I never wanted to have children until I became pregnant, and my entire
outlook suddenly changed. I heard stories of people like that, and things
seem to always change once they lay eyes on their child. It was seeing those
two pink lines that really got me. The pregnancy test didn’t look anything
like a baby, of course—and of course, I always knew that pregnancy was,
like...a thing—I just didn’t think it would happen to me. It became real in
that moment, and I fell in love with this little person growing inside of me
who I wouldn’t be able to meet for the next nine months. What I didn’t know
back then was that she and I would actually never meet. I was scared to tell
my husband the news. We weren’t stupid; we got married knowing each other’s
feelings on the matter. We discussed a lot of things about the future before
we agreed to set a date. Both of our families and friends were so upset when
we told them about the wedding, but didn’t have a cutesy story to go along
with it. He didn’t ask me at a sports competition, or hide a ring in my
dessert. He didn’t even get down on one knee. We were responsible and
thoughtful about this decision, and I honestly can’t think of anything more
romantic. There is no doubt in my mind that, had I survived, we would have
grown old together. I didn’t wait a really long time to tell him about the
baby, like they do on TV. That’s like asking for people to find out some
other way while hilarity ensues. I sat him down next to me on the couch,
took a deep breath, and just said the words. I remember him staring into my
eyes, darting his own back and forth, looking for the truth written across
my face. He was shocked, and worried, and then his face changed the same way
I felt mine change when I found out myself. He felt overwhelmed by his
emotions, but one thing was for certain, it all added up to joy. He was
excited. We had both changed our minds.
Our family and friends were so excited for us as well when we started
spreading the news a few months later. It was like they had forgotten what
we had put them through with the whole marriage proposal thing. These
reactions started to change when they learned how we were handling the
process. No baby shower, no gifts, no opinions about how I should give
birth, or who I should choose as my doula. We especially didn’t have a
gender reveal party. We let the technician tell us what the sex would be at
birth, but we weren’t going to assign a gender to an individual without
their say-so. We would call her a she for the first several years of her
life until such time that she figured out who she really was. My mother was
not happy about this. She wanted to have a party, and she wanted to have
another party where people gave us things that were either pink or blue. My
husband and I painted the nursery with monster trucks, sports balls, and
volcanoes just to piss her off. Don’t worry, we painted over it with a nice
neutral green afterwards. As you might have guessed, we still got a lot of
gifts, even though we didn’t have a registry. We didn’t need charity
regardless, but I kind of always liked the idea of risking getting two of
the same item. That’s how they did it in the olden days, and ya know what,
people survived the emotional trauma of knowing that their particular gift
was returned to the store. I will never know what gender my child would
ultimately choose, or what toys she would end up liking the most. I’ll never
know how great a father my husband is, or how good a mother I could be. I
know one thing, I’m enormously grateful that I chose to give birth in a
hospital. Because if I hadn’t, my child probably would have died too.
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