I can clearly recall the day that I first found out, I was pregnant with you. I had just returned from meeting your daddy for lunch, at the shipyard in Portland , Oregon where he was working. I had suspected for a few weeks that I might be pregnant but was putting off taking any tests mainly due to my fear of the unknown. That day, I knew that I could not hold off any longer. I went to the drugstore and bought a pregnancy test. It tested positive. I went back to the drug store and bought another test. That tested positive too. I went to the dollar store and bought 6 pregnancy tests. All positive.
As I sat in the midst of my sea of pregnancy tests, I felt a mixture of emotion and questions like I had never experienced before? Would I make a good mom? Was I too selfish of a person to make room in my life for a child? Would your father be happy to hear the news, scared, excited, overwhelmed? Your father
wouldn’t be home for a few more hours, which may as well have been years as I sat and watched the clock wondering when would be the best time to tell him. It turned out that the best time was to blurt out the news right when he walked in the door. I asked him to sit down and I told him that I loved him more than anything and then I said, “I’m pregnant”. He sat there in stunned silence for a bit and then he asked to be alone. I don’t know what he was feeling, or what I was feeling for that matter. It
wasn’t that we
didn’t want kids or
hadn’t talked about having them it was just not something that we were necessarily prepared for right then. We were getting married in a month and had planned to take a honeymoon, come home, settle in and start looking at buying a house. It seemed that now, all that was to be put on hold, perhaps indefinitely.
In the days that followed, my emotions swung from daydreams of picture perfect scenarios of being a mother to utter sadness at what would be the loss of my life as I had always known it. Suddenly, my life was not mine anymore, my life was and would forever now be all about your life. Everything that was previously mine would now be yours. Sometimes the thought of no longer just living for me seemed incomprehensible and terrifying.
My emotions vacillated between these extremes for weeks as I contemplated the changes to my body and my outlook that pregnancy and raising a child would bring. Your daddy
didn’t seem to share my fears as he encouraged me to sleep, kissed my belly in the morning and called us “his loves”. I was amazed at his ability to love you, even before you were fully formed, and it reminded me of all the things that I love about him and assured me that he would be an amazing father. Still, I felt in some way that I was not living up to my part of the bargain. Everything that I read made it seem as though every woman is instantly overjoyed to find out she is pregnant. I could not find any articles on sadness, fear or being overwhelmed with finding out that you are pregnant. I felt alone and like maybe there was something wrong with me. Was I not going to be a good mother? With trepidation and excitement, I made an appointment for my first ultrasound, hoping that the doctor would be able to help me answer some of the questions I had.
At 14 weeks I went in to have my first Ultrasound. The doctor that saw me was wonderful. She assured me that I was not alone in any of my feelings and gave me the names and contact information for support groups and exercise groups for first time moms. She checked my weight and measurements and assured me that everything looked normal. She then rubbed an enhancing gel on my stomach and used a machine that employed sound waves to pull up an image of you on the screen. She laughed as she noted that it was hard to get a clear image of you because you were moving so much and I thought, “he’ll be restless, always wanting to be in the go, just like his mama”. Then, something magical happened, the clearest picture of you appeared on the screen. I could see in full detail, the shape of your head and the outline of your nose, mouth, eyes and lips. There you were, lying peacefully in my stomach, kicking your tiny legs and rubbing your eyes with your tiny fists, sheltered from the loud outside world by the silence and insulation of my belly. You turned right to the screen at one point as though looking right at me and saying, “it’s going to be all right mom” then, you put your hand, palm down against my belly. It was right then that I fell utterly, hopelessly, completely in love with you. As I cried and laughed at the same time, I knew that from that moment on, I would do anything for you. Whether that means cutting out all alcohol, caffeine and junk food during pregnancy, changing diapers and staying up all night to soothe your tears, bandaging skinned knees or mourning the loss of a loved pet or friend with you. I will be there for you, for whatever time god allows us to be together, I will be by your side to protect you, to love you, to guide you and to cherish you. As you are forming in my stomach, each little kick or stretch that I feel inside of me makes you all the more real and special. I rub my belly and talk to you and let you know how much you are loved, already, and you haven’t even made your grand entrance into the world yet. Your daddy has bought you a crib, and toys and car seats and clothes. Your nursery is all set up and ready to go. You have a multitude of aunts, uncles, cousins, friends and family that are eagerly awaiting your arrival and can’t wait to meet you. You are so loved little one. You are loved now, you will be loved tomorrow and every day after. What is conceived in love, is sure to find love in the world it is brought into, and that is my wish for you, that you will always carry our love for you in your heart and let that love be your guide.
What is mine, what is ours, will forever be yours.
-Your Mommy
