Tips on making the most out of your pre-pre-natal status.

You already knew that your most recent menstrual cycle is considered a pre-assembled bundle of joy under the recent Arizona law, which recognizes fetal personhood two weeks before conception. This is because Governor Jan Brewer has developed a unique form of time travel that is both retroactive and womb-specific (and they say America doesn’t invest in science anymore).

At any rate, it’s better to be pregnant than sorry, as the old chestnut goes. Congratulations! You’re (mostly) already a mother. How wonderful – and may I add, on a personal note, that you’re absolutely (hypothetically) glowing? Here are a few bits of pre-prenatal advice we’d like to offer our newly pregnant readers.

• If you’re not sure where to start, why not try naming your tampons, just in case? “We call this one Harper. She’s got her father’s absorbency but I think she takes after my mother’s side of the family – she expands radially just like my mother’s sister Abigail.”
• Worried about early preschool cutoff dates? Now that proto-Edwick is a whole two weeks older, you’ve got that much more of an edge on your Brentwood School application. Your slutty neighbor who got knocked up before H.B. 2036 passed is going to have to wait an entire year before she gets another chance. Edwick will already be fluent in Mandarin calculus engineering by then!
• Don’t forget, however, that early admission also means early student loan repayment – your ante-blastula may already have exceeded the maximum number of uterine deferrals. Does your womb have space for debt collectors?
• What does your icipient embryo think about Lena Dunham’s Girls? Do you want your progeny to be the only one in the maternity ward without an opinion? It’s never too early for a longform thinkpiece about a television show that’s aired exactly one episode, so plan ahead.
• Are proto-zygotes growing up too fast and having sex before they even start to exist?
• Why not take this expansive, futurist approach to the rest of your life? Shake things up a little! Divorce your spouse before your relationship falls apart! Quit your job before you retire! Stop breathing before you die! Don’t think of it as overweening and self-defeating presumption. Think of it as maximizing your life-cycle efficiency. Sure, you’ll die earlier, but we live in fast-paced times! Who wants to sit around waiting for their body to stop working before ceasing to exist?

Alternately, of course, you could use those two weeks to get the hell out of Arizona and into a state with sane, compassionate reproductive laws. Like Nevada – wait. New Mexico, then. Or not. Utah doesn’t look much better, does it? Colorado? …Oh.

Image: Josh Parrish

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“To be or not to be” – a parent, that is the question. The thing is, more American women are choosing “not to be.” Research shows that 1 in 5 women are now without children as opposed to 1 in 10 women in the 1970s. Childlessness has increased across most educational groups and all racial and ethnic levels.

Further, most adults no longer think you need a child to be happy. According to Pew Research (via YourTango) 59 percent of adults in 2002 said they disagree with the statement that people who don’t have kids “lead empty lives.” In 1988, only 39 percent of these people didn’t agree with that statement.

There are many reasons for this, such as better contraception options, and perhaps a heightened concern about financial security. But as Dr. Laura Corio told AOL Health, some of it may simply be due to a larger enjoyment of life. “People are enjoying their lives: they’re traveling, shopping, eating out. Putting a baby into the situation is going to change everything.”

What does this all mean? Some parents like to espouse that “when you have a child, you will love in a capacity like you have never known before.” Frankly, I think these are parents who never had nieces or nephews before they had their own children. Because for some devoted aunties and uncles, we’re already at “throwing ourselves in front of a train to protect them.” And you’re telling us there’s more?

Yes, some argue that parenthood opens up a sense fulfillment that you may never have experienced before. But it looks like American women just aren’t buying it like they used to. As we’ve mentioned before, having children is one of the most personal decision we can ever make.

And this is what we should be celebrating – that we have this choice. Yes, reproductive rights are still being assailed by extremists and this is a battle that should never be discounted. But the fact that we now live in a world where you’re not immediately cast in a tragedy as an unmarried, childless woman is pretty outstanding.

We live in a world where women have options to get educated and out of the house, or choose to remain in it. Obviously, due to our cranky uncle socioeconomics, this is much easier for some than others. But opportunities exist for women as never before – and I, for one, say let’s raise a glass to our feminist foremothers for making this happen.

Sure, there will always be the rogue relative who snarks at Thanksgiving dinner that you should be sitting at the kid’s table, or the bridal bouquet toss during which a cousin will insist on dragging you out on the dance floor. But chalk that up next to the burden of bearing 10 or more children or struggle to feed several more hungry mouths than you can afford, and things are off to a good start for women at the beginning of the 21st century. Let’s just keep the momentum going.

Image: carbonnyc

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