Journal Entry

Memorable mommy moments: My first pregnancy

When I was 17, I finally found a guy who could ride a horse better than I could, so I married him. I learned later that this was not a basis for a healthy relationship. We got married when I was 18 and he was 19. Neither of us wanted children. We wanted horses and dogs and cows. We even discussed being sterilized by our doctor, but he told us we couldn’t do that until we turned 21. So we were very, very careful with birth control.

My mom was a nurse in charge of family planning at a local state clinic, so she supplied us with free condoms. It was kind of embarrassing to ask her for them, especially at the rate we were going through those suckers. Remember, we were newlywed teenagers. She finally started giving them to us by the case!

I guess we weren’t careful enough. The spring after we got married, I started getting sick every morning. My mom gave me a pregnancy test, and it was positive. Hubby and I were devastated. How could this have happened? What were we going to do? My parents knew how I felt about having kids, so no one was happy, especially considering my age. A mom at 19? Heck, I was still a baby myself. But as a member of a devout Christian family, abortion was out of the question. I felt I had no choice but to have the baby. I guessed I’d have to keep it.

As the months progressed, I started to warm up to the idea of having a baby—at least a little. I really think that I didn’t believe I was actually pregnant, not really, not with a real baby. Maybe I just had a virus or something. Once the morning sickness ended, being pregnant was a snap for me, physically. I was a big, tall, large-boned girl, and a lot of folks couldn’t even tell I was carrying a baby until the last month or two. It didn’t stop me from doing what I wanted. I still rode my horse every day. I was due January 2nd, but my in-laws, who were wealthy and financially savvy, urged me to have the baby by December 31st for tax reasons. Like I had any control of the matter!

Strangely enough, on the early morning of December 30th, I woke up to go to the bathroom. When I stood up, there was a big gush of water. Off to the hospital we went. I was in labor for thirteen hours. That evening, I delivered a beautiful baby girl, Mandy, named after an ancestor from an old family Bible. Once I held the tiny baby in my arms, all my feelings about motherhood changed in an instant. How does that happen? How could my whole world, all my views on children, do an about face just like that?

Wordsworth described such momentous occasions as “a spot in time.” This was my spot in time. That one experience—that one moment when I first cradled Mandy in my arms—would ultimately define much of my reason for being for many years to come. I was suddenly Mother Earth, giving life, nurturing, sustaining. God, in his infinite wisdom, knew far better than I, who had never wanted this.

It’s still amazing to me that something I had dreaded so much became the most important element in my life; so much so that I went on to have two more beautiful children. They, in turn, grew up, and each had two children of their own, my six adorable grandchildren.

Sometimes, as I’m holding one of my precious grandchildren, my Wordsworthian spot of time flashes into my mind, and I shudder to think how empty my life would be today if I had gotten my way and been sterilized. I now have a wonderful husband, who is truly my soul mate, but my daughters and grands are my life. It’s strange how you can love something so much that you didn’t even know you wanted. But God can see the whole story, while we can see only a page at the time.