Becoming a Mom

I read Antique Mommy’s post today and it hit a well-hidden nerve. Please read her post, then come back here (www.antiquemommy.com) BTW, sorry I haven't figured out how to directly link you there. In cyber-world, just call me a slow learner.

I should probably start at the beginning:
I didn’t always want to be a mommy, or even want to even be married, if truth be told. I was going to be a career girl, which in my youthful thinking seemed to be a way to exact revenge on all those young men who weren’t smart enough to see what a perfect girlfriend/fiancée/wife I would be to them. It wasn’t that they didn’t want me; I didn’t need them. Well, how silly.

Anyway.

Once I got married, I wanted to have children—in theory—but didn’t pursue that desire with any intensity. After all, we didn’t have any money, hubby was in graduate school, and honestly, I wasn’t ever a very good babysitter. I didn’t even really like to babysit. So, I figured, if one didn’t like to take care of other people’s children for a short amount of time, then probably taking care of children for the rest of one’s life was not a good option.

Something changed.

I really did want a family that included more than the two of us. By the time that desire became a daily and active thought, we had been married almost 5 years and the dawning realization that there was a problem—that having a child wasn’t going to be something we simply decided to do—became a reality.

Time—as it always does—marched on.

Fortunately for me, I had a particularly sensitive friend who had walked the road of infertility, and she and her husband became a resource and a comfort to us. They got it in a way many other people simply could not. (I would wager big money that my friend—who regularly responds to this blog—still gets it, 4 children and lots of life experiences later.)

My friend understood when I cried at the news of another friend’s pregnancy because I was so jealous and angry. She understood how tired I was of going to baby showers and celebrating YOUR good news. She sat on the row by me—during “those” years—on Mother’s day at church, knowing how much I wanted to be given the red carnation, the flower that was distributed to each mother at the beginning of service. She rolled her eyes at the well-meaning—but entirely inappropriate—comments people make about baby-making and adoption. There are just some stories (“I have a friend who got pregnant right after she adopted a baby”) that really need to leave our story-telling canon. Please don’t pass this story on, even if you are certain that it did happen to a friend of a friend of a friend.

When I read AM’s post today, all of those feelings came flooding back. She is right when she said that you never forget that longing and that loss. A colleague I work with just announced that his sweet and wonderful wife (a gal whom I really like) is pregnant, and even now, two children and a lot of years later, I felt that familiar twinge and turn of the heart. It is such a weird emotion, and entirely unexpected, and a sign that some of our deepest longings and losses never truly disappear.

There is this blessing. There is a young couple at church who is struggling with infertility and have now chosen to open a different door and embrace a new dream: adoption. I do know how they feel.

I am truly and deeply thankful that I know how they feel.

Jana