It's useless to fight back the tears.
In my humble opinion, these moments are what being a parent is all about. Surely there's nothing like parenthood and being so in love with all the little things your child does day in and day out. I love Emily for her impeccable sense of style, and now her positive outlook on motherhood. Not everyone can have her glowing attitude. I have no expectations that my own experiences will be easy in any way but my understanding and hope remain that it's the moments in life that make the impossible somehow bearable; the sleepless nights, forgettable.
For many years now I have been a privileged witness to families growing around me. Regularly I receive precious videos and photos of my beyond cute godson that make me giggle and swoon. It's hard not to fall in love with the adorable kiddos in my life. Our nephews are growing so quickly; friends kiddos are no longer the cute, chubster-drooling-machine-babbling-babies they were only briefly, but are suddenly walking and talking little people with awesome personalities. I feel like I've blinked and too much time has gone by; I can only imagine how their parents must feel!
Someone said to me the other day that I have a lovely home that is admired by many because I don't have a family to care for. While this is true, this comment caught me a little off-guard, and my immediate reaction was to be offended. Yes, I've had the freedom of not having a family with my loving Jim for 10 years now. Meanwhile we've built a life for ourselves, but our desire to have a family of our own has been present for a very long time. We love our home, but despite it being nicely decorated and filled with love and our own menagerie of fur-children, it's still somehow felt e-m-p-t-y. We have wanted a family for so long, and also been deprived of having our own children for years now - not having a family hasn't been for lack of trying.
Truth be told, there have been serious pangs of jealousy. Having faced one misscarriage, the pre-term birth of our son, and many many cycles of no plus sign on the stick, I had honestly begun to lose hope that as a 32 year old woman, I would ever conceive and carry a child to full-term. I'd witnessed so many families grow in love over the years, and I couldn't help but be a little jealous of their luck.
But last December, the day after meeting up with a dear friend to enjoy drinks and dinner celebrating our birthdays, I decided that I’d been feeling weird for too many days, and without telling Jim, I went to the drug store during my lunch break to purchase a pregnancy test. When I got home I fumbled with the packaging, followed all the steps, and then I immediately went to occupy myself elsewhere. I tried to make dinner but my hands were shaking. Even though I new the symptoms I was feeling were familiar, I had convinced myself so many other times that similar feelings meant I was pregnant, only to have the test (and later, mother nature) confirm otherwise. Nervous as I was, I looked down, and there were were the words "Pregnant".
The rest of the hours I waited for Jim to come home were a blur. I know I cried in disbelief, and I recall trying to come up with a clever way of sharing the news with Jim. I settled on not saying a word, but walking him straight into the bathroom to see the results for himself as soon as he walked in the door. He knew I had been feeling "off", but I think when he found out he was still in shock. It took both of us months to calm to the point where we believed this pregnancy was actually going to stick, and weeks later, a surgery to have a cerclage (a cervical stitch) put in place finally gave us the assurance we felt we needed to let ourselves be excited about this pregnancy.
Little one growing in my belly: I feel you. I see you move. It's surreal seeing your elbows and knees move across my belly, and to feel you roll against my insides. It's a miracle, and every second you continue to grow is such a joy to witness. As you grow, I'm watching you stretch the limits of my own skin. Yet, I know that your life will continue to stretch me in ways and limits I won't even know I can be stretched to. I know that my patience and grace will be stretched to capacity, knowledge and understanding will grow and expand, theories and parenting practices will be tried and tested to the limit. My love, however, will never need stretching, because it will always be limitless and unconditional. Your father and I already love you so much, and we don't even know your name. But we do know that you are ours, and that you ALWAYS will be, no matter what.
I can't wait to meet you, to hear you take your first breath, to see your little face, to touch your skin, to have you hear me tell you repeatedly how much I love and adore you, and someday to hear you say it back.
I can't wait to be your Mommy.
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