Is this when I start obsessing over babies?

So I don't know when it happened exactly, but I want a baby. Badly. 

Is this what everyone was alluding to when only last year I'd remark that babies were cute and all but I couldn't picture myself actually having one, that I didn't want one that bad, to go through all that pain and suffering of stretched out belly skin (among other, er, stretched out things). Everyone would retort, "Just wait. Your baby gene will kick in soon and once it does you'll want one." And I'd fan them away, dismissing them over my glass of wine. "I'll pay for a surrogate," I'd say, and we'd all laugh.

But I guess they were right. The infamous "baby gene" hath entered my room and is quietly refusing to leave.

Not that I'm in ANY sort of right place in my life to have one. I know, I know, there's never a right time to have a baby, and I totally get that. There's also never a right time to drop a couple g's on a Burberry trench, but it happens. Really, though, now is just not the right time. For one I've in no way conquered the stress I feel daily from work. I would hate to transfer that kind of energy into the wee zygote I'd be carrying in my tummy. It just wouldn't be fair to her (yes, I've decided that my first will be a girl so I can dress her up in cute little outfits and read her Madeline books before bed). 

Aside from that, if I were to conceive soon, I couldn't imagine myself waddling in to work all swollen and gigantic, sitting upright in an office chair all day and running off to the bathroom to pee every 30 minutes. When I am pregnant I do not want to work. There I said it. Maybe that makes me backward or whatever, but I don't care. I want to live a stress-free, calm existence when I'm carrying, where my days will consist of prenatal yoga classes, pastry tastings at local French bakeries, reading novels on a blanket in a park, and lots of lots of quiet writing time at home, with my poodle at my feet and a warm mug of (decaf) tea on my desk. To me that would be perfect. This is the calm I want my baby to be born into.

Lastly, now is the not the right time because I don't have the right health insurance (which is another reason I'm peeved at my employer). Yes, I get full coverage, but I was misled to believe that it would actually be a benefit at work. Instead I'm paying nearly $400/month to cover my husband and I, which I think is absurd since we're both in our late-20s and have never had any health problems. I'm opting out of my employer's health coverage as soon as possible and going back to paying for private health insurance, which is much cheaper and covers everything I need...except maternity. 

So the onus then falls on my husband's health insurance, which he doesn't have...yet. But whatever job he lands (hopefully soon), will undoubtedly come with an excellent health package (as almost all the employers in his field offer). Oh and that's another thing. He actually needs a job. Yet two more reasons to wait.

Obviously our life as a married couple is in flux in terms of careers, and we need to get this sorted out before we're serious about any baby making. Plus I'm still very scared of how painful pregnancy could be. I'm terrified of needles and the like, and I'm scared that every step of labor is going to be worse than the last. Is it really that painful? Or is this what I'm led to believe watching marathons of "A Baby Story" on TLC? My fourth-grade teacher once told me that giving birth was like pulling your bottom lip up over your entire head. Um, ouch? That mental image has permanently scarred me. If I could I'd love to just fall asleep and wake up when it's all over. You better believe I'm a huge fan of the epidural. And I haven't even had kids yet.

I'm convinced one of the reasons my baby gene has kicked is because of my close girlfriend in Manhattan, S, who is pregnant with her first. S and I met in grad school a few years ago and have stayed close ever since. Earlier this year S quit her job at a prominent PR firm in NYC to focus on writing like me and start trying to conceive, which took a few months but finally happened. Now she's so happy, eating bagels all day and going to yoga, stealing away to Paris for a long weekend here or there with her husband, just enjoying her life and anticipating the arrival of her first child. I can practically hear her beaming 3,000 miles over the phone. 

I want that.