Since today is Mother's Day (my first as a mother!), I thought I would write something on my journey to motherhood. I am so grateful for my precious daughter and the wonderful blessing she is in my life. I never imagined I would be so happy to be a mother. I was not a very nurturing person growing up - compassionate and kind, yes; nurturing, not so much. As a little girl, I was busy planning what I was going to be when I grew up, not who I was going to marry and how many kids I was going to have. I remember other girls at school talking about how many kids they wanted. I think I said that I wanted more than 2 (since there's just me and my sister in my family), but there was no feeling behind it. It felt like a million years away. I didn't babysit much as a teenager. There were a select few families whose kids I really enjoyed watching, but other than that, kids in general got on my nerves.
At BYU, I was determined not to get married, much less start a family. Unfortunately for my plan (but fortunately for me), I met Michael my freshman year and was married 2 years later. However, being married and being a mother were two totally different things. I remember when we got married, I thought long and hard on the commandment to have children. That was just not for me! I was planning on going to law school and having some amazing, fulfilling career. It didn't help that everyone around me at BYU were having babies. They were too young, or so I thought, and it pushed me away from motherhood even more. I remember thinking that those girls were having babies because they felt like they had to, not because they actually wanted to. And then there were those few times that I went to enrichment meetings in family wards. It felt like all the women did was complain about how all their children were driving them crazy and how their husbands never helped them out around the house. Then in practically the same breath, they'd look at me and say "When are you having kids?". I thought these women were crazy, and terrible recruiters into the ranks of motherhood.
So I applied and got accepted into law school, still fully planning on having a career and not planning on having kids (at least not any time in the near future). I used to tell Michael that we could start having kids when I turned 30. Since we got married when I was 20, that gave me 10 years to do what I wanted to do, have the life I wanted to have, until kids came along and wrecked it. My friends would come around with their babies, and I would observe from a distance. I was not that girl who said "Can I hold the baby?" and gushed about how cute the baby was. In fact, when I was handed a baby, I was looking for a quick way to get rid of it. I felt awkward around kids in general.
Then Michael surprised me by announcing that not only had he applied to Wake Forest for business school, but he had been accepted. That was not the plan. The plan was for me to attend law school while he was attending business school - we had a few options of where we could go and both attend school. But I hadn't applied to Wake Forest Law, or any other law school in North Carolina. So we prayed about it, and decided that Wake Forest was the right decision for our family. I moved here planning on working for year, and during that time retaking the LSAT and applying to Wake to attend the following year. Some time in that year, I got a real stupor of thought about law school. It was like this elusive dream I couldn't get my arms around. Plus, I was all wrapped up in my job and was ok that law school was no longer on the table for me.
So I started to think about my future and what was in store for me. Michael's schooling was only 2 years, so I was quickly losing the "we'll wait to have kids until Michael's done" excuse. For the first time in our marriage, I started to consider having children. Only one problem - I still didn't want them. Or maybe more accurately, I didn't want to be a mom. My mom was a stay-at-home mom, and I knew if I had kids, that I would want that, too. I did not want a career and a family. That much I had already decided. So for me, becoming a mom meant giving up on a career, any kind of career. I was terrified that I would lose my identity, lose my feeling of "self importance". I used to hate it when people would ask me at church, "Shelley, do you work?". I got all offended at that. "Do I work?", I would think, "I'm the bread winner for the family. I have a career. I'm not some housewife!" I never rebelled against anything I had been taught growing up. But everyone has a little rebel in them somewhere, and I guess I felt like not having kids was my way against rebelling against the stereotype. I didn't want to be that Mormon mom with 4 kids by the time I was 25 (not that there's anything wrong with that - I have great friends who have followed that path and are very happy). So the timing seemed to be right to at least discuss starting a family, but I didn't want to have kids because it was a commandment or because the timing was right. I wanted to have kids because I wanted them.
I have this friend, Becca, who is the best mom I know. She needs to have 25 kids (although her husband says they need to have 25 minus 21 kids). She currently has 3 kids and she is great with them. Sure, she has rough days, but she LOVES being a mom. She has always been an example to me. She had her first baby right before Michael and I got married. Even at that time I remember thinking "if I ever have kids, I want to be a mom like Becca". So at this crossroads of my life, where I'm trying desperately to get into the "motherhood" vibe, I held onto her example like a lifeline. I dissected the things about her that make her such a good mother - patience, unconditional love, creativity - and tried to implement them even more into my own life. I read my patriarchal blessing that says that the great desire of my heart is to be a mother in Zion (when I heard that originally, I thought the guy was giving me the wrong blessing!). And I prayed, more fervently than I had ever prayed before, not to become a mother, but to want to become a mother. About that time I was called to serve in the primary in our ward in Winston. I thought it was a joke - me and a bunch of kids!- but I accepted. And something happened. I began to see myself more as a nurturer, more as the woman I wanted to be before becoming a mom. I could feel my heart changing, my desires changing. It also helped that I was stuck in a job I did not like surrounded by the very "career women" I thought I wanted to be. I think the stark contrast between the women at work and the women I served with in primary was a real eye-opener for me.
And then it happened. About 6 months after praying for the desire to be a mother, I was asked to help conduct the music during closing exercises of primary. The children were singing "Love is Spoken Here". All the children were looking up at me as we started to sing the words "I see my mother kneeling with our family each day. I hear the words she whispers as she bows her head to pray. Her pleas to the Father quiet all my fears. And I am thankful love is spoken here." It hit me so powerfully that I couldn't continue singing. It was like angels singing the answer to my prayers. The feeling was so strong, so undeniable, so peaceful. And I wanted to bring my own children into the world! So we started trying to get pregnant. I guess I thought that as soon as I came around, everything would fall into place and we would get pregnant right away. Ha! After 6 months of trying, I was released from primary and called to serve in Young Women. Before the Bishop set me apart, he asked me if there were any blessings I stood in need of. I tearfully told him that Michael and I wanted a baby. So in my blessing, he blessed me that I would get pregnant and have a child "soon". Again I was at peace. And again I thought that everything would fall into place after that blessing. But Heavenly Father's version of "soon" is very different than ours. So a year later, I finally found myself pregnant. And 5 1/2 years after we were married, Shaelyn came into our lives.
Now when I read my patriarchal blessing and read the words that my greatest desire is to be a mother, I don't scoff, I smile. I am grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who knows me better than I know myself. I am grateful for the opportunity to be a mother. And I am grateful for the journey it took to get me here. It may have been long and winding, but reward at the end is that much sweeter because of it.
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