Mother Nature
| March 22, 2022I want to be a mother — but I’m not yet a wife
I don’t have any children yet. But when I walk into a room, people don’t turn to the woman near them and whisper, “Oy, nebach, she’s the one who doesn’t have kids.” Instead, they’ll tilt her head to the person closest and say, “Oy, nebach, she’s the one who isn’t married.”
I’m not the woman waiting for motherhood. I’m the girl waiting for marriage. But when the sun goes down and the stars come out, I’m both at once.
The night a friend had baby number four, another friend called me in tears. She and her husband just celebrated five quiet years of marriage. Each healthy baby born to a friend is a reminder of what she’s yet to merit.
“It hurts,” she choked out. “It’s so hard to watch other people get what I want most. I know I should be happy. I know that. But right now, I just want to cry.”
What I didn’t tell her was this: Sometimes I choke from the same pain.
My siblings’ kids come to my parents’ house, and I wish my own could join the gaggle. They talk about sheitels, and I have nothing to add. They talk about preschools, and I also have nothing to say.
When songs about motherhood come on, I dream of a child of my own. I usually turn it off before the melody reaches the chorus. I can’t let that crescendo build. I can’t let that pain grow. I want to be a mother — but how can I want that when I’m not yet a wife?
I have a list of names pinned to the front page of my siddur — couples who are spending tens of thousands of dollars for their chance at parenthood. They’re waiting for the doctor to say that, finally, after years, it’s their time to have a child.
All I’m waiting for is a husband. There’s no reason I can’t start a family right now — except that I don’t yet have someone to start it with.
Can I say that I feel an ache? Can I share that when a friend mentions she’s baruch Hashem expecting again, I bite my lip in order not to cry? Can I tell you that when someone walks into the room with a sweet little baby my heart painfully skips a beat? When someone mentions that their kids kept them up, I think about my own fitful sleep?
Sometimes the image of my one-day family helps me sleep at night, but the faith crashes when the dream ends each morning. When I wake up to another day of wanting, another day of davening for two things at once.
I want to find my husband, and I want to meet my children. I can’t have the second without the first, and I want them both.
There was a time when I noticed every couple walking down the street. I saw the way they spoke and laughed and smiled endlessly at each other as though they were the only people in the world.
Today, I notice every stroller. I see the way the moms peek over and the soft smiles they offer at the bundle inside. It’s there — this gaping void. This lack. This hope that hurts.
I feel it each time another month passes, every time another dating saga ends. I’m still a stage behind — the one who isn’t married. That heartbreak is festering and growing and pulling and tingling.
You see me as single, not childless, but most days, I feel both.
(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 786)
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