Motherhood is God's gift to you as a woman

I think the mothers are one of the most interesting people you will ever meet. They are all as different as snowflakes, no matter who you strive, as a mother, to be like you are you and can't be someone or something you aren't. I like most mothers can remember the moment we became one, some mothers only remember the first time they became one, with awe. I remember each as a very special moment meant just for me and that child. Something we can't share with anyone but God, and as the child isn't capable of knowing, in that moment, it is ultimately just for you and God. Fathers, I am sure, in their own ways, have their own moments of awe, as well, but as it is just as personal for them I don't know of their experience, I only know of mine as a mother.

My oldest daughter, Goofy, was born when I was just short of 21. I was the oldest of all my siblings to have a child, ok, I come from a family of fast operators and it is very productive. Anyway, the moment the doctor laid her in my arms I couldn't imagine loving anything the way I loved her, her father stood beside me with tears running down his face, he had not wanted to be in the delivery room but later said he wouldn't miss it for anything ever. She was the end all, be all, of all things to me. My son, Bug, was born 19 months later, I was 3 week overdue and they had to induce me, it wasn't working and they were going to shut off the pump and send me to a bigger hospital to have him when he finally decided to make his entrance. He weigh 9 lbs and, as with all my births I did not use any drugs, and since he came in less than 40 minute no natural numbing occurred. The doctor said I couldn't have delivered him had he been any bigger. He was blue with complications so Poppie held him, my mother held him and my sister held him and then they put him in the incubator. I got to hold him for the first time when he was an hour old. I didn't feel anythings for him in the moment, he was pretty, fiesty and just there. I went home from the hospital and still all I could think of was the work, the other baby at home and I was just tired. When Bug was 3 weeks old I happened to see the last episode of MASH, when Hawkeye found out the mother had smothered her baby, I looked at the baby and all I could do was think of Bug.  I had to pick him up cuddle him, and in the moment, all the feelings of love I had came rushing forth. He was perfect.

Mokie came into the world with all the love I had for her in my heart the moment they layed her in my arms, She was as pretty as anything you ever saw. Big black eyes that looked up to me as if I were her everything. Yogie came to me as a granddaughter first, I was there at her birth and have photos her interacting with me in the delivery room, I gave her her first bath as they tended to her mother. She began living with me full time when she was 13 months old, she called me Nannie and we had a very close ,Nannie and granddaugher, relationship. Her mother, mothered her when she had time, alot like a dolly on a shelf. She got a sister and things had to be shared more for her. One day when Poppie, Yogie, Booboo and I were going to a doctor's vist for Poppie, when she was 27 months old, we stopped at a rest area, for Poppie to get out and walk around, doctor's orders when traveling more than an hour. I looked back  to check on the girls and there she was crying in her car seat. I said, "Sweetie, what is wrong?" She said, "Nannie, why does Booboo call you mommie?" I said "Honey, do you want to call me mommie?" She sobbed "yes!" In that moment she was no longer my granddaughter she had well and truely been the daughter of my heart for sometime; but out of respect and the hope that Goofy would get it together and be the mother they needed, we had tried to be grandparents. I knew in that moment she, they both, needed Poppie and I to take a stand and be their parents in name and doing not just in out hearts. Booboo, had been my daughter for a long time at this point, I had cut her imblical cord, her first words had been "ut oh", and as she didn't have anyone to call mama she had said "NaNa" hard sounds for a 9 months old, and later shortened it to Mama on her own, she had been my baby from the first, I had given her her first bath, feed her, diapered her and been her momma. They were legally adopted, 18 months later, with the full consent of Goofy, their biological father Matt, had defaulted and not come to court.

All my children came from God, they took their own unique paths to my life, they wounldn't be who they are if I had born them all. God in the end always knows what is best for us in our lives.... Next time.