"Scientific progess goes boink"

The universe is converging to point out babies to me or so it seems. A harmless event hosted by my husband's work such as a family picnic, turns into Babyfest 2005. Let me begin earlier in the day, my husband and I figured we'd go to the event YHC was hosting tonight for the free food and get to know some of the people in the area. When we got there the food was all laid out banquet style and looking delicious. That's when I realize my main entree choices where chicken and shrimp. Having had a tramatizing experience with shrimp once in my teens, I now have a life long aversion to it. So I had to eat the bbq chicken halves. Yucky. Yes, I can eat chicken after years of dissecting it for research, but I can not eat bones, skin or fat. I had to tonight. I almost puked at the table. My new friend Anita, saw me and gave me the most quizzical look. I guess she figured I was imitating her little Tanner, who is not yet a year old. And that's when I noticed it-the room was filled with babies. No joke there was at least 10 babies under a year old and that's a conservative estimate. I pointed this out to M and he replied "Well, there's not much to do around here." Apparently baby making is an exceptable subsitute to well... anything.

Now, M and I have discussed not having children for some time as the fact of owning a child freaks both of us out. First off a baby is time consuming. We are quite selfish of our freedoms right now and do not care to have a baby just yet. Strike one for the baby. Secondly, babies cost money-lots of money. To this I reply "what money?" Strike two for the baby. Third, I am responsible carrying and giving birth to a watermelon, the thought of which I do not relish at this moment. To qoute another blogger "It totally has to come out of my vagina!" The entire concept of how babies develop and rise to being in the world does not bring the word "miracle" to mind as is does my friend Dorris. Perhaps it is because he's male and will never have the wonderful exciting experience of labor and I, being female, feel the impending doom is creeping ever nearer. I tried reading a book on fetal development and pregnancy to calm my fears, because as a graduate student that's what I did all the time-read. The gist of the book basically said there is no clear pattern to women (as I'm sure all men figured out a long time ago). For example, the first chapter might have started something like this: "The first month, you probably won't even know you're pregnant, but everything you ever thought about doing increases your chances for abnormalities, defects and sponataneous abortions. Make sure you are doing everything in moderation, i.e. what ever you are doing now, do the reverse, because you probably weren't doing it right in the first place." I think Calvin described the authors understanding of pregnancy the most clearly, "Scientific progess goes boink."

I shake my fist at the unverse and defy the fates with my battle cry "Not Yet!"