Fifteen thoughts on becoming a mother.

The doctor gave me the news while the ultrasound wand was still inside of me. That alone was traumatic. You’re not supposed to be given bad news while you’re being penetrated. “There is nothing really for you to do. It’s just likely, given what you have going on here, that you won’t be able to conceive. I’m sorry.” She then removed the instrument and patted me condescendingly on my knee. “When you WANT to explore having children, I would say try, but know that you’ll most likely need a medical intervention and even then...we’ll just have to see.” She was calm, but I sensed an undercurrent of pity, as though my faulty uterus was a failure on my part. She shrugged and left. I dressed, left the building and sat on a bench in the wan light of a San Francisco evening. I didn’t move until the sun had set dramatically over the hospital and my seat had gone cold. I had just come in for my annual exam. I hadn’t expected a life-changing verdict. I was 21.

I am one of four children with two older sisters who have four and three children respectively. My first niece was born when I was six. I was a nanny for a family with two children and they had a third while I was in their employ. I started working for them when I was 12 and their oldest was four. I worked for them every summer all through college. I have potty-trained, been spit up and pooped on and can get any child to sleep no matter what the circumstances. Whenever I talked with my friends about our futures everyone always remarked, “Well, Jen will be the first mother and probably have the most kids…” and I would smile and agree. Wasn’t that how life was supposed to go? You worked towards your college degree, found a career and someone to love, married them and then, after a sensible amount of time, started a family? It seemed like an easy enough plan. When I was 17, this is what I thought.

At the moment I found out that I might not be able to have children, my world split into two paths. The one I was supposed to follow veered one way and I went in the other, ridiculous direction - the road down which I might find myself without offspring. I wasn’t supposed to be there. I was supposed to be on that other path. But two roads collided and I took the road I didn’t want to travel because the other one had a sign that said, “CLOSED” across its entrance. And here I was on this other route, feeling lost. It had been a forced departure and there was no way back.

But I was 21. I was single and not in immediate danger of having to tell someone that if they wanted to procreate, they might want to find another uterus. One with an extended warranty. And I hadn’t even though of having children for years…years and years. But for a while after that appointment, I saw babies everywhere and felt heavy at the thought that I might never have one of my own.

And then I fell in love. I thought he was the one. It was passionate and fast and I saw everything I wanted when I caught our combined reflection. One morning as he made breakfast with his shorts slid down to his hips and his hair all slept on wrong, I said, “I think I’m falling in love with you.” I was just as startled as he was. I had never said those words and meant them. He flipped the eggs and looked up at me. There was a long pause and his jaw tensed and relaxed as if he was chewing on his words and then he said, “I think I’m getting there…” And it was then that I didn’t feel safe anymore. I let it go on like that for a while - my youthful inexperience willing his heart to catch up with mine. It didn’t. I couldn’t remain within the still, stagnant well of incomprehension. And so I left. He didn’t stop me. I spent years balanced on the fulcrum of anger and anguish. I was 23.

Later, we are still friends and I meet him for a drink when I’m in town. We sit cross-legged at either end of a bench, like book ends, watching the sun set. He says, “I made the biggest mistake, not fighting for you. Come back. I want to have a family with you. I want you to be the mother of my children.” My head rings with the words. I tell him my secret. I haven’t though about it in some time – there has been no reason to. But his confession deserves one of my own and so I reveal what is broken. His face changes and in his eyes I am now somehow damaged. The world feels tilted as I tell him no - we made the right decision in separating when we did. He doesn’t press the issue and goes on to talk about other things. The sun goes down and we leave and I don’t talk to him again for a very long time. I feel barren for many reasons but I’m simultaneously reminded of how lucky we are when we are spared what we want.

Summer slid into autumn and one night while I out with friends, I met the man that several years later I married. Marcs equilibrium doesn’t tilt easily and I admire that. He always walks around with a trace of a smile, and in that smile is a hint of generosity, as if he expects you to be right about most things and will be kind to you if you aren’t. Being with him, I felt as though someone had turned on all the lights inside of me. I don’t remember exactly when we decided that this was it, that we were each others one. It just happened. And when I told him that my insides might not work properly, that carrying on the family name might turn into something of a science project, he just smiled and said, “That’s fine. I’m not sure I want kids anyways. I’m with you,” and went back to what he was doing. The corners of my mouth hurt from smiling. Our wedding was in June. I carried pink peonies. I was 28.

