The Other Expectant Mother

In our culture we have a very spacific, singular vision of the Expectant mother. She's ripe with pregnancy, stunning, glowing, simply bursting with life & promise. She is happy & despite the discomfort of pregnancy... she is content. She is the vision of pristine femeninity. The Expectant Mother.

She Is beautiful. And for many of us, she is a lie. A blatant, bold faced lie. We are the voices of the Other expectant mother. No big, round belly of joy, no glowing... instead our eyes are red from holding back tears, our voices thin from grief & our bodies weak fom the loss.
Expectant Mother. What does it really mean? Who defined it?
From the moment we suspect... from the first late period or pink line... we become expectant mothers. Right?
What about the women struggling to concieve despite struggles & disappointment month after month? Are they less somehow? Are they not Expectant mothers? Truly they must be! Their passion & desire to mother eclipsing everything else... driven by the deep knowledge that they are made to be a mother. They Must be expectant mothers in the truest sence.
And what of the women like me? Fortunate enough to become pregnant easily. Blessed enough to discover the pregnancy Very early & begin caring for & cherishing that tiny little life. Then shattered into tiny pieces by blood & pain. My pregnancy ended at 7 weeks. My body let my tiny love go. I will never know why, there is no villan, no answer. Just the pain of loosing my tiny love. What of me? My body is no longer pregnant. But I am still an expectant mother. My heart & soul know I have a baby to love. I know my child is coming.
 I have struggled with the idea of "leting go" when I still fully feel "expectant". After 3 months of trying to come to terms with this I have finally realised that the current definition of "Expectant Mother" is Wildly insufficent. I am now & will continue to be an Expectant mother regardless of my being pregnant or not. I am an Expectant Mother.

Accepting this knowledge has allowed me to focus on hope. For me, I finally could give myself permission to plan for my life with my baby. My husband & I know we will be parents to a living child, somehow. It is our Tuth. So instead of struggling to reconcile my mismatched state I simply have to trust that I won't be mismatched for long. 

I have a baby out there somewhere.

I an an Expectant Mother.