To The Women Facing An Unplanned Pregnancy – Here’s What I Know For Sure

 

 

I paused for a minute in the aisle of Walgreens, overwhelmed by the moment. Am I really here, looking for a pregnancy test? Is this really happening?

I grabbed the 2-for-$19.99 box (figuring I’d want to take more than one test) and headed to the counter. The teenage cashier, probably a student at the same school as me, pushed her math textbook to the side and rang up my order: one pregnancy test, a 20-ounce bottle of ginger ale and a copy of Essence. 

“That’ll be $26,” she said.

I fished out a twenty and four singles. Shoot, I thought I had another five in here…

I dug out another two dollars in change and kept my head low. By the time I got back to the car I was sobbing. Somehow I knew, even before taking the test, that I was pregnant. I just…knew. In truth, I knew the moment after we had sex that something felt different.

I went to my boyfriend’s apartment and locked myself in the bathroom. I left him in the living room because I wanted to be alone, but not too alone. I took the test and waited.

Pregnant.

The next few months were a blur. I hid my pregnancy from my professors and fellow students and took few photos to capture the changes in my life. I was scared and anxious and worried that I’d doomed my kid to a life of “less than,” simply because I wasn’t yet ready to become a mother.

That was eight years ago. My fears of motherhood were real, but the life I thought I had doomed myself to, was not. I’ve grown as a woman, as a lover and as a friend and I can absolutely point to my daughter and say, “Yes, it’s because of her presence.”

The reason I began this blog was because of the fear I faced. Will I be a good mother? What will my family think? Will I be able to provide for my daughter? What about my career? What about…everything? 

Honestly, I felt like the world was ending. I now know that it was just beginning.

Too often we treat unplanned pregnancy like the end of a perfectly good life. “Such a shame,” people gossip to one another. “She had such a bright future.”

Let me tell you: you still have a bright future. Pregnancy is not the death of you, but the rebirth of a new you, one who is stronger, more resilient, more capable than who you were before. When we talk about motherhood and pregnancy, we talk so much about sacrifice and going without and the struggle to maintain. *raises hand* I’m guilty of that.

But what I also know for sure is that my life is so enriched by the two children who call me “Mom.” They make me laugh, they teach me things, they show me what pure, unadulterated love looks like. They are precious little beings who never give up on me—they believe I have superpowers.

Motherhood, if you embrace it, can be a glorious thing. Don’t let the fact that you have children deter you—from anything. The rest of your life will be the best of your life.