“There are six billion people on Earth; anything that happens six billion times is hardly a miracle.”

This comment was floating around the Internet a few weeks ago and I forwarded to it some of my friends…both childfree and with kids. Most of them had the same reaction—they loved it. With advances in fertility technology these days, there really isn’t anything miraculous about procreation. From Octomom to the oldest woman to give birth (at 63) to the transgender “pregnant man,” it’s quite clear that anyone can get pregnant and have a baby. Add to it the plethora of information available via blogs, books, and magazines and it’s easy to see why the true mystery of pregnancy and childbirth that made it feel like a miracle is no longer there.

Yet, there are still people who view pregnancy and childbirth as something extraordinary. I understand the excitement that comes with something as life changing as having a baby, and when people are that happy about something in their lives, even if it’s something that doesn’t appeal to me, I have a tendency to be happy for them too. But for those whose pregnancy is more than just something new and exciting happening to them, modern-day birth has gone from being a miracle to being romanticized. And romanticizing pregnancy is not only as irritating as childfree women who buy matching outfits for themselves and their dogs, it’s also a slap in the face to those who have worked tirelessly to define (and re-define) women as more than baby-making machines.

That being said, many people are surprised to learn that I would love to experience pregnancy and childbirth, despite not wanting the end product. Or that I can’t help but stare at a woman’s big pregnant belly (the bigger the better!) and smile in awe over what’s going on in it. And I’ll never forget the time my friend Michelle suddenly grabbed my hand and put it on her belly so I could feel kicks and movements. Why, if I don’t want to have kids, does this appeal to me? Because like many things in nature, I just think it is cool. I watched in fascination this summer as a caterpillar spun a cocoon and turned into a butterfly. Everyday I checked in on that cocoon and could see things developing and changing inside. It was remarkable to watch it unfold. It was fun to watch nature do what it does. And I do find that same joy in watching friends go through a pregnancy. It’s only when women think that being pregnant puts them in a different category of existence, that they are somehow doing something more than what nature simply allows us to do, that makes the experience annoying. (Lucky for me, Lori was never THAT kind of person.)

My friend Michelle shared her belly experience with me not because she thought it was a miracle or because she thought she was special. It wasn’t anything that was planned even; I had never asked her if I could feel her belly. It just happened. We were in her office at work, hammering out the details of some project we were working on together. And after I felt her soon-to-be-born son, Jackson, doing flips, I said to her, “Wow. That was cool.”

“Yeah,” she said, “It was.”

And with that, we turned back to her computer and continued our work.