The Other Mother

My incredible wife, Kacy, has agreed to write a little something to show her side of things. So here is Kacy’s first guest blog post! Hopefully, the first of many 🙂

Right now I am listening to Joni Mitchell.  “Blue”, to be specific.  It’s not that I am altogether sad, more than just trying to calm the subways of my mind:  Uptown trains speeding by – the tests, the news, the realizations – a baby, a kid, a teen, a boy or girl, a man or woman who will one day look at me and call me “mom.”  And the downtown express, that this is hopeless, it’s too hard, too painful, too much – that it will never happen.  Sad songs make the noise stop – at least, Joni does.

Most people don’t usually connect with the other mother – us “non-birthers”.  Cori’s body is changing, her emotions, her hormones, I mean, my baby is going through so much.  And while I would never compare the two, I am going through my own journey.  This is what I picture: I am standing on a diving board, and below is a beautiful pool.  In the crystal blue water, I see my future:  Cori pregnant, me kissing baby toes, dancing as a family in the kitchen while we make Christmas cookies, Cori and I holding hands at a recital, packaging a lunch, teaching the perfect jump shot… I see it all.

I live on this diving board.  Every insemination, I make my approach, striding confidently one, two, three, and then a jump and a bounce.  My toes grip the grainy board, my muscles strain as they explode upwards, excited, systemic – and into the air I go.

Some divers soar gracefully in the air.  They pike, spin, somersault.  They are intent on diving in.  My journey is through the air… wondering if when I hit the board again, I will lunge forward  – toward that beautiful future that awaits me – or if I will catch myself, like I have so many times before, rebound, and get my balance.

I want what’s in the water.  I want to see that smile on my wife’s face when she tells me, “baby, we’re pregnant”.  When she hands me our baby for the first time and says, “look what we did, baby.  We’re a family.”  She is not the only mother in this story.  There are two mother’s hoping to become just that.

I have short hair.  I wear men’s clothes.  But underneath it, I unwrap a full-grown woman.  My dreams are as pink as my lips, as soft as the timbers of my voice, and as gentle as the intentions of my actions.  I am confident, a person of morals and action, I do not sit by the sidelines, but I cry.  I have cried so many nights.

I look at children on the street and the tears well up in my eyes.  Yes, I fear that they will not love me as much as they will Cori.  Yes, I fear that because they are not “of me” that they will not really be mine – but it doesn’t stop the want to have them – because I will love them forever.

A mother’s love is supposed to go one way to some extent.  Children are made out of love and they only truly understand the love of their parents when they become parents themselves.  I want to jump off that bridge when we get to it – but I want to start walking toward that bridge already!

Two weeks is almost over… and I am in the air, with the crystal water of future dreams beneath me.  I am holding my breath… just in case.

-Kacy