I was reading a post by Jessamyn whom I haven't read for awhile that got me thinking about why I want a baby. Well first it got me thinking about how I hate having to explain and justify. This made me realize how sensitive I got when telling people that we were trying for a baby last year and having almost everyone look at me dubiously and start to grill me about whether or not I was ready.

While I understood their concern, I resented their assumption that I hadn't thought it through, or we hadn't I should say. As a couple we'd been together seven years at that point and I was hardly too young at 28. Sometimes I got the feeling that the questions were due to their idea that having a baby was uncool or unradical, like they had expected more from me. Otherwise, why would I have to keep explaining or talking about it. But I probably jumped to this because I struggled with it myself. In fact, I'd say one of my biggest issues growing up has been how to balance my desires with my idealism. Shouldn't I be the hardcore version of myself that I saw at 17 instead of wanting babies and a Volvo and not much of a career? Is wanting those things a betrayal of my alternative lesbian ideal? Should I be more of a activist, more of a rebel, more willing to get my hands dirty to make the world a better place? It's hard to acknowledge that your true self is much more complex than you imagined, that your life will more contradictory than you ever thought.

I never had very articulate answers. I wanted a baby because I did. If there was no partner, I would be persuing this on my own, terrifying as that sounds some days. There is a deep desire in me to do this, to get pregnant, to raise a child, at least once if not more. It springs from nothing really, except maybe all the love I had growing up, all the love I have now. I am looking forward to the smell of baby neck, that monkey way babies crawl on and cling to you, the soft nuzzle of a tired kid's head on your shoulder, fat rolls on a baby thigh. I can't wait to see Marlys and Karen puff up into proud crazy grandmothers, to experience parenthood not only through my eyes but through Shannon's as well.

Before we decided to take our break until 2008, we had some hard talks. Talks about how I would feel if I never got pregnant, if we never had a baby, never adopted, if it was just the two of us until the days we died. My emotional response was surprising, and I saw in a new way, how much I wanted this. I hope I get to be pregnant and be a parent, but it might not happen. There's little control over the process, and wanting it doesn't all make it so. It such an everyday normal thing that is also amazing and extraordinary at the same time. My feelings are both clear and jumbled about it.