Having Children and the BIG question...

(Original Posting on Previous Blog October 9, 2007)

Well, I just finished watching Alexis Stewart (daughter of Martha Stewart) talk about how she spends $28,000 per month trying to have a baby on the Oprah Show. She sees various fertility specialists, injects herself twice a day with a varied cocktail of drugs designed to help her produce better eggs and more of them. When the time is just right, she goes shopping at the local sperm bank and buys some of the wiggly little guys and they try to fertilize her eggs and see if they will implant. So far, they've tried three times and no luck yet...oh and she's been trying for a while now. (Cha-Ching!!!) Of course, no one bothered to ask her the one question I kept asking while watching... "Why"?? Why does a 42 year old woman feel the desperate need to give birth. What is the real reason? Perhaps it is just part of being a woman and I don't discount that totally but my sense is that it is less mysterious than that. Alexis said that she thought it was "just part of being a woman"... Well, maybe I'm the strange one here, but I'm 38, been married for over 8 years and I'm still not feeling this overwhelming desire to give birth or see a little "mini me" running around out there. Perhaps when I am 42, I will feel differently and should that happen, I can tell you that my response to that desire will not be to spend $28,000 a month on giving birth to "my own child"...
I think everyone who wants to have children need to ask themselves the question "why"... Why do you want children? Sometimes it's just expected of us, especially if we're child-less and married. I've had "those comments" from my in-laws before but they really don't bother with them anymore since we have pretty much made it clear that we are not having children by choice. WHAT??!!?? Yes, I said by choice. People generally can't accept that answer so they wait for the longer, more drawn out reasons as to why on earth we would choose to not go forth and multiply. There are many reasons but I think when we decided the only drawback was there would be no one to visit us in the nursing home when we're 80, that was good enough. (Of course, even those with kids know that there are no guarantees of the obligatory nursing home visits!!)
So, this leaves me with the same question...why? Vanity? What is this urge to only have your own biological child? While watching Alexis, I also kept saying, "Adopt you crazy idiot". Could we consider for a moment that if our true desire is to love a child, teach them, help them and send them into the world to make it a better place, why does that child have to be biological? There are so many great kids in the U.S. that need only someone to love them, give them a home, a solid foundation and tell them they can accomplish anything to help them soar. No, you may not literally give them life, but you can save their lives. Save them from a life of foster homes, abuse, drugs, gangs or worse. And, as a bonus, if you don't mind having an African American child or older child in your family, it could cost next to nothing!!
So, if in 4 years I am crying and upset because I cannot have children due to my own decisions, I hope that I will see it as an opportunity. The opportunity to save a life and thereby "give" life to a child already in this world who truly needs only one thing to achieve greatness..my love even if they did not come from my womb....
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