If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew, To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you, Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

 

 

Oh sweet baby. Mothers Day is Sunday, and to say that I'm not taking it well is an understatement.

 

Part of me wants to scream.  I want to scream out to the world to get them to understand that this isn't right. How they can keep on moving when my world has been shattered so much? I want to scream until there isn't a single breath left in my lungs, until they sting with the energy I've expended and my words hang in the air for all to hear. I should be a Mom by now. It was my turn. It's been my turn so many times....and yet here I am, at this junction again- a childless Mother on Most Definitely Not a Mothers Day.

The part of me that doesn't want to scream wants to curl up into a ball and pretend this isn't happening. I was supposed to have not one, but two bouncing babies on my lap this year. This year was supposed to be different, it was supposed to be my first mothers day.

 

And to be honest, this holiday is not just full of sadness this year- but it's also full of fear.

The fear that I will never be a mother hangs over my head like a storm cloud following me around. It's the little voice whispering in my ear when I'm searching the greeting card aisle, taunting me, "will you ever get one of these cards?" It's the lump in my throat that chokes on the tears whenever I hear another pregnancy announcement or adoption match announcement, not because I'm not happy for them or excited, but because I wonder- again- if I will ever get to be in their shoes. Will I ever get to be a mother? Will I ever find you?

It's the disdain for every greeting card, every TV commercial, every restaurant promotion, every radio ad, every magazine cover... all of these reminders that I am not, in fact, not a mother. That I failed. That what has come so easy to so many others is still an every day battle for me. That I don't have my precious baby to spend this holiday with, that I am once again knocked down, because I let my hopes get so incredibly high.

 

It's the reminder that another year has passed without you here.

That hurts most of all.

 

I know that it will all be worth it. You mean more to me than any holiday, any time table and every heartache we've endured. I know that this is just part of the journey to get to that elusive finish line, that even if I cannot see it, I feel that it's there somewhere in the distance.

 

The other day I reread one of my most favorite poems, If by Rudyard Kipling. A lot of the words spoke to me now more than ever:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
‘ Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!

 

Right now, there is nothing in me but the will to be your Mother. That is my will telling me to hold on, to not get caught up in the loss and get tired of waiting. I refuse to sink, because sinking means not getting to you- not being your mother. I refuse.

So I've been thinking of my own If's for this Mothers Day.

If I can wade through the greeting card aisle, and focus on the positives, like having my own mother and mother in law who support and love us every step of the way.  If I can hold my head up, and count my blessings. If I can believe, really believe that you'll be here soon. If I can pick myself up ten times after getting knocked down nine. If I can tie a knot and hold on with everything that is in me. If I can keep preparing, keeping moving in the direction of our dreams. If I can let myself feel that deep down, this waiting and heartache will end.  If I can let myself let go of the pain, let go of what was supposed to be and what isn't and prepare myself body and soul for the goodness that is coming down the road if I just keep on walking.

If I don't give up.

 

Then mine is the earth and everything that's in it,

And- which is true - that is you, my daughter or son! 

 

And if you're not here next year, I will just keep trying. I will never give up on you, on us being a family. I will push through all the hurt and pain and glaring reminders. I will silence that little voice of doubt in the back of my head, and replace the if's of doubt with the if's of reassurance.

 

I will be a mother. I will find you, sweet baby.

No if's, ands or buts.

 

Waiting for the earth and everything that's in it, 

With love and unwavering hope this Not Yet a Mothers Day,

Love,

Mom

 

 

When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts. A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child.

Little One, it's been a crazy long week! I've been in Philadelphia for most of the week for work, and Rick has been home. It's been tough being away, but it was a good distraction from the impending black cloud of Mothers Day this weekend.

That was until tonight, when your Dad and I made the pilgrimage to look at Mothers Day cards at Target. Pouring through pink envelopes filled with sappy sentiments, cheap jokes and childish poems we found an odd card among the mounds of Mothers Day greetings. A card about waiting. The label actually said it was an adoption card. It even included the phrase, "you can finally bring your little one home."

