expectant mother

"There are those who say to us, "You're lucky...you didn't have morning sickness, stretch marks, and cravings," or "At least you only had to wait three months to get your baby, rather than nine months." If you are like me and are planning to or have adopted a baby, you know how comments like this can hurt.

I want to tell them, "I have had morning sickness and afternoon sickness and evening sickness. Every time I thought of the fact that my body cannot conceive or sustain a pregnancy, I am heartsick." And stretch marks? My hope and faith bear the marks of being stretched to places that can only be seen with the divine eye of God. I have been pulled, prodded, poked, and stretched far beyond what any human eye can see. My heart has felt each of those stretches or exercises of my faith while waiting for God to answer our prayers.

Then there are the cravings. We throw the word "craving" around a lot in our everyday conversations, but have you ever looked up the word? Merriam-Webster defines craving as: "an intense, urgent, or abnormal desire or longing." I may not crave watermelon, ice cream, and pickles, but I have been struck by a craving - an intense, urgent desire - for a child for many years. It has been a longing so great that, at times, it is suffocating, leaving me teary, breathless, and in terrible emotional pain. People are correct: We haven't been waiting for nine months. It has been almost five years. I would take a nine-month waiting period over a five-year one anytime.

I am an expectant mother. I am not pregnant."

- Becky Saunders
taken from Stepping Stones newsletter

13 comments:

  1. This is beautiful! Can I repost it and link to you?

    ReplyDelete
  2. love it
    just this week i was told it wasn't fair that i didn't have to lose some baby weight. to which i replied, yes i did think it was fair that i didn't have that to deal with.
    if its okay w u i want to refer to this post sometime. is the whole post a quote? i notice u reference becky saunders at the end?

    ReplyDelete
  3. This is awesome, Heather. Can I borrow it?

    ReplyDelete
  4. wow. good stuff. really good stuff.

    ReplyDelete
  5. That is so well written. I may not know, through experience, what you are going through but I am trying so hard to "know". I think that birth mothers have nothing on adopting mothers. Birth mothers have it easy (unless there are unexpected medical problems and such) compared to what you are going through. In the end, you will be 1000 times more thankful for those sweet little lives than 90% of birth mothers. It will all be worth it.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks for this Heather. I'm a big fan. Beautiful.

    ReplyDelete
  7. You are all more than welcome to repost, since I didn't write it to begin with ;) (hope I'm not breaking any copyright laws here...don't tell on me)

    ReplyDelete
  8. This is breathtaking. And it speaks so much of what my heart felt for seven long years.

    People don't realize the damage their comments can do when they are sometimes trying to minimize our loss.

    Thank you for posting this.

    ReplyDelete
  9. love it! thanks for sharing this

    ReplyDelete

Dear (stalkers) readers,
I love your feedback so feel free to comment away! Just don't write anything too mean because I'll cry when I delete it!
Sincerely,
You're boostin' my ego