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[personal profile] rivka
I 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.

Date: 2002-01-29 03:20 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] johnpalmer.livejournal.com
I dunno... can't couples research a vacation they want to take, years before they take it? Can't they share sightings and information about an elusive goal? Can't they both decide, possibly at different times, that Sebastian probably isn't the best name for a boy? (Sorry. Family joke. But it's gotten better. "They named the dog Sebastian.")

I understand your feelings, at least a bit. I was scoping out BDSM personals, and I noticed I was checking ages, looking for ages in the childbearing-years range. Silly, yes? "Hey, baby, come here often? What's your sign? Are you into spanking? Wanna bear my children?"

Just remember... dissertation is not forever, and if we didn't let Banshee off the hook, we're not letting you off, either. :-)

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