Mother's Day

I have a love-hate relationship with Mother's Day. Sometime after a couple years of marriage, I started hating Mother's Day. No, I had not wanted to have a baby or had a miscarriage or anything by then, but it starting stirring negative emotions. I always felt like there were hidden messages like:

If you don't have a child yet, you haven't found your life's meaning. 

Good mothers don't work. God designed moms to be home with their children for as long as possible...maybe forever. 

In 2010, the first strongly hated Mother's Day rolled around. We had recently decided we wanted to have a child. Although we didn't know it, I was pregnant then. I actually skipped church because I didn't want to sit there hearing about how wonderful mothers are. Since we lost that pregnancy...and then a second one... before the next Mother's Day, well you can imagine that I didn't like the holiday any more the next year. We had actually just found out we would be moving to another state, so we spent that weekend looking for a place to live and hiding out in a hotel. It worked out quite well :) Avoidance is probably my favorite way to deal with hard truths.

Mother's Day of 2012 was a totally different experience. I both loved and hated Mother's Day. We were foster parents and had three kids at the time. We were finally "parents." I did receive a couple of Mother's Day gifts, included a very thoughtful family tree picture decoration from my mother in which we could hang wallets of all the children we might foster over the years. My husband and foster kiddos made a hand print collage that brought great sobs through my body. They were sobs of mixed emotions. I was overwhelmed and blessed that we got to parent those three foster kiddos and were now truly parents. I was grieving the loss of my two babies we never got to meet. I was deeply saddened as we were beginning the countdown for the two little kiddos to return home in a few weeks. I was hopeful that we would be able to adopt the oldest child, who had been with us since November - maybe he would be a part of EVERY Mother's Day. I was grieving the loss of the dream of having kiddos the normal way - get pregnant and have the baby. No matter what was to happen in the future, biological or adopted children or both, we would never have the happy pregnancy dream that little girls imagine when they think of motherhood. It had been tainted. I was also anxious to find my forever family and be done with all the stress.

This weekend's Mother's Day had me crying already. I cannot say that I love Mother's Day because it will always probably make me feel someone inadequate for not being "normal." That is horrible to put into writing. Let me clarify. My husband and I have been told repeatedly that there is no reason we cannot have babies like everybody else. No drugs, no interventions, just the old fashioned way. We are choosing not to do that. We chose instead to find our forever family on a waiting child list. This is definitely not how most people become parents. And yet, those are not the tears I am shedding. I cried several times this morning as I was so overcome with gratitude. Three years ago we could not have imagined that we would be in this location, with this journey to parenting, and these jobs. Could not have imagined it. But here we are. And you know what? I love it. I love my town - not very exciting by the world's standard, but it is exactly what we needed for this family. We enjoy our jobs, and we are both doing what we love every day. Most of all, however, we love our family. I was thinking that my kids came into foster care the same time we found out we were pregnant. We waiting the same number of months to find each other. For me, three years is a long time. For them, three years is a lifetime. How can this really be what I have been blessed with? Three kids who love us unconditionally and overwhelmingly? Who don't question the fact that we were meant to be together? How can I not blubber like a fool?

I have already received my Mother's Day gift. Unlike last year, it was not sentimental or homemade, and that doesn't bother me. Last year, the kids we were parenting were just stop along our journey. They taught us a lot about ourselves and parenting, we loved them a lot, and we weren't meant to be their parents forever. We needed to take hand prints and memorize the creases because we wouldn't get to see them every day. This year, I received a bike tag-along (actually my husband uses it because its too hard for me, so I still use the bike stroller). We used it last night to go on a whole family bike ride to DQ. All five us on two bikes. Reminds me of a book, Bears on Wheels. But I digress. Anyway, it was a great gift. I will be able to use it all the time, spending time with what I love most. So maybe I do love Mother's Day?