Abstract Motherhood: Reflections on My Journey to Gestation
The (very) honest story of how I chose to pursue the path of motherhood
Welcome, I’m Lindsay. The Slow Studio is a space I’ve created to write about my approach to slow(er) living as a design studio owner, multifaceted creative, first-time mother and more. Keep up with me on Instagram and Pinterest.
An important note: this essay is three years (!) in the making is one of the most deeply personal pieces I’ve ever written. Much of its introduction was written a full year before I pursued motherhood; its core was written while I was pregnant, and its final few paragraphs were written just this morning. It reminds me that life happens in chapters, and none of them are perfectly linear. Thank you for reading 🤍
On the internet, there’s a term for us—those ambivalent to childbearing who quake with curiosity, fear and wonder at the thought of starting a family.
“Fencesitters.”
A dedicated online community even exists for us, where nervous fingers can fumble for their phone in the middle of the night to get the maybe-baby worries out of our minds and into the public sphere for solidarity, discourse and dissection.
Through my late 20s and into my early 30s I frequented this community—never once mustering up the nerve to post myself—to conduct covert surveillance on the lives of complete strangers who had, hadn’t yet or had not decided to pursue the winding path of parenthood.
In a way, this near-daily habit of checking in on the heart-cries and innermost thoughts of maybe-mothers, maybe-fathers and card-carrying parents felt like a personal violation, like something voyeuristic and dirty.
And yet, I couldn’t stop myself from endlessly scrolling through the conflicting experiences that filled the screen on-demand:
“I can’t believe I’m saying this after being so staunchly childfree for what feels like an eternity, but I feel compelled to share…my child truly brought meaning and purpose to my life. I never knew what I was missing.”
“I compromised and had a baby for my husband, and everything in our relationship went into a complete upheaval. I regret my choice, I regret my child…and we’ve since separated.”
“Pursuing parenthood feels like a logical way to add meaning to my mid-30s…but I’m scared that my body will go to hell and giving birth scares the hell out of me. What gives?”
Scroll session after endless scroll session, I found myself more strongly tethered to the identity of that as a Fencesitter than a decidedly Childfree woman or one-day Mother.
The term sat well with me, as I could close my eyes and instantly conjure up an image of myself, The Fencesitter: there I was, ambivalently perched atop (comfortably, somehow) a picket fence. To my right the expansive horizon of Childfree, and to my left the vast landscape of Motherhood.
I’d look over my shoulder to the right and see visions of rich, tropical greenery reminiscent of my recent travels, decadent business opportunities that dripped with possibility and endless, unfettered weekends full of adventure and overindulgent brunches.
I’d then look to the left and see an expansive stretch of land, the soil tired and tilled dry, the sky ambiguous and lacking any definitive answers or promise of joy in the great beyond.
Having grown up in Georgia, every adult woman in my life also happened to be a mother. One always went hand-in-hand with the other; to be a woman meant to be a mother, at least one day.
I remember weaseling my way into a spot at the grown-up table at a family gathering, where Southern accents of varying twang filled the room and you could almost taste the saccharine sweet tea in the humid air.
The talk of the table—as it so often had been—revolved around my aunt who was in her late 30s and having trouble conceiving. Prayer requests, old wives’ tales and whispered “Bless her heart”’s swirled around the group, my impressionable ears taking it all in.
I suddenly understood that, in my family, to be without child was to be hapless, pitied and prayed for.
A second or third cousin my own mother’s age caught my eye from across the table, trying to add levity to the conversation.
“Look at you, pretty girl,” she said. “You’re growing up so fast. Don’t let all our talk scare you, you’re going to be a great mama one day.”
“You’re going to be.”
In that moment I was taught, swiftly and implicitly, that not only did much of my future worth hinge on my ability to have a child, but it wasn’t even a choice to be made.
In that moment, a child myself, I decided that that did not sit well with me. I would be different.
“You’re going to be.”
I was eight years old.
My twenties were punctuated and defined by my accomplishments, and I’d dedicated the whole of that wide-eyed decade to excelling both professionally and personally. Graduating college at the top of my major, moving to the city immediately after, landing a creative agency job, meeting my future husband, moving cross-country, landing a better creative agency job, moving cross-country again, getting married, and ultimately, starting my own creative agency.
It was exhausting, all of it, but damn it if it didn’t feel exhilarating, too.
At the time, there was no room for nuance or flexibility in my life: the way I saw it, motherhood meant abandoning myself and trading in all accumulated accomplishments, titles and identities in exchange for bringing a new life into the world—a new life I didn’t even know, an all-but stranger.
Despite all of this, pursuing a childfree life didn’t sit right, either—it held such an innate sense of decisiveness and finality, which was scary for different reasons that I couldn’t quite articulate.
For years I believed that my compulsive research would aid in The Decision, that I’d finally unearth a response or personal narrative in the online community that would deeply resonate—really reverberate—in my soul to finally guide me to a confident “yes” or “no.”
My Decision never arrived perfectly packaged and tied with a bow, as I so wished it would have. Rather, little consistencies in common motherhood mantras and whispers of the heart began to build in intensity and frequency with time.
Loss lies in either decision—there is loss in choosing parenthood just as there is loss in choosing a childfree life. Likewise, intermittent feelings of regret in choosing either life path are just as natural.
Ultimately, my Decision was deeply and intentionally rooted in going back to basics to explore what I knew to be true in my life:
I love my partner deeply and we desire a life together that’s rich in meaning and experiences. And after many years of conversations, we felt certain that bringing a little human into the world to nourish, love, guide and experience life alongside was an experience that we were wholly committed to, together.
Soon after my 31st birthday, an inner shift began to take place.
More specifically, the inner shift took place in the middle of a Goodwill in St. Louis, where I stood—hands shaking—holding a pair of vintage denim baby overalls and found myself walking, trance-like, up to the register to purchase them.
No, I wasn’t pregnant.
But the moment that I held those overalls, I saw her: a blue-eyed, curly-haired baby girl who was waiting to join us one day, in her own time.
Another year passes by.
And then, a few weeks shy of turning 32, I stood open-mouthed and accompanied by our dogs in the bathroom as I saw the telling two lines of a positive pregnancy test staring back at me.
A few months pass by.
I sat in my Jeep after leaving a routine prenatal appointment, and a nurse calls. Would I like to know the sex of the baby? Of course I would, but I simultaneously have a sense of knowing.
The nurse confirms: “It’s a girl.” I smile, I say thank you.
I place a quivering hand on my barely-there belly and say for the very first time, “Hi, Margot.”
The same greeting slipped from my lips just this morning as I lifted our warm, giggly, soft and innocent 15-month-old from her crib and into the glow of the morning light streaming through her nursery windows.
Every facet of life looks different than it did when I began writing this essay nearly three years ago—and for that, I’m grateful.
Life was so beautiful then; it’s beautiful now in new ways, too.
I forgive myself for not knowing what I wasn’t capable of knowing regarding motherhood before; I forgive myself for the self-inflicted pain of doubt and inadequacy that I shouldered for far too long.
But I will never regret waiting until I felt wholly ready, for her.
“Hi, Margot.”
I have rarely felt so seen by an essay. Thank you, thank you for sharing your honest words. I didn't know there was a word for us women who aren't comfortable with the finality of either motherhood or child-free living. I'm so thankful you gave yourself the margin you needed to discern what's best for you. I'm trying to do the same. It's been hard to not have friends who know this similar ache, but I'm thankful I'm not alone. 💜
I teared up at "Hi Margot." I really hits home! I had a similar journey of not being ready for motherhood then, kind of suddenly knowing. Excited to follow along on your journey 🤍