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My name is Ariel, and I was a babycrack junkie.
I’ve mentioned babycrack a couple times here before, but I realize that I’ve never fully defined it. Babycrack is my way of explaining that at-times irrational urge to procreate.
Readers who have had experiences with addictive behavior will understand that there are times when the little voice in your head (that voice you normally trust; the voice that reminds you to pee, eat, or sneeze) does you wrong. Sometimes, that little voice suggests that you do another line of coke, drink another bottle of wine, play another game of blackjack or WoW, or take another toke off that crackpipe.
Your conscious brain sits there and says, “Oh no: that’s not what I need right now. Not at all,” but the hungry little ghost inside says, “Oh yes it is! Just one more line/sip/etc! Bet the farm: it doesn’t matter…just hurry up! Grab the mirror and the razor blade! Pick up the glass tube pipe! For godsake — the time is now!”
That, my dear friends, is what being in my mid-20s felt like. I wasn’t stupid: I knew that it wasn’t the time to have a baby. My conscious brain said things like, “Gosh, I barely made rent and am totally emotionally unstable right now — probably not a good time to be thinking about reproduction,” but babycrack brain says, “BUT LOOKIT LITTLE WIDDUM’S CUTIE WIDDLE BOTTOM!”
Before I had a baby, sometimes hanging out with friends’ infants felt like doing a big fat line of quality-grade baby.
And now that I have a baby? I’m in a state of chronic overdose. And I like it!
LOL, totally how I felt right before I got pregnant. You kind of summed up my entire life too. Barely making mortgage and student loan payments, completely emotionally unstable, at a new job… yep best time ever to take a hit of the babycrack.
Damn the babycrack, and its inevitable cuteness factor win!!!
Oh, Ariel! You hit the nail right on the head! I’ve been on babycrack since I was in my twenties… nay, since I was 16. I loved them. But I was always rational, until a certain point. Now my hubby and I are expecting our first in August. We cannot wait, but honestly, was it a really good time? Probably not. But heck, there is no real perfect time. There will always be something else. <3
Thank you for making a morning sickness plagued woman laugh. Can't wait until baby baking is complete.
Ashleymarie, I am your sister in morning sickness, you are not alone 🙂 I am only 11 weeks and get wait to get the baby out already!
Ahaha, I’m 11 weeks tomorrow! <3 And I am with you. Well… I am excited about a growing belly, and hopefully being able to feel the belly monster move and kick. But besides this all day sickness and the birthing part… not exactly my first choice for things to do. :-p Then again… in the end, getting to know a life and spirit that started it's transition in you… I'm psyched! It is completely mind blowing.
Gah! I totally get this. Not quite ready to have littles yet, but sometimes my biological clocks starts yelling TICK TICK TICK!!! Baby now please!! And so I babysit others littles and get my fix.
I know this feeling very well! When I got married to my first husband at 18 I wanted one so bad, even though it made no sense to have one at that point in time. I didn’t though, waited 4 yrs till I had my daughter. Now, I’m re-married, mother of 2, step-mother of 3. That’s 5 between the two of us, and I want that baby-crack so bad! But I can’t justify it with us having 5 kids between the 2 of us, especially in this economy. Also I’ve gotten rid of ALL my baby gear because I figured I was done. I have to keep reminding me to stick with the plan. 🙂
i would say go for it if you want another one. there is no perfect time and i am sure some of the older kids would not mind babysitting. plus this last one will be so used to the chaos before he or she is born that they will fit right in. they grow so fast and are little for such a short period of time.
Please, PLEASE do not have children with the mindset of “Oh the other kids don’t mind babysitting!” My mom did this to me, and I still resent her for this. I’m 20 with a 6yo sister. I’ve missed out on having my mom’s full attention in so many aspects. My mom was too busy with my sister when I went through my first break up, getting ready for prom, first failed engagement, planning my wedding, the wedding itself, and photos after, moving into my own place, and even now when I call her our conversations are cut short because my little sister needs something. Don’t get me wrong, I love her to death but DO NOT let the kids you have now miss out because of your want for more.
Hello
My name is Melanie, and I have been struggling with babycrack addiction for 5 years. Got sober for a year or so, then after getting a facebook and seeing everyone but me get pregnant, I quickly relapsed.
Thank you all for your support.
=)
Oooh it is so hard when all your friends have babies!
