I wrote this back in 2016. I was finishing my MA program and had to write a personal essay. I never ended up with children and as I am now in the late stages of perimenopause, it’s unlikely at best that I would ever be able to. But before I digress…

The first time I heard a baby’s heartbeat, I still thought I wanted children. “Melissa…” I looked up from my seat as the medical assistant opened a door that led to the exam rooms. She called out from the open doorway, letting my name hang in the air like there should be more to it. I stood up and grabbed my bag. “Right this way,” she said, and turned to head down a dim hallway, covered in anatomy posters and generic looking paintings that had been hung on the walls sometime in the ‘70s. If I had reached up and moved one of them, I probably would have seen the original shine and luster of the paint color. I walked behind her, looking at the posters, the signs, filtered by a dull yellow glow that the overhead lighting cast off. 

“We’ll just get your weight,” she continued. Setting down my purse and book, and kicking off my shoes, I stepped onto the scale. “This room over here,” she said, as she pointed down the hall. As I gathered my belongings and turned to head for the open door, I noticed that someone was already in my room, lying on the exam table. And that was when I heard the soft flub-dub of a tiny, unborn heart on the other side of the door. That was when I knew that I wanted to be a mom. I couldn’t hear anything else. There was no medical assistant. There was no dull, half lit hallway. My heart ached for what was so close to me, that tiny heart fluttering just a few steps away, but not meant for my arms. Realizing my mistake, I turned away from the beating heart, and walked into my room, the room without the beating heart. The year I discovered I wanted a baby was also the year I started collecting medical conditions. Each, on their own, was little to worry about. Combined, they became a problem, one compounding another. Auto-immune disease, ovarian cysts, menorrhagia, migraine headaches, and Type 1 Diabetes. 

Some years later, as it turned out, I discovered that I didn’t really want children. I just didn’t know it when I stood in that hallway, listening to that little heart-beat. Through divorce, school, and working three jobs to cover expenses, I began to realize that up to that point, I really didn’t know what I wanted or how I wanted to achieve it. I was choosing from limited options, and I thought that the best of those options was the best of life. But the bottom line is that I want something other than pushing a human being through my vagina.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think that children are the wrong choice for anyone. It’s just that they aren’t the right choice for me. Pursuing a lifetime of wonderful experiences comes to each person in a different manner. For some, that manner is through family and children. For me, it’s late naps on warm Sundays, starting a book with the sunrise and finishing it with dusk, going for walks with my dogs, and being able to literally stop and smell the roses. Yellow ones. With red edges. 

Children, dear little things that they are, tend to suck up resources like time and money and sanity. Doctor’s visits, play dates, school supplies, dance lessons, sports clubs, school plays. And don’t forget to feed them a few times per day. And diapers, lots of diapers. And they will absolutely pee, barf, and crap on you. “You’ll change your mind,” they tell me. “There’s nothing like the first time you hold your baby in your arms. And your menstrual cramps won’t be as bad after you have a kid,” they continue (I think that one is my favorite worst reason to have kids). That may be true, but I have no desire to find out for myself. And saving sixty bucks a year on Midol isn’t worth my nipples chafing from unending feedings. My family makes big, hungry babies. My nipples are fine the way they are, thank you. 

I hear them outside, their shrill screams filling the air. I see the temper tantrums in the market. I hear the cries of indignation: “But I waaaaaant it!” a child wails as he flails his arms outward toward the toy on the shelf.  

“We’re not getting any more toys,” a desperate mother says as she shoves the tattered remains of her braid back behind her ears, shopping cart rolling away as she attempts to restrain the flailing child. 

I don’t even like when my dogs beg at the dinner table. The irony here, of course, is that I came into the world through my mother. If she had felt the same way that I do, you wouldn’t be reading this. I would say that she wanted children, but the truth is that I, just like my sister and brother, was not conceived out of want. I was conceived out of oops. But I cannot claim to know my mother’s thoughts. Perhaps she had a genuine desire to have children. I just know that she always said that she thought three was a good number—in case something happens to one, the other two still have each other. But she just said three was a good number, not that she wanted three. My father had children because it was the next logical step. His words. 

Mommy and Me. Daddy Daughter Day. Family Night. Parents Night. So many events designed for the parent and child. So much intention and consideration has gone into creating environments that are conducive to supporting the parent-child relationship. And those things should be there. But there is nothing designed to support the man or woman who wants to be single, who wants to be childless. And why is “childless” used to define people without children? As if the standard is to have them, and the sans-child minority needs a special word to describe them. So much consideration for familial status. All us singles get are bars, museum exhibits, and speed dating. 

Surely there is someone out there who thinks me a fool to give up my right as a woman, the one thing that unquestionably sets me apart from men. How could I let all those potential children wither away into nothingness every month before they even have a chance at life? I’m denying my own miracle! When there are so many who bankrupt themselves trying to conceive and adopt, and so many desperate would-be parents that want so badly to do what I choose not to do, how can I be so dismissive of my own, personal creative possibility? Human beings are, after all, designed to reproduce. There is an unmistakable drive to create more little people. To perpetuate the species. To ensure the survival of offspring. So what is wrong with me that I don’t want to take part in this process? Am I somehow broken, missing some essential component that makes me want to do my part to replace my footprints when I am gone?

People have given up telling me that I will change my mind. My mother has quit asking me for a granddaughter. Even most strangers have given up asking if I have children. It’s like some hidden yet obvious message hovers in the ether around me. Single. Childless. And they judge. My life must be unfulfilled. “Do you have kids,” they occasionally ask. 

“Dogs,” I answer. They almost look sad. I’m thirty-six. I should be married with children by now, right? 

The truth is I like my life. I love sleeping in on weekends. I love taking my dogs out for a walk and not paying attention to when I have to return to the house. I love being able to make plans without regard for “the kids.” I love visiting friends, playing with their children, and then giving them back to my friends before I head home. I am not without children in my life. I simply do not want my own. And though society has set a standard for my uterus, I do not wish to conform to it. My sans-child life is pleasing to me. And I make no excuses for that. 

This weekend, without children, I will take my Sunday nap. I will eat food while it is still warm on my plate. I will turn on the radio and sing along without fear of waking up the baby. I will wear clothing that has never once been vomited on. I will watch a movie. I will clean the house and it will stay that way. I will enjoy the quiet of the early morning. 

“Won’t you be lonely when you get older,” they ask. 

“No,” I reply. “I’ll still be comfortable and take my Sunday naps.” 

Besides, I think to myself, this body of mine is broken. I couldn’t have kids even if I wanted to.