Becoming a Birth Mother
When you were young, did you dream of becoming a mother?
Did you dress up your dolls and cradle them as you sang lullabies and kiss their foreheads as if they were your own flesh and blood?
When you were nineteen years old, did you yearn to be a mother?
Did you see yourself responsible enough to carry out such a task?
I never dreamed of becoming a mother or even yearned for it. In fact, the daunting task frightened me. I was a wanderer, a free spirit, a gypsy soul. I wasn’t going to allow anything to tie my feet to my hometown. I yearned for wings, to see a world I had sparse experienced.
Don’t get me wrong, I spent hours playing Barbies as a young child. However, my Barbie women weren’t at home rocking children to sleep; they were kissing Ken as they quickly left for work.
As I sat on the chilling cold tile floor of my college dorm bathroom, I found no irony in the double red lines that stared back at me. The one who never longed to become a mother was now becoming just that.
