Do you find yourself:
Making googly faces at any baby within your 50-foot proximity?
Rationalizing that your recent weight gain is undoubtedly because you’re pregnant (even though that little pill case in your purse says otherwise)?
Thinking every baby is ridiculously cute although deep down you KNOW that he/she won’t be winning any baby beauty contests?
Convincing yourself that dumpy diapers don’t sound that putrid after all?
If so, you may be suffering from the ‘Baby Jones’.
The ‘Baby Jones’ is the uncontrollable urge to want to have a baby. In my (limited) experience, the ‘jones’ creeps in slowly. In your younger years, it was easy to keep at bay. You had sports to play. Places to visit. New people to meet. Adventures to have. Education to finish. For some, a partner to meet. But then, when most of those things have been checked off your bucket list, you feel it again. That nagging sensation that there is something (more?) you want in your life.
When fully manifested, the ‘jones’ may make you feel as though you’ve been brainwashed. Baby vomit is now thought of as spit-up (has a much less negative tone, no?). The sound of a baby crying activates your Mommy Sonar and you can find the needy child through rain, snow, sleet or hail. You nod empathetically when your mommy friends tell you about cracked nipples/sleepless nights/teething tears/leaky breasts/green poop/and… gulp… hemorrhoids. You even look longingly at mothers whose children are throwing violent, full-body temper tantrums in the grocery store checkout, wishing you could be the one to cradle them in your arms afterward.
And when you find yourself making goober faces at someone else’s kids in the local Target… it hits you. You want a baby. You have a full-blown, irrepressible case of the ‘Baby Jones.’ And the only thing that will treat it is 9 months of the happiest and scariest time in your life.
So what do you do?
I. Have. No. Idea.
Start reading & watching GOOD movies about it! Avoid "A Baby Story", "Special Delivery", "Deliver Me" & all other horrible shows. LOL ;-)
ReplyDelete"The Business of Being Born" is a fantastic place to start, IMO. I can't say enough great things about it!
"Your Best Birth" is a great book to get you thinking too!
If you start reasearching things before you get pregnant, it makes it much easier in my experience.
When we started trying for our first, the timing was just good w/ careers, etc... If it hadn't been for that, we MAY have waited a bit longer, since we were both somewhat young. But it all worked out just as it was supposed to. I wouldn't change a single thing!
Love this post! In my experience: First of all, there really is no perfect time... it happens when it happens. Second, no matter how much you think you want it, there is a part of you that FREAKS out when you actually become pregnant... and then just as you are used to being pregnant - you deliver & that brings a whole new FREAK OUT.
ReplyDeleteI think most ladies can relate to the "baby jones"... just hang in there.
Once you get the Joneses, you're in for it until you get pg yourself. It *might* wane a little here and there as you go out for drinks with your friends and realize you can't do that at the drop of a hat if you have a child. But it comes back when you leave the establishment and see a parade of a mom with 2 little kids following her to her car in the Target parking lot. You will all of the sudden notice EVERY pregnant woman within a 3-mile radius. You will start to think "you know, those maternity clothes don't look so bad! I could look like a cute pregnant chick!" Then you've got it B.A.D.
ReplyDeleteJust found your blog. Great post. I have the Baby Jones as well, but around these parts we call it "Fake Baby."
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