Two dogs and a cat: less than or equal to a baby?
So we have two dogs and a cat. Dogs are awesome; cats are not my favorite. I totally understand that they are super low maintenance and that is a huge benefit for some people, but I want a pet to love me back, and I’m pretty sure most cats just tolerate you because you feed them. Our cat has a habit of waking me up in really unpleasant ways so that I will feed her. I have adopted a habit of feeding her wet food right before I go to be to try to avoid this situation. I call this my “kitty food coma” strategy.
She is not my cat, and the BF had her for years before he had me. So why does she wake me up instead of him? I’ve watched her, and she tries to wake him sometimes, but despite her best efforts of dough kneading, meowing, licking his face and pillow right next to his ear, and chewing on his hair, he sleeps right through it. So I have become her next target.
This morning was a special interaction with the cat. I’m pretty sure, based on my dreams, that she was bugging me for a while before I actually woke up. I dreamed that a cat was tucking me into bed, but was actually trying to trick me into doing something (I WONDER what that dream was about?!). I finally woke up around 4:30am to the cat licking up a chunk of my hair off of the pillow so that she could chew on it. I got up, angrily, to feed her. Angry especially because I employed my kitty food coma strategy last night and clearly need to up the dosage. It was dark and cold, and the BF and dogs were sleeping soundly. I couldn’t help but think “This must be a tiny taste of what it must be like to be a parent of a newborn baby.”
As per usual, a thought of having my own baby brought up some contradictory feelings. I thought, well, that is sort of an easy thing to imagine doing. I get up to take care of this furry thing that I don’t really like, of course I would get up to take care of my baby and might even be ok with it. I also thought “oh no, if I have babies with this man, he is going to sleep through all crying and it will be all on me.”
I have always hated being called a mom to my dog. It weirds me out. I did not birth this little fur-ball. I love him to death, but I fear being identified or becoming a crazy dog lady. Although, I am realizing that purchasing Halloween costumes for my pets might have certified my crazy dog lady status.
In my eyes, pets take up just slightly less time than kids. Obviously there is a lot more to parenting a human than taking care of a dog, but hear me out.
How pets and babies are the same:
completely reliant on you for survival
need you to feed them
need you to facilitate them going to the bathroom
need babysitting/daycare/boarding
How pets are a bigger pain:
no puppy/kitten maternity leave
you can’t bring them places that you can bring a baby (shopping, hotels, airplanes, restaurants, etc)
I think babies might poop a lot more than dogs though. Anyways, I guess what I am getting at here is that if I can take care of two dogs and a cat, I must be somewhat capable of taking care of one baby, right?
Babies are not gray
I don’t live in black and white. I can always see both sides and all shades of gray, but the decision to have babies IS black and white. You either do or you don’t. There is no trial period, no refund, no trades. You can’t sell it on craigslist or forget about it in the back of your closet if you get bored. Well you CAN, but you will go to jail and everyone will know for sure that you are a horrible person. This is exactly why I like dogs: lots of cuteness and a fraction of the responsibility, but you can leave them home alone or tied to something and no one complains.
Weddings have always made me cry. Watching “a baby story” on TLC would make me bawl my eyes out in sympathetic maternal joy and be terrified all at the same time. I chalk these reactions up to pms or occasionally (mostly when I was angry with my ex) I have allowed a little glimmer of acceptance that maybe there was a chance that I wanted these things for myself.
I am on an information search to determine whether or not I want children, but what information is going to make the right decision clear, I have no idea. Babies might not be gray, but I am right now. How do you know for sure? Do you decide and then go put the pieces in place to make motherhood happen? Or do you wait until the pieces fall into place and it feels right?
Woah, woah, woah…
So I got a job offer that is AMAZING. The position is 2 steps up from my current position and would put me on the fast track to becoming a Director. Great company, great people, better money. But I don’t want it. It would mean moving to New York and being on the road 70% of the time or more. I have worked so hard over the past year and a half to have a better work life balance, and I am succeeding. There is a lot of personal growth that I think I can achieve over the next 6-12 months if I stay on this same path. Changing my lifestyle to living most nights in a hotel room and uprooting my life to NYC just doesn’t light any fires for me. I’ve lost 20 (and maintained) pounds over the last 18 months through running, yoga, and a generally healthier lifestyle. I have plans for the next 6-8 months that I would have to cancel if I took the job. I’m happier than I’ve ever been. I just can’t find many reasons to do it.
