And I don’t mean I’ve ever tried because that’s not the case.

I just can’t wait to be a mom.

I’m incredibly maternal. I’m one of those girls who get weak-kneed when they see a baby. Who let out an unintentional sigh. Who might even place their hand flat against their abdomen.

And babies love me. They stretch out their arms and snuggle their sweet-smelling heads under my chin. Is there any greater feeling than when a baby lets out a little milky sigh and just flops her head down on your chest? Complete trust. Complete love. Complete wonder.

However, as I get older, the concept of pregnancy gets more bizarre, bigger and harder to wrap my head around. Even more wondrous. That in my body, sharing the skin I’ve been walking around in for two plus decades, will be a life. A person with a heart, a brain and a soul. That ten tiny fingers will place themselves on my insides and push out. Hand to hand we’ll touch, separated only by skin and membrane, but completely, utterly, intricately connected.

And it seems so like Duh, when I write it. But I still can’t get my head around it. And I’m so excited to experience it.

And one of my unshakable horrific fears is that I won’t get to. And I have yet to even consider I’ll never marry etc. I mean, that physically, for whatever reason, my body will rob me of the joy I’ve longed for, for as long as I can remember.

I even once made Bridge promise me that if it turned out I was infertile she’d give me an egg, or she’d carry my baby for me.

She looked at me like I was smoking crack, but she agreed. Obviously, I would never hold her to that now, since we’re not really close anymore, but that’s not the point.

That’s how much I’ve always thought about this. That even college, when other girls were crying in bathrooms, willing the pink line to not appear, I was longing for the day when I could joyfully cry at the slow floating arrival of a plus sign on a pee stick.

When you’re little and grown-ups ask you what you wanna be when you grow up, my mind would always say ‘A Mom.’ But I knew even then that smart, post-women’s movement little girls weren’t supposed to say stuff like that.

So I’d say a lawyer, a teacher, a writer. But I’ve never really wanted to be any of those things. Not really. Those aren’t the jobs that will make me happy.

I want to be a mother.

Even now it makes me a little uncomfortable saying that because I don’t want to seem pathetic or Harriet Nelsonish.

But I’m supposed to be brutally honest with you, right?

So it‘s the truth. That’s what I want to do with my life – be a mom.

But I know I’m not even remotely ready. I’m getting there though. Hell, just having Montego has taught me so much about patience and doing things you don’t’ really want to do, but doing them out of love anyway.

And my greatest fear was really just selfish and silly. Yes, I want to be pregnant. Yes, I want to nurture my children in my womb. But if I can’t? So be it.

S&S are no less Matt and Lynn’s children than their biological ones would be. And really? When I was there last weekend, holding Sam in my arms, he felt like family. He and Sophie are part of us, part of our heritage, even if there’s not a shred of shared DNA.

I haven’t really talked about them much because it seems too much Mine but not mine. But y’all, from the moment Matt handed me that little dark-haired boy my heart was gone.

My muscles were sore the next day from holding babies for hours and hours without end. But more than that, my arms ached. They ached because Sam wasn’t in them anymore. He just fit, you know? His little head in the crook of my elbow, his body pressed against my ribs.

When he was taking his bottle his cheek was resting on my right breast and I could feel his sucking motion and it made me want to die.

It’s made me think that perhaps even if I’m able to have my own children, I’d like to adopt anyway. Be an instrument of love and give even just one life the opportunity his fate might have taken from him.

All of that remains to be seen.

Hell, I’m still working on finding a boyfriend.

Maybe I’ll just get another puppy.