Wow, you mean I am still a person?

Sometimes I forget that I am an independent human and not just a mad woman on a quest to become a mother. It took a very painful facial, from the East German judge, to remind me of this fact. For the past two/three (really I have stopped counting) year I have done very little for myself. I said that I was doing things for me, but all those "things" revolved around making our family complete. I don't even have the kid and I have already lost ME.

For my last semester as an undergrad, I have to work in a social service agency, which means for the first time in a long time the majority of my day is not spent at home. It also means that I have very little time to be in the tunnel vision world of becoming a mother. Part of me loves this break, of course now I am just focused on making other women mothers (I am working at an adoption agency). Another me feels that I HAVE to take this break for a moment. I need to remember what life was like before this nonexistent human took over, so that when he/she finally does materialize I can remember that there is life beyond being his/her mother. One day he/she will not need me, so I am going to have to find something else to occupy my time.

I am taking this whole "taking care of myself" thing very seriously. Some of it I really need to do, like lose some weight, and other things I just really like to do, like getting my massages. What I am finding out is that it is hard to put the focus back on me. We are really at a stage in the process where there is nothing more that I can do, so I am not really feeling guilty. I am doing what I can. Being the best person that I can, physically, mentally and spiritually, I hope is going to allow me to be a better mother.

Still, there are times when I miss being in the position where my every move brought us a step closer to parenthood. I have never been good at giving up control, which funnily enough is something that I have only really seen in myself over the past few years. I am also learning that I am uncomfortable just being myself. In fact, I am almost to the point of hating parts of myself, which is not such a bad thing, because those are the things that I know I need to work on changing. On the other hand, there are parts of me that I really admire, parts that I forgot existed.

Right now the surrogacy adventure has become an adventure in introducing myself to myself again. Something that is really uncomfortable and wonderful at the same time.