Unreasonable cravings.
Jan. 28th, 2002 03:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaI spend Monday afternoons in the GYN clinic attempting to recruit research subjects. It's attached to the Adolescent & Young Adult clinic, which is mostly focused on pregnant girls and young parents. All there is to read, if I don't feel like doing the academic reading I've brought along, is American Baby and Parenting and Fit Pregnancy. This is not a good environment for me right now.
For perfectly sensible reasons, we are not going to start trying to get pregnant yet. Even though for all our adult lives we've wanted to be parents. Even though both our heads swivel when we pass someone with an infant. Even though the last time we went to pick out a baby gift we spent 45 minutes exclaiming over all the impossibly cute tiny things. Even though I feel physically and emotionally ready.
I need to finish my dissertation first. There's no other reasonable way to look at it. It doesn't even make sense to calculate that we'll start trying nine months before I expect to finish, or six months before I expect to finish - because I can't count on finishing when I intend to, and I can't count on feeling well enough to do extra work during pregnancy. I need to be done before we start trying.
But I want. I want to have a baby.
I've been reading about pregnancy and childbirth and infants. It fascinates me, but it also feels like something I shouldn't be doing. The critic in my head calls me baby crazy, hormonally obsessed, overanxious, June Cleaver in training.
More seriously, I don't want to get ahead of Misha. If I'm pushing this, if I'm the one who's been preparing and researching and planning before we start, it'll be harder to make this our thing instead of my thing. But I also feel that I can't drag him into obsessive information-gathering and preparation now, so far in advance of when we can actually seriously intend this. So mostly I read on my own, and bring it up occasionally, and try not to come off as baby-obsessed.
What is it with this nesting instinct? I've got plenty of time. We finally have enough money to be able to play a little, travel a little, enjoy being free. It really irritates me to find myself wanting to spend the money on a cradle instead. *sigh* It's probably just because we can't. Yet.
For perfectly sensible reasons, we are not going to start trying to get pregnant yet. Even though for all our adult lives we've wanted to be parents. Even though both our heads swivel when we pass someone with an infant. Even though the last time we went to pick out a baby gift we spent 45 minutes exclaiming over all the impossibly cute tiny things. Even though I feel physically and emotionally ready.
I need to finish my dissertation first. There's no other reasonable way to look at it. It doesn't even make sense to calculate that we'll start trying nine months before I expect to finish, or six months before I expect to finish - because I can't count on finishing when I intend to, and I can't count on feeling well enough to do extra work during pregnancy. I need to be done before we start trying.
But I want. I want to have a baby.
I've been reading about pregnancy and childbirth and infants. It fascinates me, but it also feels like something I shouldn't be doing. The critic in my head calls me baby crazy, hormonally obsessed, overanxious, June Cleaver in training.
More seriously, I don't want to get ahead of Misha. If I'm pushing this, if I'm the one who's been preparing and researching and planning before we start, it'll be harder to make this our thing instead of my thing. But I also feel that I can't drag him into obsessive information-gathering and preparation now, so far in advance of when we can actually seriously intend this. So mostly I read on my own, and bring it up occasionally, and try not to come off as baby-obsessed.
What is it with this nesting instinct? I've got plenty of time. We finally have enough money to be able to play a little, travel a little, enjoy being free. It really irritates me to find myself wanting to spend the money on a cradle instead. *sigh* It's probably just because we can't. Yet.
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Re: Can I have a baby?
Date: 2002-01-28 02:05 pm (UTC)I know you do. I'd been lurking in your journal for a while before I linked to you, so I saw the whole sad story of your pregnancy. I'm very sorry. Given where I am right now, your whole situation really resonated for me.
First, I will address your grown-up self. Finish your dissertation. My aunt didn't, and spent 7 years at ABD. It was very difficult for her.
I know. I know, I know, I know. It doesn't make any sense any other way. It really doesn't.
I think that if you are baby-obsessed, you should be honest about your feelings while making it clear that you don't expect any decisions to change. After all, it would be bad to hide other emotions and dreams from him, wouldn't it?
It would. (And of course, he reads my journal, so he'll see everything I write about it here.) We communicate extremely well, so it shouldn't be as much of an internal conflict as it is. I think there's a part of me that thinks I shouldn't be so passionate about this, and I may be projecting that part onto Misha. Which is silly, because anyone who's seen him around children would know that he dearly wants one.
I'm trying again this week, and hoping that I get past tha urge to touch other people's babies and cry every time I see them.
Oh wow. Best of luck.
Re: Can I have a baby?
Date: 2002-01-28 02:52 pm (UTC)Thank you for the good wishes. I think I'm in a good place right now, hopeful, but not needy. Let's see if it lasts like that.
BTW, I've added you to the list that gets the details of my quest-for-baby. Maybe it will feed your curiousity. ;>