The one thing

I spent last weekend with a dear friend. I met her on my first night of college, and we've been friends ever since.

She has a two-year old son who is just pure joy. My friend could not believe how he took to me. She told me he had never taken to someone the way he did to me. I played peek-a-boo with him, sat on the floor and twirled him around on his sit and spin and held his little hand as we walked outside. It felt so natural to me. But even though he loved me, I'm was not his mommy. Even though he was having fun with me, when his mommy wasn't in the room, he constantly asked, "Where Mommy?"

Mommy. Yes, daddy's are great, but mommies, well, they're mommy. It's a word that conjures up pictures of children only able to be soothed by the tender touch and comforting voice of their mom, of bedtime stories and babies pulling up on their mommy's legs with arms raised in a plea to be held by the person they view as chief comforter and caregiver.

I recently heard a story about how a woman had just given birth and the baby was inconsolable. The second the baby was placed on her stomach and heard his mother's voice, he instantly calmed down, comforted by the voice he had come to know so well.

I want that.

I want my baby to know my voice. I want my touch to bring comfort, healing and love. I want to get up in the middle of the night for feedings. I want to be exhausted because I've been up all night with a newborn. I want my child to only want to be in my arms and not be able to be soothed or satisfied with anyone else because they don't feel well or are going though "a phase." I want to watch my baby sleep. I want to have to lose my pregnancy weight. I want to have first birthday parties and crave strange things. I want morning sickness and exhaustion.

I want all of these things because it would mean that I would have experienced pregnancy and have become the one thing I desire more than anything in this world -- to be someone's mommy.