I wrote this early this morning. Nine hours at home and already I'm thinking of deleting the entire post.

My ovaries are bursting. I’m waiting for my plane in the terminal, the only area of the terminal chock full of people here two hours in advance and therefore MUST be headed to the Midwest, and there’s a man at the big windows telling his toddler son about runways (“That’s where they go REAL fast!”), planes (“No, not exactly like a bird, but they both fly.”) and that the traffic controllers won’t be smooshed (“That’s they’re job… it’s okay, they’re supposed to be there. They’re doing their job.).

This whole wanting to have children thing has been something that’s hit me only recently. I have NO idea why. NOOOO idea why.

I can recall an incident a in the not so distant past when I was leaving the grocery store with a bag in one hand and a 24 pack of Diet Coke on my hip. I used my heft to shift the Diet Coke a little higher and that small motion nearly brought me to tears as I thought, “OHMYGODIWANTABABY.”

Usually I am an ogre when it comes to small children. Not by design… and certainly not the kind that’s wildly popular and commercially marketable when animated. But there have been incidents where I just LOOK at a little dude in a stroller and it bursts into tears. Evidently my natural passive face is pretty frightening.

But recently… I don’t know. I don’t know what it is. Maybe my hormones are running amuck, maybe I hit some sort of developmental milestone that made my maternal DNA finally kick in, maybe I am just THAT desperate to not be a doctor… but something has clicked in me that makes me want to have a family.

I saw Dan in Real Life the other weekend. Though the bulk of the plot focuses on a few lovebirds, a big extended family serves as backdrop for the romantic comedy frivolity. I found myself distracted through the whole film, not following the banter or dramatic turns, instead thinking how I wanted to have a big family so we could have flag football games, massive hide and seek adventures and most notably, a big family variety show. Cause if it’s in a movie, it’s obviously not only true, but possible in reality.

Maybe this is just a way my repressed showmanship is trying yet again to rise to the fore (that variety show was really really cool), and sure, I could totally TOHHHTALLY see myself turning into an overzealous stage mom living vicariously through her child, but… I don’t know. I want to have a family.

Part of what has made this realization especially jarring is the whole I’m going to be intensively training for my career through the next oh, seven-ish years. That means I’ll be thirty-ish when I’m done and ready for the real world. I know people are still fertile when they’re thirty, I do, and as a fledgling member of the medical community I can even recognize that viable pregnancies can be crafted well into the forties… or, OR as a marginally civic minded person I DO realize I could always adopt… but that all seems so far away.

But I guess, plenty far. I know I don’t want one now. God, no. I can barely take care of myself let alone a little parasite/life-long, independently thinking pet (I know they're not pets.).

But I guess it’s just enough to know that I do someday. Enough to scare the bejesus out of myself.

Though who am I kidding. I’m waiting in this airport to head home and see my family. My WHOLE family. That includes my brother and his two little ones.

Fifty bucks says my post Sunday goes to the tune of, “OHMYGOD. BESTBIRTHCONTROLEVER, NEVER EVER EVER HAVING KIDS.”