[Self Examination] Why?

One of the first questions friends ask me, when they first learn about my desires to become a choice mom, is a simple one.

"Why"?

They don't mean it in a disrespectful way, but they honestly cannot see why I would even think of choosing to parent alone, rather than waiting for a guy to come and pick me as his partner first.

Fair enough.

I want to love a child, hold a child, teach a child. One that is mine, who I can build a family for and come home to. I want to worry about all those seemingly stupid things like "What preschools should she go to?", or " Will she do well at her first birthday party away from me?". I want to provide the type of reliable, loving care that my parents gave me. As I get older, I'm finding out more and more that that was a true gift, and not one that many get to experience. I want to sing my child to sleep, to read story books to them and take them camping. I want to see them launch into the world on the wings I have helped them weave.

I've tried volunteering to meet this need to love and teach. Big Sisters, hospital visits, fostering animals, first aid responder, and so many more. It helps, but I want more. More and more, just living for myself is becoming tedious.

They are right in a way... I COULD wait until I meet someone, if I meet someone. I still have four years before things are do or die in the fertility department. I could wait, and not plan, thinking that the mysterious Man will save up for this family thing I want, and have a better salary than me, and appear in the next year or two like magic. Or I could use all the life experience that I have accumulated these last decades and notice...

I'm not getting any younger. Relationships in my friend group aren't lasting any longer.

Even if I met someone now, who was going in the same direction, and my perfect personality and pheromone match?  Using the Ideal Relationship TM map, it would be too late. We both would want to take it slow, get to know eachother for a few years, then marry, make sure that is stable and joy-filled for another few years, and then start saving up for and having kids, if my partner still wanted to at that time. My PCOS and age by then would run a high risk of total infertility, even if I could afford IVF. Many men these days don't want to start having children until they are in their forties or fifties. That's fine. But I can't wait on the shelf until the right guy is ready to maybe pick me.
 I claim the right to decide about when and if I have children.

I choose to take the risk of being rejected for being a Choice mom, rather than betting on an amorphous future.

And that path looks mighty fine to me.