I Honor You, Mama.
Pregnancy truly is a beautiful thing. Us women are growing life. However, every pregnancy is unique, and the road to get there is different for everyone. Therefor, everyone harnesses their own emotions and feeling while on this path, that is usually uncomfortable, exciting, scary, stressful, and a miracle.
When you see a woman adorned with her bump, you never know what her journey was, or is, getting there. For some, it took months or years, and maybe even shots and medications. For others, it was an accident, and she’s terrified and so unsure what to do. Maybe she was trying and trying and trying what felt like forever, or maybe she's carrying this miracle for someone else. She could have been through loss, and is scared out of her mind each day that she might lose this one, too. Planned, not planned, first pregnancy, or tenth, every mother is on her own path, and this is mine.
My story doesn't start with this pregnancy, it starts 8 years ago, when I went through the most traumatizing, life-shifting experience of my life. I was 21, naive, young, and selfish. I didn't understand the miracle of what pregnancy was. I got pregnant on accident, but was in denial for most of it, until life slapped me in the face and gave me a reality check. I thought I could keep living my life the same, and a baby would be like taking care of anything else. Find a daycare, keep living life, easy. I truly didn’t understand what it meant, or appreciate the life growing inside. Then I went to my 20 week anatomy scan. It’s all fun, you get to find out the gender, but then something more happened. Something I never knew, or even thought I could handle, at that young adolescent age. They found some things. Her heart didn't look right, and something was going on with her head. Instantly there were doctors in the room, and a huge needle was poked through my abdomen to suck up the amniotic fluid. The next few weeks were a blur. I had to make choices and experience things a 21 year old should never have to. She had a missing piece of her 18th chromosome, and two valves of her heart didn't close properly. She wasn't going to make it. She was a girl, she had a name, and we lost her. Instantly I grew up. I looked at life differently. My path was altered forever.
Fast forward to my next two pregnancies- my son and my current one. The journey of pregnancy is a scary one for me. It’s hard to celebrate and be excited, when the daunting fear at each appointment creeps up on you. What will they find? What will they tell me? A high risk pregnancy with extra testing, conversations with genetic counselors, retelling my story over to them, and more needles poked into my abdomen each time to pull out fluid from the placenta to look closely at the chromosomes and maybe get a little peace of mind if everything comes back negative. This all happens quickly right in the beginning, before 12 weeks, when most are excitedly telling and sharing their news. It still doesn't take the fear away. Even at the 20 week anatomy scan, there's still a tremendous wave of fear that it’ll happen again, and I’ll get news that they've found something wrong. I don't think those feelings will ever go away.
So I see you mama. I see you telling people you just “want the baby healthy” when they ask if you want a girl or a boy. Because trust me, sometimes it really, really is all that mama is hoping for. I see you, scared to share your bump and holding back excitement, in fear of each passing day something could happen. I see you, hurting and fighting back tears with everyone’s pregnancy announcement, wondering when yours will come. I see you, having to make hard decisions about the unexpected life growing inside you. I see you, ashamed of your growing belly, embarassed with no ring on your finger and no partner to support you, but please, please mama, please don't feel shame- feel strength. I see you all, mamas, and I honor you all. We are warriors on our path, and on this beautiful journey.
