Is(n’t) This Baby Fever?
I want a baby. Don’t I?
My old high school classmate beams at me from the screen, cradling her swollen, round belly. I’m scrolling through Instagram when I come across her post. She’s around 8 months pregnant, in love, in Denmark. She was school captain in my year- I remember her dazzling, cackling laugh from the back of our chemistry class, telling us conspiratorially about her plans to become an au pair in Europe. Looks like she made it.
I feel happy for her, I think. But as I’m scrolling through the photos of her, another less expected emotion surges through my veins: visceral, bubbling jealousy. I’m meant to be at work- I’ve got things to do, but the feeling is so powerful, so all consuming, that it forces me to sit back and listen to it, eyebrows furrowed down at my phone.
It sends me into a confused daze for the rest of the day. I’ve always been somewhat sure I want to be a mother someday. When I was a child, first learning about pregnancy and childbirth, I was so fascinated by the process that I’d draw crooked, garish stick figures in my sketchbook, with engorged bellies and little babies inside. Growing up, sometimes I’d falter, seeing how much time and money and effort went into having a kid. Occasionally, when my mum screamed and hissed and threatened me- and once, when she told me she regretted having me, I wondered about the morality of becoming a parent if you couldn’t guarantee you’d make a good parent yourself. But it always felt like an experience I didn’t want to live my whole life without.
But it’d always been an ambition with distance, with the hazy buffer of some indeterminate number of years in front of it. I’d figured I’d spend my twenties focused on myself, being selfish and daring, chasing planes, parties, dreams. I’d go to NYC and make it as an editor or fly to Shanghai and work in a fashion house. I’d wring every last bit of hedonism out of my system, and then I’d settle down in a sweet little house wrapped in ivy and have a baby. Etcetera.
Reality has looked different. I didn’t realize that routine, a pandemic, and most of all, fear and doubt, would get in the way of my grandiose visions. I still don’t feel like I’ve done everything I wanted to do for myself, and now it also feels like time is running out. Up until now, I’d never felt panicked, or uneasy about the fact that I was nowhere near having kids, or even thinking about it. It felt natural to be self-absorbed; after all, I’m not being selfish in a spend-all-my-money-on-jewelry or borrow-all-my-friends’-money kind of way. I have to grow myself before I can grow someone else- and it’s my own career I want to build, my own savings, my own confidence. I had figured the question of having children would come around later, that I’d wake up some soft autumn morning and feel ready. But this feeling is something I’ve never experienced before, this gurgling, jealous desire accompanied by a deep sense of grief for this alternate life, this alternate version of me as a mother.
Maybe it’s the hormones. I’m getting abdominal cramps and pimples, which generally means my period is coming soon. But trying to find solace online, every article I read tells me there’s no scientific proof that baby fever is caused by hormonal surges in young adulthood (Ganger, 2018). In fact, it’s likely to have a psychological, existential basis, propelled by the increasing pregnancy announcements and the sociocultural milestones that we’ve been told to meet. As it turns out, it’s not as simple as blaming the chemicals in my system for how I’m feeling.
Great. So it’s partly existential? Once, walking through the city streets on a blistering afternoon, I asked one of my best friends, M, what a genuinely good reason to have a child is. Think about it, I said. It’s not that hard to find bad reasons to have kids. Like, because you think it’ll keep your partner interested in you. Because you want someone who will love you, or take care of you when you’re old. Because you don’t know what to do with your extra money.
But what makes a truly good reason? Can you say you want a child because you love babies? That baby won’t stay a baby forever. Is it enough to say you want to leave a legacy, or pass on your genes? That feels inherently selfish, and who knows if your child is going to want to follow in your footsteps? I don’t know. I have these ideas of why I probably want a child someday, but I don’t know if any of them are truly “good” reasons.
M tells me it’s not as simple as meeting a number of objectively “good” reasons. Reasons have their own merits, and you don’t always have to justify on a microscopic level why you want something. Sometimes it’d good enough to be kind, and well-intentioned, and people have had children on far less than that.
Still, I sit at my desk and try to judge my reasons. I want a child, because I want to experience pregnancy, birth, motherhood- I want to experience raising another human. It feels like probably the biggest privilege in the world to be involved in shaping the life of another person from the moment they enter the world. I can’t think of anything more fulfilling than the precarious, daunting job of being someone’s parent, who they go to for guidance and comfort and sustenance. These seem like pretty good reasons, no? I also want a child because I think it would be one of the most meaningful things I could do in my life- but maybe a small part of me, deep down, also wants a child because I think it could fill a void somewhere. Part of me wants a child purely because it’d give me someone to fixate on, and it’d give me purpose where I feel like I have none. I feel like it would make me happy, because it’d give me someone to love unconditionally, who’d love me unconditionally back. Hm. I’m not so sure about these reasons. I’m not sure you should ever predicate your purpose and happiness on another person, even if it is your own child.
In the end though, I think I do want a baby. At least I can hope I’ll one day raise one. Edith Zimmerman (2019) puts it best in her article, “Are Hormones Making Me Want a Baby?”
“I want to be pregnant, I said, to go around being pregnant and googling pregnancy stuff, doing the “nesting” thing, nurturing a little creature as it grows. Eating, sitting. And then I also imagine holding a baby in my arms, against my chest, murmuring to it, nursing. I have vague ideas about intimacy, quietness, and warmth. What it might feel like to love and care for something — someone — in that way. To open my life permanently. To create a new family with another person, to embody hope and unity.”
Maybe that’s what baby fever is meant to feel like. Turbulent, hesitant, uncanny. But also, a lot like love.
Works Cited
Ganger, C. (2018) Here’s what it means to have ‘baby fever’ in your 20s, according to experts, Romper. Available at: https://www.romper.com/life/baby-fever-in-your-20s-heres-what-experts-say-that-means-9320814 (Accessed: 21 October 2023).
Zimmerman, E. (2019) Are My Hormones Me? I want a baby. Or do my hormones want a baby?, The Cut. Available at: https://www.thecut.com/2019/08/are-hormones-making-me-want-a-baby.html (Accessed: 21 October 2023).
