The Twilight Zone

It's hard to imagine or predict how you will react to news of this proportion. As someone with the most severe case of baby fever, I would have bet everything I own on the fact that I would be ECSTATIC. And Chris, who had been struggling with the fact that he may not want children at all, I assumed would be DEVASTATED. Boy, was I wrong. 

I was devastated.  Chris was ecstatic. 

I couldn’t explain my reaction, or even understand it myself. Mostly, I was in disbelief. I floated through the next few days, leading up to my first ultrasound. I took a total of seven pregnancy tests in those three days, all which came back positive, (obviously) and each time it stung more. I would have taken even more had poor Christopher not banned me from CVS pharmacy. I just couldn’t accept that it was real.

I had a very specific idea of where I wanted to be when I brought a baby into this world. I wanted everything for my children, the kind of upbringing I was so fortunate to have had myself. I wanted most importantly to be married, and in a happy, healthy partnership with my husband. A relationship that would most certainly pass the test of time, and all of life’s most challenging trials. I had watched my parents growing up, happy, blessed, and fabulously in love until the minute we lost my dad. I would not settle for less. I had seen how children become the inadvertent collateral damage of divorce, and I was determined to protect mine from that. So now that I’m pregnant and unmarried, what are my choices? Get married before it gets here so he/she is born into a “family”? Be unmarried when he/she arrives? Neither sounded appealing to me. After weeks of nonstop thinking, I decided that it is more important for this child to come into a relationship that is solid, loving, and REAL than one that is rushed into a union that may or may not mean anything more than a label. It is crucial to Chris and I’s happiness that we both know for CERTAIN that when we decide to marry, it is only because we have chosen each other as our life partner, based on our love. Whether that happens in five days, or five years, only time will tell. But one thing is for sure, when it happens, I will know in my heart that it is genuine, and that I will undoubtedly be the happiest girl in the world. 

Then of course there is my financial situation. I feel very strongly about being a stay-at-home or work-from-home mom. While I understand that for many, this is not possibility, I believe that for ME  there isn’t any other way. I think that as a mother, it is my responsibility to nurture, care and look after my own children. I should be the one teaching them to walk, and talk, and to know right from wrong. I should know my children better than anyone else. I wanted more than anything to be in a financial situation to be able to focus my attention and energy solely on my family. But as the news of my pregnancy is ever so slowly sinking in, so is the realization that I won’t be able to give my baby this life. At least not at first. Chris and I are doing what we can every day to make this a reality, so I know that it’s only a matter of time before it’s possible. 

Accepting the things I cannot change has been a daily battle. But I have found peace in the fact that I am with the most wonderful man imaginable, who tirelessly attempts to calm my fears, and turn my dreams into realities.