Stories of Motherhood, Told by Six Women

Last year, The New York Times asked its audience to share stories about becoming a mother. The Times received more than 1,300 responses about love, regret, doubt and everything in between. These six first-person stories were adapted from the video series Conception.

When I looked at my mother, my grandmother and my great-grandmother, I just saw women who were burdened. Women who weren’t free. I was just intent on having another kind of life.

My mother is the youngest of eight. Her dream was always to travel the world playing her music. She was 16 when she married my father.

He was abusive, and we moved back into my grandparents’ home. My mom worked long hours; she was always stressed.

She ended up pregnant three times after she left my father. She said she just didn’t believe in abortion and she was going to have each of the babies.

I didn’t want to be her, someone like her, stuck in that town. I wanted to get out of DeRidder and go to college.

I remember having this dream of having a flat in Europe or some studio apartment in New York.

He told his stepfather and his mom that we were going to the state fair. There was a woman sitting there waiting. I just remember her looking at me and saying: “Don’t worry. This is my fifth one. It doesn’t hurt.”

I couldn’t even process it mentally or emotionally. I felt that I had let everyone down and they didn’t even know it. On the way home, I got in the back seat and just slept.

I married a man who did not want kids. I said, “I like children, but I just ... I don’t want them.”

And I still don’t feel that just because you’re a woman, you’re supposed to have kids. But around 30, 31, something within me started changing. Why did I make the decision not to have kids? I was definitely in deep conflict.

We ended up going our separate ways. I was watching something on television about abortion. I just hadn’t allowed myself to really think about that baby and that pregnancy. Just the floodgate opened.

I thought about how old the child would have been at that point and, oh my God, what kind of mother would I have been?

I met a guy. He was a single father. We hit it off, and I must have been pregnant by that fall. It felt surreal. Something about it also felt very natural.

When I think about my mother, my grandmother, my great-grandmother: Motherhood is something that just happened or seemed to happen to them.

I stepped in and ended that, but I also am very saddened by having to make that choice. I’m proud of the life that I’ve been able to craft and the freedom that I’ve had because I’m able to share that with my son.

C: When I was 12, my mother had an unexpected baby. I wanted to learn how to do everything — feed her, change her, entertain her. She was kind of squirmy, and she never liked to get her nails clipped.

And so I went to clip this one nail and almost cut the tip of her thumb off. I swooped her up and ran downstairs and called my mother.

She just really calmly told me to wrap something around her thumb, distract her and just make sure that she was comfortable.

You know, you don’t learn everything first and then apply it. It all just happens, and you figure it out.

J: When I was 18, they told me that I had PCOS. They’ve always said, “When you get older, it’s going to be hard for you to have children.”

I was 25, working for a financial company. I was also hostessing at a bar at night. I thought I was just, like, gaining weight, and I was just, like, so tired.

I had been on the pill. I was like, Uh, maybe I should just take a pregnancy test. I was terrified.

C: I was finishing a Ph.D., and that seemed like a reasonable time to start thinking about having a baby.

I really didn’t think there was anything wrong.

We finally went to see a reproductive endocrinologist.

At 30, I had no eggs. It made me feel cheated. Trying to do things according to some kind of plan was obviously not working.

J: I found out that I was, you know, five months — 20 weeks — along. They said that I could go — you know, if I did want to terminate the pregnancy, there are a few states. I cried on my sister’s shoulder probably the whole day. I still felt like a baby.

C: It just felt like this incredible slap in the face. My baby sister is now going to have a baby. And I’m going to have to help because I love her so much and I would do anything for her. And yet I thought this would be the hardest thing I would ever have to do.

J: She was like: “If you want to terminate, I’m there with you. And I’ll fly with you. I will totally support you in any choice that you make.”

C: I think I asked her once or twice, even then. “Are you sure? I would be OK if you weren’t sure.”

J: I never thought about changing my mind.

C: I slept in her hospital room with our boy on the cot with me, curled up, the three of us for that first night. I remember saying, “Do you see now?”

J: Yeah.

C: “Do you see what you gave to me?” I hope you realize how huge that was. I mean —

J: Yeah.

C: It’s the bravest, most amazing thing I’ve ever seen anyone do.

