Who'da thunk it?!! I certainly thought it would never happen.

Of course, it helped to have a few wonderful friends (including a wonderful-er sister) who helped to calm me through my panic and who assured me that I would be a great mother. And I believed them. Which is strange in itelf, because usually, my views on myself are pretty set. For some reason, though, I was perfectly okay with allowing myself to be convinced that I would not be a crap mother, ha ha!

Now, let's get this straight, I'm not looking to have kids; not right now. I want to wait until there's a man around in a more-or-less permanent way. And of course, I have an IVF procedure coming up at the end of the summer (I'm donating my eggs to a friend for fertility purposes)

But who known what the next couple of years could bring? :)