Literally. It started sometime after mom died. I had the same dream two nights in a row (which is super unusual for me). I learned I was pregnant. I was with a good friend of mine who has four children. When I found out, I said, Well, the only person who would be really happy with this news is my mom and she’s dead.

I had that same dream again at the end of December, but this time, instead of making that statement about my mom, I was fretting that at 44, I was too old to get into this predicament. That it was too late for this to happen. (Again, I was with my friend who has four delightful children).

Just a couple of days ago, I had a dream that included several people I went to high school with. It was a sort of reunion dream and I saw a good friend of mine, someone I haven’t seen or talked to in years, and she had just had a late-in-life baby (unplanned after raising her other children). I felt terrified for her. I woke up and wrote the dream in my journal. I was also inspired to track that friend down, just because I enjoyed her so much in high school. We reconnected last night via email. (She has three children but no babies.)

I’ve never really wanted children. I think in the first part of my life, when I was a teenager, I viewed it as an inevitability. I found a journal entry where I wrote I definitely didn’t want to get pregnant before I was 19 (which was ancient). Then, as a young twenty-something, I was busy with college, and I was dating a guy I knew wasn’t the one, so children was not something on my mind. I remember going to the beach with that guy, his cousin and his cousin’s wife (all of us in our twenties), and the cousin talking about wanting children right away because he didn’t want to be an “old” parent. I thought the idea was lunacy.

After I moved to South Florida, I met the man who was The One. He already had a child from a previous marriage, so he wasn’t feeling any need for more. And I was still completely uninterested in the prospect for the most part.

I had the great luxury of not feeling any pressure from my parents either. I remember my dad saying to not have children for his sake, that he didn’t care if he had grandchildren. I think my mom was a bit more hopeful, but she never pressured me in any way. And my stepdad—who has had very difficult relationships with his sons (he is estranged from one)—thought I was the smartest person on earth to not want children.

I have two couples in my life that have relatively big families (each have four children). My cousins are one couple. They came to visit us when we lived in Springfield and I could see how delightful having children could be. Lots of activity and distraction. But by the end of the second day, after a morning of screaming and chasing one of our cats (who hid in the cabinetry in the laundry room), I was so grateful for the quiet that descended on the house after they left. I couldn’t imagine being surrounded by that level of activity all the time.

The other couple is one I’ve met since recently. The mom is just the most dynamic, charismatic woman. They have four children, all gorgeous perfection. On Instagram, they make parenthood look fun and easy breezy. Always out and about, always smiling, always surrounded by others. Of course, it’s a curated view, and the mom will write in a caption how shortly after this picture was taken, where everyone is smiling, one of the kids was having a meltdown in the hallway while the three year old was covering himself in poop in the bathroom.

And it’s this friend who has been in my dreams. I talked to my therapist about the dreams and that I didn’t feel like I suddenly wanted children. Like, I still feel solid in the decision to not have them, but to have so many dreams about it seemed strange. And she made the point that this could all be another way of mourning mom, this notion of a completed life where the opportunity for grandmotherhood is over (even if it wasn’t to be fulfilled in reality). She said it could also be a form of mourning for myself and my fertility…facing the aging process myself. Because the opportunity for me to be a mother—whether I want to or not—is closing. And even though I chose not to have them, the option was still there. Soon it won’t be at all.

I also think what I really want, when I think about what these families have, is the community they find (at least for local families in this small town). Having children builds in a community for you—a way to connect to total strangers and a reason to get out and participate in the world. A reason to meet other parents and become friends. When I look at what I want, I want a larger community. I don’t want to be a parent, but I want to find a community with the ease that parents can.