Baby Mania

It appears to be round 3 of baby mania around here. Round 1 occurred about the time I was marrying Sam. That spring and summer there was a rash of baby announcements. All of those babies are turning 2. Then came the more recent explosion. About a year ago, Facebook lit up like a Christmas tree and we received call after call to hear somebody was pregnant. I survived round 2... the babies are born. I was hoping for a respite. A little down time in which the only pregnant people would be my infertile friends. I should have known.

Round 3 is officially underway. It appears that the entire world, or at least the world who didn't just have a baby sometime in November through February is now pregnant and due sometime between June and September. I know that I shouldn't let it get me down, but for a bunch of these ladies it's their second or third child. And for the rest, they got married like six months ago. Blah.

And when I say everybody, I mean everybody. As I have mentioned before, on Sunday's I have the privilege of hanging out with some pretty awesome toddlers. I swear to you, within the last couple of weeks, I've learned that nearly every one of them is becoming a big brother or sister. Huh? Didn't you like just push this one out? How are you pregnant again, already?

It would be so easy to sit here and begrudge all the mommies and daddies in my world who are becoming mommies and daddies times two, or three, or five. But really, I'm just jealous. They are all leading my life, or at least the life I thought I'd have. I remember, in my ignorance, I planned exactly how far apart all of my children would be spaced. I took my cues from 7th Heaven, to get the spacing right. It was about two years give or take from birth to birth. From my perspective now, a second or third baby when you still have one in diapers seems insane. Not insane like "why would you?", more like "how could you?". I mean, seriously, what are you people, rabbits? Do you have sex every day? Ten times a day? That's my initial attitude. But then when the green envy monster that lives in me cools down a tiny bit, I realize that this is simply life for most people. They have sex, they get pregnant.

For the last year or so, I've felt like I need to educate young women. To save them from themselves. To save them from their husband's, and culture's idea that waiting longer to start a family is a good idea. I want to save them all from the pain of finding out getting pregnant is going to take a while or cost a fortune. But seriously, who am I kidding? The odds are that they would all be pregnant in a matter of months. Heck, some of them will probably get pregnant with their pants on.

Going through infertility has made me totally appreciate the miracle of the ten million things that have to go exactly right to achieve a pregnancy. Understanding all of the places that it can go wrong has in some way made me feel like getting pregnant must be moderately hard for everyone. I know that's weird to say, and I don't think I'm even explaining myself well. I guess all of this is to say that round 3 of babies, as they are all little brothers and sisters, conceived on birth control, or conceived within six months of the wedding night, is reminding me of this: I'm really broken.

Conception is certainly a miracle. It's true that a bazillion things have to go right at the exact right time for a baby to be made. However, our God is a pretty good designer. Despite the infinite things that can go wrong, he made it so that it can go right without even trying for most people. It's not THEM who are abundantly fertile freaks of nature, it's ME, with the a chronically empty uterus, who is the anomaly.