I have been in the same situation for a while. My hubby is the same way. Thankfully I have a little niece that I can spend time with to get my fix for the now.
I’m a 31 year old and it seems like everyone’s getting pregnant-except for me. We live in an apartment that is barely fit for human habitation, yet I still want a baby-my biological clock has been screaming at me for 15 years “have a baby NOWNOWNOW”. It’s so hard to wait, especially since I had hoped to be a mother by 28.
Wow, that is exactly how I feel. Thus why I look at this site but have no children! I have a slight obsession to hang out with other peoples’ kids to the point that I offer to babysit for free and then people think I’m crazy… I am 22 and not ready for a baby, but if I can borrow yours for a minute I will be happy.
Lol. I’m with you there. Lurking on parenting websites is how I get my fix. I’m weaning myself slowly though-trying to cut it back to only cruising through four days a week. It’s a sickness I know!
Um, hi, this is totally me 🙂
Maybe we should start a recovery group, ‘cuz I’m 25 and addicted to babycrack too.
I’m 20 (husbands 24) and I am experiencing babycrack for the first time, for about 6 months now I have been absolutely obsessed with being a mommy, my body constantly telling me to procreate. We finally sat down and had a serious conversation about it, the money, the time, the rules, and basically the husband says he doesn’t think we will be ready for a child for about 8 more years. I CANNOT wait that long. I am heartbroken over it. Even though I know the longer I can wait the better it will be, I just cant get over my baby-crazy, idk what to do.
In my “puppy-crack” stage, I would google image search “puppies,” as well as reading 10 books on dog training. One rescue mutt later…
Now my brain has moved onto its “baby-crack” stage. This is terrifying. I always thought I’d have 15 dogs and no kids. Google image “babies” does NOTHING for it though, unless it’s puppies AND babies. I’m more about reading parenting articles AND THIS SITE to get my fix.
Hi, my name is K and I’m a recovering Babycrack junkie. I was completely nutters when I was trying for my son, and then after he was born, and we finally got around to sleeping through the night (2 years later OMG.)I heard that hungry ghost again (LOVE that term, it’s so perfect). I’m trying to kick the habit now, but it’s so tough. Hormones are a BITCH!! 😉
I never wanted kids when I was younger. I didn’t even want kids when I had my daughter (as horrible as that sounds, once I had her I realized that I did, in fact, think life was improved by motherhood and really got into it). I assumed that I was just one of those women who was not equipped with a biological clock.
Then I started dating my fiance.
Not only do I have a biological clock, as it turns out, but about 20 hours a day it’s like “TICK TOCK MOTHERFUCKER. TICK. FUCKING. TOCK.” I don’t care that I’m unemployed. I don’t care that we’re not living together, because he was unemployed before I was. I don’t care AT ALL that we’re not married. All I know is, it is ABSOLUTELY IMPERATIVE that I have another child as soon as humanly possible, often to the annoyance of my darling Andrew, who in his generosity agreed that I could go off of my birth control as soon as we’re living together, although he has expressed his opinion that a “herd of children” is probably too many for us. Being around other people’s kids doesn’t seem to satisfy the craving, either.
Fingers crossed. Won’t have to wait much longer.
I scrolled down, reading comments while formulating my own response… and you’ve already done it! You are my babycrack twin here, down to the fiance living in a different house and the daughter you weren’t sure about since you didn’t want kids and that damned TICKING clock. Oh lordy.
Thank god I am going tomorrow for the birth control implant in my arm, because I am liable to do something crazy. Like have a baby before I’m really ready and done with school. That would be a bad situation for me!
OMFG. LOL @ “about 20 hours a day it’s like “TICK TOCK MOTHERFUCKER. TICK. FUCKING. TOCK.”
“TICK TOCK MOTHERFUCKER. TICK. FUCKING. TOCK.” SERIOUSLY. I have this constant “babybabybabybabybabybabybabybaby” running through my mind with practically every waking moment. It started when I turned 25 and was married to my (terrible) ex-husband, and got really bad when I met my fiance. He is going to be an excellent babydaddy, and my body really wants that to happen.
I do FAM and I ovulated unexpectedly early this past cycle, two days after we had unprotected sex. I should have been fertile then, and was half excited, half terrified that I got pregnant. I got my period and was really bummed out for a few days. We’re both grad students and barely make enough money to support ourselves, and we’re living apart and will be for at least the rest of the year. This is seriously a bad time to have a baby, but I want one so, so badly.
