Cats don't need diapers or nappies

Is there some way of having children without actually having them yourself? And raising them? And being there all night when they won't sleep??

I'm only half serious when I write this, by the way.

Friends of ours have recently become parents for the first time, and while they clearly love their son very much, I look at them and think, "You are absolutely insane." They have a newborn, so of course things are tough. But they don't get to sleep, they don't get to eat properly, they look like a pair of zombies who have to spend every waking (and sleeping) hour caring for this little bundle of need and want. It looks like the worst deal on the planet, on the face of it.

Sometimes I really doubt that I am cut out to be a parent. When I spend an afternoon with other peoples' children, I need to go and have a sleep myself. The thought of being pregnant somehow repulses me. I don't find other pregnant women repulsive, but think of it as a normal part of life. However, I am definitely not one of those women who worships pregnant bellies and gets all teary when they feel a kick from a stranger's pregnant belly.

I don't mind dealing with children as patients, particularly when they are old enough to talk and be spoken to. However, I get to give them back after a short space of time. I don't have to wash their dirty clothes or tell them for the hundredth time why they can't have a mobile phone at the age of eight.

There is also the question of how I could manage to be any kind of parent while training as a junior doctor. Being pregnant during this period could be an absolute disaster. The whole experience is stressful and time-consuming as it is, without being exhausted, feeling like you are losing your mind and feeling nauseated at certain smells to the point where you have to bolt to the bathroom every time you walk too close to certain patients, and feeling dizzy at things that only made you mildly uncomfortable before.

And then there is the whole childbirth issue. But I won't even touch on that one. If anybody is wondering what I am talking about, just look up "episiotomy" on Google.

Perhaps one day in the distant future I will be ready. But not now. No way.