For many years, as I have discussed previously, I wanted to have a child. Intellectually, it was a choice I made for my own life that felt right for me. Luckily, the person I fell in love with felt the same way. That all sounds simple and logical, doesn't it? Perhaps, but below that level of rational thought was another driver. One I could recognise as hormonally and biologically driven. I wanted to have a child. I ached to. At various points in my life, regardless of the suitability of time/place/partner/situation, I wished I could fall pregnant and have a baby. The logical part of me would recognise that the answer to this desire was "not now", but that didn't take the ache away. I used logic to bury it, and hoped that the time/place/partner/situation would be right soon.
I suppose I always assumed that the conclusion to this desire was having a child. There you go, you've done it, you have a child and the biological need is fulfilled. Realising mere months after Avery was born that this wasn't the case was a shock. I found that even through my initial horror at the idea of having another child, some days I would find the familiar emotion creep up at me from nowhere. Rather than the answer to this desire being "not now", it was "but we already did that!" Unfortunately that didn't stop the existence of said emotion.
And no, this isn't a convoluted way of telling you I'm having another baby, or even contemplating it. It's just something I haven't heard discussed before. I suppose when I heard women talk about wanting other babies I thought they meant it was something they had decided on a logical level. I didn't realise that they were talking about this desire being as strong for the idea of having another baby as it was for having the first baby. Our biology is a source of constant fascination to me. As is the idea that we think we have moved past these primary urges.
6 comments:
Lefa, It's like you're readin my freaking mind right now.
I thought that unbelievable ache would dissipate, and that the choice of baby number 2 would be, as you put it, a logical one.
Yet, here I sit, sleep deprived, with a seven month old amazing baby boy, trying to tell my desire for another one "not now".
I'm even more amazed, because I honestly thought I would only want one.
x Sara
p.s. stop reading my freaking mind, already.
I find maternal desire a fascinating topic, as I do the sensual nature of parenting - the (non-sexual, obviously) physical pleasure in another's body, that sloooow and messy separation into two people, where you were once one, from the birth, to breastfeeding, to growing independence through the toddler and preschool years. And the irrational, intense, visceral nature of maternal reality is one that is perhaps not dealt with so well traditionally within any of the mainstream three waves of feminism.
There has been some wonderful (and not so wonderful, in some comments) conversation about maternal desire in the Australian feminist blogosphere this year! Have you checked out Spilt Milk's post Maternal Desire (crossposted at Feministe), blue milk's "Re-post: How to explain ‘desire’?", and Queen Emily's guest post at Raising My Boychick, "Sadness is my boychick (or girlchick)".
Sara, I'm glad I'm not alone! Being an only child I was pretty settled on the idea of only having one, whereas Himself was thinking he would like two kids. Strangely, since Avery's birth we have both done an about face. He has no interest in another one, I would like to consider it at some point (way, way, way) down the track. This desire is such a strange creature to have living inside you.
So... are you saying it's a desire to be pregnant? Or to go through childbirth? Or to have that first meeting with an infant son/daughter? Or to feel maternally connected to several people (or at least more than one)? Or... what?
Ficus, I don't think it is even that identifiable. It think it is a little bit of each of those things you mentioned. I suspect in part it is a desire to meet/hold another tiny life you have created, or to feel the wonder of pregnancy, but also it is wanting to share the experience of creating this life with the person you love. And while I can identify all of that, I also recognise that it is also more hormonal than that... it's a really base, instinctual feeling rather than a set of desires I can put neatly into words. That has been the most shocking element.
lauredhel, somehow I missed your response way back when you wrote it. I don't know if it wasn't showing up, or whether I just missed it somehow. I apologise.
The posts you linked to are indeed wonderful. One I had read before but the others were new to me. I do find this idea of maternal desire a compelling one. It is such an innate element of my experience as a woman, and yet one that I do find discounted in many feminist circles. I think validating that experience is vital to accepting ourselves, rather than falling for that old concept that dismissing our femaleness is the way to liberate ourselves from it.
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