Sometimes I still can’t believe God blessed me with a daughter and a son.
When I had my daughter, Leia, I was confused in many ways. Not confused about having her. I was happy about her. I was blessed with this little girl with these pretty eyes, so tiny and delicate.
But I was also very lost in my own life at the time.
And if I could tell her the truth today, I would have to tell her that I was sad during some of that time.
Not because of her.
She was one of the beautiful parts.
I think sometimes we tell stories about motherhood as if becoming a mother automatically fixes whatever is happening inside of us. It didn’t work that way for me.
Becoming Her Mother
I could love my daughter deeply and still be trying to understand myself. Both things could exist at the same time.
I was learning how to be her mother while I was still learning who I was.
There were parts of me that were hurting. Parts of my marriage were hurting. Things were happening that I didn’t fully understand then—or maybe I did, but I wasn’t ready to admit what they meant.
Still, I had my daughter.
And there was something about having a little girl that made me look at myself differently.
Here I was raising a daughter when so much of my own story had been about being the girl who was expected to be more like a boy.
Maybe that’s part of why motherhood has always felt deeper to me than simply having children.
My children have made me confront different versions of myself.
Then came my son.
When Life Changed Again
There was a time when I thought I might have leukemia.
Even writing that now feels heavy.
When you face the possibility that your life might follow a different timeline than you imagined, things that once felt complicated suddenly become very simple.
What do I actually want?
What am I waiting for?
What would I regret not doing?
Before that, I had already thought about having another child. But some things stopped me. What happened during my C-section affected me. Things in my marriage affected me. Infidelity affected me.
Eventually, I stopped trying.
Then came the possibility of leukemia.
And my perspective changed.
I realized I could not let fear, uncertainty, or the pain I had carried make the decision for me. I chose to trust that I was ready to love another child and to step into motherhood again, even without having every part of my life figured out.
When I found out that I didn’t have leukemia, something inside of me had already shifted.
I remember thinking that maybe I had been given another chance.
God. Spirit. Life. Whatever someone chooses to call it.
I had another chance to do something differently.
And this time, the conversation wasn’t really with my husband.
It was with myself.
Do you still want another child?
And my answer was yes.
A Daughter and a Son
So when I look at my children now, I don’t just see a daughter and a son.
And in the quiet, I’m still learning what a blessing they are.
I see different chapters of my life.
I see the woman who was hurting and didn’t yet fully know what to do with that hurt.
I see the woman I was when I became a mother for the first time.
And then I see the woman who had been frightened enough by life to finally ask herself what she actually wanted.
Neither child came into a perfect version of my life.
They came into my life.
Messy. Changing. Complicated. Beautiful.
And somehow, through all those different versions of me, I became their mother.
Sometimes I still can’t believe it.
God blessed me with a daughter and a son.
And maybe part of the blessing is that, in raising them, I have had to keep meeting myself too.
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