Happy Mother’s Day to all you mothers and to all the mothers
you know!
Mothers come in all shapes, sizes, and ages. There are mothers who
gave birth and mothers of the heart. I’m fortunate to have had a wonderful mother
and a terrific mother-in-law. I’m doubly fortunate to be mother to two great adult
children and to their spouses who call me Mom.
I’m sure we all know couples who long for children but physically
cannot have them. Some will go through expensive procedures to have a child
from in vitro fertilization to surrogate motherhood. Some couples adopt.
Motherhood is not for the faint of heart. Starting with
conception, we have worries and physical pain. The older we are the higher the
risks. Two of my grandchildren were lost in miscarriages. The emotional pain
expectant mothers go through upon that loss is immeasurable. Childbirth is no picnic,
either. In my mother’s day, doctors slapped chloroform on a woman, and the next
thing she knew she had a baby. I come from the generation that wanted everything
natural. No drugs. We were tough. 😊
And, of course, the father would be in the delivery room instead of pacing the
waiting room or off fishing.
Giving birth does not equal motherhood. Raising a child is a
lifelong occupation. It’s a good thing we didn’t realize what we were in for
when we longed for a child. Worry didn’t end with the pregnancy but exploded as
the child grew. And let’s not even go into the expense of raising that child.
Advances in medicine (and attitude) are growing all the
time. Think about the advances in your lifetime. What about the future? As a
science fiction writer, my imagination can come up with many scenarios. My colleagues
imagine even more. We writers play the “what if” game.
What if everyone who wanted a child could have one? What if a
woman didn’t have to carry her child? Extend fertilization outside the mother’s
body so the whole gestational period was also outside. No inconvenience of
frequent trips to the bathroom, gestational diabetes, exhaustion, plus the
expense of a new wardrobe. You carried on with your life and popped into the
lab occasionally to watch the fetus mature. No waiting for an ultrasound to
show what s/he looked like. Also, no pain of childbirth. No drugs, either. You
get a call from the lab saying your baby is ready to be picked up. Sort of like
a car from the dealership.
Whatever the future brings, our future as humans depends on
mothers.
Motherhood is my greatest accomplishment, my greatest pleasure.
Grandmotherhood is even better. 😊
