the deserving

my intention was to write a nice little note to everyone about mother's day today. about how my hubby and son treated me to a nice breakfast in bed and a gift certificate to the spa. then, i started feeling a little selfish and guilty.

while i sit here with my happy child, there are so many other women out there who are still desperately waiting for theirs to come. i only know how this feels because at one time, that woman was me. i know personally how it feels to be the one who isn't able to celebrate mother's day....not by choice. the heartache of each year passing with no baby of our own, while everyone else around us seemed to be having them....easily....and even (gasp) unexpectedly. the feeling is unexplainable. it's one of those feelings that you just can't understand unless it's happened to you. the jealousy and the resentment were impossible to ignore. intellectually, you know that the pregnant women who seem to follow you everywhere are not at fault. they deserve to be pregnant, but at the same time, it's unstoppable. it seems out of your control.

i thought about this a lot when i became one of those pregnant women waltzing around the baby dept. at target. was some other woman secretly loathing my existence because i was pregnant and she was not?

and then i sit here complaining that we can't afford to have another one. how selfish is that when some others still don't have one to call their own. i have one....he's beautiful, healthy, perfect.

i now get to celebrate mother's day and get gifts of spa treatments and breakfast in bed....all because i was finally able to have a baby. how does this make me any better than those who cannot? it does not.

so here is to all of the women out there who want a baby of their own, but for some reason or another are unable....often suffering in silence, because it's "not something you talk about". they're the ones who are probably more deserving of a special day to call their own. one to honor all the treatments, painful procedures, failures, injections and crazy meds that make you loopy.

today i honor them. they are the deserving.