I am not really sure why I interviewed for it. I guess I didn’t think I had much of a chance of getting the job. I didn’t think I would have to move to New York or be on the road quite so much. I am not satisfied with my current job and need a change. I have spent the last few days trying to justify why I would turn down such a great opportunity. At the very least, it is a great confidence booster to be wanted for such a high level position.
The man and I have been talking a lot about how this would affect our relationship. Would he move to NYC? Would we do long distance? Would we break up? He has been unbelievably supportive while still being honest about his opinions and needs. We are *this close* to having a future/marriage/babies conversation. It almost happened this morning, but we had to get up and get ready for work.
I have avoided this conversation with him because I want to know where I stand before I hear his opinions. I want MY opinion to stand alone. Or at least know what my opinion is before I hear his, and then be able to compare it to how it may have changed after hearing what he has to say. I feel that it is dangerous to be wishy washy when discussing these things. I am afraid of adopting an opinion that because it is more formed than mine for no other reason that it is the path of least resistance.
We had the marriage and babies talk once while on vacation in Costa Rica. I had told him early on that I didn’t know where I stood and that my opinions could change (possibly more than once) and that it may be hard for him to deal with. I told him I liked the idea of marriage more than I did before, but babies still seemed like a far fetched idea. I asked him where he stood, and he said he thought that he would have had children by the time he was 30 (he’s a bit older than me). He was married at a young age and thought life would be picket fences for them. He said after his last 2 serious relationships didn’t result in marriage, he just thought he would be one of “those guys” who just never got married again and didn’t have kids. Until he met me and thought that these things might be a possibility for him again. That was in April. We have not discussed it again. Is that normal? How often do you check in with yourself and your partner to see if you are on the same page?
I definitely don’t want children. I think. Is there an online test I can take?
You would think a 27 year old woman might have weighed her options about motherhood a bit more than I have at this point in my life. For the past 8ish years, I stuck by a decision not to have children that I made at a young age, when the things most important to me were my career and seeing everything in the world before I died.
A few things have changed recently that have made me reconsider. The biggest change is that I ended a 10 year relationship with a person who was clear on not wanting to ever have children.
Early on, we had talked about marriage and babies. He said he knew how he would propose. I said I wanted two babies; he just wanted one. We would joke about this disagreement. We talked about getting married in a park we both loved. We were young, in love and our future together looked rosy. As we went to college and developed career goals, those marriage and baby plans seemed more and more silly compared to the world before us. At some point during college, we both agreed that marriage and babies weren’t in the plan. We never gave ourselves the wiggle room to say that marriage and babies just weren’t in the plan for now. We made the mistake of saying never, or at least I did, and we stuck to the no marriage no babies story for over 10 years.
I began to resent him for being so steadfast in his unwillingness to ever think that things in our lives could change. This close-mindedness did not just apply to children, but to most of his opinions. My resentment wasn’t directed at his lack of desire to have children. In fact, I had a lot of respect for him being forthright with his opinions. I resented an overall negativity in his personality and a desire to go against the norm for what seemed like just for the pleasure of being different. His stubbornness coupled with an out-of-control temper created a situation where we couldn’t have hypothetical or “what-if” conversations. Or at least we couldn’t have those conversations without it turning into a blowout argument. As we grew older, we needed to check in with our life plans and desires, and I wasn’t able to have the conversations with him that I wanted to have. He also wasn’t exactly father of the year caliber, so choosing not to have children with this man was pretty easy.
To his fault and mine, this created a situation where I went along with this status quo. I didn’t know where his opinions ended and mine started anymore. I agreed at one time, wholeheartedly, that having children was not something I wanted for my life. But how can you be sure of something you never allow yourself to think about?
Other major changes include: I’m in love (!) with someone new (who may want children), I realize my career is not all there is to life, and I do occasionally have the ohmygoshthatbabyissooooocaauuuuuutttte moments. These things do not add up to definitely wanting to be a mother, but they have made it more obvious that I am not quite sure where I stand. Now, because researching things to death is what I do, I am going to examine this topic under a microscope until I know what I want. If I still don’t know what I want, then at least I will have all the information necessary for when I am ready to make the decision.
To baby, or not to baby
That is the million dollar question (or $17,088 question annually, according to this)
Here’s what I do know: at this point, the idea of having children scares me more than it makes me want to actually do it. There are so many variables that can make parenting even more difficult, and it seems the only guarantee is that it will be challenging. I plan to use this blog to explore and record my feelings and research on pregnancy and motherhood. I think there are an awful lot of things that people don’t talk about, good and bad, and I am on a mission to find all of the information I can get my hands on to help me make this decision.