membership of mothers

Something miraculously changes the moment you know you are going to be a mother. You are instantly connected in this deeply profound way with all of the mothers who have gone before you and all of the ones doing it beside you. I felt that today, as I opened a generous priority-mail box of my oldest sister's maternity clothes, gifts from one mom to another. I remember her wearing this striped dress when Lucie was just a tucked-away dream inside her, when our family had not yet changed so dramatically as one does when ten small people join it in a short five years. And now I am joining that membership of mothering where my sisters and my mother and many of my friends and countless strangers have gone before me. I'm still in awe of how open and connected women become once I've told them I'm pregnant. There is no such thing as too personal of information, it suddenly seems. It's like finding out you're part of a club that you actually didn't know existed. Of course I'd seen the bond mothers have before, and rolled my eyes at the endless conversations about things I'd not yet know, but I couldn't have imagined what it felt to be on the inside of this immortal fellowship of those who are the mothers of living things. Here I am, still starting this whole journey, but the whole landscape has changed, forever, and I think I'll forever be glad it did.