Posted by
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!
Ohh my fiance told me the sweetest thing to me yesterday and he doesn’t even see it as unusual 🙂 I asked him if it was odd/bad/unsettling that sometimes I want a baby even though we aren’t planning any soon. All he said was of course not, you’re a female. that’s just something some of you do
this site is my babycrack. I’ve seriously wanted to have babies ever since I could remember.
Okay, I’m wondering if anyone else has had this experience and if it is totally due to the babycrack affliction:
I am newly married (Dec 30 2010) and have been experiencing babycrack affliction ever since (and maybe a bit before). We are totally not ready to have a baby financially, in fact we’re trying to buy a house right now and will be stretched financially just due to that until I’m out of school. The current plan is to wait until I’m done with grad school (May 2013…TOO LONG!) to start thinking seriously about having children.
Anyway, I’m taking birth control pills, but the past week or so I’ve been wondering if I am somehow pregnant. I’ve had moderate nausea twice now, more frequent urination, and cravings (which is not totally unusual for me anyway). I’ve also been somewhat more tired than usual not to mention the fact that about 95% of my brain is now occupied an inner debate between the part of me that thinks I could be pregnant and the part of me that knows it is statistically so very unlikely. That debate is accompanied by another one between the part of me that would be SO SO SO excited to be pregnant, and the part of me that would be so upset because it would totally change our lifestyle, which we were fine with doing a few years down the road but would really not like to do right now. I also wouldn’t be able to finish school very easily if at all.
I’m supposed to get my period this week, so it could come as soon as 30 seconds from now, but I can’t help but think (hope?) that it won’t.
Has anyone else experience a possible pregnancy and wondered if you just created it in your head due to babycrack?
It probably doesn’t help that I’m currently working full-time as a nanny for 2 families with children 1 year and under.
Although I’m replying well after you would have found out if you were or not, I have to say that I experience this at least once every couple of months. Now that we’re actually planning on having one, it’s a little scarier/exciting. But before, when we were waiting until the time was right, that’s all I could think about. Every nauseous moment, any fatigue, and breast pain, I automatically thought (and secretly hoped) that I was pregs. So it’s normal, I suppose, and it’s hard to sit with the fact that birth control is 99.9% efffective and it is MOST likely not pregnancy. There’s always hope, though! lol
Oh my gosh! I’m rather relieved to know there’s actually a term for this insanity I’m experiencing!
I was one of the girls growing up who vowed I was never having kids. Had zero interest in them, and frankly other kids pissed me off even when I was a kid myself. I continued to feel this way as I got older, and once I hit my 20s my mom began to despair of ever being a grandma, the way I talked.
Then my then-boyfriend’s (now-fiance) sisters both got pregnant two months apart, and in helping care for the daughter of the one who lives here in town I decided that maybe SOME children aren’t so bad.
Fast-forward to about four months ago when my body suddenly bellowed “BABY NAO!!!!!!” I swear to everything holy, I’m like the dog on the Beggin’ Strips commercial: “Baby? Baby? Where’s the baby? I smell baby! Baby? It’s baby! I’d get it myself but I DON’T HAVE SPERM!!!” (I do, actually, and I’m pretty sure he’s willing. *cackle*) There’s no way we’re financially stable enough to have a child, though, and every time we’re making love and he whispers in my ear “let’s make a baby” it’s SO DAMN HARD to be responsible and say no. 🙁
Thus my stalking of websites containing anything and everything pregnancy/baby, and my first comment here! 😀
OMG if my fiance whispered, “let’s make a baby,” I think I would finish right then and there, and have another go just to try and make one lol
I’ve already commented on this BUT an update on my babycrack situation: I’m still DYING to be a mommy but we recently started to very actively (hehehehe and lol) try to make ourselves a baby, and now I find myself I’m freaked at the prospect of serendering my body to the unknown world of pregnancy is freaky, and I’m not sure but I might be pregnant right now……. baby baby baby
Wow…I just re-read this post, and…yeah. My biological clock has been screaming at me for a year now, but my husband and I agreed not to start until he’s got his doctorate. I’m 27 now and will be at least 31 then, and it just seems so old.
I’m working on a master’s in counseling, and sadly, my favorite class also leaves me the most anxious because the majority of people in the class are parents (including the women my age), and a few are pregnant right now. They talk about it all the time. It also seems I can’t go on Facebook without finding out another friend is pregnant. It’s all like rubbing salt in wounds…and I realized that I was feeling so down because my self-worth was getting tied up in having a child. I’m starting to dig out a little and focus on enjoying the immediate future, but the fact that I’m crying as I write this tells me I’m still pretty sore over it.
