Keep it to yourself, until I feel comfortable enough to share.

All of my friends are “trying to have kids” whatever that means. Most of my family asks my husband and I when WE are going to start having kids. It’s the topic of the hour. Pregnant people everywhere, people trying to be pregnant. Statements like “when you and Jon have kids”… as if there is no thought or discussion or possibility of other circumstances. I just don’t like this kind of talk. For people who aren’t sure, for people who are sure but are afraid of the scorn they will get from people if they decide to not have kids, for people who want them and can’t have them. I just don’t like it. How has the biggest decision a person could ever make in their life become a nonchalant topic of conversation on Facebook, at the coffee shop, or around the table playing cards??

You know, when you think about it, if these conversations described what is actually happening within the beds of my friends, I would be even less likely to want to hear about it. “Rick and I have stopped using condoms and now he shoots his load whenever he pleases. Of course only after I have taken my temperature and felt the consistency of my vaginal fluids, wrote down my ‘cycle’ and made sure not to have too much sex, we don’t want to waste any sperm.”

Having kids. Huh. I don’t feel an incredible urge or pull from my groin to have children. My biological clock doesn’t wake me in the middle of the night with all its incessant ticking. Usually it’s the garbage truck, or the beers I had before bed that wake me up. I also don’t have an immense urge to not have children. I am on the fence; in the middle; the scale could go either way. It isn’t that I don’t want children, it’s that I don’t know. Is not knowing a good enough reason to not have them? Should I err on the side of caution and assume that I will be struck with the joy most mothers describe when they see their baby for the first time? I know I would be a good parent, and that I would be willing to make these sacrifices.

But to be honest, I am terrified. Not terrified about what I would have to do to raise a child, but terrified about how I might feel about it. How will I suppress my anger and annoyance of getting up five times a night to feed a baby? How successful will I be at curbing my spending habits and love for travel? Can my self esteem take the blow as my body morphs into something unrecognizable? How much will my relationship with my husband change? I like the way it is now, thank you very much.

No one talks about these things when they talk about having kids, or at least they don’t in public. Are these normal thoughts, even among women who sincerely, and with all their hearts know they want children, without any doubt or reservation? Are people afraid of conversations like this, or just don't think about it? Or is this too private? Even more private than the details hidden behind "we are trying to have kids"?