My personal stork is a stinking bum, with a damaged wing and in need of group therapy

Motherhood was not something I thought would be a part of my life.
I did not grow up pretending to be a mini mummy, or playing with dolls.
My younger sister paid the price of my distaste for babies.  For which I have had to apologize, multiple times.  
I could probably count the number of times I babysat on my fingers and a few toes, thanks to a traumatic babysitting episode with a strange young boy who liked to run around naked and talk about his private parts and their happiness.
I did not particularly care for kids, and definitely did not feel I needed any as a full time part of my life.


Then, I hit an age when most women are reaching the end of their child-bearing plans, and aliens came to visit me.  
I've never thought I could be much use for them, and pretty much wrote myself off the list of people they may want to abduct.  They must have needed the brain of a woman who did not want children though....maybe to replicate the emotion for their overpopulated planet?
Anyway, one night they came down and replaced my brain with that of a maternal woman, and
I WANTED A BABY!  Huh?  Yes, I. Wanted. A. Baby!


The Hubster was over the moon with this news, and instantly put in requests for twins or triplets.
His dream of fathering a basketball team was one step closer. 
*We will not discuss the lack of logic of basketball dreams for the children of two short people.  Nor my terror at the thought of multiple babies at once.
Every time he was late coming home, I feared he had located a witch doctor, working out of a Queens basement, who would ensure multiple splits of my eggs in exchange for a live chicken and a warm Gray's Papaya hot dog.


And so the practicing began.  Exciting and fun!


Mother Nature was feeling particularly snarky about my lack of previous enthusiasm on this topic, and made this process as difficult as possible without taking all of my hope away.
Or maybe it is because I had cursed her and told her to get back on her mood medication one too many times.
Either way, pregnancy did not come easy for me.


She looked through Stork resumes and picked from the bottom of the pile for us.  Lazy (check!), procrastinator (check!), a bum wing and a limp (check, and check!), legally blind and lost your glasses (this guy is freakin' perfect!).  You're hired!


I joke that if I had known exactly how infertile I was, I would have had far fewer tense moments waiting for a late 'friend' in the past.


Practicing became less fun and more work.  
Hours of research went into trying to self diagnose what we were doing wrong.


Life changes were made.
Supplements, stretches, exercises......monitors and peeing on sticks.


Awkward and inappropriate moments came up when asked when we were planning to have a baby, and what was taking us so long.  
Unsolicited advice was received about what we were probably doing wrong, and that we could always adopt.  Even a few touches of my belly and asking when I was due, when I wore apparently unflattering tops.
Always followed with respectful replies and lots of snark in my head.


A pregnancy that was not meant to be which broke us both for a while.


Friends announced their pregnancies with glee.
Strangers announced their pregnancies....some with joy and more annoyingly, some less than joyful and followed with the 'I don't know how it happened' statement.
It seemed like pregnant people were everywhere.


It finally happened, as cliche as it sounds, when we were least expecting it.
We had given up most hope and discussing fertility options we might want to discuss with my OBGYN.


One evening after cursing what I thought was the latest plague I picked up from riding the F Train daily, that magic extra line  faintly appeared on the test.
OH MY GOD!
Hubster come here!  Now!
Why? 
For the love of sanity....
Just come here, NOW!
Is this real? *smack on the head*
Repeated the test and it showed up again.
*hyperventilate*
OH MY GOD!!
It was the most amazing and terrifying moment of our lives thus far.
Tears of joy, laughs and stunned silence as The Hubster and I basked in the news that we were going to be parents.


So began the life of our little Chick Pea.
One beautiful, perfect little person.
And one was enough.  No more.  Really.


But not really.....
Flash forward 5 years and I find myself ready to talk to the National Enquirer about my alien encounter because I've lost my mind and I want another one!
I'm at an age where I am having tests done that don't need to be done on 'the young', battling the gray hairs that multiply by the day, and am openly thrilled when people card me or say I look 10 years younger..... and I want to jump back on the crazy baby ride.


Are we crazy?  Most definitely.
Crazy does not casually walk by this family.  He stops in, unpacks his bags, pops open a bottle of wine, cleans out the refrigerator, snoops through the medicine cabinet, unbuttons his pants, and stays a while.


I've already written an apology note to Mother Nature, for all my snark, and requested a new Stork.  Or at the very least, put our current one on some happy pills, light a fire under him, and get him an appointment for lasik eye surgery.


I've also posted a warning that all women who get pregnant unintentionally, and are freaked out and 'don't know how it happened' either temporarily lose the ability to speak, or experience momentary amnesia of their situation.  Quite simply, because with age comes the security of the validity of my feelings, and I cannot guarantee my inner Honey Badger will not emerge in all her fury.
I'm only thinking of you, and your safety hunney.  Really.  Go away.