Guest Blog by Caroline Ghertler
I have wanted to be a mother for a long time now. I was reminded of
that today when I took my niece to the Manhattan Children’s Museum, a wonderful, inventive place filled with educational and artistic
interactive exhibits.

I’ve spent so many hours in that place with my
nephew when he was 4,5, and 6 years old. He is now fourteen years old and barely gives me the time of day, except to ask for money or to buy
some pizza.

I remember enjoying my time with him there as well as feeling the
longing to be a mother myself – and for that matter, to be married. I
envied all the moms and dads with their beautiful children. Although it was fun to pretend that my nephew was my "own", it still
stung not to be a mother myself.

Time passed, boyfriends came and went,
and came and went again – and the longing continued. And when I met my
husband, I was elated to join the ranks of the married – I really felt
that I had arrived, albeit, a bit late at forty one. Nevertheless, I was
to be a wife and mother.

But alas, life is never easy and a
pregnancy was not forthcoming. There was the roller coaster of
infertility doctors, treatments, blood tests, IVF procedures,
progesterone shots, eggs donated and transferred, an ectopic pregnancy,
operations – and the realization that this wasn’t going to work. And
then the resolve to stop the medical procedures as I was getting older
– and what I really wanted was a baby to love and to create a family.
So the adoption process was begun with all the myriad of papers,
notaries, apostles, homestudies and general bureaucratic nonsense.

And
here we are a little over a year later, getting ready to meet our
daughter, Sonia ( born, Svetlana ) and to travel to Perm, Russia,
Throughout this process, my husband has been supportive, loving,
pragmatic and exemplary in all ways. He never batted an eye giving me
too-many-to-count shots in my ass and other body parts. He has been
wonderful and our marriage has blossomed through this adversity. We are
lucky that way. Well, we deserve to have something to go right, don’t
we?

So, it was bittersweet today to be at the Children’s Museum.
I noticed that many of the mothers were a bit overweight, still carrying
their baby fat (baby phat) with them. I found it rather charming to
see. This is something I probably hadn’t noticed in the past, so busy
was idealizing all the moms back then. Of course, I noticed how many were pregnant
again, and I did feel that tinge of envy, but it didn’t sting half as
bad as it had in the past. That’s because I am going to be a mother
myself. Yes, I’m going to be a mother.

Caroline Ghertler is Louise G. Crawford’s twin sister, who also lives in park slope.