Perfection and the meaning of life lie in my arms! It’s 1980 and I am transformed in a single moment from child to mother. From selfish to selfless. I now live for this beautiful precious creature, nothing else matters to me. I have waited nine months for her. I have enjoyed being pregnant, loved the changes to my body, held my growing belly and felt her little feet develop and kick me, felt each little hic cup at 1AM. I am not a religious person, but this miracle of life and development has awed and amazed me and humbled me. I am so lucky.
It was an easy pregnancy. I had been married three months and decided I wanted a child. I stopped the birth control and conceived the first month. I planned the whole thing that way, couldn’t wait to take the home pregnancy test. I peek at the results after the required few minutes and “oh my god” it’s positive. A moment of ecstasy and panic flood through me. Wow, I am only nineteen. Okay, several moments pass and so does the panic, I am only happy. I want to share my secret with everyone and yet I want to hold it all to myself because it is too important and too much mine. I am already possessive of this future child. A trait that will continue through the rest of my life and will sometimes isolate those around me. But I don’t care, because she is mine and she is me and nothing else will ever be the same.
Life for me changes immediately with this conception, the carefree wild teenager is gone. I no longer smoke pot, I no longer drink a drop of alcohol, I no longer eat salt or bad food, I take my vitamins, for I am focused on making it the best pregnancy and the healthiest baby I can.
And although I feel a shift in the universe, oddly my friends don’t feel it, their behavior remains the same, my husband’s behavior remains the same. I am changing, I am growing along with my body. I am separating from the life and the friends I had so enjoyed, but now seem so childish and so irrelevant.
Delivery is not so easy! My due date has come and the child has not. I am not dilating. The doctor sends me for an x-ray (pre-sonogram) and my perfect child is breech. Her butt is where her head should be and she is a big baby. Doc says she is not coming out and I will need surgery. Oh God!! I am into everything natural since I’m pregnant. Won’t even take a Tylenol for a headache. Won’t even take a Tums for heartburn. I planned on a completely natural birth with no meds. Now I need anesthesia and surgery. I am mad, I am sad, I am terrified. My perfectly controlled life is not all under my control. I think this is my first realization of this, but I am only twenty and I quickly forget and will soon believe I am in control again.
My surgery is scheduled for Monday morning, I am told to go home and rest until then. I am being wheeled into the OR. The table is ice cold and hard metal, I feel every inch of it pressed against me, the air is cold and the blanket is warm, the overhead lights flash down on me as I’m wheeled under them. I am shivering and I don’t know if it’s the temperature or my fear. I am really scared. I don’t want anesthesia, I am afraid I will not wake up. I am losing control. But I am lucky, there is a wonderful motherly nurse who holds my hand and tells me not to fear, she will watch over me. I relax or perhaps it was the drugs coursing through my IV. Either way I am out and so is my beautiful baby. I am only asleep 20 minutes and wake to the most beautiful sight ever. A perfect little girl, plump and round and mine.
Some people think when they die, all the questions of the universe are answered. Mine were answered that day. The meaning of life was no longer a mystery to me. The philosophical question of “why are we here” was never to haunt me again. I knew why. I only had to gaze into her big blue eyes and see into my own soul. My life is perfect!