So You Wanna Get Spayed

Your whole life you get told “when you have kids…” or “you’re still young…”. It makes sense that you might hesitate to go through with the surgery when you’ve been told this your entire life. Here are some questions I’ve asked myself that I’ve found helpful. I have divided them up into “financial”, “lifestyle”, and “health/looks”. I am continuously adding new questions and thoughts to this list.

Lifestyle Qs

-How do I feel when I watch pregnancy videos or content geared towards people who are excited to be parents?

-How do I feel when I see parenting videos? Videos of families or parenting tips? Videos geared towards people who want families. 

-How do I feel when I see content with children or babies?

-How do I feel when I see them crying?

-How do I feel when I see them happy?

-What do I think when I see a happy family? 

-How do I feel when I hear children' s laughter? 

-Do you like swearing? How do you feel about censorship?

-Even if I had an amazing pregnancy and it was perfect, how would it compare to me not being pregnant?

-What are my favorite aspects of my lifestyle right now? How would I feel if they disappeared indefinitely if they aren’t aligned with kids?

-How do I feel at a Chucky E. Cheese? How do I feel about the idea of going to one?

-How do I feel about going to a trampoline park during a busy time?

-How do I feel at roller rinks on the weekends? EI when kids have lots of birthday parties

-How do I feel about organizing kid events and supervising them?

-How do I feel about watching multiple kids? (playdates will happen)

-How do I act when I’m really tired? 

-How do I act when I’m really hungry?

-How do I act when I feel unappreciated?

Health Qs

-How do I feel about the idea of not being able to eat sushi, soft cheese, or deli meat?

-How do I feel about being sick for at least 9 months? Medically, pregnant people are contraindicated from SEVERAL activities, sometimes into post-partum

-How do you feel about bodily fluids? (Both a health and lifestyle Q) 

-How important is fitness to me? Is it a coping mechanism? How might I feel possibly being unable to do that for a long period of time?

-How do you feel about the potential of getting hyperemesis gravidarum? About 1-3 in 100 people get it when pregnant.

-How do you feel about getting morning sickness in general?

-How do you feel about uterus spasms due to expansion?

-How do you feel about swollen feet and ankles?

-How do you feel about having back pain for at least 2 months without much relief?

-Are you prepared for potentially having pre-eclampsia or gestational diabetes?

-What would you do if it turned out your fetus had a severe birth defect that was technically survivable but would lead to poor quality of life and difficult birth for both of you?

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Financial Qs

-How do I feel about the cost of diapers? Based on your calculations, how do you feel about your money going towards that?

-Childcare has gotten more expensive. How might that that impact your budget?

-If you were to have a rough pregnancy or delivery, how much might you spend on healthcare?

-How much does schooling cost in your area?

-How much are you willing to spend on socks? Lots and lots of baby socks?

-How much does baby food cost? Are you willing to spend money on that?

-How much does diaper rash cream, baby monitors, baby proofing devices/gates, strollers and high chairs cost? How do you feel about that?

Exercises to See The Other Side

-Read stories about new parents: How does that make you feel? Left out? Relieved that it’s not you?

-Read parenting tip threads and pretend you’re about to be a parent. You’ll get a better idea of what the average day and problems look like for most parents. 

Bigger Experiment

I highly recommend you spend the day with a fake belly under your shirt. Spend time in public. See how it feels to be treated as a pregnant person. You can get realistic styrofoam semi spheres at Michael’s. I did this one Halloween, and to my dismay, I found that people did not respect me and I got hit on way more than normal. I got catcalled and more people touched my fake belly. I didn’t mind too much because I was having fun at first. However, by 1am I was fed up. A man actually cat-called me and then RECOGNIZED me when I got off my stop. He was parked near my stop. He stopped me and wanted to talk about kids' names. I had never seen this man before in my life. He had thought of 3-4 different names. He kept asking me about them. I kept on making it really clear I wasn’t interested and he wouldn’t stop. Luckily he didn’t follow me after I walked off. 

Anyway, I recommend this with a caveat: please be safe. If you feel unsafe, that’s when it’s time to axe the experiment.