A Heart Made Full

So much apprehension, so much excitement, and not a clue what to expect…

Nine months seems like a long time, and I guess it is when talking about learning a craft or being stuck in a rut. But to grow a human being? Nine months doesn’t seem like quite long enough, especially since the first few weeks usually pass without even being aware of what’s happening. Soon, though, that baby makes its presence known in unexpected ways, at unexpected times, like having to pull over on the way to work to throw up in the gutter. I’m sure passersby thought it was just too much fun from the night before, but there was nothing fun or funny about it!

I was alone in my pregnancy. I didn’t plan it that way, but the sperm donor, as I prefer to refer to him, chose not to be a part of our lives, for the best I’ve often thought. It was hard not having anyone there when I first heard the heartbeat and felt the baby’s first movements, but I loved knowing I was creating a life. It didn’t matter to me how many times it had happened before, nor how many times it will happen after my life is over. I felt I had a secret power. And for once, knowing I wasn’t the only person this had ever happened to really was a comfort. Other women did it and I could too.

When it was finally time for this new little person to enter the world, there was no time for a warm bath or a massage, no time for drugs to ease the pain, almost no pain before it was over and this wonderful, beautiful, wrinkly, slippery little creature was placed in my arms for a moment. I had waited so long and it was over so quickly, God’s compensation I’ve always said, but it was really only beginning.

I cut the umbilical cord and my child was cleaned and weighed and tested and poked and probed and returned to me to burrow himself in my love. I held him, 21 inches and seven plus pounds of pure perfection, so hesitant to touch him but unable to keep my hands off him. No one prepared me for this. No one told me of the depth of emotion I would feel for this brand-new being. No one prepared me for the fierce protectiveness I felt, yet a vulnerability that left me, leaves me still, an open wound. 

I fought every instinct I had telling me to stay silent. I couldn’t say “I love you,” even to a baby. Those words had been used to manipulate and control me and nothing good ever came from them. But I knew I had to say it. It was important that my son knew he was wanted.  Like a foreign language, at first the words felt strange in my mouth, but soon I couldn’t not say them.

Watching him sleep brought tears to my eyes and his cries pierced my heart. Every new accomplishment, every new word, every new bit of knowledge, every compliment bestowed upon him and I puffed up with pride, like I did something special.

Many people thought to write us off, people unknown to us but familiar with statistics, people who thought they knew the best situation, the best person to parent my child. Families like ours have even been called “a disaster waiting to happen,” and doors were slammed in my face, literally and figuratively. I was accused of leaving my son for someone else to raise because I had to work, oftentimes two jobs because there was no child support. I was all but accused of future child abuse because I dared to support a father who argued with his teen-aged daughter. But how wrong these people were, and how dare they think they could have done better for this child than I, his mother. 

I would never presume that my child bears no scars from being a fatherless son, I know he does. I would never presume to say that my child never felt the loneliness of questions that had no answers, I know he does. He first asked at two years old for his daddy. He asked again at eight when he told me about the empty place in his heart, and at 12, when he asked if he could hit him if they ever met, and at 16, when his loneliness could no longer be contained and he cried the tears of the abandoned. He was broken by someone he never knew and he may always feel an ache where that man should be, but I believe it’s better he lives with that emptiness than with the disappointment of broken promises.

But my son knew love.  He heard it growing up, he saw it growing up, and he felt it growing up, and today he wears and shares it like a second skin. And because of this child who blessed my life, I also know love. I hear it, I feel it, and I know that we are more than any statistic could ever show.

To further defy expectations, my sweet boy gets the chance to make up for what he missed. He has a wife who soothes his rough edges and a father-in-law who loves him and understands the importance of their connection. And he has a baby girl who has calmed the anxiety and restlessness living in his soul. He can now be the parent he never met and I sense he has made peace with that void. 

From the moment he heard his child’s heartbeat he became a father and vowed then to always love her and protect her. As he tenderly held his newborn baby girl, his face reflected surprise that he had a part in creating something so fragile, so beautiful and perfect, and I know he promised he would never leave. 

He has apologized for the hard times he put me through and thanked me many times over for having him and loving him and helping him find his way. Holding his daughter, loving her, takes me back to the beginning and I know exactly how he feels.

So much apprehension, so much excitement, and not a clue what to expect…