Childless Mother

As you can see from the sidebar of my blog, I follow many blogs of families that have adopted or are in the process of adopting. One of the blogs, "Where the Day Takes You", has recently started blogging again after a long hiatus. From what I have read, their adoption plans have turned in a different direction than they originally planned. Anyway, the author of this blog posted an AMAZING entry entitled, "What Exactly is a Childless Mother You Ask?" I was so amazed by how dead on she was that I had to share what she wrote. Yes, this was my life before Madeline and I feel for those women (and men) who are currently experiencing this pain. Please say a prayer for them to know peace and comfort in their hearts - it is more painful than most of you can imagine. Here is what she wrote:

What is a childless mother? Well, in this case it’s not anything you’d find if you Googled the term (which I just did). I’m not a bereaved mother who had a child(ren) that died. I’m not an incarcerated mother. I’m not a biological mother who gave her child up for adoption. I’m not an adoptive mother whose child was given back to its biological mother.

Simply put, I’m a wanna-be in waiting!!

I’ve never been pregnant- though not for lack of trying, believe me. To the average person, I am no kind of mother. There is no real word for what I am in the English language. Supposedly, I’m an “infertile woman”… but there is so much more to the experience as a person who wants children and can’t have them than plain old infertility. “Infertile” doesn’t begin to cover it! I AM a mother the kids just aren’t here yet!

So. I hereby declare that everyone ignore all the other uses for the term “childless mothers”- for I am taking a stand and changing it to exclusively describe ladies like me. It’s now for the women who’ve wanted yet never had so much as a false positive, or a blip on the pregnancy test. For those of us who have spent many 2 week waits giddy, talking to your belly and silently whispering “Am I? Could we be???”. For any woman who has spent hours crying asking the world why or who had to sit through one more relative’s baby shower and couldn’t explain that she was happy and sad and jealous all at once, or all who had to suffer through yet another friend or family member’s well-meaning-yet-heart-ripping “enjoy your freedom!” speech. All the while feeling tortured by that weird maternal feeling that lingers inside us all. She feels so, so ready for it all- everything in her life is lined up and waiting with baited breath for those children. She already FEELS like a mother- she is a mother in her heart & soul.

That’s what a childless mother is. If you meet one, be nice to her. And be nice to the childless fathers out there, too- they do exist.