The Underachieving Ovary

5. Behead the Barbies

When we were on our honeymoon I was so sublimely happy. Not because I was married (never been a huge fan of marriage in general – I don't see the point of signing a contract that allows you to take your partner for granted), not because I was married to the very best person I could have imagined for myself (although it didn't hurt), and not because we were spending three weeks travelling through Italy, France and Spain (again, didn't hurt).

            Okay, I was happy about all of the above. The buildings in Italy! The bread in France! The atmosphere in Spain! And I'll admit, the holiday was legendary. But above all, the thing that was making my face shine was the knowledge in the back of my mind that in a month's time I would be off the pill and ready to start MAKING BABIES. Something I have wanted my entire life.

            I was already broody in primary school. I think I might have been born broody, if that is even possible. I used to cut out pictures of babies and pregnant woman and file them. Once I kidnapped two baby dolls from my nursery school; named them Nadia and Devon, and took them everywhere I went in a cardboard suitcase.

            As you can imagine, it used to worry the fuck out of my mother.

'I love them so much,' I told my mom after stealing the dolls, 'I thought they were mine.'

            When Nadia and Devon started falling apart at the seams I begged my parents to buy me a 'Newborn Baby'. Instead of a petite, pretty, rose-lipped doll, it was the size of a newborn, swollen, wrinkled, and a little ugly-monkey looking, just as real newborns are. Oh, how I needed one! I feel my jaws tensing now just thinking about it.

Behead the Barbies, cut off the My Little Pony's mane and tail, unstuff the teddies, smash Castle Greyskull – I would have sold them all and more to get this precious bundle into my arms. My parents finally acquiesced and peeled off the (two!) pink fifty rand notes the toy cost.

            And how I loved that baby (it wasn't a doll, it was a real baby!). I spent hours cradling it, smelling its sweet skin, staring into its sky-coloured marbles for eyes.

            Funny though, looking back now. I imagine the sleepless nights my mom must have had, worrying that her daughter would become a) a teenage mother, b) a kleptomaniac, or c) an abductor. Funny in the way that is not funny at all – that now, at thirty years old, it has become clear that having a baby isn't going to be the easiest thing for me to do. Sad-funny. On a bad day, not funny at all.

The origin of the word honeymoon is 'sweet month' – as in the first sweet month of marriage before you realise the magnitude of your foolishness. No one's feet smell in those first few weeks, no one fights, no one is too tired for foreplay. Things have changed now, of course, that everyone lives together before tying the knot. I guess honeymoons aren't as rosy (or deceitful) as they used to be. I had lived with Mike for seven years before we got married, so there were no surprises there, but like a 1940s bride, I pictured our future with (baby-shaped) stars in my eyes. And like that naïve bride who sets herself up for disappointment, the stars have fallen away, and shadows have taken their place.