No safety nets

When I got pregnant I was 24. Great age someone may say. But it seems that no matter how old you are if you are not married you know nothing, which I can attest to. I mean I heard the words, I was expecting to hear them and I accepted them but I didn’t not really understand. And surprisingly I was asked what I was going to do. At one place where I want to triple confirm I was even offered a chance to rethink and act.

And who would blame them. There was a clueless girl from Likuni who just happened to have a chance in a lifetime to travel and see more of life, pregnant. Did I know what I was doing? Certainly not. No one knows what it means when they hear they are pregnant. There is no way you can completely grasp the sharing of your body, identity, soul, life, mind and future with a helpless being. For what seems like way too long you go everywhere with someone you hardly know, someone whose arrival you cannot even comprehend. I mean…how does that miracle take place? How does a place in your body make room for someone else?

What if you fall? What if you eat something wrong? Its seven months now what if they stop moving? What will they look like, speak like? Did you take the right vitamins? That wedding seems to be way too illusive now what are you going to do with a baby?

This must be the part that determine whether one will have extreme baby rejection or not. The acceptance before the reality of child birth sinks i. I like to think that this is a worry for single women alone. But I realize some well companioned women also go through the panic. After all, a child is a child and when it comes…well. Nothing can ever be the same. Not even your body should you lose weight. Most certainly not the way you were.

So yea. I got pregnant. I carried my son and I gave birth to him. 3.7kg. we have hardly reached the stage where I can say look at the huge thing I achieved. But I know now why a child deserves to live. Why he came into my life. I was reckless, I was scattered I had no real perception of life. I’m still rebellious but I know now the beginning and possible end of life. The costs of life should you make the wrong choices. The cost of leaving your life in anyone’s hands but God.

In fact I think the label of single mom is irrelevant. Some unmarried moms are way better mothers than those who managed to do it ‘right’. And I would do it all over again. To gain the inch of understanding and wisdom that I have by simply saying yes to my own actions.

A mother I am. A mother I want to always be. And each day I pray that I become better at it. I have bought books. I gave up asking form others long ago because what I have with my child is unique and is that way for any women and child. And I really applaud anyone that is a mother. Perhaps not by choice, and perhaps not in a way they ever thought they would be. But a mother because of the ability to say yes to life and see what it can bring.

Its not easy. When all you were dies building it up again is very risky business. Which brings to my mind the fortune there could be in it all. Who gets to rebuild their lives this intimately? Why is it that single mom’s feel like their lives are over when in reality they have just begun?

I mean this is the chance you get to make better choices. To really know who you are. To really understand what life is all about. There are no safety nets like marriage and very accepting parents to shield you. This is the one chance you have to arise and claim your place. To know that it is okay to be who you are. If your child managed to become one among the living then surely the same reason and purpose applies to you. And yes…after the birth you do become two separate beings. And unless you claim your place you stand to lose both yours and that child’s future.

I can add up all the time that has passed since conception to four years and I can tell you that it has taken me that long to learn what I want to share. My hope after all is that others do it in a shorter period. And others don’t go through it at all.