Motherhood was Thrust upon me

Motherhood was thrust upon me.

At nineteen, I took a pregnancy test in the stall of a local bowling alley. It answered "pregnant" to the silent, trembling question: Am I?

The checkered black-and-white tile floors and mint-green metal partitions blurred as my world tilted. The sound of bowling balls crashing into pins faded as I wrapped the test in tissue, as if concealing it could keep the truth at bay. I tossed it into the trash and walked out, composed but numb.

Outside, my 1978 Chevy Caprice waited. A bungee cord held the hood down, and when the key failed, I used twine through a cracked window to pull up the lock. It was a car that required workarounds, much like my life. I had been given a room in a friend's house after my recent suicide attempt—just months before those two pink lines appeared, I was in an emergency room having my stomach pumped, followed by ten days in a psychiatric ward. I was not ready to be a mother.

Yet, here I was.

Since childhood, I had been taught that motherhood was my highest calling. That it was the dream, the purpose, the reason I was born female. My greatest service to God was to bring children into the world—boys who would shape it, and girls who would, in turn, become mothers themselves.

I chose sex. But choosing sex is not the same as choosing motherhood.

I was young, lonely, naive. I sought comfort, validation, the feeling of being wanted. I craved the escape of pleasure, the warmth of being pursued, the illusion of security in someone’s arms. I knew pregnancy was a possibility, but until you become a mother, you cannot truly grasp the enormity of what that means.

At the time, I thought having a baby might mean I would finally matter to someone. I had no concept of what it meant to be everything to a child. To be food, shelter, comfort, guidance—mother.

But motherhood wasn’t new to me. It had been thrust upon me at two years old when I became "Mama’s Helper." In a family of six children, new babies arrived every few years, and the older ones were expected to step in. I changed diapers, cooked, cleaned, and tended the little ones. My own needs were secondary, if acknowledged at all. I learned that being useful was my value. That helping was love. That emotions were inconvenient and best buried.

But buried things do not stay buried. A volcano will always erupt.

The night I found out I was pregnant, I sat outside the father’s house, watching the darkness, a lone streetlamp casting a dim glow. I had imagined waking him, telling him, and being met with reassurance, maybe even love. But in the driveway was his ex-girlfriend’s car. 

A few weeks later, I told him.

"I’m pregnant."

Silence.

"Well, we’ll get married then." he said softly, resolutely, pulling me into an embrace.

Society tells us that motherhood is natural, instinctual, and universally joyous. But there are stories of motherhood that aren’t adorned with ribbons and baby showers. Stories of postpartum depression, miscarriage, child loss, adoption—realities that exist behind the idealized image.

That’s why I partnered with other women to write Unspoken Motherhood. Because some stories aren’t told often enough. But they should be.

See it here:

Unspoken Motherhood