I didn’t have nine months to think about the arrival of my son. I had seven weeks.
The notice came in a late-night call to my 800 number from a phone booth in the Southwest. Yes, the man said, we have a baby boy.
There were hours of calls after that from the birth mom, and then an exchange of photos, letters, and medical records. When we finally crossed off all the to-dos—the home visits and the court applications—we booked our flight to meet our two-and-a-half-month-old son. In the days before, I tried to imagine what life would be like as my boy’s mother. I did not have an exact storyline.
And so, I built a narrative around him. When I walked to the post office. When I washed down the crib from my sister-in-law. I envisioned with every lap in the gym pool what each year would bring—first words, driver’s test, and the high school prom.
Over the years, I have thought back to those storylines as I imagined them from end to end of that long pool. For sure, there have been days, weeks, and even years, where the lines from start to finish were anything but straight. But so too has each stroke made my heart beat stronger with love for my son. Motherhood is not a straight line. It doesn’t have to be.
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