Yes, I would like a child, please.

After some serious contemplation, I have decided that, yes, I really truly want to raise a child with my husband. These are the sort of events that I would love to experience in my life:

• Dressing our baby up like a bear.
  
• Seeing them asleep in my arms.
  
• Helping them assemble a rock/stick/leaf/shell/etc collection.
  
• Make them laugh.
  
• Reading to them and seeing their imagination soar.
  
• Listening in awe as they speak a second language.
  
• Seeing their faces as they discover new places.
  
• Creating new family traditions together.
  
• Involving them in making family decisions.
  
• Helping them figure out how the world works.
  
• Doing my best to answer the question "why?".
  
• Making a train-shaped birthday cake.
  
• Watching the private world that they create with other children.
  
• Learning from their unique insight and experiences.
  
• Watching their personality develop into a whole new person.

Even if we do have a child, there is no guarantee that we will experience any of these moments. How do you decide to welcome a new person into your home that you have never met? How do you decide that the benefits outweigh the risks? Mel wrote about this leap into darkness a few days ago:

I think it’s brave to put your heart out there, to want something so badly, to allow your entire being to get wrapped up in the potential life of another person. If we make that leap to love a partner or family member or friend, we do so knowing that person, having met them, knowing our compatibility or history. But when we put our entire heart into the idea of a child, we do that bravely. Without answers or information or sometimes even a true understanding of what it will be like to parent.

With this confirmed desire, I called the fertility clinic to schedule our next IUI. However, I learned that this cycle needs to be pre-approved by our health insurance, which means a delay of at least another month. So more waiting and day dreaming for me.