{thoughts on motherhood}

steve aka sricpin/flickr

floridapfe/flickr
ferdi's world/flickr
iPhotograph/flickr
happy mother's day to all of you mothers as well as to all those of you who want to be mothers but for some reason or another can't. yet.
as someone who went through a major infertility trial, i know how mother's day can be when your heart is aching to be a mother and it's just not happening. i waited for 14 years (!!!) to be a mother. how tough was it? only those who have gone through the same thing, for as long as i did, know. each year it got worse and worse. it got to the point where i didn't want to be around anyone on mother's day. jay and i even went out of town once to escape it all. it all was just too much. i still remember the feelings i had back then even though now i know that all turned out well. the wait was all worth it. now we have sienna who is such a joy to us. life seems more complete. sometimes i think that i can appereciate motherhood more than other mothers because i had to wait for so long. i sure don't ever want to catch myself complaining about any part of motherhood. it is a blessing to be a mother.
i always thought i'd have three children. i even had names picked. two girls, one boy. life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans, right? i never planned to be such an old mom either. i don't get it that the trend seems to be to wait until you're 40 or so to have kids. you just don't have the same energy as you did in your 20's, for example. all our friends have teenagers/older children. it makes me sad at times to think how old i'll be when sienna will be 20, or when she'll be 30... i just hope i can be there when she will have children of her own.
sometimes i still feel like an outsider when i'm with other moms. they talk about their pregnancies and deliveries. what can i say? no, i don't have stretchmarks from being pregnant (i just have them from being a woman) but i do have emotional stretchmarks to match anyone's physical ones. no, i did't go through a painful delivery but i sure was in a lot of emotional pain for years. i didn't have nine months to get used to the idea that the baby was coming. i had to do it all in less than a month.
we all have our own trials.
i don't know how i could have handled multiple miscarriages, for example. my hopes where shattered many, many times. but at least they were shattered without first being so excited about being pregnant. yes, there were many months when i thought i was pregnant. i remember being so mad at myself a few times for forgetting to mark my last period in the calendar. but that's not the same as having been pregnant and losing the baby.
but even when we got sienna, our trial wasn't over. for 13 months we still had to live in fear that someone was going to come and take our her from us (someone tried to stop the adoption and it took that long for all the court proceedings). it makes me cry even now when i think about it. such a joyful time in our lives but shadowed with terrifying fear as well.
so...
oh how much i love being a mom.
even when it's tough.
being a parent is the hardest job in the world. but also the most rewarding.

ps. check out:

www.nieniedialogues.blogspot.com

one amazing mama! reading her blog makes you look at your life in a whole new perspective.

ps. (meidän adoptiotarina)