There’s a lot of fluffy half-truth bullshit out there around parenthood that just tap dances on the reality of what it is to raise another human. And the sugar-coated stories about motherhood in particular trigger the hell out of me, probably because I bought into them for so long.

Silly me. Had I bothered to think about my foremothers’ experiences, it would have been a big fat clue that the Hallmark version of parenting is a pack of saccharine half-truths. My Mom, after spending her early adulthood hammered by trauma, decided she wasn’t going to have children. And she stuck to it, until one day she was putting a stuffed animal on a guest room bed and started to cry. She wanted to put that stuffed animal into a crib, not in a spare bedroom. And that is why I owe my life to an anonymous stuffy.

Then there’s my mother in law. When told she was going to become a mom for the first time, she burst into tears and said, “My mom’s a mom! I’m a kid!”

But me – I had it all planned out! I’d find the right partner and we’d get married. I’d build a fulfilling, lucrative-enough career. Then, I’d scale back my career while raising a thoughtfully spaced pack of children. Originally the plan was 7, because I watched the Sound of Music way, way too many times. By the time I’d hit my 20’s, I dropped the plan to 4, then to 2 or 3 by the time I met hubs. He was thinking no kids, or one. So we compromised by giving up our extremes. But I never had any doubt that once one child had arrived, he’d be ready to welcome number two.

We were happy, loving and committed. We were in a city I loved and my career finally found its center. Yay things working according to plan! I had the I-want-to-get-pregnant talk with my ob-gyn and contacted a realtor to look for our first house. Not so fast, thought the universe. A few weeks later I came home and my husband announced he was losing his job. 

We moved to a state where we knew no one, for a job opportunity for me. It made little to no sense to get pregnant right away. But, I wanted my baby. Less than a year after our big move, there I was on the maternity wing, cuddling with my newborn. But my kid pack fantasy did not play out, not even the one scaled down to a grand total of two. 

I firmly believe what most parents believe – I have the Best Kid Ever, who I would not trade for ANYTHING. Being queen of a small country. Having a pack of 7 other kids, all loving and adorable. Sitting on a fortune, writing a best-selling memoir, having the ability to grant wishes with my fingertips (aka, being the genie in Aladdin without the imprisonment). What would be the joy of any of it without my Banana Roo?

And yet. There is pain, not with my wonderful girl, but for what I wanted so badly to be. 

Looking around, I have friends who’ve struggled to have babies. Friends who thought they’d have a baby, but haven’t. Friends who have had babies unexpectedly, sometimes not wanting them. Friends who became moms in their teens and who became moms in their 40’s. Friends who became moms when they were completely not trying, and friends who became moms through IVF, fostering or adoption. I have a friend a few decades older than me who is not a mom, but is now raising the child of her godson.

I’m not sure I know anyone whose mothering reality, or the path of how they got there, looks how they expected it to look. 

And there are always possibilities for that reality to change. 

I hope you find joy this Mother’s Day.