mom to be (or not to be)

I'm not sure if it's all these celebrities having babies or something biological, but lately I've been thinking about being pregnant.

Not that I want to rush out and get knocked up or anything. It's just that for the longest time I haven't wanted children. My family and friends know that I'm not a kid person, that if I do have kids I only want one. I remember being around 11 years old and declaring that I wasn't going to have kids. My aunt never had kids. She's happy and has a great lifestyle. Why wouldn't I want to just get married and leave the whole baby thing out of it? Part of it was the whole childbirth thing. I can't imagine what that feels like: the pain, the anxiety, the screaming, the stretch marks. And I'm not a very maternal person. Being a mom seems like a foreign concept to me. I always thought I was too selfish to have kids.

Because I'm not so maternal, I assumed I would be a bad mother. Or just not a great one. I sort of envy my friends who know they want kids. I don't want to see self-centered or uncaring, but I don't know if I could do it. And I see my mom and other moms being so proud of their kids that I want that for myself. Lately I've also thought about what it would feel like to be pregnant, and not in the beached whale sort of feeling. I've been thinking about the glow that pregnant woman have or the way they smile when they touch their growing stomach. The excitement that comes with the baby's arrival and all of the planning that comes beforehand.

But I can't pinpoint the reason for my baby thoughts. Is it all the babies in the news? Or is it something more fundamental than that? Could it be that at 24, my biological clock has started ticking? And even though I may have not pictured myself as the Mom type, my body is telling me that it's ready to breed?