For now, I’ll read Offbeat Mama for a fix and focus on my own growth. Thanks for listening 🙂
i’ve gone back and forth between baby crazy for myself and happily enjoying the babies of others. i worked in postpartum and newborn nursery for three years while going to nursing school and i thoroughly enjoyed getting take care of babies on a weekly basis (it really helped). my husband and i talk about our someday-kids all the time and smile knowing how loved they are before they’re even a reality. watching him scoop up our friends’ babies with ease and love makes my ovaries explode, but i know we’re on the right path right now and that kids will come when it’s time. at least that’s how i feel tonight… 🙂
“how loved they are before they’re even a reality” is exactly on point! We talk about our future kids and my heart swells with such a love that I’m afraid to know once I am pregs. You have to love when guys take an active role in kids around them.
I am a stepmother of a teenage girl, so I am totally off having a baby… but I definitely had this feeling with kittens. Kittencrack. I have them now and I am ecstatic.
I have the babycrack addiction bad!
I have a little girl that will be three in July and have been aching to have another baby since she was about two.
Thank goodness my sis is having a baby in December. hahaha.
I’ve got a 2 1/2 year old and an 18-month-old (14 months apart). Neither was planned, but if I hadn’t gotten pregnant with #2 when I did, I’d probably have wanted to within a month or two. Now that he’s walking and talking and playing with his sister, I’m DYING to have another one. I keep saying “if we got pregnant this month, then the baby would be (blank)years/months younger than the first two…”
My husband admits to being a victim of babycrack only if no one else is around. If any family members (particularly his parents) are around, he pretends that I’m insane for even thinking about a third one. We’ve agreed that as soon as I find another job (we just moved for his job) that we can talk about trying for a third one, so that I can get maternity leave.
Some days I think a third one is crazy, particularly after pulling two screeching toddlers apart, but most of the time, I can’t wait for the tiny-new-baby smell and miniature clothes and all the snuggles:)
I’ve got it alright. So does my fiance. We want a child so bad, but we’re currently living in a room at his aunt’s house and can’t seem to find an apartment. And even if we do find an apartment, we can’t afford a 2 bedroom. We can barely afford to live as in and I get that god damn voice. “babybabybabybabybaby NOW. RIGHT THE FUCK NOW.” When we’re both almost 21 and the living sitituation is not stable.
UUUUUGGGHHHH the babycrack is getting worse. Now that we’re getting closer and closer to moving into our house (May 25!) it’s getting harder and harder for me to accept that we shouldn’t have a baby now. I know we’re going to have a baby in that house, we’ve already picked out names, and much to my surprise, my husband bought something for our future baby’s room recently (yes, we’ve already chosen the decor).
I’m currently a nanny for 2 kids under 2, and despite what everyone told me would happen, this job has made me want a little one of my own even more.
Even though we just got married in December, our friends are already excitedly asking us when we are going to have kids. I think they know we’re likely to be the first ones to have kids.
Of course, since I’m still a student and we’re going to be stretched financially until I’m not as it is, it wouldn’t be entirely responsible to choose now to have a child. But there’s always a part of me that says there’s never a “right” time to have a child and if you wait until you know you’re 100% ready, you’ll never do it.
Bah!!! Baby baby baby baby baby baby…
The baby crack is getting worse for me too. The worst is that three of my neighbors are pregnant right now which makes every woman of childbearing age who doesn’t already have kids. Now everyone is looking at me significantly and asking “Do you have any announcements to make?” And I have to be no, no and no. (While my internal monologue is “Shut the F up. I want one so bad and you are making it worse.”)
The worst is my next door neighbor, a single woman who complains when we talk too loud in our unit. One of the pregnancies is on the other side of her unit, but for some reason she seems to think she wants to be sandwiched between two crying babies. I suspect she will be far less enthusiastic when our turn actually comes around having lived next to a baby once.
My personal strategy: obsess over getting a dog to keep myself from even going “there” at the moment. 😉 Also, we made a time plan which made me feel a lot better (like “okay, this will happen”).
