Clusterfook Mom

The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new. ~Rajneesh

The other day I found myself starting to have writer’s block which is unusual because I never run out of things to say. My life has been focused around one thing for the past few months that everything else seems like fluff. However, life is going on around me despite what I’ve been focused on. Do you know what I mean?

So what do you do when you have writer’s block? You announce it on Twitter to let everyone know you can’t think of a thing to write about. That builds expectations high. I mean really, I know that there is nothing more interesting than reading a post that someone writes just for the sake of writing a post.

Then Karen came to my rescue with two topics she was interested in:

I’d be interested to know if you always wanted to be a mom…and what career did you want when you were in grade school?

Today, I’ll answer the part about wanting to be a mom…

Some women can say they were born to be a mom but I’m not one of those women. I know women that grew up wanting nothing more than to get married and become a mom but I can honestly say I was not one of those women. That maternal clock that some women talk about? I don’t think I ever felt any of that tick-tocking from within.

I’ve been married three times. The first marriage happened in my early 20’s. The wedding was gorgeous and I had 16 people in my wedding party. Unfortunately, the marriage lasted five months but fortunately we didn’t have any children. I don’t even remember discussing children with my first husband.

My second marriage also happened in my 20’s. My second husband was adamant about not having children and I was fine with that. I spent so much of my 20’s in therapy dealing with my own childhood that the thought of having a child was too overwhelming anyway. Our marriage ended after two years when my second husband discovered he was a born again Christian and I was fighting for my right to party.

Then came Dude. Right before I turned 30 we started dating. One afternoon in October 2006 we went to Stoudt’s Oktoberfest. We drank our share of bier from the Bier Garten that day. A month later I woke up one morning feeling very ill. Dude joked around and said, “maybe you’re pregnant.” Sure enough the pregnancy test was positive and he was right.

Right away Dude wanted to get married even though we had been dating for three months. I thought it was a recipe for disaster. Then he agreed. I knew there was no way I wanted to be a mother. I had just returned to college and had visions of spending a year in Heidelberg, Germany. I wanted to finish my degree and become a German teacher. I wanted a classroom of kids to call me “Frau”.

I didn’t want to lose Dude either…

So we got married.

I hated pregnancy. Hated it. I hated pregnancy with both Cam and Teenie. Pregnancy never agreed with my body either. WIth Cam I had severe preeclampsia and almost died. With Teenie I went into pre-term labor at 16 weeks and was on bed rest from week 27 to week 32. Both of them were born prematurely. Cam came 17 weeks early and Teenie came six weeks early.

When Cam was born I didn’t get to hold her for the first six weeks of her life. When I finally did get to hold her there were so many tubes and wires attached to her that it was like holding some sort of mechanical robot baby. To be honest, it made bonding with her very difficult and it made motherhood very confusing.

My first year of motherhood was all about doctor’s appointments, hospitals and interventional therapies to prevent developmental delays. I couldn’t relate to “normal” moms with “normal” babies. I was on alert to see if my child was going to have cerebral palsy or mental retardation because she was at very high risk due to her extreme prematurity.

Although it’s all how Cam’s life began and how motherhood began for me it’s still a very painful time in my life to remember. It’s still painful to talk about. There is no way to describe the tornado I felt like I was in going from dating Dude…to marrying Dude…to becoming the mother of a critically ill, 15 ounce baby in less than eight months. Living in crisis mode for the following year was pretty brutal too.

It wasn’t how I envisioned motherhood but you deal with what you are handed. After spending her first four months of life in the hospital I didn’t want anything to happen to Cam. I didn’t think twice about staying home with Cam during her first few years of life. Sure it meant giving up my career dreams of finishing my college degree and becoming a teacher but her health was more important. She was more important.

I am who I am today because of Cam. I’m blessed to be her mother because she is a miracle child. Life with her got easier and then we had Teenie. When I had two children in diapers at the same time I thought I was going to lose my mind. Now that they are 11 and eight I love being a mom. They are a great ages right now. Just old enough yet not too old.

I still have days where I’m not sure if I want to be a mom but I guess it’s too late for that, isn’t it? That’s the thing with kids…I’m “Mommy” whether I want to be or not. Whether they are killing each other over the remote control or hugging each other to death I love them both and I’m glad they made me a mother.