I haven't thought of writing in a long time, but just like that I got the urge again. My thoughts started jumbling and tangling, spinning around and around like a load of clothes in a dryer, growing hotter and hotter needing to be taken out, folded, put away.
I have been a mother for 21 days now. The last time my thoughts demanded I write them down was last Christmas Eve when my heart was heavy with grief caused by the struggle of infertility. But I don't get to use that word, infertility. I don't know that story anymore. And it was never really mine. See, I went through my share of struggles with negative test after negative test. Fertility pills. Appointments. The trying and waiting month after month. Charts and graphs and prayers and patience. It wasn't just my physical body that went though its cycle but my emotions as well. Hopelessness and then hope...and then hopelessness. But, the positive pregnancy test did come. My belly did grow. I did hold my son, new to the world, against my bare chest and thanked God for His miracle of life.
So many others have not. And may never. Infertility is their story, that only they can really know. I won't try to say that I understand or even that I was given a glimpse...saying that, as I hold my sleeping baby boy, would be cruel.
I'm not sure when it is that a woman's switch flips to "mother". For some women, it seems like it was always on, and others' maternal instinct, even when handed their child, never kicks in. I knew the moment I looked at the word "positive" on the stick in my hand, that no matter what happened, my life would never be the same. But I wouldn't say I felt like a mother. I knew every time I rested my hand on my growing bump or felt my baby kick from the inside, that my body, my heart, was no longer my own. But I still wouldn't say I felt like a mother.
I can say I felt like a mother, truly for the first time, when I woke up out of sleep because I heard nothing. I understood what it means to be a mother in that small, fragile moment when I was desperately searching for a sign of life from my sleeping baby. As I waited to see his chest rise, or the blanket move, or to hear a sound, I realized how desperate I was. The short moment in-between the stillness and the sign of life showed me what it felt like to need his next breath more than my own.
And after that, I looked over at my own mother, asleep in the hospital room with me. And the way I saw her changed, because now I really understand how much she loves me and my sisters. Just thinking of this love makes me cry.
They say that after giving birth you are emotional because your hormones are out of order. And that may be true. but maybe some of the emotion comes from this newfound, limitless love.
It doesn't seem right that a woman can long for a child for months, years even, be given the gift, invest her soul in its wellbeing, and then have it taken away from her.
Children are lost at all ages, and I would say the ache is the same.
I am 26 years old and my mother still looks at me the way I look at my new baby. She is still desperate for me to take my next breath.
My mother has also lost a child. But she gets up everyday and does what it takes to keep breathing. Because of this and because of everything, I love her more than I can describe... You really can't describe love like that. You can try, but it can only be felt.
The world we live in is a fallen one. It is full of women who own the story of infertility and mothers who have lost their baby, no matter what age.
And maybe it's true that the reason I can cry for them and their hurt that I've never known is because "my hormones are out of order", but whatever the reason, I'm glad my thoughts can linger on this. I'm glad I can feel a piece of compassion even if it's heavy to carry. I welcome it, because it reminds me that God has blessed me with what I have only for now. It reminds me to live in light of eternity. It reminds me that this fallen world, it is not our home. And that, that is good news friends.
