Chicken Soup for the African American Woman's Soul by Jack Canfield

Fitzgerald
    Every time I went to the mall, I would end up in the baby store. What did I need from a baby store? The circle of kids in our family was too old for anything they offered, and there were no little buns in the oven.
    As I stood admiring a lace dress, I felt a massive butterfly begin to flap in my belly. (You’ve heard the phrase, “I’ve got butterflies in my stomach”—well, that isn’t the only place where mine were located.) Placing the dress back on the rack, I picked up a sailor’s outfit and reflected on how cute it would look on my son. Then I corrected myself. Surely, you mean your nephew . Maybe . . . girl, you need to stop tripping . The butterfly flapped its wings again. Not knowing why the gush of tears was building in the midst of the flapping butterfly, I exited the store quickly, finding refuge in my car four rows away from the mall entrance.
    Come on, girl , I encouraged myself, get this foolishness together. You know your motto: Kids should be like soda bottles— returnable. Why are you about to lose your mind about this? Where is this coming from?
    Where was it coming from indeed? I had always wanted to be a mother. It’s right there in my senior year memory book. What do you plan to be doing ten years from now? My response: sitting on the beach, writing my third novel with my four boys playing all around me. The desire to be a mother was in the stack of papers hidden beneath my car’s passenger seat: piles of research on fertility clinics, weight-loss clinics—because one specialist told me I would never get pregnant as long as I was overweight—a list of possible donors that I needed to convince and study notes. I wanted to be somebody’s mama. I said it over and over again, as the butterfly flapped its way from my stomach to the back of my throat. I cried.
    Months turned into more months. I made a sizeable investment in pregnancy kits, ovulation kits and specialists— only to suffer from several “almosts.” I know, you cannot be almost pregnant, but I refused to tell myself, No, you’re not pregnant , AGAIN, and I refused to acknowledge that the pregnancy misdiagnosis really had anything to do with a “possibly more serious medical condition.” So I instead believed in almost and maybe next time . When the months finally became years, the trips to the baby store ended, and I tucked the desire to mother my own child away for the night. I convinced myself that it was not my role in life to be a mother, and the desire was no more than fantasy.
    Then one spring day, I arrived back at my condo after dropping off my nephew from a weekend of breaking the “auntie bank.” Turning on the iron to knock wrinkles from the dress I’d chosen to wear to evening worship, I suddenly felt something that frightened me; my womb’s butterfly was back and flapping with a vengeance.
    Ignore it, girl. It’s the Value Meal. You ate it too fast, that’s all . I was clearly trying to convince myself of something that was not true. The butterfly was back. But why? I was resolved. I had accepted what everyone told me—I would not be a mother.
    I grabbed my exfoliating scrub and turned on the shower full blast, as hot as possible. Surely, I could scrub away the voice in my head. It’s time for you to be a mother.
    Your son needs you.
    I lathered. More voices. I exfoliated. More voices—and harder flapping wings. I let suds cover each strand of my natural kinks and felt my sharp nails move along my scalp. More voices. The hot water washed everything away from my body—except the butterfly in my womb.
    Finally, knowing that this was not a battle I was going to win and knowing that I was not going to birth a child, I decided to ask God, “What are you doing? I’ve been celibate two years, so I can’t be pregnant. I haven’t given birth, so I have no ‘son needing me.’ What are you