Baby fever hit last month when I was on a rotation surrounded by little pod babies. Not only was I surrounded by babies, but there seemed to be a lot of women of childbearing age around me, and people who were either talking about getting pregnant, were currently pregnant, or just finished being pregnant, and several thoughts dawned on me: (1) wow, babies are cute! (Except for the ones that pee into your mouth); (2) I like cats, and they’re kind of like babies, and since I’m a good cat mommy, I bet I’d be a pretty good baby mommy; (3) Clomid would be kind of nice - twins, bam! - get pregnancy and labor over with in one shot; (4) except I’d want my babies to have as much of a chance at growth and development in utero as possible; (5) I hate those damn humongous yuppy space strollers; (6) wait a minute - babies are more more logistically daunting than cats because you can’t just buy them kibble and feed them twice a day; (7) I’m hungry…why is there no food in the house post-call?? (8) Feeeeeed me, I’m a baaaabeeeeeee, wahhhhh!

Note: it wasn’t just baby fever, it was stupid fever that also struck last month.

Fortunately, I had a really liberating moment a couple of call nights ago when I realized, “Wow, I don’t have to have kids if I don’t want to.” It was weirdly very exciting and very awesome to have this sudden realization that I have a choice in this matter. (Go Democrats! Boo Sarah Palin!) As someone who likes children (duh, I’m a pediatrics resident) I always assumed I’d eventually acquire some of my own. But I am continuously surrounded by children, so why do I need a passel of my own? I get a lot of fulfillment and enjoyment out of seeing other people’s children - without the added aggravation of having them rely on me for every basic and not-so-basic need. My very next thought, though, was, “well, for professional reasons, shouldn’t I have one for the user experience? So I understand parents better?” And the next thought: “Sometimes I wish I didn’t have cats, though.” And: “Oooooh no, I’m a bad cat parent for thinking that! I’ll probably be a bad human parent because you can’t say that to your kids, ever!” And: “I can’t even keep plants alive because the cats eat the plants!” And: “Maybe the cats will eat the babies, too!” And then back to this: “No babies. Cats win. They can’t stand having plants or babies around.”

Note: cats trump logic.

All the internal energy I’m expending thinking about the baby thing is, apparently, in no way related to what Joe thinks or wants, because he just rolls his eyes at me and says, “whatever. It’ll happen when it happens.” Which goes to show what different creatures we are. (Another example: our comparative experiences in Mrs. Smith’s fifth grade class. Joe remembers some bitchy girl who rejected the ugly paper cranes he folded for the Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes project that she orchestrated because the cranes weren’t folded right. All I remember is that I had this great idea that if our class folded a thousand paper cranes, we could understand the experience of the book, and as an incentive, I promised the class a pizza party at the end, which we ultimately were not allowed to have. Only this year did Joe and I realize that I was that bitchy girl, and he was that unfortunate kid who folded the ugly cranes made of newspaper. But I digress.)

Regardless, I’m glad my mental energy is now focused on something else, because this baby-mama-drama is going no where inside my head.