Why can’t I be happy with our life as it is?? Glad I’m not alone at least! Thanks Ariel! 🙂
I find myself wishing someone anyone would come up to me and ask me to hold their baby. Please let me hold your baby…..baby baby baby
i feel the same way i feel like some kind of creep smh
This post pretty much sums up why I started visiting obm. I’m 22 years old, married, and for the past year I have had a severe case of what my sister-in-law and I call “The fever.” (Baby fever, of course) I think the worst part is that feeling of “no time will ever be a good enough time for a baby.” Which in my mind equates to “You will never get to have a baby.” I know this isn’t the case but who needs logic when you have this fever.
ive been dealing with babycrack since i was 16/17 and it has only gotten worse (now 21) im currently engaged and its made worse by the fact that i have very severe PCOS that seems to only be getting worse and i feel as though now is my only time to actually try because the insurance i have right now covers fertility but i unfortunately am not going to be covered by them for much longer but my fiance says no way its just driving me crazy i see babies and people announcing their pregnancies etc. it all just feels like a slap in the face i know what i need i know what i want i know what i am capable of and i can’t have it even if it is only a try, a chance, a glimmer…. im feeling beyond strung out on babycrack and i know the worst has yet to come (-___-)’
I had (have!) The babycrack addiction! My boyfriend and I nowhere near ready, at 22 & 25, and weren’t planning on it for a long time, and we have been SO exceptionally careful, but, fate has a different plan for us. Just found out yesterday that im six weeks along! My ticking clock is rejoicing, and while im terrified about providing for the baby, I know ill do absolutely everything I can to give him or her the best childhood possible, even if it means maybe cutting back on my own guilty pleasures Haha. We are both SO excited, and definitely feeling the baby vibe! I’ve had the babycrack addiction since I was eight and was given my first baby doll, and have had names picked out and accounts on parenting websites all over the web since I was 18. Wish us luck!
Yay! BabyCrack… I get my fix from helping families bring their joy into the world, and am losing the battle of resistance, soon I will have one! lol
I had this when I first met my now husband. It was like my loins were say “you’ve found him now procreate!” but I knew we had no cash, no stability at all financially. I somehow waited and waited.
Then I out of the blue had a suprise and well thats were Im at now. I wasn’t even baby craving then either, I actually kept going back and forth on having kids at all.
I actually had the talk with my mom maybe a month prior, after being in a grocery store with screaming babies, about not having babies.
Yeah well, oops haha spoke too soon.
I had a short case of this when I was 20 or so, and then it went away for a long time. And then when I was 29, I somehow managed to get pregnant with the wrong guy, at the wrong time, while I had an IUD that should have still been working. I ended that pregnancy, but it changed something in my body and hormones, and since then I have been more or less babycracked – especially now that I live in the house with a newborn (my downstairs neighbors just had one). The proximity gives me the opportunity to constantly ask myself, would I do x the same way? What about y? I’m supposed to be finishing my graduate degree, and I’m still always researching babies.
It’s weird, though, how at the very same time, I’m very uncertain. All the research means that I’m also always running into possible complications and problems, and sometimes makes me wonder if maybe it would be better to just stay child free. Does anyone else have that weird internal dialogue, not between baby and logic, but between desires..? like, “oooh, baby baby, want want want, except no, maybe more money for vacations and wow that would be tough on my body ouch, but sweet wiggly baby but no sleep but…”
Hi, Im angel, and Im addicted to babycrack. I am 26 and have suffered for over 12 years! I live with my bf right now and just started a new job that doesnt pay all that well. I have no kids. But I cant help remembering that im running out of time. I have tried in past relationships to have a baby, with no luck. So im really worried that Maybe I cant. I have irregular cycles and just had a D&C because I was bleeding for 7 weeks. (sorry TMI) baby sitting never helps and only makes it worse. I want a baby so bad and know that its the only thing that will make me whole.. to experience pregnancy and be a mommy.. how do I cope?
Very true! I think many women go through this. I’m in my mid-20s now and there are times when my body viscerally reacts to seeing babies. Oh, Lord yes.
But having said that, sometimes I do wish people suffering from babycrack addictions would think beyond the baby. That’s how I like to think about it. That is to say, it’s great to want a baby, but you also have to REALLY WANT a person. Yep, you have to want to bring a person into this crazy, messed up world, and make them deal with that. You have to want a real, grown-up, flawed and different from you, contributing-to-society, PERSON. Because that’s what your baby will turn into, and proportionally, the amount of time you have a baby as compared to everything else won’t be that long.
As for me, I’d love to raise a person when the time is right… having a cute baby for awhile is just like an extra perk 🙂
Oh lord, I thought I was the only one. As an undergraduate with a loaded schedule, now is obviously not the time to be starting a family, but I’ve had a huge love for pregnancy ever since I was a little kid. Most of my “playing house” activities centered around me being the pregnant mother 🙂
I love this article! Seriously I thought I was the ONLY one feeling this way. I am 26 divorced, but in a committed relationship and can’t help but think baby all the time. My boyfriend and I do not live together and I fight about this all the TIME! Lol! I even tell him I’m going to stop taking birth control. I know its not “right” but I can’t help how I feel! I hope I don’t have to wait too much longer…