When you’re a teenage girl you’re taught that getting pregnant is the worst thing that could possibly happen to you. it will ruin your life. Young mums are constantly shamed, and you hear rumours about girls who got pregnant off a toilet seat and how it ruined their life. Don’t be one of those girls. Clean the toilet seat before you sit down, be smart, and for god’s sake don’t have fun, because you might get pregnant and RUIN YOUR LIFE. I remember this being a constant source of anxiety for me and my friends when we were younger. I can’t count how many times I’ve waited outside the Woolworths toilets on a Saturday afternoon in town with a friend, to wait for that little blue cross on a test, to determine if either of us was about to become completely shunned by everyone in our lives.
It didn’t stop there either. Right the way through university me and my flat mates would be googling ‘can you get pregnant even though you’re on the pill’ every time our period was 3 seconds late or our tits were a bit sore. We didn’t want to be one of those girls who was about to get a degree, had all this potential, but then ruined her life by getting pregnant. After all, up until now, we have been taught that only stupid girls get pregnant young and isn’t it such a shame that they do. It is one of the many, many, many ridiculous judgements and pressures we are subject to as we come of age as women. I personally would like to give massive respect to young mothers, it’s hard enough doing this, never mind when you’re battling with even more small-minded judgement than a woman who is deemed to be ‘of age’. Who the hell is it deciding when that is?
At some point, I think somewhere in our mid-twenties, a U-turn is made. One, us women, do not see coming. All of a sudden, we are going to ruin our lives if we DON’T have a baby. We need to start sitting on dirty toilet seats, but we still mustn’t enjoy ourselves too much as that could be bad for our fertility. I reckon, somewhere between these two extremes, there’s something like a week of our lives, when were around 23, where we hit the sweet spot. We get about a week of no baby pressure. We need to stop letting this week pass us by. Think of all the things we could do. Like, walk through a baby section of a shop without a relative making a cheeky comment about either our active sex life or our diminishing eggs. Bliss.
As soon as the first glimmer of a stable relationship was in my life the pressure to get pregnant went up several notches. Intensified by my ever-growing reproductive disease, endometriosis. I wanted kids though. We both knew we did. So, we made the decision to try and are incredibly thankful I managed to get pregnant. I thought, phew. Right, I’ve done it now, the pressure is off! I’m having a baby! I’m a good age, I have a partner, I’m ticking all the boxes you all think I should. So, goodbye pressure.
‘So, when do you think you’ll have your second?’ EH? ‘You want to have them close don’t you? it’s nice when they’re close?’ WHAT? ‘You can’t have an only child; they’ll be lonely and spoilt.’ NOOOOOOO! How is this happening? I’ve only just started to be able to smell coffee again without vomiting, I’m still trying to process this whole overwhelming idea of being a mother, I literally still have one growing inside me!
Please can you give me a tiny, weeny, moment just to catch my breath and taste a pint again. Or, better still, realise it is none of your business what and when and how women use their eggs.