Tick tock

Confession time.

Are you ready for this?

I don't know if I am.

But here it goes anyway.

I really want to be a mom.

I'm 32 years old with no serious relationship on the horizon.  And while I'm being completely honest, let me tell you there are none in the rearview mirror either.  There are lots of reasons for that, many of which I've discussed with someone recently.  That's a whole other post.  And perhaps one that's too personal for this blog.

But back to the subject of motherhood.

I really want to experience it.

Ideally, I want to have a child with a husband.  I would love to share the experience and responsibility of raising a child with someone I love and plan to be with forever. But life is rarely ideal. And my window of opportunity on that is closing.  Sure, 32 isn't all that old, but with no dating prospects in my life, I'm at least three years away from being a mom.  And that's if I meet someone tomorrow and we both have the same goals with family.  That's a big "if."  I don't know if I can bank on it, and my biological clock is still ticking.

Parenting is perhaps the world's toughest job, but that doesn't keep me from wanting it.

Why wait for a man to make that happen?

Since when have I ever waited for someone else to give me what I want?

I decided to start studying some other options.  There are actually a lot of them for single women, namely adoption and having a child alone.  Right now, I'm leaning toward the second option.  I want to know what it's like to carry a child and have it share my DNA.  I've read a few books and blogs about the decision to have a child alone. I've also talked to family and close friends about this option, and told them I plan to take serious steps toward it if a reach a certain age and am still single.

I'm already seriously considering it. And this isn't something I've decided on a whim. I think I've always known I wanted to have a child.  My childhood playtime and some of my private writing pretty much indicates this.  As for my decision to be a single mom, I've been thinking about it for the better part of the past five years. I know it won't be easy, but I strongly believe that nothing worth having is ever easy.  And a child would be worth having.

I've gone so far as to research the cost of sperm and the procedure.  That definitely won't be cheap.  Did you know that a vial of sperm costs around $400?  Yikes.  And that doesn't include the insemination. And there's no guarantee it would work.  I also have some reproductive health issues that might come into play. So if that doesn't work out, I'm definitely open to adoption. I just know I want to be a mom.

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Kids are expensive. And my life would change a lot.

Could I do it on my own?

I don't know yet.

It's a good thing I have a few more years until my self-imposed deadline.

I definitely have some more thinking and research to do.