Baby Fever, or Allergy?

August 2000

Straight from the Heart ezine

How do you mothers do this? Every day? I'm only logging in about eight hours today as a substitute parent and I'm ready for therapy.

As a child, I loved kids, even babysitting my way through high school and college. Now, my best friend has two young children I absolutely adore, love, worship. I've known them both since conception– their entire short lives. So I'm no stranger to children or how amazing they can be.

But I can't muster up the courage to even think about having a litter of my own.

When I was young (still eons away from marriage and I knew it), I figured I'd have a house full of babies, maybe five. Then, I got older–and babies became a very real possibility. Now, I can't imagine being ready for one child much less five.

Many of my friends feel the same way: terrified. Last month, I chatted with my former college roommate and she actually broke out in a cold sweat when the topic of babies came up. She started talking about the weather and her new lawn fertilizer, just to change the subject and calm her racing heart. She noted how seeing a mother, barely able to comb her own hair, trying to grocery shop while shackled to an army of yelling, crying children is not how my friend pictures her life.

I must admit, when I'm eating dinner in a restaurant, and I'm forced to listen to endless choruses of "But WWWWHHHHHYYYYYYY!!??" I want to barf. Or crawl into their booth and join the screamfest.

On the other hand, watching "A Baby Story" on The Learning Channel makes this whole family thing look so warm and fuzzy. Cute parents plotting to bring a new life into the world as a celebration of their love for each other. Supportive husband holding wife's hand as she produces an heir to his name. A few weeks later, we see the new family bonding, cute baby smiling, lots of family ogling over this new bundle of joy. And they all live happily ever after.

Of course, the show doesn't quite illustrate the sleepless nights, post-partum depression, immense weight gain, hemorrhoids, fights over diapers and housework, exhaustion.

Now I'm breaking out in a cold sweat.

Those of my friends who do have babies tell me you're never really ready to have them. You just make the commitment to go for it, ready or not, and try your best. Somehow, that makes sense to me in sports and parachuting, but not in creating life.

Right now, I'm basking in the brief repast caused by my best friend's two- and four-year-olds napping. (Was babysitting this hard when I was a teen?) Yet even though the house is quiet due to their slumber, I'm not. I check on them every five minutes, leaping violently from my computer when one coughs or rolls over loudly. When they're not asleep, I'll do anything for a smile or a laugh, to show them something new or get them to stop crying. Even my adored dog takes second stage when I baby-sit (so you can imagine what happened to work and housecleaning in the priority scale today).

Taking them to the store was a feat in acrobatics. Unsnap one from the carseat, grab her hand, volley her over to the other side with me, unhook her brother, lift him out while pinning his sister to the car with my leg lest she jot out into oncoming traffic. By the time I got them into the cart, sweat pooled at my neck and exhaustion crept along my back. And I wasn't even in the store yet.

And the worry! Maybe I fret so much because they aren't my own children, but my woman's intuition tells me I'd worry even more if they were. I can't leave the room for a second without envisioning one falling into the pool, the other eating ashes from the fireplace, or both of them playing a game of Push the TV Over.

Is this what you mothers go through every day? I'm more in awe of my own mother than ever before. How do you guys do it–and not go clinically insane?

So I asked my mother.

"You just do it," she said. I've heard that before, I told her, and I don’t believe it.

"It's true. You work up to each stage they go through. Don't get me wrong: they're still hard enough when you want them. But they're so worth it."

Of course she'd say that–I've been out of diapers for 28 years and I haven't eaten crayons since last week (kidding).

So if I accept my mom's point, this motherhood thing is just something you figure out when you have your own kids, when you're in the middle of it. Baptism by fire. Maybe you work your way up the parenting ladder.

Maybe, but I’m still not sure.

All I know is that you moms out there are pretty amazing. I couldn't even keep my shirt clean today.