Growing up, I always imagined I’d become a mother, but after
a few rounds of heartbreak and years of liberal arts education and activism
and, well, just general participation in the world human beings are currently
dominating, I decided that we already have more than enough people. I also
realized that I kind of don’t get kids. Unless they’re mini-adults, I don’t
have much to say to them. Also, playing is exhausting and kind of boring. I was
never a child. Not really.
Along with this realization, as is my style, there was also
a lot of intellectualization and rationalization for my stance, which I oddly
felt I had to justify to anyone with whom I shared my lack of desire for
children. As a feminist, part of my writing off motherhood was based on a) feeling
too much pressure to be a mom merely because I am female-bodied, b) stress from
all the mythology surrounding “mothering instincts” and “good parenting,” and c)
stark awareness of the mothering wars (cloth diapers vs. disposable diapers,
attachment parenting vs. letting them cry it out, stay-at-home vs. working moms,
home birth vs. hospital birth, vaccinations vs. no vaccinations, and on and on
and on). As a queer woman, it was an odd sort of relief to decide that kids weren’t
for me because I felt heartbroken knowing that the (selfish) desire to see my
love with my same-sex-but-not-necessarily-same-gender partners embodied in the
world through procreation would never ever ever
be realized.
Recently, however, at the age of 33, I fell in love with one
of my best friends – a boy. Well, a man, but a sweet boy too. Maybe it was some
type of counterintuitive biological imperative, or maybe it was looking at all
my friends’ (adorable) babies on Facebook, or maybe my body and mind realizing
a new possible future, my urge to have a child – one that would grow and come
forth from within my body – grew
suddenly, hard and fast. I began to fear that my eggs were dried up, that my
extended 20-something behavior and total lack of life plan was going to
interfere with me ever having a child while it was still physically possible.
For a year, I stressed and obsessed but my partner and I remained safe and
careful to prevent a pregnancy for which we are in no way ready.
But now:
a miraculous
mistake, a trendy 30-something oops-baby. I am in my 7th week
of a pregnancy that isn’t apparently considered risky even though I’ll be 34
when s/he is born. Everything in there looks healthy and normal. Yesterday we
watched a heart flutter at 127 BPM on a small black and white screen, a heart
that didn’t exist 7 weeks ago.
Even though I’m still getting used to looking like a
straight person in public and even though we’re in serious financial peril and this
was seriously not what was “supposed
to happen,” I am grateful for this Little Nugget and the Universe’s decision in
the form of a gift, because existence is miraculous and my body is mammalian
and magical, and I never was good at making decisions and we’re never ready for
anything, not really. And also because there are so many incredible people who try
and try and would give anything for the Universe to let this be the kind of
accident they have today.
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