Chapter 3--Meanwhile, Back in MA, My Baby Grew

Try as we might, we just can't control Mother Nature. We can avert her attempts, we can try and coax her to see our side of things, but, really, she usually gets what she wants. And so, in Massachusetts, in the womb of an unsuspecting young woman, my baby grew. Her cells divided, connected, and formed a perfect, little person. She grew a head, a torso, limbs, her heart began to beat. As the young woman went about her life, my baby developed fingers, toes, eyebrows, all her vital organs, without creating much of a stir.

In Michigan, I was working through the logistics of how it might be that I could carry a baby. Diagnosed with endometriosis, I began Depo-Provera injections at age 19, which completely stopped my periods. Now, six years later, I quit the injections and began taking prenatal vitamins. My doctor didn't feel comfortable doing an interuterine insemination (the technical word for getting knocked up by a turkey baster), so he referred me to the local expert. In a twist of fate, this would be the same woman who actually performed this procedure (and many others) on me later in life as Eric and I tried to conceive. However, at this time, she was just plain not game.

"She is way too young to be making this decision," Dr. Heidke reported to my doctor. "She will eventually meet someone and be ready to conceive then."

I couldn't have been more annoyed. I was the exact age my mother was when I had been conceived. Two of my good friends were pregnant. What I lacked was not the age, but the spouse. If my HUSBAND and I had walked into her office, she wouldn't have thought I was too young. Ironically, if I'd had the spouse--I thought--I wouldn't need her help! What Dr. Heidke--and most people--couldn't see was that I didn't necessarily want the spouse.

The more I thought about it--having a baby by myself--the more it seemed like an obvious choice. My friend, Melody, gave birth and I immediately fell in love with her son. I was at my happiest when I was feeding him, singing to him, playing with him. I began watching all the mothers around me, seeing myself pushing the stroller, rocking the swaddled child, scooping the remnants of pureed peas off a tiny chin and placing it in my baby's open mouth. I finally stopped looking for "the one" every place I went, because I realized "the one" I had been craving wasn't some guy... it was a baby.

Like I said, though, not everyone caught on to this like I did. Melody asked me many times, "Are you sure you want to do this? It's really hard!" My friend, Jill, told me about her pregnant cousin, who said she would never have gotten through pregnancy without her husband. And, in an uncharacteristic act, my mom seemed to think it was a bad idea.

My mom had always been my best friend, my biggest cheerleader, the first person to stand behind me and push me toward my goals. The only time she had been against something I'd wanted was the time I'd been accidentally engaged (believe me, it's a great story) to a guy everyone hated. And, that time, she had been right. So, it was really hard for me to keep going forward--looking for a doctor, picking a donor, selecting items for a nursery--without her full support. In the late fall of 1999, my mother didn't argue with me; she never said it was a bad idea. But, she prickled every time I brought it up. She changed the subject. She blinked her eyes and stayed silent. She avoided me when I called or asked her to do things with me. Mom never really tried to talk me out of having a baby by myself, but she stayed out of it, and I hated that.

In Massachusetts in the late fall of 1999, the young woman could no longer deny to herself what she'd known for a while: she was pregnant. She had no idea what to do. She was living at a friend's place, sleeping on his couch. She had no job. She didn't know who the father of the baby was, to go to him for support. It should have been an easy choice for her. Instead, she went to a clinic for an ultrasound and, as she waited, she prayed, "Please, have a brain stem." Her prescribed medications could have caused birth defects, which, again, should have made her choice easy. Instead, she prayed for the health of her baby, and cried tears of joy to see a healthy, mobile, baby girl on the screen.

The young woman had not had a good life. Every step had been hard for her. When she and her siblings were young, her parents divorced, and then used their children to fight with each other. She spent time in foster care. She lived with her grandmother for a while. She quit school in ninth grade, and had a baby at 16. Eventually, her mother convinced her to let the baby live with her, so that the young woman could finish school, put her life together. Instead, she floundered, floated from situation to situation, tried desperately to find something that would give her peace, someone she could count on. At 20, she sought help from doctors, and was diagnosed with a bipolar disorder. This gave her some comfort, but the medications were certainly not a miracle cure. The highs of mania were so high, felt so good, it was boring to be on her medication. By the time the depression came, she would be too far gone. Sometimes someone would come along, get her back on her medications, help her through the rough time, but no one ever stayed that she could trust. She met a young man, and became pregnant. He was thrilled and they married. But motherhood was so difficult, another human being who took from her but couldn't give; it made the depression stay and stay. And, then, she got pregnant again. The young woman was distraught. Her husband would be happy, would want another baby to be sibling to this one who already overwhelmed her. She couldn't think, she couldn't feel, she had to make it go away or she wouldn't be able to survive. So, without telling another soul, the young woman had an abortion. And she would never forgive herself. The guilt dripped from her pores, filled her thoughts, made her hate her husband, her baby, herself. Finally, she told her husband, and, as she expected, he couldn't forgive her. She had to leave.

It was in this way that she found herself living on a friend's couch, jobless, alone, seeking comfort from strangers. It was in this way that she found herself pregnant again... and alone. She truly believed this pregnancy was God's punishment for her abortion. She had let HIM down, and now she had to pay. She didn't know what to do.

In contrast, I had led a blessed life. My mother had always put me first, had loved me through all of my young brattiness, all my teenage angst, all my young adult need for liberation. My parents had been strict, but had always, always been there for me. I unfailingly had a very comfortable roof over my head, and the knowledge that I could call out in the night and someone would come to me. When anything ever happened, my mother's hug could erase it all, put the world back on its axis. I had memories of walking in downtown Detroit, headed to a Tiger's game, my dad's hand protectively enveloping mine, feeling like nothing could ever hurt me. I had memories of lying at the foot of my parents' bed, just talking, knowing that I could bring them anything and they'd always love me. As much as the young woman had NO ONE there for her, I had the two best people in the world. I had gone straight to college after high school, bought a house my second year of teaching, lived four miles away from my parents. I attended basketball games with my dad, went to a sewing club with my mom, and went to church with the two of them every Sunday.

So, what in the world, how could they not support me in this new endeavor? Why couldn't they see how right  this was for me? I didn't understand them, and they didn't understand me. I was already blissfully in love with the idea of this baby, dreaming of giving baths and reading little board books and nursing. My mom talked to her book club about what I was thinking of doing, and the priest's wife was horrified. In fact, she spoke with our priest and he was so upset, he contacted my mom. "I think we should have an intervention," he said. "We can't let her throw her life away like this."

What the what? Throw my life away? I wanted to start a new life, not throw one away! I was completely flabbergasted. Thankfully, my mom thought the intervention was going a wee bit too far. However, she still bristled when I wanted to talk to her. She obviously wasn't going to be behind me, when I would need her the most. I did not know what to do.

The young woman made an appointment with her psychiatrist. She told him about God's punishment, about the beautiful baby girl growing in her belly, who she could offer nothing but love. The visit changed her life, the baby's, and mine.

My mother and I went to get our haircut at a new place. Somehow, we ended up talking about me and the baby. The visit changed my life, the baby's, and the young woman's.