By Jodi Rae Ingstad

If you’re a male you might not know this.  That’s the delightful thing about having a columnist that is so candid. You get to learn things nobody else dares to tell you.  In this case I’m going to let you in on the locker room talk indigenous to the girl’s dressing room of high school.  We knew you always wanted to know so here you go!
We never talked about the things you males were probably thinking we were talking about.  Not in that sense anyway. We were, us girls however, talking about which one of us would end up pregnant first.  We didn’t ever really talk about how it was precisely going to happen. Instead we discussed things like which one of us would make a good mother, which one of us would have the first, “Ooops, I got pregnant,” pregnancy and which one of us would have the highest number of little darlings. I was voted the one who would be a good mother and I cherished that title. I cherished it so much that I prayed to Jesus, “Lord. When it is your will, please find a way for me to be a mother.”
I think birth order has a lot to do with us motherly-by-nature types. My birth order and the fact that both of my parents were chronic alcoholics kind of forced that motherliness about me. Then life happened.  One day I was 18. Not only was I young but I was perky with a body of fresh eggs.  All I can really remember is falling asleep a few times and the next thing I knew, I woke up 41, not biologically young, a little less perky, a diagnoses of type 1 diabetes and a body with fat deposits in places that resemble a whole carton of fresh eggs. My 41 year old baby- making eggs combined with this illness seem like they’d be damaged to me so I choose not to have babies the natural way.   
If you’re a male then you could not know what this yearning for children feels like to a female.  It’s not just a wish it’s a knowing.  It’s a knowing that is innate in most cases and certainly it is in mine. Besides the obvious of knowing I would love and nurture a child so, I knew I wanted to do the waddle walk that God gives pregnant women. I knew I wanted to experience morning sickness and swollen ankles, glowing skin and reading that book, “What to expect when you’re expecting.”  The biggest thing I knew is I wanted so badly to share the joy of having a child with a group of friends who would throw a baby shower for me. They’d gift the baby fluffy blankets and diapers, bibs and bottles. Someone would provide a stroller and high chair and I could borrow a crib. Oh sure.  From time to time my feelings about having a child would wane but remarkably the feeling would come back even stronger when the idea hit again.
“It’s just not God’s will,” that woman said to me so matter-of-factly. I made peace with myself and decided I’d just be an Auntie to everyone instead.  And then life happened.
That husband of mine has 3 children from a previous marriage. Molly is the youngest.  She’s 16. The stork is delivering her to me on July 15th.  She’s 63” long, dark brown hair, 10 fingers and 10 toes. She weighs – oops. Miss Manners would tell me it’s not nice to list a 16 year olds weight. It may affect her self esteem later on.
I’m going to be a mother!  Twenty-three years after I muttered a prayer for a child, Molly Ingstad is moving in. I hope my girlfriends have a shower for me despite her age. I pray someone gifts me a book entitled, “What to expect when you’re expecting…a teenager!”