Today I experienced a “first.”
I went to a baby clothing/gear store, specifically to shop for me. Not for someone else’s child. For my baby. It was a little surreal.
Sure, I’ve browsed the baby section of the local superstore, while shopping for a gift for someone else, and mentally picked out things for my someday-future-baby. I’ve even actually ordered a couple of things online for our hopefully-soon-to-be-adopted baby. Knowing our adoption wait time could be as short as a few weeks or as long as a year, I’m trying to be very practical about not “putting the cart before the horse,” so to speak, but being prepared with a few basic supplies.
But there was something different, something surreal, something almost sacred, about actually walking into the store called Mommy-n-Me, not for any other reason but to find something for my baby.
It almost felt like I didn’t belong… but almost felt like I did.
I browsed the newborn pj’s, and I tried on a couple of baby carriers to see how they fit me.
A nice lady who was shopping the preschool toy section nearby told me she had gotten that brand of carrier for her last baby, and it was so great, she wished she’d gotten it sooner. She said, “I don’t know how big your baby is, but it will stretch as they grow” … like I had a baby and it was already here.
In that moment, I felt like part of the club I’ve longed to be in for the last two years – the mom club. Two years of feeling out of place at social gatherings, having nothing to contribute to conversations among girlfriends, and generally feeling like the “only one” not part of the mom club… a moment in a store chatting about baby carriers with a stranger, and I felt a sense of belonging.
And it was just that – a moment. A mere second on the timeline of my waiting season. My wait to be a mom to a living child stretches out behind me and before me.
The fellowship of this season is both bitter and sweet, because I’m not the only one waiting and longing. There are so many women sharing this journey, and the pain of it is raw and real, but the camaraderie is blessed and comforting. I know that joining the “mom club” won’t change or define my identity, my worth, or my happiness. Nor will adopting a baby take away my membership in the “infertility club.” This is part of my story. This is the road I’m walking. These are my sisters.
Yet, for today – for that brief, sweet moment – I savor feeling like a mom. It was like stepping one foot into a new place, a new role; cautiously feeling it out, to see what it might be like.
I think it will be a good fit.
