Keira Brigit Pauline

When I was in elementary and middle school, I was very baby-obsessed. I knew I wanted babies when I got older. I often thought about baby names. I preferred offbeat and unusual names, for I wanted my kids names to be unique. I daydreamed about my future family constantly. I found a baby name booklet that my mother had used when she named me. She and my father looked at my name at the same time and said it aloud at once. So, that's how my name came to be. I wish my mother had thrown that booklet out, but she was a hoarder. I read it and became obsessed with baby names. I marked up that book until it had to be thrown out. I would beg my mother to let me stay at the library when she went to her nurse's meetings, and I would then spend time looking at the baby name books. I can still remember their Dewey numbers of 929.9. I tried to hide this, standing in a corner of the library and sitting on the floor, writing down my favorite names. I also would write down all the name variation...

When I was in A.P. English Literature in high school, I remember my teacher, Mrs. M., telling an insightful story. She had a friend who had been married and was also childless. This friend wanted a baby very badly and a baby was not happening for her. She was so obsessed with having a baby that the thoughts of becoming a mother consumer her daily thoughts. It got so bad that she could not want past the infant's section of a store without crying. Her husband grew so tired of her, that he divorced her because of her constant depression over not having a baby. She eventually married again and that time she got pregnant! She was so thrilled! Then my teacher did not see this friend again until the child was just turning 2 years old. (That makes me wonder if it was someone who worked at the high school). She asked this friend "How's motherhood?" The friend then replied: "I hate it! This is 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and I have no time to myself!" My teacher th...