BABY PROOF (Chapter One) I never wanted to be a mother. Even when I was a little girl, playing dolls with my two sisters, I assumed the role of the good Aunt Claudia. I would bathe and diaper and cradle their plastic babies and then be on my way, on to more exciting pursuits in the backyard or basement. Grown-ups called my position on motherhood "cute"--flashing me that same knowing smile they give little boys who insist that all girls have cooties. To them, I was just a spunky tomboy who would someday fall in love and fall in line. Those grown-ups turned out to be partially right. I did outgrow my tomboy stage and I did fall in love--several times, in fact--beginning with my high school boyfriend, Charlie. But when Charlie gazed into my eyes after our senior prom and asked me how many children I wanted, I reported a firm "zero." "None?" Charlie looked startled, as if I had just confessed to him a terrible, dark secret. "Why not?" I had a lot of reasons, which I laid out that night, but none that satisfied him. Charlie wasn''t alone. Of the many boyfriends who followed him, none seemed to understand or accept my feelings. And although my relationships ended for a variety of reasons, I always had the sense that babies were a factor. Still, I truly believed that I would someday find my guy, that one person who would love me as is, without condition, without the promise of children. I was willing to wait for him. But around the time I turned thirty, I came to terms with the fact