Is there anything more hope-inspiring than the sight of a pregnant woman? The swelling of life in her abdomen … her rosy, thank-heavens-the-morning-sickness-is-finally-over cheeks … her bright eyes *sparkling* with visions of her child’s * impending arrival * beauty * intelligence * promise * growth *  achievement * prom * college * marriage * career * baby * holy friggin cow I’m a grandma already? where did the time go? * oy vey! why don’t you call your poor old mother anymore * … errr…. what was I writing about?

Oh, yeah. Pregnant women. It’s been a dozen years since I was “expecting”. Back then, it never occurred to me that my babies could be anything but perfect. I didn’t just hope for this; I fully expected them to have ten fingers and ten toes, my curly Jewfro, and their dad’s strong Nordic bones. I had no idea what a miracle it was when these expectations were met.

I also assumed that they would have perfect brains and be book-loving academic geeks like me. But by the time my first son, Rocky, was 18 months old, I was already seeing the first signs that my “perfect” son had autism. Strangely, I persisted in entertaining fantasies of perfection when my second child, Taz, began dancing on my bladder. He too came into being with significant neurological, psychiatric and developmental disorders.

The closest I’ve ever come to having a special-needs-free child was in 1995, when my family hosted an AFS foreign-exchange high school student from Norway for eleven months. It was a wonderful experience, and our relationship has remained strong to this day. She is and will always be my Viking daughter. And now, she is expecting a daughter of her own.

She’s a wise young woman, wiser than I was at her age, and – maybe in part because of her experiences with my boys and their special needs – she seems to understand that the true joys of parenting have nothing to do with perfection. Every time she visits, she is struck, not by her “brothers’” differences and difficulties, but by how far they have progressed.

She’s visiting us this week to show us her hope-filled belly. Rocky is thrilled because he knows his Viking sister will listen patiently as he shares his encyclopedic knowledge of the film-making industry. Taz is already thinking up names for her baby-to-be, and he wants to make sure I show her the poster he gave me last week, painstakingly scrawled in his large, clumsy handwriting with the words “happyer mothers day”.

I know my Viking daughter will be a wonderful mother, and the only expectation I have now is that her little girl will one day know me as her “American grandma”.

* Holy friggin’ cow, I’m a grandma already? * Where did the time go? * Oy vey …