My answer to why I wanted children:

I am writing this before reading your answers, so I am probably saying a lot of what has been said already.

I realized I wanted children because I wanted a family with my husband, like I had growing up.  As those of you who have read my blog for a while will know, I have the most amazing family, we are exceptionally close.  I’ve told you about my awesome mother, my divine father, you’ve seen the lovely comments my brother leaves, my sisters are my best friends.  I am really lucky.  And I want that with Marko.  I don’t want to have a child for the sake of having a child.  I want to have a child with Marko and have our own family.  That closeness, that love.

I also feel that my heart is so full of love, there is an overflowing abundance of it, I want to give that out to a child/children, I want to just love love love them. 

And then being able to share that love with your husband, your parents, your siblings, it makes your bond even stronger, the love you share for each other’s kids.  Seeing how much your parents love your children makes your heart so full of love it aches.

And lastly, I hate talking about this for fear of hurting my adoptive mother- and DE mother friends, but the biological thing is important to me too.  It’s not the most important thing, but it is important to me.  And funnily enough, it’s not about me or my genes, I actually couldn’t care less (my kids look nothing like me any way), it’s about Marko, and even more so, my parents genes.  More than any thing, I wanted to have some of my dad’s genes in my kids.  I don’t know why I am like this, but I so very badly wanted to have some thing of my father live on in my family.  That is why doing DE with my sister’s eggs seemed like such a good solution for me when I was considering DE.  As I said, there seems to be very little of me in my kids, but Adam has a little kink thingy on his ear, just like my dad, and that is simply beautiful to me.  It is like my dad lives on forever in him. 

Good lord I am getting all sappy here.  Sorry folks.  Back to our regular programming.

So that is why I wanted kids.  Although they did fuck my order up a bit.  I ordered kids who slept well.  Some how that request never went through.  At least they got the gorgeous part right.  It’s too late to send them back for new ones any way.  These have been used, and I am quite fond of them as they are.  I think I will keep these ones after all.

Ok, hold on.  Read your responses now and have to add the following:

Totally agree with the primal / instinct thing, and that once it’s switched on, it is impossible to switch off.  And that it is very difficult to articulate this urge.  It just is.

And also agree, that for me, a childless future was not a future worth contemplating, at all.

Comments

[21stCenturyMom]

wow - I feel so aimless by comparison. However, as I said in my little corner of cyberspace - I come from a really dysfunctional family and am ever so grateful for having created a very functional one.

Anyhow - that was beautiful and now I have to go read your blog from the beginning because I'm missing a bunch of history.

[Meganann]

I agree with the primal force part. I am childless and really just want them. I see babies, kids, teenagers, people a few years younger than myself and I just want to be part of someone's life through all of those things. Sometimes the longing just hits me and I can't articulate it at all. I am just overwhelmed with the love I have to direct at a child. I work out at a YMCA, which has children's programs and I will just stare at the kids as I run around the track in awe of the little lives that are just so important. I want to be part of that so much.

[LHB]

I had not answered to your previous post because I had to stop and actually, really THINK of the answer, but you put it perfectly for me (I feel like I am mooching off your answer, but it's true!)
I have an amazing family - the 5 of us are incredibly close and our times together are so happy and priceless. I want my children to have the same positive experiences growing up that I was able to have. On the flip side of things, my husband's childhood was far different. His siblings were and still are very independent of each other. Also,his parents were a bit older when they had him. He never really had any birthday parties or new school clothes or any of the things my siblings and I were lucky enough to have. I want him to be able to experience the kind of happy family life that I had growing up and I know that he wants to shower his children with the things he was unable to have.

[Becki]

Didn't get to the last post timely, but I'm touched by this one. I, too, wanted to have that feeling of building and loving a family with my husband, and I love the look in his eyes when he looks at our kids. I am happy to have the biological link with my kids, but I think I would have been okay without it.

One of my best friends has boy/girl twins through IVF, and it has been wonderful to watch them grow together, and see their relationship. You have a real treat ahead of you.

[Suz]

Maybe it's because I have so many friends who live childfree, but I really HAVE contemplated a future without them. I can see how it would be rewarding to devote time to career or business ventures, and how fun it would be to pour oneself into friendships, travel, and community. I really thought about this. However, I think that it takes a certain outgoing personality to make this work, and I simply don't have it. I would simply sit at home, watch TV, and be bored. That's not the type of life that I want.

[Elizabeth]

Found your blog while using the web as a distraction to an ivf cycle (it's not working). I picked up a book the other day - Maternal Desire (Daphne de Marneffe), as I've been questioning my need to go to these lengths to have children. I've just started the book, but it's captured my attention.