I’m 32, so I have the extra worries about becoming infertile. Especially now after not getting pregnant last month.
Oh wow, reading this is just like reading something I might have written. TOTALLY EMPATHISE!!!
i no just what you men im 22 soon 23 i have been married 2 years, right after we got married i fond out i was going to have a baby but i only had the baby for 4 months 🙁 , so now i have no job and we all know it hard to make ends meet . becuz of what happined last time now my hubby dont wont to have any (but my clock is saying yes NOW )so we had to make a deal to work on it and im hoping in one year to have a baby so fare he likes the deal lol, but your lucky you have a man who loves you and Wont’s to have kid
Hi, are you me? We’re in a similar place. Didn’t want one til I had one, now I want another baby so bad. Every time I see one I sing to myself “wait til I get my money right”. the fiancé ans I are just starting good jobs but the math is not on our side. Hope we all get what we need soon!
hi my name is Lacey and im a babycrack addict! i have 2 kids already and i want a 3rd so badly lol im probably driving my husband nuts. we have the perfect lil family 1 of each and we are just making it as it is financially. but our family has so much love and i just keep justifying it that it will work out. all rationality in me says that we are good just as we are but than that lil voice chimes in! damn you lil voice!
How many times a day to I smoke that babycrack pipe? I bought my first pregnancy book when I was sixteen. Ten years later, I’m stalking mothering blogs when I should be working. I’m hoping for relief sometime this year after I get married. Thanks for addressing our condition, Ariel!
Hi, my name is Syd. And I’m a babycrack addict.
I sometimes wonder if my son will think it’s totally normal for someone to come up to him and huff his neck like a junkie. Mmmm. Baby. Mmm.
I had a touch of the babycrack addiction until I got pregnant. Then it all went away. Now I feel quite shocked that I’m actually pregnant and growing a human inside of me. It’s very surreal and very, very strange. Don’t get me wrong, I love my little fetus and I’m sure I’ll fall fiercely in love with her once she’s out, but right now perhaps it’s just babycrack overload. And I’m due in five weeks.
This was totally me! And now? I am smitten with my 4 1/2 month old daughter and secretly semi-hoping my mini-pill fails so I can have more! More! More!!! If I weren’t also very, very rational, we’d be in big trouble!
I neverrrr wanted kids until I became a step mama – now I’m a total babycrack addict! I love my stepson but I want a baby of my own so badly!!
hello my name is Jill and I am a babycrack addict. I am a mother of a four year old, teach montessori preschool ( ten toddlers five days a week) and I still cannot ignore that internal clock. You would think that potty training children all day long, all year long would be fix enough. however, alas, I find myself perusing baby name websites. I know, I’m sick!
It’s crazy that you posted this as this has been on my mind constantly of late! No matter that I am single and in the middle of a messy custody battle for my oldest, or the fact I am still in school. That damn clock has been ticking SO loud ever since my 27th birthday! I already have two fabulous kids, and am really not that old. But that voice is screaming at me “I WANT ANOTHER BABY”. Insane!
I’m living this right now. I KNOW i shouldn’t have babies right now. I KNOW my bf wants nothing to do with fatherhood right now and possibly ever, but that clock is pounding away an dit’s no longer at the back of my mind in a box somewhere, it’s sitting right there. And the closer i get to 30, the louder it gets (i’m 27, about to turn 28 in a month). :Sigh: and Offbeatmama just keeps providing that crack too. I know I shouldn’t be on here but it can’t help it! ahhrggghhhh
I’m in this state right now. I just have to keep taking the anti-baby pills…!
YES. My not-then husband didn’t even know if he wanted kids, and we couldn’t even get on the same page about marriage, and I used to weep if my period was 20 minutes late and I had started imagining baby bliss. It caused a lot of contention, and an almost-breakup once.
One morning, I woke up and had come to peace with the fact that it would be years until we decided to have a baby, that there was lots we could do without a baby — turns out when I had this moment of clarity I was already pregnant.
Now that we’re married and loving parenthood, that stupid little voice is going, “IT’S TIME FOR ANOTHER RIGHT-FUCKING-NOW.”
It’s crazy.
