Are you ready? Ready to get pregnant? To have a baby?
Are ya?
ARE YA?!?!!!!
They're questions that I've been asked by many a family member, friend and bold stranger. I usually blow it off with a canned answer like "I don't even know what it means to be ready" or "Not just yet, standby". Both are true and both usually move the conversation along without follow-up. Readiness incorporates so many factors: emotional, physical, fiscal, geographical...yada yada yada. It's the sum of many smaller readinesses - some logical, some enigmatic and all unique to the woman (and couple).
A friend recently declared to me that the biological clock in her body must be broken or simply non-existent. She's happily married, makes a comfortable living at a stable job, owns a beautiful home with her husband and has a generally awesome thing going...but, she has zero baby itch. She's done some research about how a woman's age affects her ability to get pregnant and give birth to a healthy child, which led her to mark her 33rd birthday as conception kick off. Ready or not, it'll be go time.
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| The Maternal Clock...tick...tick...tick (image) |
Another friend told me that her parents' health was the overriding ready factor. She too is happily married and loving life. She likely would have opted to love life as a wife and not a mom for a few years, but an unexpected and serious medical diagnosis in her family changed that. She wanted her parents to know their grandchildren and for her little ones to know their grandparents. The sad news provoked a very happy decision: baby making time.
)Dear Moms and Moms-to-Be,
What was YOUR ready formula?
