CHAPTERS on The Baby Question

on everybody's lips, including mine.

Growing up, my Mum’s catchphrase that, “you three kids are the best thing I ever did”, firmly placed a pair of rose-tinted glasses over my view of motherhood. I was brought up to believe that having children was an inevitability in life, something unquestionable. A traditional path to be followed, not too soon, but not too late either. So, knowing no different, throughout my teens I thought of having kids in the same way I imagined up all the hypothetical dreams of youth. Something for an older me. But as a teen, getting older feels like something that won’t really happen to you.

All I wanted to do was travel. I went to the US for an internship when I was 21 and for the first time my eyes were opened to an entirely new perspective. I met so many inspiring women of all different ages and life stages. To my surprise, none of them had kids. They drove around in nice cars and lived in beautiful houses. They had incredible careers, big communities of friends and great social lives. Some were married, some were in relationships, some were gay, some were single. It didn’t matter. They were all making a mark in their chosen spheres whether it politics, education or corporate. They seemed dedicated and undistracted from their personal goals.

I remember the very moment that it dawned on me that having children, or rather not having them, was a choice you could make. I was being driven in the passenger seat of a car watching the sky fade from pale white to blue grey as it turned to night. The dimming of the daylight was like a metaphorical door closing behind me. Meeting these women had a profound affect. I had seen the other side and it felt powerful, freeing, calming to know that it was there. For a long time after my answer to the baby question was no. I would choose to a child-free life. I completely put it out of my mind.

After turning 30 however, people who usually asked me about work or my love life were now shifting their attention to a new subject matter. Do you want kids? When I got engaged the interest in this topic seemed to double. Now I’m married, all bets are off. People ask whether I’m going to start trying for a baby as easily as asking if I take sugar in my coffee.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d always rather have a conversation about something meaningful than make painful small talk. You might have gathered from my writing by now that I’m a pretty open book. So it surprises me how invasive and personal the baby question can feel when someone casually asks. I find it perturbing that as a society there are so many taboo subjects. For instance, no one has ever asked me how much money I’ve got, who I voted for or whether I believe in God. But the baby question, in all its loaded and exposing glory, rolls off the tongue.

A woman at work hollered the question in my direction from the opposite side of the desk. An office full of colleagues were pretending not to listen as I hesitantly muttered, ‘maybe one day.’ Little did she know, she startled me into revisiting the subject. From the back of my mind it was pushed to the fore. Now in a happy relationship I realised I’d warmed to the idea. But it was still just that. An idea.

Then one day, a year or so later, something mind-bending happened. The previously closed door, now slightly ajar, was blown off its hinges by an unforecasted hormonal hurricane. I woke up to my period, as expected, and went about my day, as usual. Until suddenly, while walking my dog in the park, I had an out of body experience. I started to cry that my embryo was ‘going to waste.’ I felt inconsolably sad, empty and lost. I hurried back in the direction of home, hiding tears in my coat, embarrassed to suddenly be this person I didn’t recognise. Mortified that anyone else might see her and know what she was thinking. I felt like my body was an alien out of my control, betraying me. ‘What the hell?’ I repeated in my mind. My brain reassuring me that this was out of character, not me, just emotions driven by hormones. And yet I felt utterly depressed in a very real way.

Once my period was over and the moment had passed enough to make light of it, I laughed it off. Framing the story as an anecdote about the perils of changing contraception. “The things us women have to put up with hey!”  Deep down though, I’d had a shock. Without warning I’d been dragged under a wave in unchartered water and it had threatened to drown me in mad, maternal chemicals. Someone throw me a snorkel! Quietly I was terrified that I would feel like that every month from then on. What if I lose myself to a hysteria which renders all else in my life meaningless?!

Thankfully, I haven’t experienced anything as extreme since. However, again, the baby question was given a new lease of life.

Last week, in a French ski resort restaurant, a little girl at the next table to us was colouring in her menu. Out of the corner of my eye I saw her turn over the A3 sheet to the empty reverse side and start drawing on it. She was looking down at the paper, then up at me, studying my face and putting her pencil back to the page.

“I think that little girl is drawing me.” I said, smiling at her so she could capture my best side. She drew my glasses, my short hair, some stick arms, the outlines of a jumper and trousers. When it came to adding feet she bent down under the table to get a true likeness for my shoes. I was accurately given a pair of boots. Then, the piece de resistance was a crown she adorned on my head. I’ve never been so flattered.

I wondered in this moment if her Mother had dreamt of having this lovely little girl. Had she known all along that she wanted kids? Or had she grappled with the pros and cons? What sacrifices did she have to weigh up? What was her journey like? How many times was she asked the baby question? I stopped myself from leaning across the table and pressing for answers.

I thought about all the people who asked me with a new understanding. It clicked. I get it now. No one is really just asking if you want kids. They are asking themselves the question too. Do I want kids? They’re asking, do you feel how I feel?! Have you ever experienced a hormonal hijack? Have you got a plan? Should I have one? And what are you going to do about it? If anything? Have you come to a decision? If so, how? Are you feeling conflicted and confused? Is there a secret club where people confess to this stuff and can I join it? Or am I alone in this? The question feels loaded because, well, it is.

The little girl turned to James next, then to our friends Jack and Natalie. This Picasso in the making gave all four of us big cheesy smiling faces (accurate) and the crowning continued (creative licence). She signed her work, Eugenie, and presented it to James to take with us. When we were packing our bags to go home he neatly folded it into his laptop case. A sweet souvenir of a very happy holiday with our friends. A question. And an answer.