[JCA]

I can TOTALLY identify. My father, my hero, is deceased almost 5 years. He had one child: me. I want desperately to guarantee a place for his genes into the future.

No disrespect to anyone who adopts or uses an egg donor -- love is a more important thing to give a child than genes. But I don't think it's wrong for women to hope to give their children both.

[Michelle]

You identified the one thing that makes me most sad about the adoption process..not my genes, but that of my parents. When I look into my mom's eyes, I see my own. And my dad and I like the same foods and have the same body type. When they are gone, they will be gone, and I will look into the eyes of my children, and not see my parents. That makes me sad sometimes.

[lorrie]

Interesting.

I am adopted, and supposed to desperately want to carry on myself. But actually I didn't care that much about it. I am no prize, my genes will die with me, the world will not be a lesser place! :)

dh is 100% sterile. So it probably would have meant more to me if we could have created a child together. But that's impossible.

So we adopted without any regrets!

I do adore my adoptive parents, and if they had my blood, I would have wanted to try to carry that on, for sure..

[lurker delurking]

As I posted I haven't experienced the whole desire for kids thing myself but the way you expressed it made a lot of sense to me. Thanks Tertia and everyone else who told their story, I still don't *get* it as such, but I at least feel I understand better on an intellectual if not emotional level.

[Gina]

I did not read all of the responses but I think I am the most selfish woman on the planet. I knew why I wanted children even before being faced with IVF. It was my driving force and why I kept going. Unconditional love. That simple. Sorry but spousal love is conditional. I love my DH and I know he loves me but it is not the same as how I love my parents and they love me. Their love for me is so strong I can feel it. It is almost a physical presence. I wish this for everyone. I wanted to feel that way about my child and I wanted my child to feel it for me.

It does not bother me to hear "mommy" many times a day. Not at all.

I also wanted what you wanted. A family and all that goes with it. Family vacations and reliving enjoying a flower for the first time, watching fish, coloring, play-doh, crafts, glue, laughing to just laugh.

Like you I love seeing my parents enjoy my children. I also love seeing my husband enjoy them.

[wix]

i suppose i didn't address the building a family aspect in my responses, but i also wasn't addressing your particular question precisely, more talking about the events that made me realize i wanted to be a mom/have a child. i suppose i thought that part went without saying, like that was the typical underlying reason for people who decided they wanted to have children together (rather than having it decided for them).

i really appreciate this: but Adam has a little kink thingy on his ear, just like my dad, and that is simply beautiful to me. It is like my dad lives on forever in him. i have to admit that i find myself occasionally looking for snatches of my mom in CX, and in myself as well. i look so much like my dad, to my dismay, that i don't see them in myself too often. it remains to be seen if part of her personality will reveal itself in CX. but, as i wrote in the post i linked to the second time, i feel a closeness with my mom that i never did pre-CX, because i do feel that i understand her point of view better than ever. i only wish she was here to share in this with me.

i confess that i might feel envious of your family--it was just my mom, dad, and me, i have no siblings--if you weren't so happy with them. it is wonderful to see how much you enjoy them and cherish them, which makes me happy for you rather than sad for the larger family i never had.

[Kristin]

My Marty's ears are positioned on his head exactly like my dad's ears are on his head. It still blows my mind.

[Lila]

I never thought about this gene stuff very much (finding myself divinely ugly I don't think anything bad will happen if my genes don't get carried on...) but a story from our kibbutz comes to my mind.

My husband (3rd generation kibbutznik) has a very good childhood friend. A., whose father fell in the 1967 war. He was a well-liked man with red hair, what we call gingy in Hebrew (color of ginger). His children were very young, his widow re-married after a couple of years and tried to give a happy childhood to her children.

A. and his siblings are all very dark, his mother is Yemenite and obviously her genes simply blotted out the dead father's white skin and gingy hair. You will guess it: when A.s eldest girl was born, the whole kibbutz was in tears. She was gingy. Her long-dead grandfather had sent her these gorgeous red curls. It was as though he had re-appeared.

But in spite of this story... I was raised by a man not genetically related to me and he was my REAL father, nobody else. Often people said to me: how you resemble my father, and we had great fun. Yeah, we do resemble. For this, you don't need genes.

So I guess, if I had not been able to have kids without help, I would have opted for adoption.

Another aspect is the fact that I enjoyed the "animal" side of motherhood very much. Pregnancy, giving birth, breastfeeding were for me very rewarding and fulfilling experiences, at least three out of four times. So having missed that would have hurt me when I was in that phase of life. Now that I'm older, it doesn't seem too important to me. You simply grow out of this pregnancy-birth-baby-stadium.

