Sisters know

Disclaimer: I am not pregnant, nor am I trying to become so. The experience I will relate later hasn't happened for at least eight months.

As such, I figure this is the best time to ask a question I've been wondering for some years now. I'm hesitant to ask this question. Mostly because I don't want anyone who reads this and knows me in real life to start speculating on my reproductive conditions, hence the disclaimer.

This isn't a graphic question- more of a feeling question, but I don't think any men would quite understand this. Let me save you some time, male readers, this might be utterly too female for you:)

A woman in my ward recently read us a poem at our last RS meeting. She wrote it about her experience breaking her arm and how the women in the Relief Society took care of her. Her last line was, "Sisters know." I love that.

So when these memories popped into my head last week and I desired to know if other women have ever experienced the same thing, I hemmed and hawed about actually asking. But then, "Sisters know" popped into my head and I'm just gonna ask!

Enough beating about the bush for you?

Yeah. Me, too!!

Have you ever-

Taken a pregnancy test and while waiting those two minutes prayed for it to be negative, while longing for it to be positive? Or taken a test, prayed and prayed and prayed it was negative, only to feel so sad when it does come up negative?

I have and it kinda boggles me and make complete sense all at the same time.

(Motherhood seems to mean never feeling one emotion at a time; there must always be at least two battling each other.)

I've only ever taken the test once with that feeling. But there's been at least four times when I was on the brink of taking that test and the natural answer showed up. All five times I battled the competing thoughts of "please, let me be pregnant" and "please, no more pregnancies yet."

Have you ever felt like that? And if you have, why do you think that is?

All I can come up with is that once that possibility is planted in a woman's brain, that there is a child growing inside of her, she's in love. And no amount of "I can't handle another baby" will lessen that.

And how does this tie into gratitude? Well, I am so thankful that it is inherent in me (and I suspect women in general) to love a child so deeply before I even meet them face to face. Sometimes I feel silly for loving something and "losing" it when it never even existed. In the end, though, I am so blessed to know that aspect of motherhood; that instant, deep love.