Mother’s Day revelation
06/18/2024
Last month on Mother’s Day, sitting alone in my trailer, I felt an overwhelming, almost debilitating longing to be a mom. I felt almost hopeless and definitely frustrated — would I ever meet the right partner so I could get pregnant?
In the moment, it felt like the way forward was the love > marriage > baby path. But I had been dating and I still hadn’t found the right guy. And my 40th birthday was around the corner so I knew I didn’t have a ton of time.
I wanted a partner. (I still do, very much so. I’d love to be someone’s wife.) But I felt this intense pressure to MAKE IT HAPPEN because my clock was ticking and I really wanted a baby. And I wanted to carry it, and I wanted it to be my eggs…
I knew I was getting off the road, so the big question was, “where do I live?” I desperately wanted community, but I just couldn’t bring myself to move home to Eugene. I had to give myself the best chance of finding a husband so I could start my family, so moving somewhere with a good number of healthy, driven, outdoorsy single men seemed like the right move. (Eugene didn’t really fit that bill.)
Bend and Boulder seemed like solid options, but oof, that would require building community from scratch. And after 1.5 years of chosen instability on the road (and more isolation than is healthy for me) I didn’t know if my nervous system could handle starting over.
So there I was, sitting in my trailer, having all of these feelings. Trying to sort them out. Alone. On Mother’s Day.
So I did what I often do when my brain and body feel busy and I need help calming and sorting through it all: I picked up a marker and paper and wrote. This time, I wrote a letter to myself. I don’t know where it came from, because it certainly wasn’t my conscious mind, but somehow it knew. It knew the way forward. Here’s what it said:
“Happy Mother’s Day, Jade*.
Someday, in the not too distant future, you will be a mama. You, love, will be a mama. You will get to care for a little one, and introduce them to this wonderful world.
Is that what you want?
It feels like the next right thing… at least the thing to work towards. The rest will fall into place. It always does.”
At the time, only four weeks ago, I didn’t have any plans to become a single mom by choice. I was still committed to the love > husband > baby trajectory. But somehow, my inner knowing knew.
Three weeks later, the way forward became clear to me. So simple and so clear. I would decouple the partner thing from the baby thing. I would have a baby on my own. And if a guy comes along who likes me and I like him and we want to do life together with my baby? Awesome. And if not, I still get my baby. I still get to be a mom.
My first fertility appointment is this upcoming Thursday, 6/20/24, and to say I feel overjoyed, peaceful and beyond hopeful would be an understatement.
I can’t wait to be pregnant. I can’t wait to be someone’s mom.
