The Path to Motherhood

Motherhood is not a straight line.

I didn’t have nine months to think about the arrival of my son. I had a matter of a few weeks, seven to be exact.

The notice came to me, not in the form of a pregnancy test, but a hurried call to my toll-free number from a roadside phone booth in a rural town in New Mexico—yes, the man on the line said, “ we have a baby boy and we cannot care for him.”

There were hours of calls after that — sometimes in the wee hours of the night — from the birth dad and then the birth mom, and then an exchange of photos and letters. And when we finally crossed off all the to-dos from our long checklist — the home visits, the court applications, the review of medical records — we booked our flight to meet and bring home our two-and-a-half month old son. In the fast few days before we boarded that flight, I tried to imagine what life would be as my boy’s mother. I did not have a story line.

And so, in those days and hours before I would meet that baby boy, I had to build one. When I walked to the post office to get my mail. When I washed down the crib that had been passed down from my sister-in law. And in the final day before our flight, when I jumped into the pool at my gym to do my laps. With every stroke, I created a story line of what each year of my boy’s life would bring—with all the firsts: first birthdays and first words; first bicycle rides with the training wheels off; the first driving lessons; the first date.

Over the years, I have thought back to that swim and the straight lines as I imagined them from end-to-end of that long Olympic-sized pool. For sure, there have been days and weeks, and even years, when the lines from start to finish were anything but straight. But so too has each stroke down that lane—however straight or jagged—made my heart beat stronger — and with it, my love for my son. Motherhood is not a straight line.