Before giving birth to my son I had very little confidence. I clung to my ex for reassurance and support and was extremely fragile. I didn't feel like I could totally trust myself or like I could stand on my own. Then I got pregnant and everyone around me seemed to want to reinforce that feeling in me. I was looked at as unfortunate, pitied as if I had made the biggest mistake of my life by choosing to get pregnant and not aborting my son. Postponing my family would have been the better choice, was the clear message I got. I had gone and ruined my life, let them tell it. No one could fathom that I had actually planned my pregnancy and no one deserved an explanation for why.
The day I went into labor, two of my estranged childhood friends came to the hospital to gawk at me. They stood in my room curiously watching me with this sideways look on their faces as if I were an episode of the Discovery Channel and they were glad they weren’t me. I got so sick of people fishing their lips up and acting as if I were the first woman on earth to have a baby. “Better you, than me,” was the typical retort to my pregnancy. This was the message that I received from my peers and from the women I was raised to believe were strong and determined, who wanted equal rights, equal pay, and pro choice. Women raised in the 60s who had agreed that they didn't need a man to make them whole. Yet the minute they discovered that I was pregnant they all flew into a panic and slapped me with a bankrupt label. Go figure. I could help but wonder if I’d missed a memo or something. Did they love or regret their own decisions in life? Where was all the “girl power”? Did they admire my bravery but were just too afraid to admit it aloud and go against popular opinion? It seemed the world no longer applied to me. I did what was not expected of me – 'A' student, reserved good girl – and, afterwards, I didn't let my "condition" be the end of me.
I'll never forget the nurse assigned to me after I gave birth. She came into the room to bring me my son so that I could feed him, and my good friend at the time was visiting. My friend was in nursing school so she asked the nurse for some advice. Among a few other tidbits, she made sure to advise my friend, while glancing at me as if I wasn't smart enough to know any better, not to end up in my position. That'd be "the absolute worst thing" she could ever do, she said, as if I weren't in the room. I got that sentiment a lot back then and I regrettably never challenged it aloud. I didn't quite accept it either, though. Before my son could crawl I wrote down my goals and began devising a plan to reach them. I worked part time for doing treatment plans and scheduling appointments for an orthodontist until he was weaned from nursing, which was about a year after he was born. Then I worked full time and went back to school part time. And I worked. my. ass. off, determined to be okay. Leaving the apartment that I shared with his father at 6:30 every morning and returning at 7:30 every evening, sometimes 10:30 at night. I put up with a lot, I sacrificed a ton, but I never lost focus of who I was and where I was headed. I quietly kept moving, striving and gaining ground, building my strength and confidence every day, but not without the requisite scrapes and struggles along the way; though each one has served to improve my resolve and my faith in my ability to reach my goals. My twenties were spent building rather than hanging out and having fun like my then friends who spent just about every weekend drinking and clubbing and doing things that typical 20-somethings do. I was alone, except for my boyfriend, my mother and my son. My best friend at the time lived two hours away and would call me every so often to share stories of her active social life, despite her also being a mother. She just wasn’t very responsible.
I now have the freedom and can afford to do much more than just hang out and party, but I have a hard time finding friends who have the time or money to join me. Today I can say that my life is now my own, and I'm happily still defining who I am. I like me. As for the women in my life, other than my mother, those relationships are hard to mend. Despite getting the last hurrah, I haven't quite forgiven my generation of women or my mother's for the way they judged me and the way some of them continue to. My childhood friends who came to watch me in labor are now both single mothers. One is a security guard, has a nine year old son, and they both live in a trailer with her divorced mother. The other has 4 children by three different men and sells odd's and ends at the outdoor swapmeet on weekends. My former best friend is now a single mother of six children with 3 different fathers. Last I'd heard she had moved back in with her parents until she could get back on her feet. I don't mean to sound bitter because I'm not. I'm satisfied with the path that I took and the woman that I've become, and I won’t stoop so low as to judge those who judge me. I know better than to count someone out. You never know how the tide will turn.
*exhales :)
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