The heart of a mother

 Why don't you have kids of your own? 

Do you want kids? 

When are you going to have kids?

These are some of the questions I get from well intentioned people.

And the answer is long and complicated, as it usually is for any 40 year old childless women, especially if she is married.

I guess you could say I have all the raw materials to make a great mom. I was raised in a home that welcomed in foster kids. My parents were present and hands on. My first job was babysitting and from there I went on to work in home daycare with my mom, then a temporary vacation nanny agency, a few typical nanny jobs, 2 decades as a youth leader in my churches and now I'm about to start working my second houseparent job alongside my husband.

I always thought I would adopt, I felt that was the call that God gave me, I never longed to be pregnant like other girls, and while I like a squishy newborn as much as anyone, babies are just not my jam, and when I met my husband, he echoed similar feelings, I always thought we would adopt a few kids and be a family in that typical kind of way, but God had other plans.

Jace and Grace, those are the names I gave to my heavenly children. The two little souls who's life began in my womb.

Both pregnancies had me so confused, I wondered if I had understood God incorrectly, but then when they both ended in miscarriage, I knew I had not. There was sadness, confusion, guilt, relief, anger, and even now I struggle to understand the feelings I have surrounding my two short pregnancies.

I know now, that pof (premature ovarian failure) was likely to blame, a condition that took years to materialize and even more years to diagnose and one I am still learning to understand.

I had just barely began to experience the “symptoms” of pregnancy with both,   I threw up a few meals for  “no reason” , the second time I realized I was pregnant just before mother's day, I sat in church that morning and placed my hand on my belly and wondered what would happen in the months to come, a few days later my body experienced the familiar feelings from my first miscarriage. There was never a sonogram, I never decorated a nursery or bought baby clothes, both miscarriages happened in the first trimester. 

God has a perfect plan for my life, I hope I have done an ok job of listening and following, but it doesn't make it easy, it doesn't mean I don't grieve the life I thought I would have, or that I don't long to have someone call me mom.

I have done all the mom stuff, over the years, but just with other people's children, ones that belong to me only for a moment. 

I know my story is not over, I could live another 40 years and maybe there is another bend in the road that will lead me to children who I can call my own, but maybe not. 

Perhaps my sweet kitties will be the only babies who I will “raise” and I do love them so deeply and thank God for the love he placed inside me for cats and kittens. I often ponder that on a very small and imperfect scale, the overwhelming love I feel for all felines, is similar to the love God has for us, his children. No matter the situation, no matter the life circumstances, no matter the choices made, broken or whole, God looks at each face, and feels overwhelming love. 

I look forward to heaven for so many many reasons, it is the destination we were all created for, but for me, beside the people I loved here on earth, who I can't wait to see again, I look forward to the day I will meet the two children that God raised in heaven for me. I can not wait to spend eternity getting to know them. They have lived a perfect life, free from pain and forever in the presence of God, in the most perfect place. 

That is my story, as of today. 

It was once prophesied over me that I had the heart of a mother, and looking back over the last 40 years of my life, I think it does a pretty good job of explaining a lot of my journey.