That's what the girl across the room in my American Literature class said as her and another peer sat gossiping about me as I showed a friend the ultrasound pictures when I found out my firstborn was a boy.
I stared across the room, not sure what to do. She never looked my way, and after a few seconds of an internal battle, I let it go. It wasn't worth it, I told myself, to justify my choices and my growing family. It wasn't her business.
But the words still sting and haunt me. There have been times where I've wanted to go back and say something to her. It wouldn't matter if she really heard me or not- I just wanted the words out there.
When I was 21, my husband and I found out we were expecting our first child. In the second semester of my senior year of college, and my husband planning to finish school somewhere else once I graduated, we weren't planning to start our family. The surprise came in the form of two pink lines, though I swore that I only saw one to begin with.
It wasn't the plan. We were too young. We weren't ready. We were about to be broke and I was supposed to find a full time job and he was suppose to finish school and...now everything would be different.
The talks we had when planning kids had a very "traditional" ring to them. I would stay home and my husband would work full time. It's what we both wanted. I told him before we eloped at the age of 18 that the thing I wanted to do most was be a mom, and he heard me. He said he wanted that to be a possibility.
This was not the plan, or so I thought.
The idea of telling family and friends, for some reason, made me feel shameful. We were young and not in a place, in public and personal opinion, to have kids. So to have a complete stranger say something I had dreaded hearing, it burned me deep inside.
However, if I could go back to all the negative looks and comments that strangers, and even family and friends had to say, I would tell them one thing:
I want this baby.
Maybe my son wasn't born at an ideal time, but I prayed for him. Maybe my son was born when I wasn't ready to be a mother, but I became a mother for him. Maybe we didn't plan him, but God did. Maybe we were terrified, but we never thought of being selfish and seeking "other options" for a second.
My husband and I knew that once we were married, the result of us coming together as husband and wife could be a child. We knew, and we said that if anything were to happen that might not be "planned"- it would be our new plan. There was no room for negotiation. Sex leads to life, and if we weren't aware and at least mentally prepared for that possibility, we wouldn't have been doing it.
Life begins in the womb. That baby has a heartbeat, a measurement, organs-- that baby is life.
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart. Jeremiah 1:5 (NIV)
Today, we have two beautiful boys and another baby on the way. I can't imagine my life any differently than what it is now.
I want this baby.
It didn't matter if I'd been married for ten years or one. It didn't matter if I was scared or overwhelmed or feeling unprepared. Nothing mattered other than the life my husband and I had come together to create.
I wanted that baby.
March for Life
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