Met up with the fabulous blogger ladies yesterday: Overtly Trite, House of Flying Monkeys, My Crazy Little Mixed Up World and Curiously Kaylea and after proudly remarking on our upcoming vacation to Disney World…the topic arose. Overtly Trite has 1 offspring as does My Crazy Little Mixed Up World, House of Flying Monkeys is a “step-parent”. I strictly have 4 four-legged children who shed. A good friend in Nashville just gave birth to twins, and well, so did Angelina Jolie. Another MySpace friend is pregnant. Even some lesbian friends of ours just welcomed an infant into their brood. Every day, I read on my “People” widget on MyGoogle, that someone just gave birth…someone famous who will no doubt be able to give their children the best of everything…if they haven’t gave birth, they’re pregnant. So, where do I or we fit in?

I’m 34 and my husband’s a tad older than that, and yet we are without child. I was married previously to a good man, and yet, I am without child. It’s not that I set out to be without child, it just sort of happened that way. I think one situation that lead to my current state is growing up with a brother who is 16 years my elder, who has 3 children from 2 of his 4 marriages. I knew that children were a huge commitment for life and I didn’t want to just get pregnant when I got married (both times), because I wanted to have some “quality time” first with my significant other. Another reason for my current state might be that I have always been focused on goals for myself. First I had to finish undergrad, then graduate school, then find a solid career in a world where people unfortunately don’t get to stay at their jobs for 30 plus years and don’t leave with a retirement or pension plan (per se). All the while, the desire was there…but it just didn’t happen.

Not that the Jim and I are bending to societal expectations. We have spoke many times about wanting to have a family that includes a two-legged homo sapien small one, but we just haven’t yet. Yes, I get those worried pangs of I’m almost solidly mid-thirty and the biological clock does get louder in my own head; but then I have sweet and well-meaning OB/GYNs who attempt to convince me that I still have PLENTY of time. Yes, I do worry that the older I am when I have a child might put them at higher risk for things like autism; but unless someone develops a viable time machine, I have to deal with my realities. Yes, we ARE trying. I mean not crazily so and perhaps that’s what I need to do in order to get pregnant myself; but frankly, I’m beginning to wonder, if I knew it wasn’t going to be easy to just get knocked up I could have saved a lot of money on my birth control, let alone my car insurance (imagine that advertisement). So here we are…the “childless couple”.

The reason for this rant has to do with how being a “childless couple” seems to be viewed by a lot of the people I run into these days. There’s always the questions…”Do you have kids?”, “You blog? Are you a Mommy Blogger?”, ” Are you NOT able to have kids?”, “Are you a Foster Parent because you can’t have kids?”, “Are you guys trying to start a family?”, “Do you have any kids from your first marriages?”, “You DON’T have kids? What are you waiting for?” Typically the questions are combine with facial expressions that appear to be concerned or confounded. At times I feel like we’re “broken”, or there’s something wrong with us…or simply we have the adult version of our child-hood affliction…COOTIES.

I have actually avoided going to churches because there’s really a velvet rope of connection between people my age. If you have a kid, instant access to the social network…no kid, um…how do you fit in? In addition, there’s a whole lexicon I apparently am missing out on. I have no idea who the “Wiggles” are, but they look gay. I don’t get the whole Miley Cyrus situation. I don’t understand webkinz and no, your child cannot play on my Wii unless they wear the safety strap. I have some fun gadgets, but no, they aren’t as satisfying as bring a child into our world. I also have the reality of a father who’s in his 70s, which results in less time for my offspring to get to know their ancestry. I know all this…but it just hasn’t happened yet!

The Jim just said it’s not that bad in his profession, but being in a social work – nurturing profession I think it comes up a lot. Also, my social network includes a lot of females. Females often talk about things like family, and thankfully they still talk about expensive purses, as well as things like becoming more empowered. I feel the situation a lot more than I guess he does. While we both would like to have a child, we both soberingly understand the level of commitment and work involved in having a child. We both understand that this is a life altering event and should not be entered into lightly…when and if we do bring a little human into this scary world – we’ll be as prepared as we can be and still be completely clueless. Either way, it will happen for us naturally or it won’t, or we’ll adopt. I don’t know.

All I know is that we’re not abnormal and there are a lot of us childless ones out there, by choice or by unfortunate circumstance or biology. We’re just like everyone else. We’re not “catching”, and we’re not broken. We’re also not entirely selfish (although some of us are). We’re all just making decisions that fit our lives as they are now and I know that some of you may not fully understand that. Either way, please don’t feel like it’s a question that has to be asked in the first 10 minutes of meeting someone…even if you are proud of your own brood.

I type this as I prepare to see a new OB/GYN in the next month. I will be talking to her about us having a child. We’d like one. One. Singular. Yes, I know…I know…apparently the cooties will continue even if we become 1 child breeders. I guess, we can just carry a first aid kit, some antibacterial foam and some rubber gloves.