The (Difficult) Math of Becoming a Mom

Me and Amos in 2016

Ten years ago, when I was 36, I remember reading a Mother’s Day post by a woman struggling with infertility; she found the holiday especially difficult. She wrote that her husband had gotten her flowers.

I recall feeling a little jealous.

I didn’t envy her fertility struggles.

But she was a step closer to motherhood than I was.

She had someone beside her trying to make parenthood happen with her.

I had a dog and a small business and approximately zero idea how I could possibly make motherhood work.

Plenty of people consider their dogs, and even their small businesses, to be their babies. But … that’s not the kind of mom I wanted to be.

I have great respect for all my friends who have chosen to (or had to) raise kids by themselves. But I couldn’t imagine how I could make it work by myself.

Going it alone seemed logistically nuts. I calculated I’d have to close my small business— just that alone seemed like it’d be complicated— then find a job (doing… I’m not even sure what) that would pay well enough so that I could support another person, afford childcare, and also have some amount of waking hours left over each day to actually spend with my progeny. Because I live in one of the most expensive cities in the world, I would also probably have to move, which is no one’s idea of a good time.

And because my anxiety likes a challenge: What if I wanted my kid to have a sibling?!

Maybe one day, I thought.

Just in case “one day” came too late, I took out a bunch of credit cards and froze my eggs. I loved how spelled out the whole procedure was: Get this medication, show up at this appointment, give yourself a shot at this time. If only the rest of the journey to motherhood were so clearly laid out!

And I started searching Match.com like it was a job. I committed to going out with one new guy a week. (To make it as easy as possible, I arranged to meet them each at the same wine bar a block from my apartment.)

Every other week, I’d decide that dating was too punishing an activity and I’d never go out again.

But then I’d tell myself “You have to play to win!” and I’d drag myself to the damn wine bar.

Three months later, over a glass of Pinot at an our outdoor table, I met Jason.

He was a 6-foot-5 entrepreneur who spoke seven languages. He spent summers in Europe for his job, which involved running language immersion programs, and he wanted to find a partner who could enjoy that part of his life with him. He had a PhD, a strawberry blond beard, and parents in Jersey who were “dreaming of grandkids to chase around the house.”

“What a great guy,” I remember thinking. “He is going to make some woman very happy one day.”

I did not think that woman would be me. But I was wrong.

Jason with Amos, and with me, a few months after we met.

Two-and-a-half years later, we had a baby.

Our daughter spent her first summer living in Greece and Italy and France.

Our second daughter came two years after that.

Our third just turned nine months.

The dog died. The business did not survive the double blow of me having kids and a global pandemic.

The eggs are still on ice.

But on Mother’s Day, I’m a mom.

Here’s to the great partners out there who help women be the mothers they want to be.

And if you’re someone for whom today hurts a little because you want something that still feels impossibly far away… I’m rooting for you.

My family!