Memories

Upon receiving my email announcing the long-awaited birth of my son, a friend reminded me that just a year ago, "everything was doom and gloom" in my life. The joy that arrived in my household with this little boy has so outshone the past heartaches, it is nearly impossible for me to recall those feelings of childlessness in my heart. My head, however, still remembers vividly.

I will never be able to forget how, as a teenager, I was first bitten by the "baby bug" after reading Dibs in Search of Self. The book describes how a young boy responded to play therapy. The amazement I felt in reading his progress not only guided me to my career path, it also made me look at the importance of parenthood with youthfully opinionated eyes. I spent my early twenties studying child development and parenting, trying to glean every drop of currently available knowledge on the topics; I was preparing to be what in my opinion is the starting point of a better world: a terrific parent.

Read more about the joys of Motherhood. Other "Now I Know" columns include:

Introduction

Clutter

Distraction

Equal Parenting

Grandparents

Pain

Photographs

Sacrifice

Preparation
Pride
Sentimentality

I took what I had learned and applied it in my various jobs, always working with children and families. From those professional experiences, I increased my knowledge and formed more moderate opinions on what makes a "good" parent. As my thirties approached, I was not yet in a position to be a mother myself, and I started feeding my need to nurture through the many stray animals that I gathered and cared for. In many ways, though I was single, I lived a lifestyle that would be conducive to children, looking scrupulously on the habits that I formed as practice for parenthood. The most important feature of any man whom I dated was his stance on children -- not just whether he wanted any, but whether he actually valued them in the same way that I did.

After all of this, when I found the man with whom I would have children, I was completely taken aback to find that pregnancy would not come easily for us. Then, once we seemed to get past the conception hurdle, I was doomed to miscarry four times in three years. The thoughts that tore at my mind were not unlike those that others in my shoes are tormented by -- perhaps I have failed at something, some previous test that I did not know about, or perhaps I am just not meant to have children.

In the last eighteen months of our attempts to bring a living child into this world, I started considering life without children. My husband and I had talked and agreed that if our efforts were failed by the time I was forty, we would cease any extra attempts and move to a place where I have always longed to live. If we couldn't have children, at least we could live on a beautiful, albeit economically challenged, island surrounded by blue water. While we had not completely written off the idea of adoption, the idea had never really appealed to me personally, perhaps from working in the field professionally and seeing some failed situations.

Then, as I like to think of it, the universe smiled on us. We conceived, stayed pregnant, and finally delivered a beautiful baby boy in April. We had a hard time believing our good fortune throughout the pregnancy, and even having the baby here at home with us feels surreal. The sleepless nights, the new sort of worries we now have, the endless activity -- none of it surprises or has gotten the better of us. I have finally been graced with what I have always "trained" for, personally and professionally. It all feels so natural and normal.

However, for all of that mellow satisfaction, I have been truly surprised by one thing. I recall how my mother once put it, many years ago: "everyone told me before I had a baby how I wouldn't get any sleep, how I would worry about things that never worried me before -- but no one ever prepared me for how much I would love this little thing..."

I must completely echo the sentiments of my mother. For all of my years spent preparing to parent, reading up on pregnancy, labor, and delivery, studying child development, nothing I ever read or even experienced could prepare me for the feelings that engulfed me as soon as that boy came springing out of me.

I was not totally blindsided by these emotions. I have cared for many children over the years, and truly loved them. When my first nephew was born over twelve years ago, I first experienced the feeling that I could easily lay down my life for another person. I was awed at the emotions then; now, I am totally overjoyed that I feel the same things still, only even more intensely for this new little person.

Now I am reading up on the topic of parenting after infertility and loss, something which I could not have fully understood before now. I will never, ever forget what it was like to stare into the void of a future without my own child. I want everyone who desires to be a parent to feel what I feel, and I will continue to assist them in whatever manner I am able.

My son has added an entirely different dimension to my world, and the words simply do not exist to fully describe what goes on in my heart, my body, and my soul now. The past four weeks have been a transcendent whirlpool of grateful tears seemingly from nowhere. Well, maybe the words do exist, but as I swim in the complexity and richness of this blessed event, I cannot yet discern every drop that washes over me. I look forward to a long life of finding new meanings for myself and others, thanks to my son.

"Now I Know" first appeared on Moms Online, part of the Oxygen Media network (http://oxygen.com), and is reprinted with permission.

Now I Know

Memories Awash with Joy