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When I found out that I was pregnant with my first child, I was definitely surprised.  I was 37, single, and childless.  The baby was not planned.  But she was very much wanted.  My boyfriend became my fiancé, then my husband.  And I became a wife and a mom-to-be.

Most Moms-to-Be go on to become Moms.  I didn’t.  Our daughter was stillborn twelve days before her due date.  I was still without a living child, but I would never again be the same childless woman I’d been before getting pregnant. In falling in love with our unborn child, I had crossed a point of no return.  I had permanently left behind my pre-baby self.

So what was I?  I had forever shed my pre-pregnancy identity.  I was no longer a Mom-to-Be.  Yet I wasn’t a Mom, either.  Could it be that there was a fourth group – Grieving-Would-Be-Moms?

Determined to get into that Mom group, I sent out to become a Mom-to-Be once again.  Just over six months after the stillbirth, we conceived our second child.  I was still grieving, but now I was a Grieving Mom-to-Be.  Nine weeks later, I miscarried.  I went from Hopeful-Mom-to-Be to Two-Time-Loser.

Am I doomed to be a Grieving-Would-Be-Mom forever?  Could this uncomfortable limbo be behind my increasing desperation to have a (living) baby?  I will always be Grieving, but would love to go from Would-Be-Mom to Mom.

Some might admonish me not to let my losses define me, but those losses are indeed a part of who I am.  They are the first thing I remember when I wake up in the morning, and the last thing I think about as I go to sleep at night.

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