The Quest for Motherhood

Women, mothers and the quest for motherhood has been on my mind and heart the past week or so. Specifically, the 15% to 25% of us that motherhood doesn’t come to us the traditional way. We have to look to modern medicine, or birth moms or surrogates or other non-traditional methods to give us the children we desire.

These are the women I pray for, I cry for, as motherhood is hard won for us.

Mothers who watch their children grow up a world away. At the mercy of government officials who move at an agonizingly slow pace.

Mothers who pray each night for months that the birth parents don’t change their minds and keep the child we love.

Women who joyfully find themselves pregnant, only to be crushed weeks later as they miscarry the child they have so long desired.

Women who face disappointment and frustration as each month their hopes of being pregnant are crushed.

Women wait until their 40’s to start a family, then struggle with age in additional to all of these other factors.

Women who desire to have a child, but are stopped by the often prohibitive cost. The cost of adopting one child is between $20,000 and $40,000, with waits in many programs at three or more years. One IVF session costs between $10,000 and $20,000, with each session only offering about a 30% chance of getting pregnant. These are costs that are primarily covered by the couple. Most insurance companies don’t cover the majority of infertility costs, and the adoption tax credit returns only a fraction of the adoption expenses up to 5 years after you have incurred them.

Once that child is in our arms, we experience the joy and sorrow just like all of the other mothers past and future. But our journey to that point is different, heart breaking, and often suffered alone.

Take a moment to give these special women and mothers a hug, as sometimes just knowing that someone else feels our pain, makes the journey a little less difficult.