If I offend you, check out bek's blog--you'll love it!

So, The Jooj has been with us for 9 months, now, and I am gong to say somethings that may offend someone, but here it is:
I am glad that I was not able to get pregnant.
I think that I needed this humbling, this lesson that pregnancy does not make me a better person, a better woman, a better mom. Obviously, there are lessons I have not learned through pregnancy, like "how many bowling balls can fit through my hoo-hah at one time?" and "Just how much can I push W before he leaves me completely?" Nevertheless, I don't need to know those things yet, if ever, and we are doing just fine.

My hormones have not raised this entire time, but I still know when she needs something.
I never breast fed one drop, and I know when she is hungry, or when she just wants to suck on somehting.
I was not there when she first appeared in this world, but she is still the first thing that I see in the morning and the last at night.
I did not take her home from the hospital, but I took her to see Santa for the first time.
W did not give me a presthood blessing before labor, but he gave her a name and a blessing.
I did not see her in my womb, but I saw her over the sealing altar in the temple.
She does not have our DNA, but she has our family throughout eternity.

This past three weeks have found us all horribly sick, with The Jooj getting the worst of it. I took her to the doctor and he told me all the things to do--all the things that I had been doing because I knew that she would feel better with them. I didn't need to share a body with her to know that.

As the holidays passed, I listened to my favorite Christmas CD a lot--the Amy Grant holiday one (don't judge me). My favorite track is a song she wrote titled "Breath of Heaven." She voices the fears and desires of Mary, shortly before delivering the Savior. One of the questions she has is if God, now that he sees her scared and unsure, wishes He had chosen a wiser handmaiden. I was thinking a lot about that, and I feel like Mary, amazing, faithful, Mary, was not that different from the rest of us. God prepared her for what He needed, just as He prepares us. Did she love the Lord any more or less or differently than her other children? Did she teach Him different things? No. Did she love him any more than we love our children here, or our children yet to come ? No. Would any of us, with children, waiting for children, not do anything that she did? No. I needed to realize that, I think, because sometimes I look at The Jooj, and I wonder if I am disappointing the Lord--there are so many other families that would be overjoyed at her presence in their lives. But He gave her to us, to teach and love and uplift and overjoy us.

And she didn't come when we wanted, she didn't come the way we wanted, she didn't come as soon as we wanted, and she didn't come from either of us.

But I am still a mother, and if I was still having to wait for her entrance into our home, it would be ok, because God keeps His promises.