And it hit me, Lo. This card was in the Mothers Day section, because I am amother. I'm just a childless mother.

 

It's a weird predicament not many would understand.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about motherhood. What does motherhood mean? How do you define it? When in adoption do you actually become a mother? Am I a mother because this is our decision? Am I a mother when you're placed in my arms? Am I a mother when the home study is complete? Am I a mother when the final adoption paperwork is signed?

 

I believe it's all of the above and none of the above. I am your mother now. I put your needs before my own, I think about you night and day, I live and breathe and would take a bullet for you. My every breath is only an effort for me to live to move one step closer to you. For the shot to hold you in my arms. For the chance to be your mother. I'm going through hell in my own head and heart in order to just have a glimmer of hope to be your parent. I love you more than life itself.  

My God, if that isn't a parent then I don't know what the hell is.

 

I am a mother. I am expecting you, I just don't know when. I have to say, maybe selfishly, that takes a bit of the sting off of mothers day. In the past, I didn't feel like a mother on mothers day, I felt like a woman who was bitter over infertility. There is still that woman inside of me, fighting to come out and hem and haw at mothers day cards and hallmark commercials. But then the adoptive Mother bear in me comes alive and fights that bitter woman down. and roars in her protective voice, "I AM a mother, whether society sees it or not."

It doesn't matter that you're not here yet. Motherhood to me means love, protection, fighting for your children tooth and nail for them to have the best life possible, nurturing, caring, placing the needs of your kid before your own. I do all of that and more already, I am Mom.

It might not be traditional parenting yet. I'm not yet changing your diapers, feeding you a bottle, watching you drift peacefully to sleep in your car seat on a long ride home. But I'm placing fliers up, handing out our business card, cleaning up for social workers, going to adoption seminars. I'm laying the groundwork for the diapers and bottles and car seat naps of the future.

My love for you surpasses everything right now. I love you beyond what a greeting card encompasses.

 

And Hallmark doesn't make a card for that.

 

Waiting for the Mothers Day card aisle of next year,

Love,

Mom

We all have our time machines. Some take us back, they're called memories. Some take us forward, they're called dreams.

Sunday was one of those days where I wish you were here now, Little One.RB and I went to do some work on our camper, and the car battery ran out from me playing music a little too long with the windows down as we twiddled away at the wires. When we got back in the car, there was the tell-tale sign: the unimpressive drrrnnnk as we turned the key.

This might have bothered some people, but RB and I are pretty laid back about things like this. Especially lately, things have been put into perspective a great deal. It's a beautiful thing. We took it as a sign: get out of the car and enjoy some more sunshine. It was a beautiful day.

Eventually, the car started. It seemed like magic, "I'll try it just one more time," I thought, and with a burst of power the lights flickered on and the engine purred sweetly. As RB finished with the camper wires, I drove in circles in the storage parking lot, each time passing him and shrugging my shoulders, "I guess I just have that magic touch!" I yelled to him from the open window.

To save the battery, we decided to take a drive to nowhere. This is something we used to do a lot when we were dating. We'd drive around, especially at night, talking, listening to music loudly with the windows down, enjoying the open stretch of road that seemed as never ending as our possibilities in life. The starry night sky and the headlights outlining our path were the only illumination, and we'd just relax and enjoy the journey to no real destination. Some of our best conversations were in the car on nights like that, and we fell deeper in love in those long rides at night with nothing but us, the roar of the engine and the stars above.

Nowadays, to take a drive with no purpose is a luxury. The price of gas is so astronomically high we have to conserve every drop, but Sunday was different. We drove to an off-beaten path, saw the water and stopped the car to watch some galloping horses in a field right off the road. We took a minute to just enjoy the journey with no destination: to suck the marrow out of the bone of life.

And I remember on days like Sunday what it felt like to be a child. What it felt like to have no worries, to be carefree and feel secure and to just enjoy the ride.