My husband was an activist from El Salvador. One time, he left on a trip in about November, and I didn’t hear a word from him until February. Finally he called and asked me to meet him in Mexico City the next day. We had about one day and one night together.

I knew that going back to El Salvador would be really dangerous. I also knew that if he couldn’t do the one thing that was the most important to him, that it would be like he wasn’t really living.

A few weeks after I got home, I found out that I was pregnant.

A few weeks after that, I found out that Wilfredo had been killed.

I was just so glad that he was leaving part of himself with me.

I named him Daniel, a pseudonym that his father used. Having Danny in my life was like having a light. I was grieving and then I had this beautiful baby.

I thought about: Even though Wilfredo isn’t here, how can I raise Danny in a way that would make him proud? But on the other hand, I didn’t want Danny to feel like he had to replace his father in any way.

And so I wrote him a letter and I promised him that I was going to let him be who he was and allow him to walk his own path. That promise turned out to be really important.

A few weeks before Danny’s fourth birthday, he told me that he wanted to be a princess for Halloween. This wasn’t really a big surprise to me. From the time he was 1 1/2 years old, he had this Barbie that he took with him everywhere he went, and he loved purple and pink. I usually let him do his thing at home, but in public I was worried about judgment and teasing.

I didn’t know if I was doing something wrong as Danny’s mom. And I also kind of wondered what Wilfredo would have said or done.

I say to Danny, “How about Peter Pan instead?” But Danny was really clear on what he wanted. I had to make a choice. Would I try to pressure him to be like other boys?

We found this big purple lacy dress that had jewels on it, and I cut it down to size for Danny. And I also found a pink shimmery gown, because I decided I could be a princess, too.

I had a dream that Wilfredo came back to meet Danny. I thought: Oh, no, what if he sees Danny in his princess dress? And what if he doesn’t accept him for who he is?

But I also believe in something pretty fundamental: Parents don’t get to decide who their children are. What we get to do is to support them.

I do believe that Wilfredo would have seen that honoring Danny for who he is was important to him.

Danny is really full of love and heart — something that he got from his dad. I would tell him: Danny has not followed exactly in your footsteps, but I can’t imagine that you wouldn’t be incredibly proud of our son. He’s one of the bravest people I’ve ever met, just like you.

I’ve always been a dreamer.

I dreamed of having the perfect family with the kids and the white picket fence, something that was my own that I could be proud of. I got the marriage. I got the kids. But I was missing something.

This panel in white coats starts asking me questions. The one question I really couldn’t answer for a long time was a very basic question. What do I want?

When I woke up from that, things were much more clear. I thought I met the love of my life. We decided early on to have a child. By default I was going to be a dad.

But it was really a parent’s role. My job was to make sure that he grew up as well as he could and teach him all the things he needed to do, watch him crawl and watch him walk.

I was always very proud of my wife and what she had to go through to have these kids. But part of me, I think, really did want to be in her position.

The kicks in her belly, I could feel them from the outside, but it just wasn’t the same. Especially when she was she was having trouble feeding, I would have easily taken her place. I just wasn’t physically able to.

I didn’t realize I was jealous in the moment. Maybe it was a subconscious thing. Once I made that connection that yes, I’m a parent, and yes, I’m a woman, that’s when I really connected that yes, I’m a mother. I could be the dad that everybody wants a dad to be, but it wasn’t me.

When I first came out to my kids, we didn’t have a title for me. My wife was very protective of the title of Mom. I respected where she came from, but it was really difficult to hear.

I’ll never shy away from the fact that I’m their biological father. At the same time, I don’t want them to see me that way.

When I see pregnant women in the world, or I see just babies, I still am jealous. And I don’t know why that is, that I need to have that connection.

If I’m out in the world and people see me, they want to call me Mom. That’s just kind of a societal thing. Oh, it’s a woman with kids, must be a mother. But for me it’s deeper than that.

It really is a need to want to carry and bear a child. Am I less of a mother because I didn’t get to have that experience? It’s almost like I haven’t earned something. I’m a mother in all senses of the word except the physical one. And there’s nothing I can do about it. And that hurts and will always hurt.

My children actually made me a bracelet. Of the four charms that I got, the most important one is a heart that says, “Mom.” It was a validation from my wife that she was accepting this.

