Mommyness

I admit it, I lurk on the first trimester boards of thebump.com.

While doing so the other day, I happened upon a “poll” that was causing quite a bit of controversy. The question was “Do you consider yourself a mom while pregnant?”

Simple question, no? This message caused several fights. I tend to not hang out there much, merely because I feel like I’m past high school, thankyouverymuch. I believe that quite a few of those ladies haven’t gotten past high school. That bothers me.

Nonetheless, I ended up adding my 2 cents to one of the posts that followed the main post. I simply stated that, as the mom the an angel in heaven, I felt that I was a mom.

There was even argument about that.

This bothered me, bothered me to my soul.

There were Mom’s on there with infant children, who were wasting thier time making the pregnant mothers feel bad. It seemed to be their only pleasure in life. One’s name was “bananahammock” and seemed to be the childish of them all.

I finally brought up a point, asking their opinions on it. I simply stated (I’m paraphrasing here) that I had lost a child, and therefore felt that I was a mom because of it. Sure, I never changed the diapers of my child, or breastfed my child, or sang my child to sleep. But I never had the opportunity to do that. I don’t think it’s right that I not have the title of “mother” along with everyone else that does get to do those things for their child. I went on to say that I was sure that I would grow in my motherhood once I actually had a child and was able to care for it in the day in day out basis, but until that point... I considered myself a Mom. I also brought up the point of mothers who have stillborn babies, or Trisomy 18 babies. They never have the chance to do those things either, yet we consider them moms.

I don’t know why this bothered me so much. Maybe because I had to grieve for the loss of child I never got to know. When you lose a child, you lose your hops and your dreams for that child. You lose a part of your heart. It hurts me to think that there are people out there that see that as inconsequential. There were even people that had raised siblings from young ages, and were told they “had no idea what it takes to be a Mom.”

I was infuriated but this behavior. They have no right to speak of peoples life's that way. Maybe it’s my christian background, and my nonjudgmental upbringing... but how dare they judge?

Does this bother anyone else as much as it does me? I know I have some fellow miscarriage survivors as loyal readers, and I would love your opinions. There were even some miscarriage survivors that disagreed with me, and said that they wouldn’t be Mom’s until they had a baby. I just don’t feel that way.

So what about you? What are your views on the subject? Am I losing it?