Oh, baby! ... Oh. Baby?

This is a hot topic in the Bliss household lately. We have been married about two years, I am hurtling towards 30, and my mother makes a face kind of like this whenever I give any hint of bearing her grandchildren:

We have been back and forth about impending parenthood, Husband and I. At first it was that I wanted a baby and he wasn't sure it was the right time, but now we are both rather schizophrenic in our baby lust/fear. It seems we are incapable of ever making a simple decision, and this tendency is only amplified when we are talking about the most momentous decision of our lives. I mean, marrying Husband was kind of a big deal, but if we get sick of each other we can always get divorced with really very little social stigma. It doesn't seem to work that way with kids. I don't think you are allowed to say, "My toddler and I just kind of grew apart. I don't like who I am when we are together. I just become this naggy bitch, telling him what to do all the time, and I'll do anything to keep him happy. We want different things from life, and we both agreed it would be best if we parted ways."

Nope, once sperm meets egg you have that sucker for the rest of your life. My brother is 32 and he still shows up at my parents' house for a free meal at least once a week. Honestly, some nights I can barely feed myself. I don't think I am ready to sign up for 30+ years of someone else wanting stuff from me. And yet that sounds so selfish and immature.

Also, I am not happy about the mammalian task that lies ahead of me. I don't want to feel barfy for weeks on end, be so swollen with parasitic offspring that I literally cannot breath, and then, as Kirstie Alley says in Look Who's Talking, I have to push something to size of a watermelon out of a hole the size of a lemon. I don't think your girl parts are ever the same after that. After that you get to spend the next year lactating contstantly, like Belle the Blue Bell cow, but I would imagine much less chipper. I was really happy to hear that Oprah dug up a pregnant man until I found out he was a transsexual. Man, I wish my husband was a tranny.

All this baby talk started because I hate my current job, so I would tell Husband things like, "You have to knock me up so I can quit this horrible job!" Having a baby was kind of like a fresh career opportunity without the hassle of sending out resumes. But now that I will almost certainly have a different job next year, I'm reevaluating my options. We were both on board to start trying for a baby this summer. I even started taking prenatal vitamins and told my mom to cheer her up when my dad was in the hospital a few weeks back. Now I think the current plan is to wait another year. Apparently "next year" is always our ideal time to start a family. I am really starting to think that a broken condom will be our route to parenthood. Either that or I will be one of those women who turns 38 and realizes she forgot to have children.