Mother Tongue part 1

When I was a kid, I thought my mom was old. I know all kids think their parents are old, but I had solid proof! My mom was older than most of my friend's parents, except for those friends who had older siblings. Whenever we ran into my mom's old friends and high school classmates, they would talk about their kids being in college or  recently married, and I was still in elementary or middle school. My mom gave birth to me 9 days after her 28th birthday. Many of her friends had children immediately after high school or in their early 20s. I guess my mom wasn't really that old considering that my grandmother gave birth to her (the 5th child) in her 40s.

I didn't fully appreciate my mother waiting to have children later than her peers until I was in college. I realized then that I wanted to have fun and do things untethered as much as I could. I decided that I would be married with a kid by 30 with another one coming within a couple of years, and at some point, we would also adopt a child in need of a loving family. In my dreams, my 20s would include graduating from college, getting a good job, establishing myself, and being carefree. My actual 20s included graduating from FAMU with my MBA, moving to Houston, buying a house, traveling the globe, joining and leading organizations, dating, and building a good life. I set a goal to be debt free (other than my mortgage) by my 30th birthday, and I did it. I celebrated turning 30 by surrounding myself with great friends. However, I had no dating prospects, and my eggs were unfertilized.

Shortly after my 30th birthday, I met a man who proposed to me 7 months later. We married the following year, and we decided to spend our first 2 years enjoying each other without children. I used the Mirena IUD for birth control and loved it. I didn't expect to keep it for the full 5 years of treatment, because we both wanted to try conceiving within that period. A couple of years into the marriage, my doctor asked me during my annual physical if I was ready to remove the IUD, and I said,  "not yet". I realized that I wasn't ready to have children with my husband. I saw his relationship with his daughter and didn't want that for my kids. I later acknowledged that I didn't want children with him because I wasn't sure that our struggling marriage would last, and I didn't want a child to tie us together forever.

Later, I filed for divorce. In the midst of the separation, I went to Target one day to shop for baby items from my friends' registries, and I nearly broke down in the store before rushing out. I was grieving the loss of my marriage and my unfertilized eggs in the baby section, and nobody in that store knew why I was crying. I mustered up the courage to return to Target a few days later to get the items I left behind. While walking through the store, I told myself, "One day, you will be shopping for your baby ".

When my divorce was finalized, I rejoiced that I didn't have children with my ex, and I could walk away from him freely. The IUD outlasted the marriage, and I was grateful that it did its job effectively. I was 35.
When it was finally time to remove the Mirena, I sobbed in my doctor's office. I was relieved, sad, hopeful, and disappointed all at the same time. My doctor consoled me and told me that motherhood would happen when it was supposed to happen. Subsequently, I consulted with a fertility specialist to better understand my available options, including egg freezing to preserve my chances of being a mother. I decided against financing the procedure and determined that I would wait until I had a suitable partner to parent with me, because I did not want to be a single mother.