Lying on my back, wearing just a thin paper gown and turquoise underwear, I crane my neck to stare at the grainy black-and-white image on the screen. The doctor presses the ultrasound probe slathered with warm gel into my abdomen to get a better view of the nearly indistinguishable mass.
“Congratulations, you’re pregnant!” my doctor announces. I stop breathing for a moment. “See? Right there.”
I never thought I’d be pregnant, because I didn’t want to have kids. Until I did.
I glance at my husband, squinting at the monitor. Neither of us exudes the Hallmark-card emotion I imagined would fill this moment.
“Wow,” I manage.
“Is this a wanted pregnancy?” asks the doctor.
Yes,” I say, “We’ve been trying for a few months now.”
I don’t tell her that for decades leading up to this, I hadn’t been sure about kids.
“OK,” she says, seemingly sensing my anxiety. “Because if not, we can talk about other options.”
My OB-GYN wipes the gel from my stomach and helps me sit up. I never thought I’d be pregnant, because I didn’t want to have kids. Until I did.
That shift was precipitated when I saw 35 on the horizon. Between reading, consoling close friends through birth and pregnancy traumas, and receiving a graduate degree in science, I knew that biology doesn’t wait for you to be ready.
Yet I had always been staunchly against becoming a mother myself, largely because of the tumultuous relationship I’d had with my mother, who adopted me when she was around 35, the same age I was now. What if my child and I ended up with the same sort of relationship? Was it worth the risk? For such a long time, I didn’t believe so. But now, at the age of 35, I found myself contemplating whether I actually did want to be a mother.
My relationship with my mother was full of turmoil. We fought not only during the typical teenage years but all throughout my upbringing and then some. Anything under the sun was fair game, from my choice of clothing (“too slutty”) during my college’s Junior Ring Weekend to my facial expressions (“Why are you making that face?”).
I was adopted when I was four months old, and while my mother was the only mother I knew, the shadow of the adoptive circumstances of our relationship colored both of our worlds. Underneath all our arguments lay the reminder that I was my mother’s daughter not by blood but by law—manifested by the reoccurring accusation that I was ungrateful.
This stung more than any other name she shouted at me. It summed up my mother’s perspective on our relationship: She had done me a favor by adopting me and I was entitled to nothing but appreciation for her.
Underneath all our arguments lay the reminder that I was my mother’s daughter not by blood but by law—manifested by the reoccurring accusation that I was ungrateful.
I never understood why my mother despised the role she’d so badly wanted. Perhaps I wasn’t the daughter she’d been hoping to get: the toy she’d groomed in her mind come to life. For years, it felt like she wanted me to be part of the American Girl Collection doll set she insisted on buying for me. She wanted me to dress in frilly pink outfits and grow up to be a nurse or a teacher.
After decades of this complicated relationship, it is hard to pinpoint when and why I warmed up to the role so many women instinctively want. Perhaps it was because I knew my husband, the eldest of his five siblings across a 14-year spread, could alleviate me of the full burden. He possessed what I considered to be the maternal instincts I lacked. Whenever we visited friends with babies, the bub would end up on my husband’s lap at his request, while I kept my distance. His upbringing, in a home bustling with children and loving parents, gave him a family model very different from mine. He didn’t think too much about the what-ifs like I did, because for him they were mere hypotheticals. Instead, he possessed an enviable confidence that marriage and family were bound to succeed, along with faith that I would learn from my mother’s behaviors and relationships and not repeat them. Nonetheless, I found comfort in thinking that my son would have a great mom, even if my husband took on that role.
Or maybe the thought of not having a single blood connection to anyone on the planet scared me. I yearned for the intangible connection of shared physical traits and mannerisms. ( Although, frankly, I had no greater opposition to adopting a child myself than having a child biologically. My experience equipped me with the ability to not only sympathize but empathize with a fellow adoptee.) Or maybe it traced back to the years of therapy and conversations with close friends, who convinced me that I was not my mother and therefore not fated to reincarnate the same tumultuous relationship. Whatever it was, the sight of 35 approaching changed everything. Pregnancy occurring at this age or beyond is deemed “geriatric.” The scientist in me understood the ramifications of this, causing me to hear the ticking biological clock loud and clear.
For the most part, the physical challenges of my pregnancy paled in comparison to the emotional ones. It wasn’t the lower back pain or the growing bowling ball attached to my midsection that kept me up at night, but wondering whether nurture or nature would influence the relationship with my son. Would I lash out at him the way my mother had at me? How do I figure out if my genes are any good without a family history?
Everything about being pregnant felt surreal. It took us over four months to share the news with anyone. I just wasn’t ready to face an onslaught of questions and expectations about how thrilled I must be to become a mother. I was scared about living up to such a coveted role. I wondered whether I should start saving for my son’s therapy sessions.
For the most part, the physical challenges of my pregnancy paled in comparison to the emotional ones.
But on a rainy day just shy of the New Year, my son entered the world and all my fears dissipated. When they placed his tiny body on my chest minutes after the delivery, I found a peace and love that I didn’t know I was capable of. I thought my upbringing modeled a sort of twisted love that I was hard-wired to reincarnate. But I possessed a feeling I’d thought was innate to every other woman but me. A part of me that I thought was permanently broken had been healed. I was now a mother and fell in love not only with this creation but with my ability to have this kind of relationship.
That grainy blob I’d stared at months ago had transformed into my son and my love. I was a mother, and at last it was no longer complicated.
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