Motherhood or Otherhood

I've spent the last five years dodging questions about babies or telling people outright that I don't want motherhood, to please stop harassing me about choosing that life. That I absolutely 100% do not want to be a mother.

I even wrote a post on this blog about being childfree by choice. I pointed out the many talking points about not asking women about having children. Which are all true. You shouldn't ask questions about motherhood unprompted. It's rude and presumptuous.

I tell people I don't want to have children because it makes it easier. It makes it easier to just let them think that the decision has been made so that they leave me alone about it. So that I don't get this external pressure from family (or less of it) and I can figure out what I want on my own. 

But, honestly, not having external pressure hasn't helped. I am still so confused about choosing motherhood. 

I sit directly on the fence between motherhood and otherhood, seeing the realities of both choices.

A choice that can't be taken back once chosen. This decision creates a fork in your life like no other. You have to choose one.

I have these conversations with friends but most of them have adamantly and whole-heartedly chosen to be childfree. They don't feel the conflict that I feel. Does that mean that I want to have a baby if I can't one hundred percent commit to being childfree? If I'm afraid of regrets or if I sometimes feel pulled that way...

I see the childfree life with my husband. Money, travels, free time, less fighting, less hard decisions, less worrying, our dream home... I see a very full life that I think I could be happy with. I'm mostly happy with my childfree life now... Why can't that continue?

But then I see a parent with their child and I see the joy, the love, the experience of nurturing someone into their best self. I think of the bonding experience of creating a little person with the person you love. I think about the relationship that I will have with my child that will be unlike my relationship with anyone else. I also see the guilt, the messy houses, the worry, fear, financial strain, sleepless nights, having to choose someone else over yourself constantly.

I'm at that age where I'm standing at that fork in my life. I'm paralyzed by fear and indecision. What if I make the wrong decision? What if I'm hopelessly unhappy once I've made it?

All the women in my family were mothers by the time they were my age. Most of them much earlier.

I don't have a grown role model who chose a childfree life. Who lived their life on their terms and didn't regret it. 

I try to give myself little scenario exercises to see how I feel.

I recently had a bit of a scare and when I saw that negative test, I felt just as relieved as I was sad.

How can that be? How can I feel equally sad and relieved? 

I ask myself if I would go through infertility treatments if I couldn't conceive naturally... I don't think I would. Does that mean that I don't really want motherhood?

I ask myself if I would leave my husband if I wanted one and he didn't and neither of us was willing to budge. I don't think I would. Does that mean that I don't really want motherhood?

Sometimes I think about just leaving it to chance. If it happens, then it happens and if it doesn't, it doesn't. But I hate not making an intentional decision about such a big life-altering choice. I know a lot of people have children this way. I just don't think it's what I want.

I am still sitting on this fence, looking both ways, and feeling the weight of both choices, with no clue as to what I actually want. 

I think there will be regrets either way. I think if I choose childfree then I'll always think of the child that could have been. I think that if I choose motherhood then I will always think of the ease and joys of my life before becoming a mother.

I guess the question really is, which choice will I regret more?