I look back in surprise daily for the vision of the life I lead now and the life I led then. Back in May of 2005 when the doctor told me I was pregnant, I was both scared and thrilled. I had suffered one miscarriage, so I tried not to put all my hopes into this turning out perfectly either. Yet, I was smiling from ear to ear when I jumped into my husband’s truck and we drove away from the hospital. Soon he was asking me what the doctor had told me.
“We are pregnant!” I cried out in delight.
Poor man, he nearly drove his truck off the road in shock and surprise. We had been not trying but not preventing for almost two years. The doctors had told me a few years before that I would not be able to have children. I wanted nothing more than to become someone’s mother and smother them in love and acceptance, as I had never been. I was young, so the dream was still very alive. At 23 anything is possible, I know this now.
I wanted to wait to tell people, to make sure I would not be calling back with regret as I had before. My dear husband decided to tell everyone as soon as possible. The family was less than thrilled, but that was to be expected in our living situation. We were residing in the house of my father-in-law after a nasty eviction.
Quickly three months went by and my husband decided that his truck would have to go. I think half his soul was in that truck with as much love as he felt toward it, but a baby-seat needed a real car. He picked out a bright red Hyundai that was affordable, red was my favorite color. (To this day he still tells me he wants another truck.)
By the fourth month I was spotting and put on bed-rest for the entirety of my pregnancy. Before we knew it more problems would pop up. My gallbladder grew stones and they became very painful and I was in and out of the hospital, but apparently this is common in pregnancy. They knew quickly that my gallbladder needed to come out, but they hesitated about making an eight-inch incision and endangering the baby. So, later, when I was around eight months pregnant they brought me in for an amniocentesis to see if my little girl would have the ability to breathe outside the womb yet. Happily, the results were positive. This meant we would be meeting her very soon.
Within hours of the test results we had packed our bags and headed to the hospital to be induced with Pitocin. That was on a Friday afternoon after a big lunch at Panera. I was in labor almost 48 hours before they finally, to my relief, ordered a c-section. For reasons I would later discover, I only dilated by half an inch over that whole weekend. Nonetheless, on December 18, 2005 my little angel was born.
It is almost six years later as I write this, and she is asleep on the floor in front of me, exhausted from kindergarten and a play date. She snores like both her Mommy and Daddy and she has his eyes and my chin. I am much more single now, and I live in a tiny condo where I help take care of my mother. My angel lives with her Daddy, Grandpa, and uncle about ten minutes away by car.
The first year after we separated I was confused all the time whether it was better for her to have me in her life or not. I would see her every day for months at a time and then not at all for weeks. Painfully, during a really tough time in my life, I went almost three months without a hug and a kiss from my daughter, only phone calls. It broke my heart every single day, and it still does.
Now, I have learned that we grow into being parents, kind of like our babies grow. We evolve and grow and change, we even make a few bad choices and mistakes.
Now I love her every minute, just like I always have and I see her every other weekend, and that has taught me you also grow into being a single parent. Everything changes when you do not see your child every day. This day, in fact, I realized in a Wal-Mart that I did not know what size clothes she wore anymore when I reached out to some Hello Kitty pajamas. This fact made me very sad, deep in my heart. Things weren’t always like this. For a long time I would talk with my now ex husband and we would discuss everything that was going on our daughter’s life. But even after knowing each other for twelve years, we are finally growing apart. We separated on good terms, but now we have separate lives. The only things that connect us is this little girl and some nice but hazy memories.
I am learning, and I am growing. I am becoming the best mom that I know how. My daughter will be my only child, I know that after a total hysterectomy a few years ago. But I don’t think I was ever meant to be a mother to more than one special child.
Today I can say that she was the inspiration for my returning to college and going back out into the world. She is the reason I write. Our children are an extension of ourselves, and I would really hate for her to grow up and not be proud of who her mother is. So I make changes, and I take risks. We learn, we evolve, we change.