Baby Love

Or not.

I’ve never been real keen on babies, except for my fabulous, wonderful niece Helen, of course. When I was small though, I always figured I’d have two children. Just two. My parents had three other kids besides me. Many of my classmates had three and four siblings.  This seemed the norm but, at the same time, I felt horribly crowded.

I hated crowds — still do.

The book The Population Bomb, by Paul R. Ehrlich and  Anne Ehrlich, had come out in 1968. The Zero Population Growth movement was flowering and my family’s favorite television show Star Trek (see, my geekiness was encoded into my DNA. I come by this naturally) had just shown the episode The Mark of Gideon. (A race of overpopulated aliens abduct Kirk so he can solve their problem. Naturally, though always mystifying to me, he gets the girl, the romance action.)

I had big, important, weighty even, justification for my room-of-my-own wish and crowded house resentment, huh? I was  a real serious kid like that — always had to have a world shaking reason for liking or disliking something.

Flash forward to 1981, the year I was diagnosed with Neurofibromatosis Type 2  — Nf2. I was 22, happily childless and living with my boyfriend. It was a living arrangement born of convenience not romance (he needed a place to live and my roommate and I needed the rent) but, for all the docs knew, it might’ve been a forever with kids kind of a thing.

 My neurosurgeon and neurologist, Ojemann and Parker, strongly, firmly, vigorously even advised me never to get pregnant. It wasn’t just that the odds of passing Nf2 to the child were/are 50/50 — much more they were concerned about the hormones that flow through a woman’s body while preggers. They’re like manure tea and seaweed stew on your vegetable garden (oh please, look it up). The tumors grow, they thrive, they get all fat and happy while they crowd all the other cranial occupants. No, I wouldn’t die right away but, left untreated, I would. Even with treatment I would’ve lost my hearing much earlier, quite possibly my sight as well a mega host of other nasty bits happening.

I was pretty certain that I didn’t want kids of my own but was still annoyed that this choice was, essentially, out of my hands. Yeah, I hate being told what I can and can’t do.

I figured though, if I really wanted kids, I could adopt.

Instead, I borrowed. Before The Amazing Bob and I started shacking up (god, I love that phrase — it’s just so tawdry in a 1950s, Maggie in Cat of a Hot Tin Roof, kind of a way ) I’d have his son Miles over — I’d make him dinner, we’d sprawl on the floor drawing together while watching baseball. It was awesome.

Borrowing is good. I highly recommend it.

The Supremes -- Baby Love