Not to mention the new sags, bumps, lines and wrinkles that will keep your body from ever looking the same. "The new normal" is what my husband calls it, but he's just being nice, considerably nicer than I am to myself when I work up the courage to look in the mirror. Factor in the toll that sleepless nights and random bouts of worry -- or out-and-out fear -- take on your skin, the weird hormonal hair stuff I'd rather not get into here, and other odd corporal goings-on and, well, sister, you ain't no nubile teenager anymore.

And that's just the physical side of things. A friend of mine who just had a textbook vaginal delivery told me she felt so traumatized by the difficulties of labor and delivery that she's planning to start therapy. Another friend has been coping with postpartum depression so debilitating she has been unable to return to work as planned.

Even in the best new-baby scenarios -- mine, for instance, if you discount the abdominal-wound factor -- there are moments of severe self-doubt and self-pity in the midst of the baby bliss. You have to summon all your own inner strength -- and the help of your partner (if you're lucky enough to have one), family and friends -- to pull through the first few hormonally rocky, sleep-deprived weeks.

Get past them and you're hardly in the clear. The need to make a living can feel, as a friend who went back to work last week, leaving her 14-week-old daughter at home, put it, "like some kind of primal wrong."

Think the trouble's all in her head? Try in her breasts, swollen beyond belief with milk her baby is not around to drink on her normal schedule. Pumping only goes so far when your baby goes on a hunger strike, refusing a bottle and crying incessantly until you get home to feed her from your own body, only to wake you up every two hours all night long because she's starved from her milk-free day. But have fun explaining that to a boss who doesn't understand why you never work past 5:00 anymore or why you're too tired to take on extra work the way you used to.

See you on the mommy track, girlfriend.

And while we're doggedly running round and round it, we can talk about all the things we miss from our old lives. Like going to movies or the theater or the ballet. Like enjoying a leisurely meal at a restaurant. Like getting up in the morning and going to the gym without first negotiating with your spouse for your 40-minute parental leave.

I'm not complaining. I wanted to be here, gazing into my newborn's eyes instead of, say, getting all dressed up and going to the spate of black-tie shindigs I get invited to each spring. The little fella may not say much yet, but he's already a better conversationalist than most of the tablemates I've been compelled to chat with at such events over the years.

But parenthood as panacea? I'm not buying it, and neither should anyone who's not really into the idea of being a mom or pop.

I'm here as a new parent to stand up for all those nonparents out there -- the ones who haven't yet made up their minds about kids and the ones who definitely have -- and proclaim that there is nothing wrong with not having children. I did it for more than three decades and led what I'd consider a pretty rich and fulfilling life, filled with learning, love, travel, adventure, laughter ... and other people's children.

You're not being selfish. Your life won't be empty. And you're certainly not destined for a sad, lonely end. People can find richness in their lives in ways that don't include progeny.

So the next time some well-meaning parent harasses you about your decision not to have kids -- or at least not to have them yet -- just let yourself off society's hook, go out and live the life you've chosen with no regrets. Find meaning and fulfillment by climbing a mountain, jumping out of an airplane, taking a job in Asia or, hell, reading the Sunday paper without interruption. Then tell us breeders about it.

And feel free to gloat.

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