So in spite of it all, I guess if I was confronted with IF, I'd have adopted children, like more than one good friend I know did.

A last story from the kibbutz: a very blonde friend of mine, married to an Iraqi Jew with black curls, adopted two children from Eastern Europe. Afterwards, she all of a sudden got pg (YES I know it sounds like an urban fairytale but it's true!) and had a dark-curled little boy. When she goes out with the children, everybody thinks the bio. kid is adopted. It's so funny because when her husband takes the kids, of course people think the other way around.

Here in Israel, you have many mixed families where you really never know who looks like who...

Sorry for the ramble.

[Lori]

That is very touching about Adam's ear :o) I feel the same way. Mine and my hubby's family traits are passed down now for hopefully generations. So wonderful!

[averyjenn]

Your post is beautiful!! It reminded me what an ass I am - I never mentioned my husband in why I wanted a child!! AAGGHHH!!! So to add onto my earlier message...I want a child with my husband because he is the kindest, sweetest, most generous man in the universe and I want to have a child with his patience and generosity and those gorgeous green eyes and his curly hair. I want that extension of our love to live inside another.

Thanks for reminding me I'm such an ass!!!

[katie]

I got all weepy this morning at the breakfast table. I was contemplating a family reunion trip that my daddy and I are making alone this weekend (extended family reunion). I feel this kinship with the people there even though I don't know them. We share physical traits, but also a love of God. It is beautiful to be with them even just once a year. I was also thinking about the trips I took with my Daddy as a girl. We would always stop in some little town grocery and get a moonpie and a coke. The fun we had telling jokes and singing songs! I'm glad my husband has our girls to do these things with. They'll have lots of fond memories, too.

[Cory]

You are a posting demon lately Tertia! I find that I have to keep catching up to your posts, and I check every day! Geez woman, didn't you just have twins or something? hehe I love it though, checking your blog and reading your updates make my day.

Anyhow, my response to having kids...I wrote about it in my blog actually. http://www.roosmom.com/?p=6 Some of it was the same as yours...passing on genes, the love. But by the end, it all came down to...explaining ones desire to have children is almost impossible. I compared it to people having faith in God. It's just something that's there. It just is. And you can't explain it logically.

It's all about the love, baybee...the love and the faith.

[korin]

I've been meaning to answer your question for a while.
I want to have a child so that I can teach him or her all the wonderful things I know. I want to teach him to knit, I want to take her hiking. I want to see the wonder in their eyes as they taste their first bit of chocolate. I want to hear them tell the story of their first kiss. To watch them climb a tree. I want to know what it's like to love someone so much it hurts. I don't know if that explains it. I just can't imagine life with out a child. I know people who had a kid, and then thought, "eh, i could have lived with out kids".. but I just can't. It hurts to think of it.

I just found out (ha, after all the ridiculous testing and fucking clomid hell) that we have a male factor infertility problem. Antibodies. the report says "Fine for ICSI". Can you pass the heroin please?

PS. tell my I'm gorgeous and Divine!

[larissa]

Yours are the exact same reasons as mine for wanting to have a baby. I could not have articulated it any better, and it's eerie how it's identical. My little guy is due in May, so I have all the screaming and stuff yet to look forward to :-)

[Alfontz]

Why on this earth can anyone say that children make me so happy. What a complete load of crap! Children do not give. They TAKE! Even when they are older and you have made countless sacrifices on their behalf and did without for their college and weddings and who knows what.

Do you really think you are going to hear the words of the George Strait song "Dad, this could be the best day of my life." Get real. Get a life! It ain't happenin'!

Kids today all come up with the liberal and Satanic notion that they are owed. You as parents "owe our kids the best". You are entitled to health care, blah, blah blah, blah, blah.

I have raised my two kids (as a single father) to be 100% responsible for their own actions; To not be a burden on anyone and to be a blessing to those to whom you can. Do you think it is selfish to want your kids to be a blessing to their parents? Hah. Further fat chance!

Being a parent Sucks! It is a giant lie of the Catholic Church. We are supposed to feel blessed when our "quivers are full". Yet no one ever tells you of the pain (mental, physical, emotional and FINANCIAL) of raising children in this world. And for what? To even get a thank you.

Having children ranks right up there with bankruptcy and cancer. They are both bummers! They are not blessings nor miracles, nor bundles of joy.

I know. That is just what my wonderful wife of five years, has just come to me with two red marks across the test stip. Congratulations to me! I am going to be a father, again @ 44 and be working until I die. I can't tell you how happy I am.

With any luck, I will die sooner.