I'm glad that you're thinking this over before leaping into motherhood. First off, have you ever had to care for infants in a long term situation? I have no children and part of the reason is that I baby-sat for my entire adolescence. I'm certain that as many of the women on this forum say, having children has been the best thing for them, but for me, it would have been awful. I'm wondering if there's any way you could really get in there and sit with some little ones for a while.
That is a really good idea. I never gave it much thought, but I always babysat for my younger cousins when I was a teenager, sometimes over the weekend. And I thoroughly loved when they were babies, especially the times when I was just rocking in the rocking chair and singing to them. That wound up being my fondest memory of my own children when they were babies, too.
So while a "trial basis" of course won't be anywhere near as stressful OR as joyful as the real thing - it would give you a taste of where you wanted to be.
An easy way to try it out would be to vounteer for nursery duty if you attend weekly church services. EVERY church I know is always needing help in that area, and when you take care of more than 3 infants or 5 toddlers at one time - it can definitely give you the same scatterbrained feeling of a sleep-deprived Mommy, LOL!