When I was a little girl, I absolutely loved baby dolls. At one point I had five that I carried around at once, all which did various "real" baby things like closing their eyes when you laid them down and wetting their diapers after you fed them bottles filled with tap water.
I lovingly cared for them all and told everyone I wanted a bunch of kids when I grew up. I especially wanted twins. I had my mom buy me a set of twin baby dolls, though I eventually gave one to my little sister to care for -- even when they're painted plastic, five babies are a lot to handle.
[Sometimes my cat stood in for my dolls.]
When I was in my late teens, I agreed to help out in a daycare program a few days a week to get a little extra income. I quickly realized that real kids are nothing like baby dolls. They don't go down for a nap when you get tired of playing with them and something much smellier than tap water appears in their diapers after you feed them.
I also didn't just sit at the teacher's desk and watch the kids play. I got down on my knees and gently rough-housed with the energetic little boys in between helping the little girls cook in their play kitchen and feed their baby dolls. I'd frequently come home looking like I had spent the last couple hours in the middle of a tornado. Sometimes I'd also smell like I'd just crawled out of a sewer.
It didn't take long for me to adjust my outlook on the size of my future family. Two children sounded good. One sounded even better. Maybe I didn't even want kids at all.
Years passed, and even after I got married, kids were nowhere near the top of my to-do list, even when my Facebook page started exploding with pregnancy announcements from friends I had grown up with from high school. Soon it seemed like every woman my age that I had ever known was pregnant and flooding the Internet with pictures of cribs and baby showers and bulging stomachs.
[No time for babies! Too busy having adventures!]
I hid away in my no-baby corner and stayed busy reading, writing my own novel and enjoying any opportunity to take long naps. Even after six years of marriage, I was perfectly fine with this, as was my husband, who always looked slightly panicked when anyone brought up the topic of kids.
Then 2012 rolled around and I realized I was turning 30 in October. Out of all the experiences a person can have during a lifetime, I decided that having a child was one I didn't want to miss out on. My husband and I decided it was time.
After going nearly half of the year with no results, I almost tossed out my test early last month before I hesitated. There in that second little window was a tiny, faint blue line, almost invisible against the white background. I figured it had been an error. I ran out and bought another test, one that would tell me in words what I wanted to know.
Even though I was confident about my decision to have a child, I was still totally unprepared for the word "Pregnant" that appeared in bold letters on this new test. I let out something that was a mixture of a squeak and a laugh before taking a picture of the test and sending it to my husband at work. He's still grinning.
[No doubt about this!]
That's been weeks ago and I'm still bouncing from disbelief to joy to terror on a regular basis. Even though I can't say I'm looking forward to the messes and the noise and the lack of personal time, I am thrilled for the opportunity to watch my son or daughter learn about the world through new eyes and to give them the tools they'll need to help make this world a better place.
I'm just praying there's no twins in my future. I don't think my sister would take one of them for me this time.
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