#183 - hormones?

i've never really been a big "baby" person. it's not the one thing i want to do with my life. i don't really understand those people who just want to pop them out one after another. no offense to you who do, but it's not for me. i always assumed i would have kids, two of them. the same as i'd assume i would go to college, work, and get married. are they cultural or societal expectations? sure. parental? probably. the thought of doing something other than settling down is unsettling for some. to a certain extent it is also unsettling for me but there are a lot of things i have to do before that even becomes an issue. now that i am close to being done with school (again) forever i am thinking about the future. i went into nursing thinking it was a sure thing, of course there are jobs! now with the recession all i hear about are the hiring freezes at hospitals and pushing nurses to the limits.

so back to the baby thing. i was never one of those nursing students who wanted to go into OB/GYN or pediatrics. yuck, i don't want anything to do with pregnant women and crying babies! i want patients who i can converse with who aren't crazy on hormones! i managed to get through school with only 24 hours of experience with such patients, WHEW! we did have quite extensive education on pregnancy and such but i never paid much attention. recently though, maybe it is the warm weather, my hormones, or age, i have been thinking about babies. ack! i see babies and moms with babies and dads with babies and it's just so darn cute! how could you not want one? and then i smack myself upside the head and remind myself, "oh yeah, there is a ton of stuff still to do sans baby". DUH!

my grandma wants me or my sister to have kids, she wants great grandkids! we are the only grandkids so we're the only hope. i keep telling my sister that she should be first since she's had her bf for awhile and you know they're getting married someday. speed it up! i would love more to be an aunty at this point than a mom so...anyway when i argued my gm that i'm not even married she said AND I QUOTE "you don't need to be married!" most of the time grandmothers encourage marriage before babies, right?! or am i crazy?

anyway, this is the closest to baby fever as i am gonna allow myself to get. it's just not healthy. i'll just stare at people with them. i'm not even going to hold them, it might be contagious.

***EDIT*** i just posted this a few minutes ago, i know. i went back looking through my blog cause i KNEW i wrote something on babies before. so guess what, two months ago i wrote this about kids. last year, almost exactly a year, i wrote this little piece on babies. so then i was thinking well it must be a spring thing. i am a little creeped out by all this.

#101 - babies

last night i watched juno. i really enjoyed the dialogue, plot and music. very enjoyable movie. here is the trailer, basically its about a teenager who gets knocked up and has to make decisions on what to do with the baby. enter a couple interested in adopting and the wife vanessa, played by jennifer garner.

vanessa talks about how she feels she was born to have babies and be a mom. unfortunately for whatever reason, her and her husband have been trying for 5 years and couldn't get pregnant. her one goal in life is to be a mom. i think that's weird. i've met a lot of people who are like this actually and had a casual lunch conversation about wanting babies today. a few of my former nursing school classmates are always talking about getting done with school and immediately having kids. this is something that people plan and that's great, but it's weird to me. one reason being they are good students and will probably make great nurses, yet all they want to do is have babies and play mommy. why not just drop out of school and get busy now?

sure the idea of success by most of society is being married, having a house, car, kids, stuff and pets. but why? i think a lot of women want babies, and are obsessed over it. i've never felt this way but i'm sure at some point i will cause it probably has to do with maturity, hormones and possibly being married. it's only natural, the whole biological passing on of superior seed and what not. my parents had me when they were in their mid-twenties. i am there right now and cannot imagine having babies right now. i am a little too busy with my selfish life: fun, dodgeball and friends. i am still at the stage of my life where i can't give up everything (not even a little) that i love for a kid, even though i know it would be a wonderfully rewarding thing.

maybe i am also a little afraid. afraid that the baby will be hideous (think seinfeld) or have three eyeballs. everyone wants a perfect baby but there is so much that can go wrong. taking medical-type classes i can understand and see how many of the diseases starts off just by having bad genes, then add in environmental factors and other random things and you've got trouble. how could i handle a weird or sick baby? one that you've carried around for 9 months, having to eat right and take lots of vitamins. no partying, drinking, smoking, raw fish (not that i really eat it), wearing weird clothes, bloating, incontinence, a big belly and weird cravings. that's dedication/love.

babies and kids actually are fun and interesting. i think my fear has more to do with the child as a clean slate with nothing but genetic material and potential. i don't want to ruin their life! what kind of future they will have depends on so many things, but a lot to do with how you raise them. people do it all the time with no idea at first but get it right somehow. others, not so much. they say your kids end up being so many times worse than you. now there is a scary thought! i've always thought i'd have a couple kids, it's just one of those things...like going to college or getting a job. it's what normal people do. i don't know what it takes to raise a kid but i can certainly appreciate it. giving up everything for a kid who becomes all you need or love in life.