Isn't She Lovely?

One Christmas when I was a probably 7 or 8 years old, I asked Santa Claus for a baby. Not a baby doll, but a real live baby. It's what I really wanted. A few years earlier, my mother had given birth to her last child, my little sister. But now I wanted a baby of my very own. I was convinced that I would be able to take care of it, just like children promise their parents they will take care of puppies. Needless to say, Santa did not bring me a real live baby of my very own that year.

As I got older, the idea of being a mother started to lose its appeal. During my teenage years, and even into college, I decided that a career would be more important than having a baby right away, or even having a baby at all. The idea of being a professional, wearing nice pant suits and attending important meetings, became my goal. I studied and traveled and felt pretty well accomplished.

Then I went on my mission. It's funny that on my mission is when I really decided I wanted to be a wife and mother. I don't know what it was. Maybe it was because I taught people really important things every day. And that is basically what a mother is for, right? They teach really important people really important things every day. And if I had so much love for these strangers I was teaching, I couldn't even imagine the love I would have for my own offspring. 

When Diego and I got married, I knew that I wanted to have a child right away. Lucia was no accident. Despite what everyone had said about waiting to have children, I knew that Lucia was anxious to get here. And I was anxious to be a mom. 

Now, when I look into the face of my beautiful baby girl, I remember back to that feeling I had when I was a little girl, of wanting my very own real live baby. She is so special, and I can hardly keep from weeping when I think about how much I love her, even when she wakes me up at 3 in the morning to eat.