“Family is everything!” screamed countless Facebook friends sharing photos of their newborn babies in post after post on my news feed back in 2015 (and, well, today). Back then, it actually offended me. The family I grew up in was stressful to be part of as both a child and an adult. It was part of the reason I decided to never have children. I never wanted to recreate the stress of the childhood I grew up in for someone else.
I had three cats, a dog, and a lucrative career at a major media company. Regardless of the abundance of love and responsibility that awarded me, the idea of having my own child was creeping up. More and more friends were getting pregnant. I had friends who battled infertility for years, which only contributed to the volume of the ticking of my biological clock. I kept pushing the thought of my own children away, claiming my pets were the only children I would ever have. It was a much simpler relationship and I was an amazing pet mother.
