You're Over-thinking It: Babies

When I was still living in Canada, a friend of mine told me that she thinks I'm over-thinking babies.  She is very direct, a quality which I appreciate, and she did not say it until after I mentioned that in spite of all of my lifelong, practical reasons for thinking that I probably wouldn't procreate, I've been occasionally having a fleeting, less logical, sure-of-course-why-wouldn't-we feeling about at least being open to it.

Here are things that scare me about it: the health ramifications of pregnancy, including the effect on my cluster headache condition; giving up much significant amounts of sleep for several of the ensuing years after the birth, how to educate a child, the fact that I don't like to play and that I'm terrible at being silly, the fact that I often fail to choose healthy food when feeling taxed or swamped in the middle of a long week, taking responsibility for a little person, never fitting back into my favorite clothes (I know that's kind of lame), saving enough money for our own future, along with hopefully providing backup security for said little person...the list is long.

However, in the course of working to embrace optimism in these last couple of years, I'm forced to admit that procreation is perhaps one of the most optimistic things a person can do.  To purposefully bring life into the world is to admit that you think the world has a chance, that it's not going down in flames; or at the very least, if it is, that there is still something that can be done about it.  Since both my husband and I generally believe that the world is a house of cards and the humans are generally a flawed-and-therefore-doomed species, it makes sense that we find procreation suspect.

And yet, lately it pops into my head...it might be fun!  We might turn out to be great parents!  Maybe our child wouldn't be annoying!  Hmmm.  There is really no good reason, on paper, to have children.  But still, after I woke up from a little surgery I had last week, the first thing I said was that I wanted to have a baby.  Do I blame the drugs?  Or was that a moment of singular clarity?

So many hurdles face us if we meander down that road.  No privately purchased health insurance in Texas offers maternity coverage (even for emergencies during delivery or anything), so I would have to move home for at least a trimester, without my husband.  There is the head condition, which involves medication that cannot be taken during pregnancy.  There would potentially have to be a move, since our current home is wildly child-unfriendly.  The same could be said of our car situation, although I care less about that, since I usually make fun of people who think that they need different cars because they had children.  Also, we would give birth to a Texan, another sort of emotional challenge.

But still, why not?  At least, that's what I think this week.