This has been an interesting year for Mother’s in my life. This year a woman who’d said she was done at at one, welcomed her second daughter into the world. In December (just in the tail end of 2011), a Little Fighter took his first breath, defying the odds. Another couple whose desires for a baby were thwarted for years, were blessed with the gift of adoption. Just a few weeks ago, a young woman gave birth to a baby she was told she could never have.

No matter how we become Moms it’s an incredible moment when we do. From the second the stick turns pink and the wheels start turning we are filled with anticipation, longing and sometimes a little dread at the unknown. As our bellies stretch with life we yearn to see the miracle within, and when they place that delicate little person in your arms, you instantly make a vow to love that little thing more than anyone ever will. For me, sitting in the hospital room, after all my family had gone home, I held my daughter in my arms and loved my own mother even more. Maybe it was the hormones, or maybe it was the memory of all the things I’d said to her that I could never take back; all the tears I’d caused, that I could never return, but I suddenly realized how important my mother was to me and how precious I was to her. In fact this moment wasn’t just about the little family we’d just created. I had just done an amazing thing for my own mother and father, in replicating myself, I’d replicated them too!  She’d said it to me when we were wheeled out of the operating room, “My baby had a baby” and my own first words were to her, “Look Mommy,” I said, “Look how beautiful she is!” because I couldn’t believe something so small could be so incredibly gorgeous.

Before Little G was born, I imagined that I would be overcome at the pure innocent love this little creature would have for me, but when she born I realized that it didn’t matter if she loved me or not. It didn’t matter if when she turned 10 she told me she hated me, or if she kissed a boy with tattoos as a teenager, or if she decided not to go to college after high school. It didn’t matter what she did, or said, or felt…because I was going to love her for her entire life….for my entire life. And I do. Oh boy, do I.

My biggest gift from Little G, of late, is when she wraps her blankey around herself and walks over to me to ask, “Mom, can you cuddle me?”. For this I will be thankful for the rest of my days. I will be grateful to my husband for making such an amazing girl with me. I will be grateful to God for letting her be. But I will be the most grateful to my Mom for teaching me how to be this evanescent, all knowing, all healing earth Momma, and for loving me despite years 8-30!

Happy Mother’s Day!