Happy You Gave Birth Day to me!!

Nine years ago, today, I technically became a mom.

I say technically because really? The mom thing didn’t happen for a while.

Oh, I mean, I gave birth and all that. It was a rather painful, forced affair in which my stomach was cut open and two really small infants were wretched outward. I was so doped up on painkillers I don’t remember the vast majority of it. I do remember the huge needle they stuck in my spine. And I do recall the labor and delivery nurse yelled at me because I still had my bra on. Dude. I was totally unaware you had to TAKE YOUR BRA OFF to have a baby. I’d never given birth before.

And seriously? This may be a question that all real girls already know the answer to, but WHY do you have to take your bra off? Do my saggy boobs really need to be exposed to the world in order for me to have a freaking c-section? That just seems like it might scare people rather than do anything good whatsoever.

It’s a weird thing though. To have a baby (or in my case babies) and not really be able to feel like a mom.

All I ever wanted to be my entire life was a mom. I remember as a little girl if people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up I would say, “A mother”. (Sometimes I would also say, “Spiderman,” but really. I knew, even then, that wasn’t realistic. Because I was a GIRL and girls can’t be Spiderman!) The whole being a mother thing appealed to me, a lot. I had visions of going to the grocery store in my polyester pantsuits (I WAS a child of the 70’s after all) and sewing clothes and baking Toll House cookies after school with my wee lasses. I never outgrew it either. I never had a moment in my life when I felt like having a child would be a bad or negative thing. Even when I was poor, even when I was young, even when I had no business being a mother, I still felt like it would somehow all be okay.

So many women have described their birthing experiences to me. How they pushed and pushed and then the little baby was placed in their arms and the rush of love and joy they felt. One of my favorite pictures of all time is of my friend Angie, sobbing and holding her newborn son Kyle (who’s now a teenager). The emotion and love is there. It’s a beautiful, beautiful thing.

For me? It just didn’t seem real, I suppose.

One day I was pregnant and the next, I wasn’t. But I hadn’t seen my babies (with the exception of a brief moment when the nurse held my daughter up in the air as she ran out of the room with her). I hadn’t held my babies. It was like this weird dream I’d once had. My reality was totally fuzzy and it wasn’t just the spinal block.

I don’t remember the exact moment I began to really feel like a mom. I remember having moments in which the reality of my life hit me really hard. I remember struggling to buy diapers and formula and wondering where my next dollar would come from. I remember crying and wondering why on EARTH God would entrust someone as moronic as me with these two precious little people. I remember thinking, “I can’t do this,” and at the same time having the most aching determination that I could do it and I would do it and I wouldn’t let anyone stop me from doing it. I had just as many moments, of course, in which I wondered if they would prefer going on Oprah or Maury, because I certainly was going to screw this up big time.

That’s the thing, I guess, about having your husband walk out while you are pregnant. It makes you doubt your abilities as a human being.

But so far? It’s worked out pretty good.

For some reason, I’ve been blessed with really good, normal, sweet kids. And Holy Moses on a bicycle, they are the funniest people I have ever met in my life.

They teach me every day more than I could ever teach them in a lifetime.

So today is my “birthday” too. Because I started becoming the person I wanted to be, when I became their mom.

Good gravy, I’m a complete sap.