You see, Little One, when I was young I was very, very sick. At two and a half years old I was diagnosed with Scleroderma, a rare autoimmune disorder. Doctors told my parents time and time again that I was going to die, to plan a funeral and detach themselves. But my parents are fighters, and they refused to listen. They did everything in their power for me to get better and flourish, and I did. Once the doctors stopped telling them I would die, they started telling them I would never be able to walk, that I'd be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of my life. When the insurance company refused to pay for physical therapy for me, my mother stepped in and learned what she could and did it for me at home. I still credit my parents defiance and hard work to me not only being able to walk and run and have a childhood, but also to me even being alive.

I want to be that kind of parent for you.

I want to fight for you to have the best life you can have. To flourish, to feel safe and secure even when I'm scared you're not, and to be a fighter yourself. I want to educate you with everything I can, to give you the power to be independent and strong like my parents did for me.

Never in my childhood did I feel like I was different. Never did I feel like I was the sick kid, the weird one, the one that was going to die. Even in the years I spent in a leg brace, through the countless surgeries and procedures, the times when I had to be schooled at home because I was too sick to go in: I don't look back on those memories with hurt or any type of doubt. I look back and think, my God did my parents sacrifice for me. They loved me enough to give me a childhood that this disease tried to take away. They played a tug of war with scleroderma, my childhood being the anchor in the middle, and they fought for so many years and they won.

Of course I remember the hospital stays. I remember the surgeries, the pain, the shots. I remember waking up with fevers and celebrating birthdays in braces or in bed. But they are not the keypoints of my childhood. They are the tiny dots in a timeline littered with great memories of trips, birthday parties and friendships. More than anything I remember a childhood filled with laughter, security and happiness. I can recall with great clarity summers spent on my bike, fishing in the creek, going to museums and Niagra falls and then bragging about them when I got back. Best of all, I remember being eight years old and told I was finally in remission.

I sometimes I get down, Little One, when I think of how easy it is for other people to have a family. It makes me sad at times that other people can just look at someone else and get pregnant- and not even care. They don't appreciate life, their own or their childs. And it upsets me sometimes when I think about it. When someone new announces a pregnancy on facebook and says, "Oh yeah, I guess we're just 'lucky' to have two kids in two years- yeah right!"  I look at that and think...yeah, you actually are extremely lucky. But then I put things in perspective.

You're going to have an awesome childhood.

Those other kids whose parents don't respect or value life don't understand. They've never been on the brink of death. They've never had to watch their parents fight and sacrifice to give them what they so easily had- a childhood without worry. When small insignificant things happen, their world implodes like everything is ending. Our family won't be that family.

Our family will be the pilot light, constantly on ready to ignite the passion we have for life within each other. We'll make outstanding memories at every corner. We'll try our hardest to make the hard things in life easier. We'll learn about everything we can in this world together.

We'll be on fire with life.

And you will have an amazing childhood, no matter what hurdles we face. I know this because I know the strength I have, the same strength my parents had. It won't always be easy to be "the adopted kid." I know that, because it wasn't it wasn't always easy to be "the sick kid." But I also know that RB and I love you more than anything already, and we'll fight until the bitter end to give you everything you deserve out of a childhood.

You're going to enjoy the journey to nowhere that makes childhood so great. You'll feel the security of our arms wrapped around you and the laughter and happiness in our family memories.

 My God, what a beautiful life you're going to have, I can already see it. I feel like I'm in that car with RB again as a teenager, the road stretched so far in front of us we can't see where it ends.

Even on days like Sunday: just driving around, stopping to see the beautiful world around us. I wish you could have been there, to have that memory with us. I know I've said this often in here but I'm so glad I decided to chronicle the journey getting to you. I'm so glad that even on days where you're not here yet, you can experience the emotions we felt. In my heart of hearts I know that in the near future, there will be many days spent making wonderful family memories, even if its just a Sunday drive together.

I hope that when you read this when you're older you'll realize how much we loved you, each other, and our family.

 

Waiting for Sunday with Love,

Mom