I'm a big cliche

Firstly, I've been reflecting a lot on motherhood lately and started pounding out a huge manuscript on the topic. After some reflection, I have decided to break it up into different posts. Saturday I watched FoodInc, a really insightful documentary on issues in the food industry. After that, Netflix realized I like documentaries and it recommended more in spades. It seems NEtlfix knows me better than I thought. One recommendation was a documentary called "Babies". Here is the trailer: It follows four babies from different parts of the world (Namibia, Mongolia, Japan, and the USA). It was very charming and cute although I found myself tearing up/crying all through it. This is the theme in my life lately I see. Dads in the mall wearing baby Bjorns make me teary. I see a smiling pregnant woman in the grocery store and I feel physical pangs of jealousy. And yes, I am well aware that this makes me sound psychotic but I guess it is safe to say as I creep closer and closer to thirty my biological clock is pounding in my ears. I think I feel more anxious to find "the one" less from a desire to not be alone, but because my desire to have another baby before it's too late. The average 30 year old only has 12% of her eggs left. I am terrified that I won't ever meet someone who wants to have kids, or that by the time I do, I won't be able to anymore. And I'm not the only one apparently. There's even an acronym for people who feel this way: SADFABs (single and desperate for a baby). Which, isn't that the most depressing label ever? My pregnancy with Isaac was unexpected and a time of high stress, shame, and anxiety. It was not something I savored, it was something I detached myself from and endured. I was hit with a barrage of messages that I would have to sacrifice all my dreams and goals, that I would end up collecting welfare, that my kid would be maladjusted, When Isaac came, he became the light of my life. For all of the turmoil of the pregnancy, I can state with absolute certainty that Isaac is the best thing that has ever happened to me. Although a major theme of my blogging over the years has been my regret and guilt at how quickly his infancy passed in a the delurium of working full time, grad school, field experiences, student teaching, etc. Now all of a sudden he is this grown little boy with no traces of babyhood left. Selfishly, I want to do it all again when I can really delight in the experience of it. Also, I feel a lot of sorrow that Isaac will not have the experience of having a sibling close to him in age. My siblings are all two years apart and I am very close with each of them. Anyways, I certainly do not want to a rush a relationship forward toward love and marriage as a result of these overpowering maternal feelings. Seriously. But it is sort of hard when you imagine things in your life unfolding a certain way and all of a sudden you are almost 30 and nothing is the way you envisioned it. Stayed tuned for more thoughts on motherhood including recent conversations on dating a single mom, and the annoying tendency of childless people to compare having children to having a pet.