Why?

I've had this question rolling around in my head for a while - "Why do I want children?". I find it such a difficult question to answer - the words are there just on the tip of my tongue, but I can't put them together eloquently.

As a kid, I was a tom boy, I was and remain fiercely independent. I wasn't like other little girls who had their weddings planned out and was just waiting to insert the groom. But, I did know I wanted to have kids - at one point I wanted to have 11 just like my Grandma. Then once I had some experience around babies, I adjusted that to 2 - a boy and a girl. I even had some names picked out over the years. Everyone in my family got pregnant so easily, I just knew it would be easy for me. Ha-ha.

The fact that I want children is as much a part of me as my name, the colour of my eyes or the birthmark on my ankle.

I want children because I long to be called Mom, I want to protect and love and guide and teach and cherish a little being - watch them say their first words, take their first steps and see the world through their eyes. I want to be able to witness my husband be the father I know he's born to be. I want to bury my nose in an infant's head and soak in the smell and know that this is my child. I want to have the arguments, experience the frustration, cry tears of sorrow to see them grow up and cry tears of joy to see them succeed. Of course, I want to see if they'll get my blue eyes or my husband's big nose.

There are so many reasons that I want children, they all seem so trivial to me, so selfish and yet I yearn for a child. That's why I'll put myself through everything - I'll take the supplements and acupuncture and injectibles and dildo-cams and ultrasounds and IUIs and whatever else may come - all in the hopes that at the end of it all we'll have our baby.