Becoming a Mother

Look around and you can witness all of the ways and rationales couples have for making a baby. Perhaps they arranged the wedding, the career, the home, then finally a nursery and pregnancy, (order of those events varying from couple to couple, of course). While that is one simple explanation, (and by far other options are innumerable), the motivating factors behind the actual act of going through with that plan can be quite unique. Maybe one or both spouses felt obligated; "we are married so we are supposed to have children." Possibly each spouse had individually desired kids their entire lives and just could not wait to meet that special someone they would build a family with. Or then there is the horrible, yet true-for-a-reason cliche: "I thought it would make things better," (usually and unfortunately spoken by a struggling wife...I cannot imagine I have met many men who thought a kid would make things easier or more pleasant). Obviously I have hardly covered a portion of all the routes and reasons that take a couple to the point where they choose to procreate.
 As for myself, I assuredly fall in the category of one who fell in love, married that love, and later planned a pregnancy with my amazing husband. We discussed the fact that for many years I had no desire to have children. Only because I felt that very few parents escape the folly of "messing up" their offspring in some way or another. However, my heart expanded to allow for a love deeper than any I had ever experienced when I married my man. I knew then that regardless of what might happen, all I wanted was for little pieces of us to become a new person. One that would take from us hopefully only our best qualities and all of the love that we possess.

In 2008, two years after becoming a wife, I was ecstatic to find myself peeing on a little piece of plastic that could not wait to show two pink lines. We were pregnant, (because the joy of our pregnancy was truly something we shared, though as I would find out, only one of us would get to claim morning sickness, acne, gas, and "pregnancy brain"). Neither of us could really grasp what that meant, what would happen, or what changes would come into our relationship. Exciting and scary all at once.

All of the anticipation would screech to a halt around week 16 when we would learn the pregnancy had terminated.

Describing the pain that set in, (for days, and weeks, and months), would be like trying to explain what it feels like to be stabbed in the heart. Only those who have gone through such an experience know the despair and hollow hurt that follows such news. And there are many women and couples who do know.  Unfortunately, I had to find out twice, when I lost a second pregnancy, this time earlier on though. By this time it was April 2009 and my soul was being wrenched apart by sorrow. Would I never have the joy of giving my husband the greatest gift I felt I could give, that of a child I had borne and birthed for him? I ached for the experience, and the fear that my body was incapable of carrying a child was beginning to creep into my mind.

Taking the chance of losing a baby, (no matter when you miscarry, if you wanted that pregnancy then you feel as though you lost a child and all the dreams that would have come with them), for a third time almost paralyzed me to the point of not trying again. However, I knew of multiple couples who have/had gone through many more years of bereavement and much worse miscarriages. In June of 2009 I was pregnant again and barely willing to hope that all would be well. Looking back I think I may have actually held my breath until week 25 of the gestation when I realized that having a baby was going to happen this time.

No matter your state before a little person takes residence in your body, through talking to others I think most first-timers have a constant battle with reality. Every little bump and kick from my unborn child sent a shock of surreality up my spine. Was this moving, expanding stomach of mine actually holding baby? And was I going to be a mother, my husband a father? There would be a crying, soft, warm, alive, newborn laying in my arms, outside of me soon? Accepting such thoughts was impossible...my brain simply could not wrap around those notions.

The day in March of 2010 I was told I needed to be induced I felt huge, wobbly, tired, ready, and insufficient all at the same time. Mostly though I shook with excitement. Finally I would meet the human being that my husband and I had created. At last my love would hold what I had carried just for him- and me.
Sitting in push position, going through physical exertion beyond what I believed myself capable of, suddenly a furry, slightly gray, BEAUTIFUL head began to emerge. Through blurred vision I beheld a miracle which brought instantaneous rapture, amazement and relief. As tears fell I watched the body of my baby slip out behind that gorgeous head; I heard the raspy wail of one trying to grab hold of its God-given drive to live. Every pain, loss or grief I had ever felt poured out with my child as I heard my husband turn toward me and say, "It's a girl!" A joy, more intense than any sorrow I could experience, cascaded down from my head to my toes. My baby was here in the world. My baby.

When they placed our daughter on my chest and my husband leaned in to kiss my forehead, for once the reasons behind having a baby did not matter.

It just was, and we were happy.