No Im not Pregnant yet

Happy Friday Readers! I'm happy to report this post is coming to you from the comfort of our new Vera Wang mattress. The husband caved and it was delivered last night. So thank you to my loving husband who finally realized that listening to me bitch about how uncomfortable I am is in fact more painful then dropping some Gs on something with a 20 year warranty. Booya. **Side Note: For those of you out there thinking that because I had to wait for my husband's permission to purchase a new mattress, that we must be in some kind of 1940s style, Suzie Homemaker marriage situation, I'll have you know, he only slaps me when I get out of hand. No but really, he is an engineer. I am a social worker. Whose bank account has more zeros in it? Exactly. So to all my feminist friends out there, I love you, but when it comes to the dolla dolla bills, I'll leave it up to my financially successful husband so I can spend my meager earnings on White Castle and roller skates.

Lets dive in.

I will be turning 27 this December. I was married this past January 22. I have been with my husband for approximately 5 years. These numbers, although seemingly unrelated, are actually the players in a much larger, more terrifying equation entitled...

"Why aren't you pregnant yet?"

Since the day we announced our engagement some 2 1/2 years ago, my Mother-in-Law has been pestering me and harassing me about giving her grandchildren. Don't get me wrong. My MIL is a very kind, loving woman. She has been very good to me, and I love her a lot. Its just that, when it comes to grandchildren, she has no mercy. She uses whatever manipulative devices she can to make me feel like the fact that I haven't yet produced offspring is a testament to the fact that I'm probably suffering from a brain parasite or some form of mild, but ever growing TBI. And, being that I was raised Catholic for the first 18 years of my life, I have immense guilt over the fact that I'm already failing as a daughter-in-law after only 8 months in the game.

Lets give some examples shall we? We shall. 1) I was told that I needed to conceive a child on our wedding night 2) I am sent weekly email reminders with phrases such as "hopefully by this time next year it will be a picture of Maria & baby Quinn" or "I hope that new mattress is put to use in making me a grand baby"......for real. 3) While waiting for a movie to begin one afternoon, one of those ETrade commercials with the talking babies came on. I remarked: "haha I love these commercials, baby are so cute", to which she leaned over and replied: "Did I hear that right? Maria said she likes babies?" FML 4) Our wedding gift was a rocking chair made by the Amish....that cost 5 grand. It is beautiful. It really is. But is there really any better way to tell someone "GIVE ME FUCKING GRANDCHILDREN RIGHT NOW!!!" then purchasing them a chair that costs more than a car? If there is, I'd like to know.

None of this would be so terrible if it weren't for the fact that both my husband & I have, on numerous occasions, explained that we are waiting a few years to have kids, and how we want to hang out just the two of us and enjoy being married before we start popping out creatures whose existence takes over your entire being for at least 20 years. We have both said this, nicely, and not so nicely around 15 times. But none of that seems to matter. In fact, only yesterday, I responded to an email inquiry about grandchildren by stating the following, and I quote: "Don't worry MIL!!! I promise you will get grandchildren. We are just waiting a little while longer to make sure we are emotionally and financially ready. Plus we want to hang out just the two of us and Bear(our dog) for a while longer. But I promise you, unless either of us have some kind of fertility issues, you will get grandchildren. I want 3. Jimmy wants 2. We will see who wins"

Now I thought this was very well played. I acknowledged her feelings, explained the logical reasons as to why we are waiting, and even gave her that little extra sparkle by showing her that her barren daughter-in-law is in fact the one who wants more children than her son. This is the response I got: "Well don't wait too long. By your age I already had Jimmy" F.M.L F.M.L F.M.L.
To which my response was to call my husband and yell, "you need to have a talk with your mom, because I'm going fucking insane over here" He agreed that it was getting past the point of just normal grandmother-to-be inquiry and turning into full blown harassment.

In my desperation, I texted--is it texted? that always looks wrong--my husband's younger brother the following message: "Please get a random girl pregnant. It will get me off the hook with your mom. She says something every day about me having a baby. I am letting her down, so please for my sake, become a father. Thank you." His response: "Oh god..."

Now you know the level of my desperation. I have to beg a 23 year old to impregnate a random bar floozie. Gahh.

What it comes down to is this: I'm still too selfish at this point in my life to want to dedicate my entire waking life to someone other than myself. I'm from the school of thought that says having a child means giving that little thing 110% of your time & energy. So that's how I know I'm not ready. I love being able to wake up at 8am on Saturday and read for 3 hours while my husband plays video games, and then eventually we decide to take the dog to the dog park and pick up some PaPa Murphy's on the way home, and then come home and sit on the couch or on the deck and do absolutely nothing for the entire day. That shit is golden. That is how I unwind after a stressful work week. I love my new found sport of Roller Derby, and I'm pretty sure getting the shit knocked out of you 5 times a practice wouldn't be good for a fetus.

Does this mean I never want to have kids? No way. I actually cant wait to produce some really short, sass mouthed, hairy little buggers and teach them all about music and books and the class system and how to cut a dog's toenails. But I don't want to do that just right this second. Give me a few years. It will happen. In the meantime, I will continue to drink White Russians for lunch and skate around an oval taped to a concrete floor, and enjoy the company of just my husband and dog. Babies can wait. I don't think the world is quite ready for whatever crazy ass offspring my husband and I most surely will produce anyways.

Have a non-baby filled weekend people.
Hugs & Kisses.
~Maria