May 10, 2020
Mother’s Day was an extremely painful experience for several years. They say everything is relative. I give thanks for relativity; as it allows me to continue on my path as a human being, with various dimensions of experiences.
As years went by of longing to have a baby, and the continued losses, my heart broke. Year after year Mother’s Day would roll around and my broken heart felt like it was torn apart even more. I remember going to church one Mother’s Day, soon after a miscarriage, and they were handing out roses to the Mother’s. I felt so empty walking out the doors of the church and not being handed one of the roses. During those years I wrestled with my faith and with God’s plan. I could not understand why we were not blessed with a baby.
After many years and much intervention, as well as a two track plan of pursuing Adoption and In Vitro Fertilization to build our family, we became pregnant. I was so numb by that time. I went into that IVF cycle with the mantra: “Feel the fear and do it anyway!” I decided it would be my last cycle and if it was not meant to be, I prayed we would build a family through Adoption. But we were pregnant… with not one, not two; but three! We lost one… but at 24 weeks of pregnancy, I started letting my walls down and hoping that this might actually happen. After a hard pregnancy and undiagnosed pre-eclampsia that almost cost me my life, our twin double blessings were born. The path to their birth was full of darkness and pain, including the actual scary birth that lifted up all the elements of life and death. But.. I lived. And more important, the twins lived. And thrived. And we taught each other along the way. I call them my Prophets from the Minivan.
I never could have imagined the feelings of love that parenting has brought. And it is all richer by the broken path it took to get to being a Mother. I am grateful for that path and would have it no other way.
Today my young adult 21 year old twins, who are in their 4th year of college, coordinated a Zoom Mother’s Day Fam Chat. They are grown and we are in a new delightful stage of Mother/Daughter, Mother/Son relationship. However, this morning, they were both tucked in their beds in their college community housing, and my heart remembered them as fresh unknown beings. I remember looking at them as babies with so much wonder, and so much to learn. My heart is stronger for the broken path it took to have these children. I am grateful for the chance to grow our relationship and our love; and continue this journey together.
The twins sent me a gift package that was delivered late this afternoon. It held an Essential Oil Diffuser, Atlas Cedarwood Essential Oil for the Diffuser, and a box of Rose Tea. Ironically, they also ordered a dozen roses but Whole Foods, where they ordered from, was out of roses. You know… just like that Mother’s day decades before… I don’t really need the roses. All the relative aspects of my journey inform and shape me… the darkness and the light. That is the bouquet of blossoms I hold onto; and treasure.
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