I think I have trouble with things like, Well you were Dad and now you’re Mom. Or, You’re a man and now you’re a woman. And I’m like, I think I was always the same person. My head just didn’t connect those dots.

People ask, “Why didn’t you wait until the kids are grown and out of the house?”

I couldn’t. Kids need strong parents, and I wasn’t strong. I was sad and depressed. And so by finding myself, not only do I help myself, I help them.

I don’t think there’s much of a bigger mother quality than that.

My mother, Nina, I don’t know a lot about her. I remember that she was profoundly sad. It was sad being around sadness.

One day I came home from school, and I said, “Where’s Mom?”

He said that she’s not coming home. He told me that she had a heart attack.

It was a real gift of a lie. I can’t imagine what it would be like if I was told that my mother killed herself, that she chose to die.

As a child, I believed that when she couldn’t take care of us, she went up to heaven, and she made sure that we would be provided for by finding the best stepmother she could find and making sure she came to us.

I was 30-something when I was like: OK, let’s try this. Maybe I’m ready now. The first few months, I was actually really happy. He was just like a little baby bird. I felt like we did bond.

But he wasn’t growing, and he wasn’t sleeping. So I was feeling so sad and so wretched. And in this, like, combination of emotional anguish, physical pain — it was kind of like ice and acid.

I found myself having thoughts that were almost like a mathematical equation: I’m a bad mom, which means that I should get out of the way.

At some point, I just took a whole lot of sleep medication, and I woke up at St. Vincent’s Hospital.

I believe that she sent me back. My birth mom met me at the gates and said: “Nope, we’re not ready for you. Go back down, and be the mama to your child and be the wife to your husband. Go live.”

I was, like, just looking to be strong enough to have another child. It was like the same tapes were kind of, like, back in the brain. Everything just felt impossibly heavy.

At some point, I found myself with my green belt. I just wanted to wrap it around my neck, and so I did. And I wanted to pull it hard. And I did. That was really the call for help.

The gap between expectation and reality is where the pain is. And there I was experiencing a whole lot of pain.

And I kind of understood how heavy it was, but I think it was heavier for her. I was going to stay alive for my children. So I would be their mom for the rest of their lives, or for the rest of my life, but a really long life.

My responsibility was to take care of myself. Dissolve the guilt and the shame. So we can just deal with what is.

Get through it when it’s hard. Celebrate it when it’s wonderful, and live.

As soon as they laid her on my chest, I felt the weight.

From the first time I saw her, I wanted her to have everything. But subconsciously, I knew I didn’t have it in me.

I peed on a stick alone in a stall at McDonald’s. And I watched the line turn pink.

I loved being young and feeling like anything was possible. And I knew in that instant that I was never going to feel that again.

Having an abortion was never an option. I was 17, a minor. The laws in Ohio made it so I had to have my parents’ consent. And asking them felt a lot harder than telling them I was pregnant.

I just always did what I felt I was supposed to do — had the baby, took care of her, went to college. But inside, I didn’t feel connected to motherhood at all.

I just felt lost, and then guilty for feeling lost. I felt like I was failing but then wanted to blame it on somebody else.

It took me a long time to, like, admit that I actually resented Maya for existing because that felt so wrong. Years from now, she could easily tell her therapist: “My mom made it clear that I was a mistake. My mom made it clear that I ruined her life.” And I couldn’t really argue with that.

I always have these three words in my head, like, “strong” and “independent” and “woman.” I wanted those words to be attached to her.

When I was pregnant, I had found a book of poems by Maya Angelou. In that collection was her poem “Phenomenal Woman.” That’s when I confirmed that I would name Maya “Maya.” And I like to think she’s phenomenal.

I look at her and I feel like there is some sort of balance or fairness in the universe. I believe again in something.

She’s everything I wasn’t — the possibilities and hopes and dreams that I used to be full of.

But I regret that I was never the mother my daughter deserved. I regret that even though I made my peace, and can be much more present now, that it took this long and that so much damage was done in the meantime. I regret that the line between wanting everything for her and speaking of my life with such resentment is a fine one.

I sometimes dream I’m childless and free, and I regret having the dream and loving the dream equally.