On Marriage, Motherhood, and (Un)regrettable Decisions

“If you want to have a baby, you need to think about getting pregnant now!”

These words from my general doctor were unremarkable and matter of fact. With no context or consideration of my readiness, preparedness or desire for parenthood, let alone my relationship status, he was simply telling me a medical truth, a scientific fact that my “safest” childbearing years and optimal egg quality were both quickly diminishing, and I did not have time to wait or waste.

I had never discussed a possibility of pregnancy, desired or not, with a medical professional. At annual well woman exams, when asked if I could be pregnant, I always answered, surely and assuredly “no.” When women in my family woke up from fish dreams and looked over every person with a period with suspicious eyes, I always said confidently, “not me.” The only time I had ever feared I was pregnant was after first sex and the panic of penetration left me worried about the possible permanence of my mistake. Unfamiliar with my body as not virginal I practiced patience and perpetually prayed to God while I waited for red spots in my underwear. Eventually and over the years, the appearance of blood, the release of shame, and safe sex practices offered the assurance of childfree childbearing years.

So this doctor who eyed my chart without giving me eye contact was telling me something that felt both obvious and irrelevant. His seeming insistence that this pseudo pregnancy happen now, as if I could create a life out of sheer will and focused determination made me feel judged—but his words weren’t judgmental, they were sterile, sanitized and sacred.

“If you want to have a baby. . .”

 I hadn’t said how I feared infertility as much as pregnancy, but because I had never tried, I had never failed at getting pregnant. His statement was not the question it should or could have been, but more of an invitation, a warning, a prediagnosis.

Nevermind that the romantic encounter I had had within months of that appointment had left me relieved at not being pregnant. Nevermind that I had never had the possibility of a viable relationship, let alone a viable pregnancy. Nevermind that I had never considered if people wanted to have babies, only that they had them. Nevermind the rising rate of black maternal mortality. Nevermind that I had not had a routine that was without birth control since I was 17 years old, or that the avoidance of an unwanted or unexpected pregnancy had been a never-ending and consistent commitment I made to myself and my goals. And to my mother—though that part was unspoken. My obligation, I knew, as the second child of a single mother in a working-class family was to not get pregnant.

“. . .you need to think about getting pregnant now!”

I was, at the time, in my early thirties, navigating my career, choosing chosen family, and reconciling the sanctuary of singleness. I didn’t want to think about getting pregnant or buy into the narrative that was all to common and all too loud that nothing in my life mattered if I wasn’t married or a mother. The desperate desire for either or both seemed as important as the reality. These things, I was told, were what I was “supposed” to want for myself—and even if I didn’t have them, I should be seeking them fervently. And while being a feminist meant it was generally acceptable and even expected that I would reject and resist gender norms, marriage and motherhood seemed to be the exception. People were offended at my independence and lack of interest in being a wife or having a child, often insisting I would change my mind when I got older, often implying that I would regret my choices.

My annual check-up was the reminder that I was older—and I hadn’t changed my mind. And while I live by the mantra that I will regret what I did do, not what I didn’t do—I don’t make permanent commitments without conviction. Pregnancy for the sake of pregnancy was out of the question.

My disinterest in being a wife and having children was not new. In high school, my 10-year prediction post-graduation was that I would be engaged, not married, and childfree. While I wanted commitment and monogamy, for me, it was more significant that someone would want to marry me than getting married. I never wanted a husband or a wedding. While my friends jotted down details for their future nuptials and baby names in spiral bound notebooks, I used the thick pages of $6 bridal magazines to make homemade paper dolls. I scissored the edges of images of white women in white dresses as a way of fantasizing fictions (the Sears Christmas catalog had a similar effect, but with pictures of children, casually dressed men, and accessories for the lives I imagined they lived). These storybook lives, based on the stories (soap operas) I watched with my grandmother, were not aspirational for my life—they were make-believe. I had assumed that weddings were for white people because no one in my family got married in a church until I was a teenager. They married in courthouses or living rooms, wearing nice clean clothes but not expensive or extravagant gowns or shiny suits. There were no pictures or albums to mark marriages, no evidence, wedding bands or engagement rings to pass down to paper children.   

“If you want to have a baby, you need to think about getting pregnant now!”

The doctor’s words sent me into a temporary frenzy as I considered what I wanted. Babies are beautiful and complicated,  almost always welcome when not expected, but sometimes an inconvenient reminder of regrets, or what might have been. A baby would be a shoulda-coulda-woulda in my life, but hadn’t I already mourned lost time? Wasn’t I living the beautiful life I cultivated with intention? Maybe I am not mothering or marrying material.

“If you want to have a baby, you need to think about getting pregnant now!”

Last year I dreamed I was nine months pregnant and that I didn’t want to be. The dream was brought on by continuous restrictions to reproductive health and abortion access. In this dream I am devastated that I am forced to have a baby I don’t want, that I never wanted. The dream feels real as the dread and anxiety rushed from my protruding pregnant belly to my chest. I feel awake and trapped and held hostage by a body turned incubator. Labor lingers as I panic in a dream state, spread eagle and full of resentment and fear—I push myself awake, my hands immediately finding the emptiness of my actual midsection.  My eyes open in relief.

“If you want to have a baby, you need to think about getting pregnant now!” The doctor’s eyes and chin are tilted down as he reviews my file and prepares to scribble my response.

“I don’t want a baby,” I say, unconvincingly, unsure.

He never brought it up again.