A couple years later I was in the bathroom at my mom's house with my cat, Nutmeg. She sat with me as I waited for the plus sign to show up on the pregnancy test. Which it did.
I instantly loved that person who I just learned was living in my womb. I remember going to the mall and buying the baby a present--a yellow rabbit beanie baby named "Grace." Although I wasn't expecting or planning to be pregnant at that point in my life, grace seemed like the best word to describe how I felt about that little person, like God had given me a gift in His grace.
Though I still didn't see myself as a baby person. Fortunately, I thought, I happened to be married to someone who *was* a baby person. He was the kind of guy who would always talk and wave to the babies in the supermarket . . . and I always tried to get him to stop because I was sure the moms would be freaked out by this stranger cooing over their baby. He was the kind of guy who cried at the tiny baby booties I bought at Target . . . I think we both figured that he'd be the one who did the bulk of the baby stuff, since that was his thing, and I'd sort of take over when the kids got older.
Of course, that's not how it happened at all.
The baby was born . . . and since he was a boy the name "Cosette Grace" didn't really fit him. But Noah did.
The first few weeks were a blur. I was recovering from both labor and a c-section, adjusting to the irrationally large hoards of laundry that such a tiny person produced . . . but then, after those first few weeks, something amazing happened. I fell in love.
I'd loved Noah ever since I'd seen that plus sign in an abstract sort of way, but it took time for me to fall into that absolute, indescribable sort of love. I think it's because I've always only been able to fall in love with people I knew well, and Noah was a stranger at first. But once I got to know him, there was this love that I never fathomed was possible.
That first summer is the summer I know I will look back most fondly on for the rest of my life. The semester didn't start until September, so I had three months of glorious time with Noah. I'd nurse him and he'd fall asleep in my arms . . . and rather than being freaked out like I was with Beth's baby, I loved ever second of him there asleep next to my beating heart. I didn't take him to his crib to sleep, but instead I sat there with him, holding him, for hours upon hours.
And I loved the tough times too. When he was sick and I rocked with him in the rocking chair in the corner of his room, I remember feeling so THANKFUL. It felt like such a gift to be able to be the one to hold him and help him when he was hurting. And when he coughed so hard from croup that he puked, I caught the puke in my hands as I held him. Yep, that's when I *really* knew I was a mom.
A few years later is when Nick came along . . . this time the baby was planned. And again I fell in love, but this time it was faster. I remember not wanting to leave the hospital because I loved the quiet time Nick and I had with each other there. To love two people, so fully . . . I never knew it was possible.
It's Mother's Day so I'm thinking about these two great loves of my life today. Is it hard being their mom sometimes? Yes, sometimes. Autism can be a bitch, and every now and then I wonder what it would be like to have a week without habilitation therapy and occupational therapy and speech therapy and IEP meetings and doctor's appointments. Oh, and those cold, calloused people who don't give my children the compassion they deserve as human beings. But would I ever, ever trade my boys for a moment? NEVER. They are the two most amazing people I've ever met. The loves of my life.
And when I focus on that love, it makes all the other decisions in life easy to make.
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