An Uncertain Mother

While scrolling Instagram the other day, I came across a video of a young couple anxiously waiting in their bathroom for a timer to go off. When the alarm sounded, they picked up a white plastic pregnancy test and burst into joyful tears and hugs. They were pregnant, and ecstatic about it. The video went on to show the woman pregnant and smiling, then later holding a tiny baby. An old but familiar song by Savage Garden played in the background…”I knew I loved you before I met you…”

This scene and the feelings it depicted were entirely foreign to me. For me, pregnancy did not induce that immediate joy or connection with the cluster of cells growing inside me. Looking back, I am not sure when the switch happened. How did I grow to love the tiny parasite growing inside me? When did I transform from a scared, uncertain woman into a mother?

Some women touch there growing bellies and gush about how much they already love their babies. They speak in hushed, excited tones about how happy they were when they saw the second line on the pregnancy test. Tears of joy flowed when the heard the flutter of a heart rate and saw the fuzzy image on the monitor at their first ultrasound.

Then there are women like me, who sat on the closed lid of the toilet seat in silence, holding the pregnancy test, too scared to move or speak. When I found out I was pregnant with my first son, the predominate emotion was not happiness or excitement, it was fear. I was scared about everything. Would I be a good mother? Would it impact my career, my body and my relationship? Would I lose my sense of self? Was I ready for a baby? Would the fear ever turn into excitement, let alone love?

I waited and waited for that light switch moment. Surely some milestone of pregnancy would jumpstart me into motherhood. But month after month after month, I went to appointments, peed in cups, collected blurry ultrasound pictures and waited for a rush of emotion. I took photos for social media displaying my growing belly and obsessively checked the tracking app, which compared the baby to a pea and later a kiwi.

Time ticked by…the baby kicked, we decorated the nursery and still, I didn’t feel ready or excited. Even when the nurse placed my newborn son in my arms, I didn’t think I felt the way I was supposed to. I knew in that moment that I would give my life for the baby, but what I really wanted to give him was unwavering love and I didn’t yet know how to do that.

Fast forward to today, I have two sons and I love them more than I can express with words. It is not a perfect, uncomplicated love. Instead, it is messy, fluid and expansive. During my pregnancy and early days with the baby, I was waiting for some love lightning bolt to hit me, but that isn’t how it happened. Day after day, I got to know my children. I fell in love with them just like I fell in love with their father. In his book, The Fault in Our Stars, John Green described falling in love like “the way you fall asleep: slowly, then all at once.”

With my husband, it wasn’t love at first sight. We were coworkers, then friends before finally falling in love. Slowly, over drinks, coffee dates, flirty emails and late-night chats, this near stranger became the most important person in my life. The same thing happened with my boys. Every time they curled their tiny fists around my finger or reached for me with sleepy arms, I fell deeper in love. There was no switch, no lightning bolt, just a series of seemingly mundane moments that added up to love.

While progressing through my motherhood journey, I’ve been lucky enough to meet many other mothers and hear stories of their unique experiences. Women come to motherhood from pregnancy, adoption, surrogacy and a variety of other ways. Some women are immediately joyful when they approach motherhood, like a fish taking to water. Others, like me, need time to adjust and maybe to mourn the parts of themselves that will evolve as they venture into this new chapter. There is no one right way or one right feeling. Everyone is different.

I didn’t feel like a mother when I found out I was pregnant or even when I held my babies for the first time. I earned motherhood, one bottle, bath and diaper at a time. I didn’t get one sudden jolt of emotion, but instead I get a steady, ever-expanding love. Best of all, I get to continue to fall in love with the different versions of my children as they grow and change.