Ovarian protest aka an ode to my complete lack of maternal anything
Iāve been told that the sound of a child crying is meant to stir an innate maternal instinct from deep within.Ā
I wonāt lie, it makes me want to punch a wall.Ā
Itās like a cheese-grater to my womb that sends my ovaries in knots and teeth grinding, accompanied by an unsympathetic, furious inner-monologue that usually goes something like āoh ffs,Ā shut up andĀ get a grip,Ā things are only going to get worseā. (Because they are.)
The level of irritability I feel can only be likened to noisy eaters, Tories or when youāre walking and somebody keeps treading on the backs of your heels.
While thereās no questioning my ability to have children (my body insists on bleeding and ovulating on a regular basis), I sometimes wonder whether the hundreds of pounds Iāve spent on luxury tampons and new knickers over the last 13 years is going to go to waste.Ā
My maternal instinct is about as present as Queen Victoria. And if it is there, somewhere, itās definitely deep - because Iāve not caught wind nor tail of it for the last 26 years. Ever.
Iām not surprised that friends and schoolmates are increasingly tying the knot, buying houses and having babies (as Facebook so often likes to remind me). People in my year have been having children since before the legal age of consent and that was more than a decade ago, so itās not like the thought hasnāt ever crossed my mind.
No. Iām surprised at how un-ready I feel. Ā Which, now Iāve forced myself to think about it,Ā can almost definitely be attributed to one of the following: 1) The responsibility. I can barely find time to make my own dinner, let alone look after a child. 2) The commitment. It took me long enough deciding whether I could commit to a 24-month phone tariff. 3) That Iāve not found the right person to ignite my ovaries (Iāve heard that actually having a partner helps). 4) Priorities. That Iād rather spend my evenings with a G&T and no curfew is probably a good enough reason alone to not have a child. 5) Iām not quite ready to sacrifice my vagina for another being. The frequency in which Iām asked whether I want children is increasing with age - as if Iām running out of time. Like my biological clock is hanging around my neck, weighing me down, huffing and tapping its hands impatiently while counting down the seconds until Iām considered āwell past itā for all the world to see. If I was a celebrity, the Daily Mail would be having a field-day uterus-shaming me and making various assumptions about my femininity, sexuality, possible medical conditions and whether Iām cutting a slender figure or not. Perhaps, even, my lack of enviable ads would be to blame.
āNot for at least 10 years,ā is my default response. But quite frankly, Iāve lost count of the number of years Iāve been saying it.
Iām not feeling the pressure - Iāve never had a ālife planā -Ā Iām just wondering whether the āadult epiphanyā I always imagined Iād have is ever going to happen; whether my supposedly baron maternal instinct is going to suddenly rear its sleepy head out of the blue and screamĀ āsurprise!ā
16-year old me, all frizzy-haired and round and more interested in memorising the lyrics to My Chemical Romance than anything else, imagined Iād be a fully-fledged adult by now with my L plates well and truly thrown out the window. 26-year old me (less frizzy-haired and slightly less-round, still remembers all My Chemical Romance lyrics, so obviously worthwhile) is still trying to navigate the right way around the roundabout - and the only thing Iāve thrown out of the window is any hope of getting on the property ladder in London.
On the bright side, at least Iām no longer drinking cider from a park bench, so credit where creditās due.
Cheese graters and jokes aside - and before Iām branded a ābaby haterā andĀ ānon-womanā, and eternally damned to the depths of unmaternal hell - I should probably note thatĀ Iām not entirely immune to mini-humans. One of my oldest friends has a 9-month old who is probably the cutest thing ever ā seriously, if my uterus ever decides to do the whole broody thing Iād pay good money to ensure I pop one out as good as her. Iāve even half-changed her (before she started pissing everywhere). And I didnāt even flinch when she did a massive squelchy poo in her nappy while I was holding her. (Okay, maybe just a little bit.)
But next time someone asks me about babies, I think Iāll tell them my womb is on an indefinite hiatus.







