There are many reasons people choose not to have children. They may not like kids, or they may recognize that they are not mature enough to take care of them. They may be concerned about the future of our society or too scared by the current political administration to subject an innocent person to it. Perhaps there are significant health risks that run in their family, or they remember too clearly their own fucked up childhood (because, really, who didn’t have a fucked up childhood?). Or perhaps, like me, they are just petrified of vomiting.
It’s not that I’m afraid of baby spit-up or even full fledged toddler rainbow yawns at public functions. No, I’m afraid of ME barfing. Specifically, I am afraid of what people have cutely termed “morning sickness.”
Doesn’t this bring to mind, if one pushes aside the automatic thoughts we’ve grown accustomed to thinking when hearing this term, a woman circa 1880 wearing a frilly yellow gown, half collapsed and fanning herself on a velvet fainting couch? Something likely to be the result of a too-tight corset? It does not sound like a modern day full time working mom hurling into a garbage can on the corner of a busy street, while a bum looks on clearly thinking, “Hey! I EAT from that!” (Yes, firsthand. And to the mother-to-be’s significant credit, she just tidied herself up, grinned wryly to a concerned passerby “morning sickness,” and kept on moving. I would have burst into tears and collapsed on the nasty curb while the bum looked on thinking, “Hey! I SLEEP there!”)
I can name every time I’ve puked as an adult. I’ve only done so maybe a dozen times, and I’ve definitely beat Seinfeld’s no-barfing streak, thanks to staying away from those god-awful black and white cookies and sheer determined willpower. I loathe throwing up. It is hugely traumatic for me. This is the reason I will never be a drunk or a bulimic. Or get pregnant.
Tom and I have been asked, pretty much since the day we said “I do,” when we are going to start a family. Some have been more persistent than others (Katy, I’m looking at you) and some have kept completely quiet, but don’t think I haven’t seen that gleem in your eye whenever a baby is mentioned in casual conversation. Last year during the holidays my father-in-law kept intoning not so subtly, and - I’m sure I’m not imagining it - accusatorily, that Christmas is really “all about the kids.”
I know it sounds lame and ridiculous but honestly I can’t stand the idea of puking. It goes against nature! That pipe is meant for things to go down, not to come up. I hate the feeling of being completely out of control of what my body is doing. I hate the smell, I hate getting it in my hair, I hate that burning sensation in your throat afterwards. I hate the unattractive contortions my face makes and I certainly hate the possibility of doing it in front of other people. Yeah, sure, childbirth sounds pretty awful too, but at least you can get an epidural. And the puking lasts for MONTHS. Months! How does anybody put up with this?!
So until the medical community agrees that it is okay to put a pregnant woman in a coma for the first trimester or until the nausea passes, whichever comes last, I ain’t gettin knocked up.
I don’t care how cute that baby over there is. With his itty bitty fingers and his chubby cheeks and…
* From Dave Barry’s version of the Winston Churchill (a well known drinker) quote: “Madam, I may be drunk but BLAARRRRRGH”
