50 Reasons Not To Have A Baby

A few weeks ago, we visited out of town friends for the weekend. As we were walking around their neighborhood, we ran into their neighbors. How’s your weekend going, they innocently asked? The dad’s response: Great, but the Smoklers certainly serve as excellent birth control.

Um, thanks?

Fortunately, I don’t offend easily. I also don’t agree. I can think of quite a few things that serve as far better reason not to keep procreating than my darling family, thank you very much. Ready?

1. Throwing up in the kitchen sink because you just can’t make it to the bathroom.

2. Stretch marks on top of stretch marks.

3. Not being able to wear your wedding ring because your fingers have morphed into sausages.

4. Sex with a fetus in the middle.

5. Cankles.

6. Not having your period, but having to still wear a pad.

7. Not recognizing yourself in the mirror.

8. The ninth months of pregnancy.

9. Childbirth.

10. The placenta.

11. Taking that first poop after delivery.

12. The dried out, ready-to-fall-off umbilical cord.

13. The aerobic workout that is installing an infant car-seat.

14. Running out of wipes at the worst possible moment.

15. Being on the receiving end of endless and unwanted advice on everything involving your baby.

16. Using a breast pump.

17. Writing thank you notes for baby gifts when you can barely see straight.

18. Realizing that the baby weight isn’t, in fact, going to melt off.

19. Living in fear that you will wake that baby who took, OMG seriously, an hour and a half to put to sleep.

20. Cutting teeny, tiny, paper thin fingernails.

21. Obsessively checking to make sure the baby is breathing when he or she is finally soundly asleep.

22. Vaccinations.

23. Worrying that the baby’s floppy head might actually fall off.

24. Rectally taking temperatures.

25. Sore nipples.

26. Keeping the right size diapers stocked.

27. Keeping the diapers on.

28. Being incapable of having conversations with other adults.

29. Schlepping an infant carrier everywhere and developing uneven bicep muscles.

30. Feeling like the worst parent in the world for not obsessively filling out baby book pages.

31. Projectile vomit.

32. Not being able to soothe a screaming baby in a backward facing seat because you are concentrating on not wrapping your car around a tree, but at that moment it sounds like a fine way to put you out of your misery.

33. Sterilizing bottles.

34. Searching in the middle of the night for a lost pacifier, like it was a million dollar lottery ticket.

35. Spit up covered shoulders.

36. Accepting that your feet aren’t actually returning to their original size.

37. Baby Einstein videos.

38. Not being able to turn your head because you fall asleep night after night in the rocking chair.

39. Sleep deprivation.

40. Fearing that the baby might prefer someone – anyone – to you.

41. Baby prunes, chicken and rice and squash.

42. Teething.

43. Ear infections.

44. The dreaded six week postpartum checkup.

45. Explosive diarrhea.

46. Maneuvering a stroller around a store not built for strollers.

47. Changing crib sheets.

48. Trying on your pre-baby jeans for the first time.

49. Having no idea why your clean, fed and burped baby is screaming his or her head off for hours on end.

50. The fact that babies turn into… kids.