A Sunday, Not Unlike Any Other Sunday

Being infertile with no living children on Mother’s Day in the United States can be a real bummer. 

For me, as an infertile with no living children, it was actually an okay day.  I sent my mom a thoroughly free and hilarious Wrong Card which she very much enjoyed. And, I even got an adorable email signature from her: “Love (you’re the reason I’m a) Mom.”  How sweet is that?

I reflected on how lucky I am to have her as my mom and how I love the friendship that we have developed as I have become an adult.  I’m looking forward to taking a trip with her later this year, just the two of us.

I recognized that my own feelings of being excluded from the general party were my own reaction rather than any one reminding me outright that I am not a mom, in the traditional sense of the word.  I spent not an insignificant time telling myself to get the f*ck over myself and just enjoy the lazy Sunday. 

I asked my furry children if they had gotten me anything for Mother’s Day and received blank stares indicating that they were not in fact aware of the auspicious nature of the day.  They all then proceeded to act the same way they do everyday, a cross between adorable and maddening.

Most of all, though, I decided that for me, Mother’s Day would not be about exclusion, but a celebration of the fact that all of us are mothers in some way or another, even if we haven’t give birth, and/or raised a child. And, under that definition, I am most definitely a mother. And, so are you.  Happy Mother’s Day to us all.