Learning to ignore the ticking of the clock

Recently, my life seems to have been overtaken by babies.  Everyone in my life seems to either be having one, just had one, or trying to have one.  My facebook feed is peppered with babies that all look the same to me (sorry, babies!)  And considering I’m knocking on 40’s door, my biological  clock is going “5,4,3….”

Until 4 years ago, my motto was “I’m not having kids”.  All that changed drastically and dramatically after I came back from an unintentionally soul searching business trip to Israel.  It wasn’t meant to be soul searching but after being interrogated and searched by Israeli customs officials for 3 hours straight, I reassessed my life.  At the time, I was in a stable relationship and had been in love for a couple of years.   At this point my boyfriend (at the time) and I had both said we weren’t sure if we wanted kids.  So after I came back from Israel, I blurted out “We have to talk.  I know before I said I didn’t want to have kids, but now I do.  I’ve been cool places, I’ve done cool things but I’m finally at a place where I’m ready for a family.  So if you’re not on the same page, we have to figure things out”.   What can I say? I’m nothing if not blunt!

Anyway, long story short, that conversation ended in marriage a year later and the marriage ended less than a year after that.  And since then I’ve found myself in a place where I “think” I’d like to have a family but my time is ticking and last I checked my messages, George Clooney didn’t call.  My best friend is currently going thru IUI and has made the conscious decision of doing it alone.  I have mad respect for her because I can barely wrap my brain around it with someone, let alone alone.

What contradicts my decision to want a family is I’ve never been one of those baby people that randomly runs up to babies and oogles over them.  When someone shows up with a baby, I step back rather than run to pick them up.   I’m the girl in the back staring at the baby thinking to myself “Holy Shit!  How did that get out?!?”  I’ve held a baby exactly once and that’s cause my friend made me hold hers.  He didn’t break, and for that I’m happy.  I’ve never even changed a diaper and I’ve never babysat.  Well, actually, I did HELP babysit with a friend a couple of times in high school, but the kids sprayed me with the sprinkler and locked me out of the house laughing all the while.  So I wouldn’t exactly call myself a natural when it comes to mini humans.  Yet when I see kids once they’re walking and talking, I can relate to them!  I love their interest and curiosity in life.  I spent a year as a Brownie leader and those kids were a riot.  I’d love to experience that and share all I’ve learned and become with them.   I’d just maybe have to lend them to someone else for the first 3 years!

So maybe my decision 4 years ago to have a family was really my biological clock starting as opposed to a true desire to have children.  Maybe the decision I went with for most of the past 35 years was the one I was meant to go with and this whole biological clock ticking during a stage I was in a long term relationship is to blame.

I’d like to think that I’d like it to happen “someday” but the fact is, even if I met Mr.Right today, it’s gonna take a while to be stable enough in a relationship to broach the subject of kids, and well, by the time that happens, my biological clock will have stopped ticking.  A year ago, heck even 6 months ago, this scared the shit out of me.  But it doesn’t scare me so much that I want to tackle it on my own.  I’m now accepting that this isn’t something within my control and I’m sitting back.  Besides, I get to be “the cool auntie” to a whole lot of kids!