Ladies: a thread to talk about hormones and biological clocks

Is it just me, or does this become a thing of constant conversation with your girl friends once you hit your 30s?

one of my BFFs recently told me that she was thinking about leaving her husband for barrios reasons, one being that she could no longer imagine having kids with him. But then I talked to her the next time and she tells me that her hormones are so crazy she practically cries when she sees babies, so now she's just going to stay with him have his babies, and deal with the relationship problem later.

My mind kind of boggled at all this bc I'm fighting a daily battle against my own crazy hormones, even though I adore my husband and wouldn't consider ever a different father for my own kids. But I don't want to do something simply bc my primitive hormones are telling me to.

Your thoughts? experiences?

Sorry, I'd consider yr question in more detail but I'm ovulating this week apparently so I'm keeping sane mostly by keeping busy on the internet and having completely inappropriate crushes from afar.

I'd consider your question in more detail if I knew that I wasn't going to be on ILE for the world to see.

That said, some of my friends feel this way. I don't.

http://www.yorkinternationalinc.com/artwork/BarrioWars.jpg

Maybe I should take this to our secret board?

Yes take to 66.

what there's a secret board just for girls now

You can torture us but you can't make us talk.

I will just say re: this topic that I am fascinated as to how one separates hormonal thoughts/actions/emotions from other kinds of thoughts/actions/emotions

sorry

xp

mwah ha ha haaaaaa

I will just say re: this topic that I am fascinated as to how one separates hormonal thoughts/actions/emotions from other kinds of thoughts/actions/emotions

Usually ime one thinks, "Wait hold up a second, WHY do I feel this way today that doesn't appear to have been caused by anything I can put my finger on, and which came up out of nowhere?" And then one decides to try and not fly off the handle while still being respectful of a natural thing.

With the caveat that I do believe those feelings are STILL VALID, and in fact can start to show you where stresses are happening or where things are becoming a problem before you're consciously aware of them. Just takes time to think about it and sort it out, month after month.

Def it is about circularity and cycling back to the same points of pain or irritation or however it feels to you, but maybe it's like more like a spiral in the sense that it's circular-ISH but you find yourself at a different point on the rotation every time. Anyway.

Once you get a feel for how you will be in the grip of hormones, you can add or subtract whatever you need to add or subtract, mentally, to get an approximation of what yr natural feelings would be on another day.

Pregnancy, though, is not a thing that most people do ENOUGH to get that familiarity with, so I'm don't know how those women do it!

Laurel otm

I have a lot of thoughts about this topic! Also where is robyn!

I try not to write off those days when I feel too raw and too unprotected...that openness is a GIFT, and I should be allowing/finding things that can grow from it. Unfort having a day job life where every day is like every other day makes it diff to give my body what it needs and my mind what it needs, so it ends up being a matter of battling the feelings instead of getting any benefit from them.

This kind of biological clock stuff is in my head all the time right now. I think because loads of my acquaintances back home have hit 30 and are having kids, although none of my closest friends are.
I sometimes consider the baby urge to be like the chocolate cake urge, in that your body/brain is telling you you must have it but that doesn't necessarily mean it would be a sensible idea in the long run.

This discussion is now on 66. Ladies not already on 66 who would like to be can ilx mail me

I think we can keep having a discussion here for as many people as want to contrib in public? There are less public means for those who don't, and maybe it will become two separate healthy discussions? Cool w me.

"I Love Cooking"?

special FB group.

Kinder I need your email address!

wait is there really a 66 or am I being gullible?

So you're saying there ARE secret meetings?

awesome.

According to controversial sexologist John Money, mothers with anosmia can never form loving attachments with babies, because that bonding happens through smell. So it's probably for the best that I'm not feeling this. Though I did start this thread a few years ago: Getting kind of baby crazy – I really think it was working at a maternity store moreso than hormonal "make a baby" drive.

That sounds like BS to me. OTOH babies heads to smell really good.

errr babies' heads, rather

A woman I know who's my age is having a couple with an infant over to her house for an event soon, I'm talking a baby that's only a couple of months old, not even crawling yet, and she asked me if she should cover her furniture and shelves of valuable stuff with plastic tarps. Then she pantomimed holding a baby down with one hand while hitting it with the other.

I really do love her.

