It doesn’t matter if you’re married, in a relationship, or single AF, baby fever can hit just about anyone. If you’re displaying these symptoms, it’s a sign that your baby fever is really heating up:
- Every time you hold an infant, you want to take it home. If you’ve started seriously thinking about kidnapping your friends’ children, then you need some serious help. Most women with baby fever have a much healthier lust for motherhood, though. In average cases, each time you hold an infant, it brings you almost to tears when you have to let him go. You know the baby belongs to someone else, but you wish that someone were you.
- You’re not looking for a man— you’re looking for a future baby daddy. At some point you stopped looking at men as romantic partners and started looking at them as the key to the baby you’ve always wanted. Instead of searching for love, you’re looking at things like good genes, a stable job, and paternal instincts.
- You’re obsessing over your biological clock. The real reason that you want to find love ASAP is because you’re obsessing over the lifespan of your eggs. In your mind, every day that goes by that you don’t find a guy is lowering your chances of pregnancy.
- You’ve already thought about being a single mother. The fact that you don’t have a man isn’t going to stop you from being a parent. Despite the fact that you have a million reasons not to have a baby until you have a partner and are truly “ready,” you still want one.
- You treat the men in your life like children. You want to be a mother so badly that you’re actually using your maternal instincts on grown men. Instead of acting like a girlfriend, you act like his mother. You clean up all his messes and tell him exactly what to do. You know it’s not healthy and needs to stop, but you have a hard time controlling your need to take care of someone.
- You’ve been bitten by the green-eyed mother monster. You’re so jealous of all your friends with babies that you can’t even be happy for them. Instead of rejoicing in their good fortune, you feel spiteful. You know it’s not your friends’ fault that you don’t have kids yet, but you’re finding it harder and harder to swallow your envy.
- You start convincing yourself that it’s your job to reproduce. There is more to you than your ovaries, but when you’re dying to be a mom, it’s easy to forget that. The desire to have kids can be overwhelming sometimes, and it can even convince you that you’d be better off abandoning your career goals in order to be the perfect mommy.
- You’ve gotten a little risky with your birth control. “Forgetting” to take your pill every once in a while might increase your chances of getting pregnant, but that doesn’t mean it’s right. You might want a baby, but it’s not fair to rope your partners into something they don’t want as well. Trapping a man isn’t fair to you, him or your future baby. If you don’t have a ready and willing partner, there are other options, but lying about birth control shouldn’t be one of them.
- You’re actually disappointed when you get your period. For most sexually active single women, that’s a relief, but not for you. Despite the fact that you wouldn’t exactly have a dependable father of your child, you’re sad each time Mother Nature gives you your monthly gift.
- You’ve started buying things for a baby you don’t even have. Despite your kid-free household, you’re collecting onesies, stuffed animals, and everything in between. Instead of focusing on the life you have right now, you’re consumed with the future. You might be single, but you have babies on the brain.
