Goddamn Baby Fever

There are ladies in this world that end up with a baby in their arms. This is my sister. Where ever we go, birthday party, mall, friends house, you name it, somehow she ends up with a chubby little baby in her arms. I was never that girl. I never wanted to hold the new babies. I never wanted to babysit. I never even thought I would have kids. Then I fell in love and got the Goddamn baby fever. I had my first son when I was just 18 years old and although that relationship ended badly, my little guy was the best thing that ever happened in my life. Fast forward 15 years or so and I fell madly in love at first sight. We met and I got pregnant almost immediately. We had a baby boy, then another, then the gal, then the tubed got torn and burned and sent to sit on separate sides of the classroom.
I think about having another baby everyday, even though I know I cannot. I think about being a surrogate for another family, even though I am forty and almost died during my last delivery. If I could I probably would risk having another baby. When you really think about that, it's a sick kind of thought that I would risk leaving behind the kids I have and possibly another newborn just because I have baby fever.

I have never ever known any greater joy than being pregnant. All of the stretchmarks, the pain, the hemorrhoids, the peed pants, it was all the best time of my life. Nothing can match the excitement of waiting for your due date (or passing it, in my case) and going through the greatest labor of all. The most powerful feeling of your body pushing forth the greatest creation and the greatest gift, it just makes everything else melt away. I would give anything to experience this again. I can only hope that one of my children will let me in enough to experience the gift of their children with them. Perhaps it will be my only daughter. I guess we will see... I wouldn't have let my mother in, but that is a whole other 50 pages.