On Having Babies…

I decided to leave my last post up until the feeling subsided. I am a little better now, but left with lots of thoughts/questions about the entire phenomenon.

1. I have been told that women experience a peak in their sex drive in their late thirties. Is said peak what I am currently experiencing? If so, anybody have any suggestions for how to deal with this, short of an on call boy-toy to do my bidding?
2. I wonder if there is any connection with the loud ass ticking of my bio-clock? I am nothing if not in tune with my body. I know that I experience a spike in my sex drive between the 14th and 19th day of my cycle, give or take a day on either end. I know the moment I am ovulating; I experience Mittelschmerz ever single, solitary month of my life. I can tell you which ovary is having its turn that month! I guess that’s a good thing — that I’m still ovulating regularly. But I’m off topic. Lately I have been getting ravenously horny instead of my normal horny during ovulation and the week following. I think my body is screaming at me: Look YOU, if you want to have a baby, you better get busy NOW because we’re running out of good eggs!!! I wonder if that’s it?
3. Watching all of my family surround my grandmother when she passed and in the weeks leading up to her death has also affected me greatly. She had 11 grandchildren and 3 great-grandchildren. All but 1 were there with her in her last days. Do you know why she was surrounded by this host of love? Because she had kids!! 3 she gave birth to and 5 she fostered (2 of whom I consider my aunt and uncle just like my father’s blood siblings). I shudder to think of what my grandmother’s treatment would have been like in that hospital had they not known we were there and if we weren’t that one of us would be there at any given moment! My grandmother begged us not to leave her alone. Fuck health care “professionals” who treat elderly people like shit. OMG, I can’t even talk about that. All I can say is that I don’t want to be old and alone in a health care facility with no one to fight for me and make sure I receive proper care. In my mind, that means I need to have kids. At least one. I know there are no guarantees that my kids will be normal and humane to me, but I increase my odds by at least having ’em, right?

These thoughts of progeny have me considering my options. I am open to most of the available possibilities, I just have to decide which is right for me. I shall be pondering these for while:

1. Find a decent guy with whom to enter into a committed loving relationship who wants to have children — soon. Get pregnant the conventional way and birth my own baby (or babies). Sidebar: twins are rampant in my family–every generation, no skipping. None of my cousins nor my brother want to be graced with the honor. I would LOVE to be the one for a couple of reason. First, I am certain that I will only lend my body to parasitic body-snatchers once. Secondly, I fostered 1 year old twins for a while. It was great!!! I miss them and my heart just ached to think of them.
2. Adopt as a single parent.
3. Be artificially inseminated.
4. Be traditionally inseminated by a friend who gets an all clear pass on parental obligations/rights.
5. Be traditionally inseminated by a friend and co-parent as a non-couple.
6. Trick some guy into knocking me up by sticking pin-holes in condoms.

OK, so I am not really considering #6, but it seemed to fit in the list of options.

Here are my thoughts on the options:

1. Too much depends on someone else and perfect timing. As much as I am starting to learn what it means to take control of one’s destiny, I don’t want a lifelong relationship to develop against the clock. I will say that this option is probably my ideal, but I am not so married to it that I won’t consider the others.
2. I am really open to adoption. In fact, I will probably adopt whether I have my own child or not. It’s something I feel called to in a way. But it’s expensive and I need “approval”. No one does a home visit when someone is thinking of getting pregnant, but talk about adoption and now everybody’s all up in your credit score and what not. I understand why, of course. But the process seems as intrusive as the Top Secret Clearance process I passed on — and consequentially, my job with NSA.
3. I always get stuck at this question when I consider artificial insemination: Mommy, why would you deliberately choose to bring me into the world without a father?
4. The same question comes to mind with a traditional sperm donor. I think it would be even harder to say, but you do have a daddy, baby. Mommy just signed papers and promised not to ever tell you who he is.
5. This is a really viable option for me, should such a friend want children but just not be a good fit for a relationship. I would prefer someone who doesn’t already have children and is not already paying hefty child support payments monthly.

Any thoughts? Is my latest sex drive spike my bio-clock screaming in my ear? I can’t believe, by the way, that I am old enough to even be having this discussion. And for all of you who want to say, Oh, Lex, women are having babies way into their forties and fifties — my line of women menstruate and menopause early! I think mom’s last period was before she was 45!!

P.S. – Mommy will love that her honorable mention in this post is about her period, don’t ya think?