We live in an on-demand world.
From Amazon Prime to Uber to Munchery to TaskRabbit and beyond, whether it be a hand crafted hamburger, someone to wash the dishes or toilet paper to wipe on the way out, suddenly everything is instantly accessible. Which is a weird thing if you think about it, because it means that expectations to get what we want when we want something have never been higher. And in turn patience has never been thinner.
Our lives are increasingly merging with the Internet to deliver an increasingly Matrix-like experience (do you know kung fu?).
But what about things that we want but maybe just not right this moment? Like a child for example.
When is the perfect time to have a baby?
Is it when you reach a certain amount of savings?
Or maybe it’s when you’ve reduce your debt to X amount of dollars?
Is it when you and your partner are both employed?
Or maybe it’s once you finish grad school.
Is it once you get that promotion?
Once you do the Southeast Asia trip you’ve dreamt about for years?
Maybe it’s once you’ve binged on video games. Or re-watched your favorite movies.
It could be during the summer. Or maybe the spring is better so it’s warm but not too warm.
Perhaps it’s when you and your partner are in a good place. No tensions. Rolling along like a well oiled team.
Or maybe it’s the best surprise you could ever have. The result of spontaneous passion that leads to a pregnancy test.
The irony with being pregnant, is we spend so much of our lives chasing the act of sex yet avoiding the natural outcome and ultimate purpose of the act: to reproduce. And once we do intentionally set forth on the path to having a baby, it is only then that the various challenges to getting pregnant reveal themselves. It is not going to arrive in 6 minutes like your Uber driver Liz showing up in her white Prius. It will not arrive tomorrow with free shipping boxed at your doorstep courtesy of your local Ontrac carrier from Amazon. Miscarriages happen. We went through one (and I say we knowing my wife was the one that physically endured). It can take time and patience to achieve pregnancy. So much so that getting a baby safely out of the womb truly is a miracle once you start understanding all of the factors that can get in the way of a healthy delivery.
On the other hand, having a baby is certainly disruptive to our established life patterns. It does not neatly fit into our micro in-the-moment desire of satiating some base level Maslow need. Having a baby is epic. It is the kind of event that changes your destiny. For good. Everything changes in ways that are drastic (your sleep schedule) and others more subtle (reduced risky behavior because you want to be there for your child). This is scary. Change is scary.
If the on demand economy is filled with high quality goods and services that ultimately become commodities because of our frictionless access to them, having a baby is exactly the opposite. It is the ultimate “acquisition” in your life. A living, breathing, growing, evolving being that is born from the very fiber of your physical, intellectual and spiritual essence. Apple has got nothing on this.
Having a baby is the type of momentous event that your entire life will somehow, miraculously rearrange itself to accommodate. And in doing so, old habits that you can no longer afford to maintain through lack of time, energy or interest fall away. And suddenly you step into a different reality. It is a powerful thing. One that I could not recognize until my baby had arrived.
In the end, the perfect time to have a baby is whenever she chooses to bless you with her presence. She is the one that gets to order herself on demand into your world somehow, some magical way. And we as parents can only get freaky, get ready and wait for the call.
Strap in for the ride.