When I was pregnant with my first baby everyone asked, “Do you want a boy or a girl?” I would smile and say something politically correct like, “Well, it really doesn’t matter, but it would be fun to have a girl.”
I really wanted a girl. Like I really, really wanted a girl. So much so that I prayed and asked God to give me a girl.
My lifetime has not been childless. I was only without a child for a season, even though I didn’t know at the time that it would only be for a season. So I don’t write this prayer with any sense of truly knowing what’s it’s like to never have a biological or adoptive child. I write this prayer out of my own past memories on Mother’s Day and the feelings I felt. I write this prayer because my heart aches for those of you who do not have children, for whatever reason, and who desperately want them. This is the prayer I’m praying for you.
Mother’s Day is tomorrow, and I feel I should write something about motherhood and being a mom because I’m a writer and I have a blog, so isn’t that what I should do? Not to mention I found out just this past Wednesday that I’m having another girl and today we decided on her name.
But to be honest I have nothing more to say about motherhood. Everything has already been said.
Motherhood seems so cliché.
I was told that second (and third and fourth and so on) pregnancies go by faster than the first one because that other baby you now have keeps your mind a little preoccupied. Not to mention your body that’s busy chasing her! Well, for me that couldn’t be more true. I cannot believe that I am approaching the half-way mark. Believe it or not, it makes me a little sad, and happy, at the same time.
With my first baby I loved being pregnant. Loved it. This one has been harder, however, one thing I still love is knowing this is the closest physically I’ll ever be with my child again. From the time he or she is born until forever, he (or she) will be moving further away from me. Which is the way it’s supposed to be, and that’s a good thing. But for now, I like him (or her) right here. I have 24 more weeks of “as close as I ever will be” and I’m going to savor it.
As we wait, we continue to grow . . .
Every Monday I go to the doctor to find out how much more of my baby has left me that week. They take blood and a few days later I get the results. For several weeks now I’ve seen the number of the hormone level decrease.
And I cry.
It’s good, they tell me, that the hormone that once showed up on a little plastic stick and initiated eternal joy into my soul is almost gone. But for me it’s the last I have of him . . . or her.
Growing up we decorated for Christmas the Saturday after Thanksgiving every year. My dad, brother, and I would pile in the car – a burgundy Chevrolet Monte Carlo, mind you – and make the trek to the Christmas tree farm. Having grown up 20 miles outside of Atlanta, my husband doesn’t believe me when I tell him that I never saw pastures of land and farm animals. Well, this was the one day of the year that I may have seen a cow or two.
My mom didn’t go with us because she said she couldn’t bear walking through a Christmas tree farm bypassing the short, thin Virginia Pines for the tall, beautiful Frasier Firs. “It would break my heart”, as she put it, and she’d want to take all the Charlie Brown Christmas trees home.
