What does it mean to become a mother?

Contemplating my journey to becoming a mother and learning to mother myself

Dear Ones,

I thought this was going to be a post where I shared my mother themed yoga poems, but it turned into a contemplation on my journey to become a mother and what it has meant to me.

When I was in my teens and twenties, I remember feeling scared to become a mother, convinced I would pass on some sort of curse—

and I then as I aged, I remember this urge, yes, this urge of really wanting to become a mother,

but I didn’t have a partner

and after two abortions, one when I was nineteen to a nihilistic man who wanted nothing to do with being a father - or even being with me —

and another in the wake of 9/11 where I could see the smoke from my window for days and weeks as I bled —

it hit me that something needed to change. I needed to heal. I wanted it all. But if I wanted it all, that meant myself, too.

After many sessions with a dear writer friend of mine who had become a practicing shaman, and after I forgave myself for not ever having loved any partner I had ever been with

and I s…