24 Weeks (aka 5 1/2 months)

I think I just started to pop!  The last couple of weeks have caused me to move more and more pants down to storage so that I am now left with just maternity and my trusty yoga pants.  Or as Jason calls them, "My Uniform" because I wear them so often.Baby is kicking like crazy - which is no surprise because from the beginning ultrasounds he was roly-poly and waving to us.  The movement no longer feels "alien" to me but has become natural and part of my own body rhythmn.  That's a phenomenon in itself to me.I am amazed every morning when I wake up and feel this firm bump as part of who I am.  Over the last 16 years I have often wondered if I would ever be a mother.  People would ask me, "Do you ever think about having children?"  If only they knew that I thought about it every day.  But with Jason's car accident and the challenge that it would be to get pregnant, I taught myself to push it to the side of my thoughts and not dwell on the hope.I know how it feels to want something and not get to have it.  I know how it feels to not have a clue what "24 Weeks" means.  I know how it feels to have to suppress that sense of longing that rises when others say, "We're having a baby!"  I know how it feels to not have anything to contribute to a conversation when mothers obsessively talk about their children.  I know that every new person you meet invariably asks if you have children and how it feels to always say, "No."However, I decided long ago that I would be happy for people who had babies.  I would love other people's little children.  I would not allow my own yearnings to create sadness or negativity for those who got to be parents.   I would celebrate with them even when sometimes it was heartbreaking.I also know that we are lucky.  Even after all this time, we get the chance to be parents.  Many people who want it do not have that opportunity - we recognize that.  I never want to forget how it felt to not be a mother so that I can be sensitive to those who are going through what I felt all those years.I hope, though, that if you are struggling with the situation of not being a mother when you want to be that you will embrace life anyway.  Love whatever circumstances you have.  There are many things I have done in my life that I could not have done as easily if I had been a mother.  Do those things.  Develop who you are and become better.  I know that I will be a better mother because of the things I have done in my life up to this point.  I will be more patient.  I will be more adaptable.  I am smarter and hopefully even more wise.I'm grateful that I am entering a new phase in my life - the lifelong phase of motherhood - but I count myself blessed to face it as the person I have become while I've waited for it to happen.