Friday

Last Friday I was in the doctor's office. From the room next to mine I could hear a fetal heartbeat. It is an amazing sound. Although the experience of seeing your baby in a sonogram is miraculous; for me, the sound of the heartbeat was beyond words.

I heard that little heartbeat when I was 9 weeks pregnant. The doctor examine me questioned me various times about when my last cycle began etc. She was sure that I was 13 weeks pregnant over the 9 I claimed. Thus, I went, on my own, to have a sonogram. Sure enough, I was 10 weeks along at that point

I always tell expecting mothers to pay attention to the behavior of the baby prior to birth as they demonstrate many of the same characteristics/patterns once they have entered the world. My daughter was no exception. She was a mover and a shaker before I could feel her... in that very first sonogram. She still is.

I laid on the table and felt that ache of wanting to experience pregnancy again. The first time was so wonderful physically. Emotionally, well, I am not sure I was able to enjoy being pregnant. The pregnancy was a shock, to put it mildly. I quickly saw it as a blessing but was pretty much alone in that belief. It is hard to be single, pregnant, and without a great deal of emotional support given that everyone is in "shock" or wondering how it is "going to effect me" (them).

For my straight laced, conservative, country club family an unwed pregnancy was not exactly a blessing. It was bad enough that I was traveling and living all over the world when I should have been establishing myself professionally. Now, finally a professional (at the ripe old age of 29) I was pregnant and "daddy" was not intending to have much involvement in my life.

8 years later, almost to the day, I am listening to another woman bringing a baby into the world; another blessing; another miracle. Some how I think that this woman planned her pregnancy a little better than did I. It is funny that we "plan" pregnancy. The molecular process of pregnancy is so miraculous and kind of against the odds. Yet we "plan" when we are ready, when we will try. And every once in a while we are given a surprise gift; completely unplanned, unexpected, and well, the earth shifts.

I was 29 when my daughter was born. I was fortunate enough to have a career, a good education, a supportive family that got over themselves after a while. (they were always supportive, but didn't "get it" for quite a while... and in some ways, they still don't). I can't imagine how teen aged girls do it.

How much water has passed under the bridge. I remain the family black sheep but probably more out of my own personal strength than because I have broken every rule of what was expected. My family seems amazed at the well adjusted, outgoing, and entirely beautiful daughter that I am raising, by myself. I am not sure why they expected anything less given that ...I am an exception!