I’ve never been pregnant. I’ve never felt a baby move inside me or gone through labor or known what it’s like to have my body be the vessel for another person’s life. That experience belongs entirely to Sydney, and she has given it to us five times. Two of our five kids don’t share my DNA. They are Sydney’s biologically. I have loved them since before they existed in any form, and I am their mother in every way that word means anything. For the other three, we did reciprocal IVF — my eggs, Sydney’s body. Biologically, they’re mine in a way the other two aren’t. And I want to be honest … that distinction doesn’t make me love any of them more. It just means science gave me a different kind of connection to three of them. The love was already identical. None of this makes me less their mother. Not the not carrying. Not the DNA. Not the fact that I watched from beside Sydney instead of from inside the experience. What makes me their mother is what I do every day. That’s it. That’s the ...