It’s unexpected, I think, this thing that happens when a woman finds out she’s expecting. Of course, I can’t speak for all women who have experienced the miracle of pregnancy, but for me it only took a few minutes after seeing the second pink line on the home pregnancy test to fall madly in love with the microscopic life inside me. It only took a moment to dream a million dreams. It only took a few hours to start craving strange food combinations like kosher hot dogs with mango chutney. And it only took about a day to succumb to a million fears. But then something lovely happened – that little peanut, that little spark of life, taught me something.

You see, the day after I found out I was pregnant, I was driving after dark, tailed by a swerving, veering, speeding two-ton Chevy jam-packed with rollicking teenagers.

“Little shits,” I said, glancing in the rear view mirror as the car nearly rammed my bumper. White-knuckling the wheel, I pulled off the side of the road, breathed in slowly, and let the twerps and the noise of their rap music pass far beyond me. I clutched my abdomen in the hopes of comforting myself and the zygote inside but, in that moment, realized I would not now or ever be able to protect my baby from danger. From idiot drivers. From sickness. From risk. From disease. From any of the dreadful things we experience in all our living and dying.

Even as a new human being came alive in me, I couldn’t help thinking that, while I may keep many things from hurting my child, I could never fend off hazard, uncertainty, death.

But as I pulled back onto the road, soothed by calming breaths and a lesson learned, my shoulders relaxed and my heart rate slowed. The pressure fell away. The fear did, too.

All I would need to do was love this child, I realized. Just love. It seemed little peanut wanted me to know that as early as possible. It would make life easier on both of us.

Tags: child, fear, pregnant  |  Posted under life stuff  |    4 Comments