When do you become a mom?

A few days ago, I read a debate about when you become a mother. Is it when you're pregnant? When your child is born? A few months after birth? When your child is a year old? Does babysitting or nannying someone else's children qualify you? What do you have to experience to truly become a mom?


I've been thinking about this since then, trying to work out my thoughts. If you're not a mom until you give birth, what does that mean for women who suffer miscarriages? Are you less of a mother if you adopt or have a stepchild, especially if they're not a newborn when you become a family?

After a lot of internal debate, this is the conclusion I finally reached: you become a mother when you are willing to put the needs and care of your child before yourself. Not coerced or guilted into this behavior, but when you willingly sacrifice your wants and desires for your child's needs and best interests.


Yes, all the things like caring for them when they're sick or kissing it to make it better are very important and I'm not denying that, but I think that motherhood is more of an emotional and mental state than a physical one. And the timing for this is probably different for different people; for some women, they might feel that dedication and love the moment they find out they're pregnant. For others, it might not be genuine until they hold their baby in their arms or give their new stepchild a hug.

Am I a mother? I find it kind of funny now that for so long I was worried that because I don't like children, I might not be able to love my own. But I love this baby. I love it with all my heart. No, I'm not wiping their nose or putting them to bed yet, but I will give up whatever I need to, do whatever I have to, pray and beg for this child to stay with me. I would do anything - anything - within my power to ensure their future. So although I don't yet describe myself as a mom, I would say yes - at heart, I am.

Hooray for CD1!

Never in my life have I been so happy for my period to arrive. Once you start to TTC everything has new meaning, including the state of your CM and whether it's thick, thin, creamy or yes...even menstrual.

image source

CD1 is the first day of a new cycle and I am especially happy because this means in 2-3 weeks time will will be FWP for realsies (to quote Bilbilosaur). Mr. Divasaur is thrilled too. Little does he know that license to get it on all the time means that in 4-5 weeks time his life may change for ever. And as much as he wants to be a daddy, I am not so sure he knows what he's getting himself into with a pregnant wife. The mood swings and emotional outbursts will be unlike anything he's witnessed before from me. He thought I was emo when we were planning the wedding? Watch out! It's probably going to be way more extreme once I am KU.

But we're ready and willing and able and now, it's time to take that next step and go from "planning to TTC" to actively TTC. Soon as Aunt Flo hits the road will be that much closer. Can't wait!

Things I've learned while being KU

I'm going to begin blogging by giving a little background info. about Mr. Shopasaur, myself and little shopasaur. First of all, unlike the rest of the lovely ladies of pregosaur, we were not in any way, shape or form TTC. (aka we were not FWP-- did I get that right??) I just so happened to miss a period one month, POAS and got a BFP. Needless to say, Mr. Shopasaur and I were shocked, excited, scared, nervous... pretty much just freaked out. However, we've had 29 wonderful weeks to get over the initial shock and I'd say by now Mr. Shopasaur is rather excited and I am ... excited to be finished with this pregnancy.

Not that I've had it all that bad, really, considering:
- I had no signs of MS
- No cramping
- No bleeding
- No majorly insane stretch marks yet (knocks on wood)

BUT. It's not like pregnancy is enjoyable for me.
Here are a few things I've learned in the past 29 weeks:

1. Pregnancy is actually based on 40 weeks, which if you (like most people do) divide a month into 4 weeks, would make someone pregnant for TEN MONTHS instead of 9. Therefore, when you turn "20 weeks" & someone asks you how far along you are, you can go ahead and answer "5 months," but that would only be correct if you're going by the fact that you're pregnant for 10 months. This is a good website I've used to calculate weeks --- > months. (Right now I'm 29 weeks and it says I'm 6.6 months along)

2. I had no idea that you could gain so much weight in so little time.

3. For some reason, people who are around pregnant ladies lose the censor that they usually have in a normal conversation. For instance, a classmate of mine looked at me and said "So... do you still have ankles?" to which I responded, "Um... pretty sure I still do" and he replied, "Well, you won't much longer. They're bound to disappear." Great.

Another instance: a co-worker began telling me all about the time his wife's water broke and compared it to the texture of PURELL. Yes, PURELL. W.T.F.

4. People name their kids really strange names. And because being 'unique' is so important in this day and age, many people like to make up names, or change perfectly spelled names to create things like "Madysyn" or "Alivia."

5. Mr. Shopasaur would like to add that he has learned that it is extremely important to be patient around a pregnant woman. I blame it on the hormones. :)

6. Having a baby is extremely expensive.

7. Lastly, it's turned our life upside down. We used to be a bar-hopping, beer drinking couple on the weekends who now cannot stay awake past 10pm. We no longer buy as much for ourselves, (like clothes, or handbags . . . although Mr. Shopasaur did splurge and bought me a rather fabulous diaper bag the other day) but rather think about baby necessities like diapers, strollers and cribs. Basically it's completely changed our lives. . .

When the stars align...

So Mr.Divasaur and I are determined to plan our conception around one thing besides my work/travel schedule. We could care actually less whether we conceive a boy or girl, or if our baby is born on Christmas or New Year's Day, but we're feel quite strongly about avoiding conception that would bring us an Aquarian or a Taurus.

Sounds a little bizarre, no? Not so much for us. We both believe in astrology and astrological compatibility. Perhaps this comes from our being native Californians where a lot of people place credence in the alignment of the heavens on your birth day. When we crunch the compatibility calculator for our sun signs (I am a Sagitarian and he's a Gemini) this is the outlook:

The ratings below range from 5 to 1 stars, with 5 indicating a blissful baby and 1 indicating a more challenging child. But remember, every baby is unique and they all have both good and bad moments. By Judi Vitale

Sun Sign:	Rating:	Target Conception Dates:
Sagittarius		February 25th-March 15th
Pisces		May 25th-June 15th
Gemini		August 25th-September 15th
Leo		October 25th-November 15th
Aries		June 25th-July 15th
Virgo		November 25th-December 15th

Sun Sign:	Rating:	Target Conception Dates:
Capricorn		March 25th-April 15th
Taurus		July 25th-August 15th
Cancer		September 25th-October 15th
Libra		December 25th-January 15th

Sun Sign:	Rating:	Target Conception Dates:
Scorpio		January 25th-February 15th
Aquarius		April 25th-May 15th

In addition, we both have life experiences that confirm for us that we have particular difficulty with those two sun signs. So much so, that we're willing to try to avoid them in our nuclear family.

So what does this mean for us? We will TTA in May when I am fertile. According to FF it should be around May 1st. I know it seems silly to TTA when you're TTC, but we're willing to skip one cycle in order to plan for astrological compatibility. That said, we're getting started this next cycle, when O is predicted for around March 31st and will keep going all summer long (except for May) until we get a BFP. Things are shaking up at work and it may turn out that we can keep trying long after September and not have to worry about my availability to travel out-of-town for three weeks in July 2010. Finally, we both realize that we can plan all we want...our little being (as Mr. Divasaur calls our phantom baby) will come when he or she is ready to make us parents here on earth.

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