The maternal urge is overwhelming.

I'm not someone who has dreamed of having children her whole life or babysat other people's kids just to be near their smiling faces. I didn't even really play with baby dolls, and I was usually the dad when I played house with my friends.

Actually, I worried that I didn't have much of a maternal nature in me.

But it was in there — lurking, waiting. After having my daughter, who is now almost 21/2 years old, that maternal urge to have children is tremendous.

In fact, I've found that most women (including myself) will do anything and everything to satiate it.

I was thinking about this desire to bear and raise children as I sat in the cardiologist's office today. I was in the hospital to get the final test in a two-year string of echocardiograms, medicine and doctor's appointments that began when I went into heart failure after my daughter's birth.

Now two years later, my heart function is better and my doctors say I might be able to have more children. Initially, I was told to never even think about getting pregnant again because I would either die or end up on a heart transplant list.

But there it is, this glimmer of hope that I might be able to have another child. Sometimes I hate that glimmer because it means I have to make my own decision rather than having a doctor just tell me yes or no.

I explained the testing procedure to one of my single friends, detailing how the doctor will basically give me adrenaline to my heart so that it will beat hard and fast. Then, he will see if my heart can handle it and if it might be healthy enough for another pregnancy. My friend looked at me in disbelief, "Why? Is it really worth all that risk?"

To a sane person, maybe not. To me, absolutely.

This wasn't an easy decision, by any means. My husband and I weighed the risks, consulted doctors and are now waiting on the results of this final test to get the go-ahead. If the results are bad, we'll adopt.

Either way, I want to have more children — I have to. I can't shake that maternal urge, no matter how hard I try.

That same urge is why women undergo invasive fertility treatments or wait for years on adoption lists. This is why women go back into second or third pregnancies even after they had a C-section, were on bed rest or were hospitalized with pregnancy-related illness.

This is something men can't understand, no matter how much they love their children or want children of their own. This maternal instinct is something that we as mothers can't completely understand or explain. It just is.

And when my daughter is playing with her Play-Doh and randomly looks up to say, "How you doing, Mommy? I love you," she fills a part of me that I didn't even know was missing before.

For me, that's what the maternal urge is all about. I know my next child is out there, whether waiting to be adopted or waiting for me to get pregnant. And one day, he or she will be here playing with Play-Doh in the living room, and I'll wonder how there could have been a time when this child didn't exist in our family.

At that moment, any risk, any pain and any price will have been worth it.

Erin Stewart's blog, Just4Mom, can be found Tuesdays and Thursdays at deseretnews.com.

e-mail: estewart@desnews.com