Marriage with Marc hasn’t always been easy, but our mistakes, our difficulties have been solved and swept aside by mutual acts of will. We went on for years in our cocoon. Marc held me up when the world was unjust, ever offering his helping hand, and I did the same for him. Our friends married and prospered around us, and by and by some of them started having children. This was new for Marc who had not been surrounded by babies as I had. I saw something soften in him as he picked up these new little lives and saw his friends in their faces. He turned to me one day and said, “I want one.” Half sick with fear, I said, “All right. We will try.” I wanted to give him everything he wished for and I was afraid my destiny instead would be to unwillingly sell him short. We had been married for two years. I was 30.

I took my temperature. I peed on sticks. Marc came home at lunch for sex. I was aware of when I was ovulating and when I wasn’t. At first we were filled with glee, like we were getting away with something. That faded. Soon, every month became a heartbreak. Every time I looked in the mirror, my blue eyes shone on the edge of panic and my stomach often hurt, as though I was lifting something heavy. My insides felt like a hushed and vacant space. In my mind, I was permanently sitting on that bench outside of my doctors office in San Francisco, hope washing out of me. I was 31.

“You have time. I mean, it doesn’t look good, but nothing is for sure,” said my new physician. “You know all of your options. You don’t really have to worry about closing up shop until you’re 35. You have, by the way, very happy looking ovaries. Why don’t you just keep trying and then come back in a year?” My insides were wracked with endometriosis. While my ovaries were “happy” they were simultaneously being swallowed by this mass of tissue that was keeping them from doing their job. Despite a large percentage of women suffering from infertility due to endometriosis, there is little research being done to combat this condition. We are simply told that motherhood might not be within our grasp and then given pamphlets on adoption and support groups or told to have surgery that in many cases isn't a permanent solution. The tissue grows back like a cancer. I returned home and summarized what the doctor had said to Marc. He said we would just keep trying…that he didn’t marry me for my eggs. I hadn’t married him for his sperm, either, but knowing that I wasn’t able to give him a child made me feel haggard and spent.

I don’t remember much of 32 or 33. I remember feeling as though the world did not play fair; that it didn’t care if I learned my lessons from it or not. I felt like something washed ashore after a shipwreck. I attempted to forget that we had ever started this project and instead tucked it away with other nonsensical things we said or did. It was filed away next to ideas such as the time Marc thought shaving his head would make him look like a badass and my temporary foray into kick-boxing. I just wanted it to disappear into the ether.

I turned 34. After a harsh winter I crawled out of what felt like a fugue state. We went to Mexico. I sat and looked out over the water. Sun sparkled on its surface; a tiny sailboat tacked. The sky above was an enameled, solid blue and it was here that something inside of me broke and all of the sadness leaked out and away and into the sea and I felt for the first time that I could take a deep breath. I felt as though I was able to stop yearning for more and instead could regard my life and say, “Look. Look at all that I have.” I went up to our room and layed myself carefully down on our bed as if all of my bones were sore and slept deeply. Later, Marc came in after a run and joined me, holding me close. “Are you happy?” he asked. “Yes,” I replied. And he knew that it was not a lie.

Towards the end of the trip, my body had begun to hurt and ache in a way that reminded me of the flu. But it was different. The last night we were there, we went down to the beach to watch the sun set. We stayed long past dark, listening as the ghostly surf rumbled before us. The sand was almost cold and Marc piled a mound of it on my feet, patting it around my ankles. “Have you had your period yet?” he asked. I did the mental math in my head. “I think I’m a little late…but that’s not unusual.” I said this with a great deal of nonchalance, but something inside of me exploded and I found myself holding my breath. That night, as we lay in bed, I adjusted myself to fit alongside Marcs arm and tried to match my breathing to his. I knew. I spent that night staring at the ceiling. Happiness mounted inside of me.

We flew home the following evening, the land beneath us an inky chasm lit by the scattered sparks of suburbia. The next morning, I sat on the toilet and watched the pregnancy test change colors. The second line turned pink. I felt something drop in the hollow of my back and I knelt on the floor staring at this thing, this silly little stick that told me I was going to be a mother. I looked in the mirror. My eyes were filled with brightness. It had happened.

I’ve often felt defeated, as though I’m not a good woman, that I’ve failed those who love me and as though I’m always on the verge of losing my grip on everything. Marc would say that I judge myself too harshly. I would just say that it’s taken me longer than most to find my place in the world and that I had to stretch and break away parts of myself to find this version of me, the one that leans into love and understands how to be a part of this life. And that my faith in things happening as they ought, though sometimes dim and covered in shades of gray, finally brought me to a place of peace. And that perhaps by letting go of my rendition of my story, a new one was finally able to form.

Come October, I’ll know how it’s supposed to go.