Ooo, baby, baby...

My best friend from high school had a baby last month. A cute, pale, wrinkly, healthy baby boy. She's displaying pictures of him on her myspace and proudly gloating that he's her "lil angel". *goes "awwwww" with a silly grin* But why did that same friend jinx me with the immortal words from our youth, "Tag. You're it."

She left these words as a comment on my myspace page; a cute inside joke about my being next in line for the pains of childbirth. I love Sonny Boy with all my heart. Hell, I would take a knife jab for him. But... I get apprehensive when discussions of C-sections and Epidurals and Cutting come into play. I can remember sucking on cherry popsicles with my high school buddy in her living room, just trying to beat the heat...

"Hey, can you imagine trying to shove something the size of a watermelon through something the size of a grape?" she would ask between noisy sucks.

"NO! And I don't even want to think about it, Jo. I probably won't get married, so I doubt I'll ever have babies. Uh uh. Not me." I would bite off the tip of my cherry pop for some ironic sort of emphasis and we two would titter like school girls.

But I fell in love. And I did get married. And I do want to start a family... soon. But those old fears keep coming back and getting heavier and heavier. I don't know why but I feel as if I'll be lugging around precious cargo of the abdominal kind very soon. Everywhere I turn there is the testimony of maternal & paternal bliss. The calling out that YES, you can be happy with children. And no real marriage is complete without children. But that's not true. Sonny and I are a real married couple and we don't have children. How can a baby validate a marriage? And further more, why should I feel pressured or rushed into childbearing by a society who looks at celebrity motherhood as the newest "hip trend" in Hollywood? Whatever happened to that delicate moment in a couple's life when they turn to each other, grasp hands, breathe deeply and declare, "I want us to get pregnant"? Am I old fashioned or is there a general assumption going around that as soon as the ink is dry on your marriage license you should "pop 'em" out like ping pong balls from a canon?

Maybe I'm reading too much, doing too much, tripping on my own motherly subliminal messages. It's entirely possible. But I know this much: I don't want to lose sight of now...today. I love Sonny. He's a man and I'm a woman and I may be mistaken but having a child creates a wedge between some couples. We won't wait too long, but I would like to at least spend one weekend sipping coconut mixed drinks on a beach somewhere or marching through the foggy streets of London, hand in hand before signing ourselves over (mind, body and soul) to the institution of parenthood.