Baby Lust

Baby lust ... I didn't realize this condition had taken over my heart until today. It grew gradually, like jasmine, spreading its green leavers over a trellis. Baby lust is an emotional, sometimes physical, obsession with having a baby, or another baby, or yet another baby. Symptoms include spending hours in the infant section of Target, buying one's clothes a size too big and rocking in the nursery rocking chair alone. Severe symptoms include registering for baby items at Target, buying honest-to-goodness maternity clothes and rocking in the rocking chair while holding a five-pound chicken wrapped in swaddling clothes ... all without being pregnant. Not that I've been doing any of these things ...

When I was pregnant with my daughter, Claire, I was so nauseous I became convinced that anyone who decided to become pregnant more than once had to be clinically insane. Now that I'm equally convinced every difficult moment of pregnancy was worth the reward, I am becoming one of those clinically insane people. Not that there aren't logical reasons to have a second child. Some first children need a sibling to show them the world doesn't revolve around themselves. Some first children need to learn to share. The other side of our back seat is going to waste. We have almost all the supplies we would need for another child. None of these logical reasons sound very convincing.

However, throughout history, people have had children for all kinds of illogical reasons, from status to sibling rivalry. Consider the baby war in Genesis. Leah vied with her sister, Rachel, for their husband, Jacob's favor by bearing four sons. Rachel, Jacob's second wife, so long barren, jealously competed with Leah by having her maidservant, Bilhah, bear two sons to Jacob so Rachel could count them as her own. Leah then had her maidservant, Zilpah, bear two sons to Jacob so Leah could count them as her own. After Leah bore sons numbers five and six, Rachel finally bore two sons of her own. Sounds like a soap opera, right?

I don't know whether my motives are rational, but I do know I turned 30 last week. It's not that time is running out, but there is less of it than there used to be. I now have a craving even stronger than that for chocolate or sushi. As childless Elizabeth I said, I want to "hold a babe in mine arms" ... a creature with hair as soft as cotton candy, small limbs held close and trembling, the ability to sleep anywhere and delicate, transparent fingernails. I long to feel that sack-of-sugar weight over my shoulder as I pat that little back, the satisfaction of knowing a onesie is a complete outfit, the virgin softness of untouched palm within uncurling fingers, smoother than a rose petal. I want to catch a whiff of eau de bebe, that intoxicating fragrance of Dreft, Johnson & Johnson baby shampoo and breast milk. I want to awaken at 2:00 a.m. again, surprised to find I'm not upset, after all, because I get to hold this precious creature in my arms, rocking her as she nurses, as she closes her eyes in inestimable bliss.

More than anything, I have the desire to nurture a living thing, to watch it grow, to live vicariously through it as it reaches its full potential. My husband says we may start trying later this year. I guess I'll be gardening a lot until then.