This is life with a pregnancy fetish…

My fetish is more common than you think it is. A lot of people have it. And if you’re not familiar with it, you might judge it, just like I would judge something I didn’t understand. Despite what you might think, I’m not a monster. I have a strong, primal impulse, like anyone with an addictive fetish does, and I am alway in the process of balancing it out with the practicalities of real life.

And before you ask, yes, I’m in therapy for having a pregnancy fetish. My therapist knows about my problem, and is the only person who was able to get me to the doctor’s office for the birth control implant — a small bar under the skin of my upper arm that I constantly, subconsciously scratch at. I want to rip it out, and I dream of doing it in my sleep. But I meet with my therapist twice a week, and she helps me with that. And with a lot of other things.

I met my husband (with whom I have two children, the only two I have) seven years ago. He didn’t know about my fetish — something I’ve known about since I was a teenage girl — but over the years, I began to open up to him. We’ve always had an extremely communicative sex life, and even though I was afraid he would judge me, I began to love him so much (and see myself so seriously with him) that not telling him about such a huge part of me was not an option anymore. I found that, beyond not upsetting him, it actually turned him on, too. He was happy to indulge my fantasies and support my dreams of being a mother as many times as we could, both physically and financially.

The first time I actually got pregnant, it was like an entirely new world had been opened to me. Where my sex life had always been thrilling (and our roleplaying helped enormously), this was a whole new level of joy and pleasure. Sometimes it felt that just by sitting down on my office chair, I would have an orgasm! My whole body was humming with excitement, and having people come up to me on the street to feel my stomach was every bit the flattering, glowing experience I thought it would be. I felt like a goddess, in every sense of the word, and my husband couldn’t leave me alone. At one point, he called in sick four days in a row to stay home and make love to me. Luckily having an eight-month-pregnant wife helped with that story!

But when my daughter arrived, things changed quickly. Where my body had felt vibrant and warm, it suddenly felt empty and sagging. Always trim, I had suddenly become a loose, fat woman — and not the round, jolly kind of fatness that makes you feel like twice a woman when you’re expecting. I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror, and I couldn’t look at my daughter. I resented her for having taken something from me, even though I didn’t know what that thing was. My husband bonded with her immediately, and I was glad he did, because our nanny ended up replacing most of my interaction with her. At least she had one parent who was head-over-heels, the way you should be.

I saw my therapist, who explained to me all about post-partum depression, and helped me get back to a normal life. I lost thirty pounds, started feeling “myself” again — going dancing, traveling, working, enjoying the company of my family — and things started to make sense. I didn’t feel incredibly attached to my daughter, though. (I would describe the love as the love I have for my parents, whom I’m not enormously close to. I feel a familial draw and obligation, and I know intrinsically that I would do anything for her, but I don’t get a rush of endorphins from seeing her. I don’t extract an enormous amount of joy in her presence, certainly nothing like when I was pregnant.)

Once my confidence was back at its highest, and my sex life with my husband had returned full-force — when my daughter was just over two — I quickly became pregnant again. I want to say that this was an accident, but I had been intentionally messy about contraception, because I wanted the experience without having to say that it was something I did on purpose. I couldn’t help it, my fetish had returned, and I needed the experience of pregnancy again. It was something greater than myself, and when I found out the news, all of my concerns were immediately erased from my mind. I even connected with my daughter in a more profound way — now that I was so happy and fulfilled, I could give my full self to her. It was an idyllic nine months, as it had been the last time.

But as soon as my son was born, I was emptied again. My body had taken an even harder toll, and he was a colicky baby who couldn’t sleep through the night. There was one week where I just left — took the car, drove to a beach town an hour or so away, and rented a room in a little b&b in the middle of autumn. I couldn’t stand to be around my family, particularly not my children, and making up with my husband would only mean that my overwhelming fetish would return. When I arrived back after that week of cleansing, I felt better (better enough to put on a good front, and get into therapy), but I was not happy. And I did not feel love.

Now, I am here, with a four- and two-year-old, and a handsome, still quite young husband who cares for me. But I feel nothing. Without my fetish, I am empty inside, and looking at my children only reminds me painfully what it felt like when it was good. The thought of not having that experience to look forward again tears me apart inside, and makes me seriously consider suicide.

The truth of the matter (at least, after a few years’ worth of therapy) seems to be that I am just not one of those people who should be a mother. In fact, in all of my years of fantasizing, I never actually thought about what it would be like after giving birth. It never interested me. And all of the instincts I have for other parts of my life simply don’t happen with my children — they inspire nothing profound in me, nothing that makes me long for their presence. I hope they are happy, but I am more interesting in caring for myself than for them. I would always choose a night with friends over a night watching Disney.

And now I am here in a prison I have created, with two children I don’t feel very strongly for. My desire still consumes me, and I fear that one day I may leave them to re-start the whole process in a different country, with some other name. All I know is that I have to get out, and have this experience again. I have to find a solution, and something tells me (as much as I hate to admit it) that it might not involve my family.