I was really mad about that John Money idea the first time I read about it, and for 12 years, I thought I should really write a letter and give this guy a piece of my mind. Then I read more about him and realized it would have been a delightfully naive and underfinformed letter, given that he's said and done dozens of things way more ridiculous than that, and been given shit for it in more scathing and informed and large-scale ways. It would've been like the time in 1991 when I wrote Pee-Wee Herman a letter saying hom much I hated Pee-Wee's Playhouse, only to realize years later that my letter came at the same time as a tidal wave of bad press after Paul Rubens' arrest. (I have since changed my ind about Pee-Wee, don't worry!)

xp

lol to the last two posts

<3 to Abbott - wb, btw :)

I am 31 and no baby crazy has kicked in yet. I know the bf would like kids and I'd always thought "well, I don't want them yet but I guess when I feel ready maybe it would be nice" except I'm never going to feel ready and I'm getting to the age where I'd need to start trying and I don't even know if I want them :/

(or if I should have them, given that I have uh mood/socialisation issues which will not only make me a bad mother but are probably down to some genetic defect that I would pass on, Idunno)

I, to take that further, have always known I never wanted children. And threads like this make me feel ... weird. Alien. Broken? This supposed "ticking clock", going gooey at the sight of babies, some kind of urge... you may as well be telling me I should have six arms, because I just don't get it :(

I only used to get that in very small doses and it would always be balanced by how repelled I was by screaming brats and snotty noses. It's only since I realised I was gonna have to decide soonish if I ever wanted kids, and took a good year to come to the decision that we probably do, that I've been getting genuinely *a little bit* broody (and still I'm nowhere near 'baby crazy'). Currently I'm 30, no job and living in a disgustingly 'yummy mummy' neighbourhood with my friends putting cuet baby pics up on Facebook so I'm pretty sure this is as broody as I will get (for which I'm glad).

Trayce, I'm in your situation. I'm still young enough that people tell me I'll change my mind at some arbitrary ever-changing lifetime point, but I won't. Ever.

Yeah I got that a lot :) Thankfully no one was ever pushy, but at this point in my life I look back and think "what's wrong with me?" because its like this whole functional, supposedly standard girl thing wasnt installed in me.

It isnt a dislike of kids/families/birth. Its a... lack? It just isnt there. Its neutral.

I never seriously considered them, but when I start to get mushy with someone the thought of having a kid together kinda appeals to me, suddenly

i'm 29, and i've been surprised at how much my views on potential parenthood have changed in just the last few years. when i was 12 i helped take care of my infant sister a lot, and it was SO DAMN EXHAUSTING that it put me off the idea of having kids. i adored my little sister and felt very maternal over her, but i couldn't imagine anyone voluntarily choosing to go through so much hell.

now i've got some of the hormonal stuff kicking in, so babies make me feel all sappy and giddy, and also i'm at the point where i'm looking at my future and going "what am i going to do with all my time?" like, i'm a homebody and i barely do anything now, am i just going to keep on not doing much for the rest of my life? having a child has started to sound like a move toward purpose and structure, instead of something to be suffered through.

I'm still young enough that people tell me I'll change my mind at some arbitrary ever-changing lifetime point, but I won't. Ever.

I always got the "Yeah, I can understand not wanting to bring kids into a world like this," line even though nothing I ever said to them even hinted at me having Mean World Syndrome. Shrug.

I've never had any desire to have children, either. I love children, but I also love it when their mommies come to take them home at the end of the day.

I'm 35...I like toddlers & children in general; love playing, talking, hanging out with them. Terrified of babies. If it can't tell me what it wants, or why it's crying, I feel a general sense of panic.

I don't want my own children mainly because I'm afraid of my ability to cope...that I will snap & hurt my child & disappoint my husband as a bad mother & generally fail when the chips are down, when good parenting is required.

I'm aided by my husband not being desperate for kids. But in a small way I feel a slight sense of guilt for turning the circle of life into a cul-de-sac. Sometimes I know we'd be awesome parents. I just can't get past my own fear of myself.

i really do like babies and children of all ages - they are fun and illogical and make me see life differently. yet i don't hang out with parents and their kids all that often bc my close friends with kids don't live here (anymore).
do i want my own kids? i don't have that many more years to decide on the 'natural' way, i suppose, and i do have maternal leanings, but it would def have to be with the right person. i have no issues with adopting; that would be fine by me. i have friends (mostly teh gays!) who've adopted older kids too and are so very happy they did. knowing that, i feel less biological-clock pressure. are my genes so precious and amazing that they must be passed on by creating another life on the planet? i do not know... oh, probably ;)

there are all these chubby babies toddling up to my door in costume and it's breaking my brane a little, i keep thinking "NO FAIR i want a baby to dress up in costume!!" i know that's not a sensible reason to have children, i should probably go buy an american girl doll tbh.

facebook today is like a minefield of costumed babies reminding me i am an alien for having no desire to procreate :/