I don’t talk about my relationship with being a mom much. I know from afar it’s may look like I have this down pat, and on lock. The truth is before we had our daughter Shalom I grappled with what it meant to be a mom, especially since I was not carrying. Especially since I was about to be an “older” mom.Especially since I was a lesbian mom and really didn’t know many others like me.
I always knew I was maternal and had a huge heart w/ the capacity to love many & love big, but as things became more real, the idea of being an actual parent escaped me. I truly couldn’t 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐥 it, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘔𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘺, 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘢 𝘣𝘪𝘵 𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘵.
As we know, society has a strange relationship to many things that do not fit into lines and boxes.
As the non-carrying lesbian parent (we need a new word for this!), I fell into that category.
Questions came my way such as, “Are you like the dad?”. “You are not taking maternity leave right”. Every time I responded, I felt I had to “come out” again and again.
It was a surreal time with a loneliness I kept mainly to myself — and at times shared with Andrea who was extremely patient with me fumbling through the abyss of identity.
