Dawn's Story

Daughter, Sister, Aunt, Friend, and Other Mother

This is more of a waiting for other people’s babies story.  I never seriously thought about having children of my own.  I don’t really know why.  I used to say maybe someday I would, but I think God had a plan for me. I feel complete and happy with the road my life has taken.

  Over the years I never once got pregnant and I should have questioned why but never did.  So when I had to have surgery for an ovarian cyst and the Dr. explained that even though he did not expect any problems, he had to ask that if when he was operating and the possibility came up that he would have to remove my ovaries or anything else if it was ok.  I did not even hesitate when I told him whatever he had to do, go ahead and remove whatever needed to be.  I had no plans to have any kids at this stage in my life.

  The cyst turned out to be normal, nothing to worry about, but while he was waiting for the tests to come back from the lab, which was taking longer than normal, he decided to poke around and see if anything else was going on.  That is when he found the cancer on the other ovary.  Needless to say they had to call in the Oncologist and do a complete Hysterectomy and remove anything that the cells could have touched.  I know I had my guardian angel with me that day.  Even he said normally he would have just closed up and didn’t know why he decided to poke around.  If the cancer would not have been found when it was, another month later it would have been a whole different story as it was one of the fastest growing cancers there is.

 I believe my purpose in life has been to help others with their children.  Maybe it’s because I refuse to grow up and think I am still a kid. 

 I come from a big family so there always seem to be little ones around.  I started babysitting as soon as people would let me.  At 14 I was trapped by a blizzard with my cousin who was 12 and her baby brother while her mom went grocery shopping with my parents and did not make it home for a few days.  After high school a friend of mine had a child and asked me to babysit for a few hours and did not return for him for a week.  She kept in contact and kept apologizing that she wasn’t able to care for him and to please take good care of him until she could.  She just needed to figure things out.  Out of concern for the child I did, I had my own apartment so it wasn’t a big deal to me.  I had a roommate so she helped out as well.  It was just the natural thing to do.

  Later on I was able to help family out when they needed it as well.  My brother was left with 2 daughters to care for, a 6 month old and a 2 ½ year old.  He was a young Dad and knew he had to work and needed to care for the kids as well.  I was only a couple years older than him and didn’t even give it a second thought to move in and care for the girls while he was at work, then when he came home I went to work.  We worked very well together.  They were young, so don’t quite remember all the times I would rock them while they were sick, the trips to the Dr, the books that were read to them, and the play time we had together.  They do remember bits and pieces but it is probably more of what they have been told than actual memories.  It wasn’t all fun and games but we did the best we could for them and both have turned out pretty spectacular if I do say so.  We did this for about a year and a half before my brother tried to put his family back together.  This is a time I will cherish forever.  It has been wonderful to see them grow over the years into such beautiful young women that are now making a difference in this world.  I still treasure that special bond with them that was created way back then.

  I was also blessed with the opportunity to become a part of my best friends family and became close with her two sons and watch them grow from small boys to the young adults they are now.  I was able to experience a lot of school functions, class trips, birthday parties and a lot of baseball games.   Over the years we were able to do a lot of traveling together which hold a lot of fond memories.  Even though they are adults themselves now I still think of them as kids.

  I have nieces and nephews that range from their 30’s all the way down to 2 years old.  I have had just about all of them stay overnight at some point in time, sometimes just 1 or sometimes a bunch of them.  I am looking forward to having a group of the younger ones stay like I did with the older ones when they were little.  I promise we won’t watch scary movies though.  I love going to their school functions and just spending time with them.  I am looking forward to seeing them all grow and have children of their own.

  I guess what I am trying to say is that you don’t have to go thru the pregnancy and delivery process to be a very important part of a child's life.  There are all kinds of options out there to make a difference, you just have to choose the option that is right for you.  The option I chose was to borrow and give them back to their parents and have loved every minute of it.  I think they know I will always be there for them no matter what.