Leggo My Preggo- Part One
I was pregnant, and I had a lot to figure out.
I was really grateful that I’d gotten a decent job before this.
I got some sleep, and then went over to tell The Old Witch. She told me to apply for Medicaid. I explained that I couldn’t because my family would see that as me taking a handout and living off of the government and it would mean giving up them ever approving of me.
She told me to pick up the damn phone and make an appointment to go fill out the paperwork, so I did. I was amazed that she wasn’t mad, but this was her grandchild and the last thing I wanted was for her to think I was going to put my baby in any kind of danger.
I almost felt like she knew it was going to go that way from the beginning. I had been prepared for her to be raging at me. I had been prepared for her to hold it over my head and use it against me constantly. I had been prepared to take a wrath that just wasn’t there. She was practical, and didn’t see how being mad at me would make me less pregnant. I really loved that about her.
The Son of a Witch that got me pregnant was at school, and I needed more sleep before going to work that night, so I headed back to my place. He stopped by that afternoon, and we stood in my kitchen, talking about plans.
“What are we going to do?” he asked.
“I don’t know what you’re going to do,” I responded, “but I’m having a baby.” I didn’t give him a choice. There was no chance of me giving up this child, ever.
I was still 18, and he was almost 17. We talked about where we were at in life.
I missed having babies around. It had been hard since I’d left home, in no small part because I’d spent 8 years raising babies, and all of a sudden there weren’t even children around. Life didn’t really make sense that way.
He, on the other hand, was young, in a very different way than I was, and it had nothing to do with the age gap between us.
We weren’t in love. We really liked each other. We even respected each other, and in this case that was so much better than being in love.
There was no angst or animosity as we stood there, just the two of us in my kitchen. I told him I had no desire to keep him from the baby that I had preemptively decided was a girl. We all start off as girls, so there’s no harm in it, and I would later tell anyone who asked that she was a girl until proven guilty. (Remember my man-hater upbringing?)
I told him I didn’t want child support. Mom had raised us without child support, and it was a very important component of her warrior SCRIPT. I couldn’t feed a narrative that would run through my family saying I just got knocked up to live off some man’s child support. I perceived that as an accusation that I wouldn’t recover from. I still very much believed that if I paid my dues, Mom would eventually be satisfied at my enoughness.
I suppose it’s still this way, unfortunately, but back then there were limited opportunities for someone with a uterus to build their warrior SCRIPT. Really, there was only one that would matter, as a make-it or break-it rite of passage.
Childbirth– and the transcendence into the motherhood expectation.
This was my chance- MY rite of passage, and I had to do it just right, or it wouldn’t count, and that would be my SCRIPT either way. (It seems like such crap that it was like this in my head, but my entire worth hung on this at the time.)
I also felt up for it. I felt like I could do it, like I would figure it out. It felt like my mom didn’t know who I was, or what I was made of, and I saw this as an opportunity to show her.
I also felt deeply that it was mine to figure out, and that sovereignty was non-negotiable.
I didn’t want to expect anything of anybody else. I needed to not need him. I told him that I was ready for her, but couldn’t raise him too. I didn’t say it with malice or judgement, and he agreed, and said he was grateful he could trust me with her.
I also told him that we were not going to continue to boink, because I might me catching feelings for someone.
I’m still impressed with how receptive he was to everything I said. He stood there and just heard me. I think he was prepared for a much different interaction. I’m betting the talk with his mom was spicier than the talk he was having with me. I hated that the world would position him as the bad guy. He wasn’t
He gave me such a gift. He didn’t second-guess me. He didn’t argue with me. He didn’t belittle me. He didn’t make any accusations. He wasn’t angry or raging. We had had sex, I was pregnant, and it just was.
There are a whole lot of things that nobody else ever understood. Everyone else had their own expectations, as you’ll see. They all had their own ideas of how things should go, and what should be what. That Son of a Witch and I never got it twisted.
There are only so many moments in life that we look at and go- this moment I got right. I was so in alignment with myself. I was so free. I had a purpose. I was so filled with love.
This child would NEVER be a burden. This child was NOT a mistake. This child was NOT an accident. This child was MY baby, and SO INCREDIBLY LOVED. This child was a surprise. This child was a miracle.
It wasn’t until I had some time “alone” that I realized how completely rooted in love this was. “Alone,” would never exist again. I had a little plus one, pulling me off balance and throwing me into door frames and I was absolutely bursting with joy.
It wasn’t until then that I realized how much it had hurt that I had been mom’s mistake. I always thought that just went with my bastardness, but it hadn’t needed to. She decided I was a mistake. She framed my life in those terms.
I didn’t really have many people to tell. Her dad knew, and his mom knew, and my crush knew. I was not particularly ready to tell work. That was going to be tricky since a coworker was there for the test.
That was a problem for another day. For then, it was mending my bed, and curling up, with my child.
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