No. Maybe. Yes.

For the longest time, I could not picture myself having a child or being a mom. I never had that motherly instinct or desire, and was frankly just not interested in kids at all. I never 'got' them, they never 'got' me. I could go on and on about how annoying they seemed to me, or how I couldn't see how people I knew wanted to go down that road, but I think you get the idea. I'm not a kid person. Dogs on the other hand- that's a different story. I get dogs.

When I met my husband, I believe we went through all the cursory newly dating questions, marriage, property ownership, kids, pets, etc. I remember him picturing himself with kids. At the time I didn't express my views on children, but over the years I think he figured out pretty quick that I had zero maternal instinct, and eventually it became kind of understood that kids might not be in the future. That never stopped the hubs from making googly faces at random babies in public, or dressing up our dog in clothes for the elements. Eventually he would make statements about not wanting children, citing how expensive they are, or overpopulation, or crying fits.

I had my own list of reasons that I told myself were why I didn't want children- I just didn't think I'd be a good mother. Not having a kid is so much easier than having a kid. Once you have a kid, everything becomes about them. I didn't want to deal with gaining a lot of weight, then having to lose it. I was worried about the effects of motherhood on my career.

Two years ago, as I was just changing my lifestyle around, eating nutrient dense foods and performing functional exercise, suddenly other elements of my life took on more simplistic thinking, which made me realize that eating "paleo" was not just about diet, it was an entire lifestyle of choices that just made sense. I got a recommendation from a friend to watch a movie titled "The Business of Being Born." I watched the movie, and all of a sudden, childbirth made so much sense to me. Especially having a natural child birth. I became so interested in the idea of a healthy pregnancy, a natural unmedicated birth with a midwife instead of being in a hospital, and then rasing a child to eat the same way I had be re-learning to eat.

I began discussing these ideas with the hubby, and at first he was confused. It was sort of turning his world upside down, after coming to grips with a no kid future. We would have a few informal "if we had a kid" talks, but these were sometimes months apart. I was still thinking about a natural childbirth, and how I might be depriving myself of one of the greatest experiences on earth by not having a family. I started to get sentimental about holidays, and how fun it might be to share everything with a young kid, as if seeing the world with fresh eyes all over again.

After our wedding, it seemed as though there were a flood of newly pregnant friends. That certainly increased our interest in making the leap ourselves, as well as my desire to not be on hormonal birth control anymore. We decided that we'd take our chances and see what happens. For some reason, I thought we would have a tough time getting pregnant. I had no basis for this except my duration on birth control, I just figured my hormones were all out of whack and it would take awile to normalize. I did some reading on natural ways to balance hormones after being on birth control for awhile, and surprise surprise the number one recommendation was diet. Rid your cabinets of processed food, ditch the flour and sugar, and eat real food. Well, I already did that, so I followed a few other tips- supplementing my diet with fermented cod liver oil and pro-biotics. Less than 2 months after quitting the pill, we were pregnant.

I'm excited now as most of my fears of having a kid have been replaced with all the things we will get to do. I'm no longer worried about my life changing or the direction my career will take because I know growing my family will be worth it. I'm confident that we can raise a baby and child that will be just right for us. We are trying not to get too far ahead of ourselves with planning and things, because we don't know what the future holds. I'm just trying to take each day as it comes and enjoy this incredible experience.