On a recent outing with four friends, it emerged three of them are probably going to try and get pregnant at the end of the year.
I was uprooted. Floored. Discombobulated. Why had none of them mentioned such a momentous decision to me before? Was I not even going to be consulted?!
Here’s how it went down.
There were five of us in a tiny car, heading to a gig. I was sitting in the backseat between Lucy* and Carrie*.
Daisy*, sitting up front next to the driver, Sarah*, casually mentioned how she and her boyfriend are going to try and get pregnant at the end of the year.
I’m not old-fashioned, but they’re not engaged so it came as something of a surprise to me that they were moving right ahead to the next phase.
“WHAT?!” I demanded. “Does [boyfriend] Dave* agree?”
He did. Next up, it was Sarah. “Oh yeah, we are too,” she said casually as she steered us though Sydney traffic.
She and her boyfriend live in Paris. They’re not married either, and seem to live a glorious, international, peripatetic life.
And they want to add a kid to that?
Huh.
Next thing I know, Carrie, sitting next to me, pipes up.
“I don’t really want a baby now, but I know future Carrie will, so we probably need to start thinking about it,” she said. She’s getting married soon.
“Well, I… I guess I do too?” I said, bewildered. My boyfriend and I are getting married (for the second time — long story) in April.
We’re in our early 30s, a time at which having a baby isn’t some crazy, we’ll-do-it-later concept. In fact, it’s almost leaving it a bit late.
Top Comments
It's not the worst idea in the world.
I had children before most of my friends and it was pretty isolating. Having just one other woman to say 'this stage right now! wow!' to, and she could reply, 'I know exactly what you mean!' was valuable.
Now my friends have had children together and I am still an outsider, even though I have continued to reproduce and have young children the same age as their eldest children. As a mother to a larger than average brood people don't relate anyway. But maybe if our eldest children were the same age we'd have more things in common?
I almost had a third child because all my friends were having a third one. Really..insane, I know. Luckily I came to my senses and realized I wasn't missing sleepless nights and dirty nappies as much as I thought I was.