Musings from a MWFNK

Yeah, I made that up. It stands for "Married White Female, No Kids". I've been thinking about a lot of things lately. One of them being Why do I(we) have this burning need to have a child? Why is it that being "childless" was not an option for us, when other people choose this option and seem to be "O.K." with it? One of the questions the Social Worker asked was "Why do you want to be parents?" I have to say, I had a hard time with the answer. It's hard for me to put into words. I think I answered something to the effect of "Well, we have always talked about having kids. We love the idea of nurturing another human being and seeing them grow and change into who they will become. We want to pass on our morals, our views, our values to another. We want to have grandkids someday. We want to have someone to take care of us when we are old. We want to have a family."
People tell me all the time how lucky we are that we don't have children. They say they're jealous of the lack of responsibilities, the amount of time we have to spend entirely with each other. It seems they envy the freedom we have. When I come into work on Monday and I have spent the whole weekend working on my scrapbook, or laying around on a cold rainy day watching movies(like I did yesterday), or really doing nothing at all, they tell me "You're so lucky! I spent the entire day at a soccer game, or stuck inside with my kids because it was raining and they drove me crazy." It is ironic because I'm thinking to myself "I wish I had a kid so I could go watch their soccer games" or "I would love to have spent the day playing games or watching movies with my kids. My weekend was boring!" I wonder sometimes if it is a case of always wanting what we can't have? Of course I do realize that having a child is hard work. I'm not debating that. I work with children, so I do have a small(very small. I know) taste of how tiring it can be, and how much it can try your patience. I guess what I'm asking is, if we know how hard it is, how much work it will be, then why do we want to do it? And if we want it so bad, then why do we complain so much after we get it? Maybe it's just our nature as human beings to complain(I know it is mine). This whole post came about because of two reasons. The first being that my friend is having a very hard time with her child right now, and she offers that child to me almost on a daily basis. The second being that a woman offerred me her child in the grocery store. You know the scenario. I'm standing in line at the store when a woman and her toddler get in line behind me. The child is screaming and kicking and the woman is trying to hold her basket and the child, who is arching her back and crying. Subsequently, she drops her basket of food and it rolls all over the floor. As I bend down to help her retrieve the food she says to me "You want her? You can have her!" I came very close to saying "Alright! I'll take her, I can't have any of my own you know!". But I didn't. I smiled sypathetically at her as I placed the food I had picked up in her basket and moved up in the line. I wish I had a dollar for every time someone offerred me their child. I could adopt two children! I guess I'm just having a hard time with the infertility issues right now. The S.W. said that one thing China was concerned about was that the infertility issues be resolved. I think they're worried that the decision to adopt might be second choice, or "second best". Although I don't feel that way at all about our decision to adopt, we were hoping that we might have a biological child. Is that wrong? I truly wanted to be pregnant. I did. I wanted to have a big, fat belly. I wanted to feel that child inside of me. I wanted all of the attention that comes along with being pregnant(which is strange because usually I don't like being the center of attention). I know plenty of people who said being pregnant was over-rated. I also know people who have adopted/are adopting that had no desire at all to be pregnant. I'm not one of those people. I still cringe when I see a pregnant woman. It still makes me sad to walk though the Maternity Dept. at Target(on my way to the Plus Size section). It still makes me cry sometimes when I hear that one of my Moms at work or one of my friends is pregnant again. Many people I know that are my age are on their second or third child and I don't even have one. It makes me sad sometimes. Do all of these things make our decision to adopt wrong? Is there such a thing as a wrong reason to adopt a child? I don't know. What I do know is that along with the sadness, I have never felt this happy in my life. I have never felt so at peace. We are going to have a child. The further we go in this process, the more real it feels. It is happening at a much quicker rate than I thought it would, and I'm glad. Because no matter how lucky I am that I don't have kids, I know in my heart that I will feel one hundred times more lucky that I do have them. Even with all the hard work they entail.