Ariel-
Your post is freakishly well timed. I thought I had my baby crack addiction beat at least for now, then last night my brother told me that he and his wife are expecting their first and BOOM- yep, it’s back with a vengeance, like whoa. All I could think was ‘me too! me too! I wanna snort babies too!!!’ Hubby and I totally have a plan, but I was ready last night to say the hell with all of it in the midst of the glazed over addict mode.
Holy hell, baby crack is like no other, grabs you and just doesn’t let go.
I got hit with a bad case of babycrack at age 33, when my fertility was probably already waning. (Although at the time I was a preoccupied grad student who was blithely unaware of my biological clock.) My husband and I had been married for 9 years, both of us in grad school the entire time. The conclusion of our respective PhD programs was still on a distant horizon. Although we both wanted kids, we didn’t really plan *when* we’d have said kids–which is a not an advisable non-strategy when you’re both in your 30s and both of you are in the perpetual apprenticeship of humanities PhD programs.
Fortunately for us and for our chances of conception, I was jolted out of my complacency by a sudden case of babycrack. I was living in Cuba for 15 months while conducting dissertation research on–of all things–an Afro-Cuban (Santeria) fertility goddess. Toward the end of my time in Cuba, I was living in Havana in a tiny apartment, and hosting a crowd of Cuban friends at a big party in honor of my 33rd birthday. In the din of salsa music, dance and laughter, my husband called from the U.S. to wish me a happy birthday. I drunkenly blurted into the crackling phone line: “We’ve gotta have a baby! Now!” My husband, who was 35 at the time, laughed and said that he looked forward to trying as soon as I returned home in 6 weeks. I stopped taking my birth control pills right then in preparation. Less than 2 months after I got home, I was pregnant.
When I called a Cuban friend to tell them the news of my pregnancy, they were unsurprised and smug: Of course I was pregnant. Did I think that because I’m a smart North American, that I’d be immune to the influence of their Santeria fertility goddess?
Oh, and the kicker: the baby’s due date coincided with the annual feast day of the Afro-Cuban fertility goddess. Coincidence? My Cuban friends wanted me to name my child after the Catholic saint that is syncretized with the Santeria fertility goddess. I demerred, not wanting to appear so vain as to name my daughter after her mother’s dissertation project!
Postlude: I had another crazy case of babycrack while recovering in the delivery room after giving birth to baby #1. In a dreamy haze of percocet and oxytocin, I creaked, “I already want another one!” I never went back on birthcontrol, and 22 months later, baby #2 was born.
…my mom said that when I was born. neat.
Ugh, yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
I’m 23, living with a wonderful boyfriend (and puggle), and — literally — can’t go a day without thinking about how badly I want a child. It’s maddening.
I too, especially now, am a babycrack addict. i cannot stop thinking about it, i spend all day with kids and just cant get enough. i want my own!
I understand this babycrack thing waaaay more than I’d like to at 19 years old. I didn’t think I wanted too many children, and not until “like, way way later, man”… until there was a wave of unplanned pregnancies in my graduating class from high school. The baby-having finally seems to be wrapping up, but the past year and a half or so has seen 20 babies born that I’m aware of. I’m not one to give into peer pressure, but damn. So many cute babies.
I was unaware of what a babycrack addict I was until I read this post. It’s not normal for a 20 something engaged woman to daydream about her future children ALL FUCKING DAY?! To have their names picked out? To have their future nursery/space colors and style picked out? To know what local thrift stores have the biggest/cheapest selection of baby items? To read every post on this website and about 10 other baby/mama blogs? Yikes. I need a baby or rehab asap.
I am so glad that I’m not the only one that does this. I scope out the thrift stores all the time and sometimes I see something and think “oh, this would go great in my baby room! but wait… I don’t have a baby.”
This is totally me! I’m 29 years old and have been married for a whole 3 months and i need a baby NOW!!! I’ve been desperate to get pregnant for as long as i can remember, somehow i’ve sensibly waited. We finally agreed to start trying next month and i went and had all the pre-conception blood tests to make sure everything was in order and got the news that i have hyperthyroidism and my doctor has told me i’m not allowed to get pregnant. Devastated. I don’t know how much longer i can hold off! I have a stash of pregnancy magazines under my bed(it’s my form of porn!) and a growing collection of baby clothes hiding in my wardrobe. It’s killing me!