Becoming a Mom

“Laureen was twenty-three hours,” Mom says, sipping at her coffee as she looks across the table.

“That’s nothing,” Shirley laughs, shaking her head. “Aaron was thirty-four. They finally had to give me a caesarean.”

Mom winces.

I have heard these stories before, but trading birth stories seems to be a badge of honour that will never make sense to me. Who wants to brag about being in pain for that long? It gives me a sick feeling in my stomach and I wrinkle my nose, trying to ignore the bitter scent of coffee and cigarette smoke that never fades.

“A caesarean is easy, at least. No pushing.”

“Longer to heal though.”

“I don’t want to know.” I swallow, and look up from my book, My Sixth Grade Teacher Is an Alien. They both look at me and laugh.

I really don’t. I don’t need to hear about giving birth and having babies because that’s gross. I’d rather just read, but my sister has already gone to bed so the only place I can is right here in the kitchen where mom is.

“Why not? You’ll have babies some day.”

“No, I won’t.” I gag dramatically. “I don’t even like having a sister and brother, why would I have kids?” There’s a pause as I look back down at my book. “Besides. It’ll hurt.”

“You forget about the pain.” Not like I believe them, not after hearing them bragging about how painful it was.

“No, thanks! I’m never gonna have kids.”

“You’ll change your mind.”

But I won’t. It’s a promise I make to myself right then and there. I will never have kids. I don’t want to be a mother, and I don’t want to give birth. I want to be able to do what I want forever without having to worry about some dumb kids holding me back. I deserve that, don’t I?

At least that’s what I think. But as I get older I start to wonder, I start to think maybe it would be okay, maybe kids could be kind of… I dunno… fun, maybe. Kids could be all right, as long as I had them with the right person, like maybe Kevin, the cute boy from my class. So when my mom asks me to babysit for her friend I think, hey, practise. This could be okay.

“Fuck you,” Sheldon, two-year-old brat from hell shouts at me.

“Come on, you need a diaper change, kiddo,” I grit through my teeth, refusing to take another breath in because, man, this kid reeks. If I’d known babysitting would involve changing dirty diapers and having to deal with temper tantrums like this… I would never have agreed. Mom does not need to play bingo that much.

“I don’t wanna! I hate you!”

For a two-year-old the kid has got quite the vocabulary, and I wince.

Babysitting reminds me how much I hate kids. I promise myself again. Never. Ever. Have. Kids.

My promise works for five years, until I graduate high school, and find myself stumbling into a serious relationship. It’s love, I’m sure, and one night—one stupid, stupid night—we forget to use protection. I’m swept away by the stars above my head, grass prickling against my back. It’s romantic and sweet and could have been torn straight from a Harlequin. It’s perfect.

One month, two months later I take a test and my dreams shatter. I wanted to do something with my life, go to college, get a career… Instead, I’m pregnant and my path twists and churns as I drop out of college—one week after being accepted. Losing out on this chance for my future hurts, and I’m bitter and resentful and I hate this.

“How could you do this to yourself?” Mom asks, unhappy, unimpressed. This, being pregnant, was never in my plans for the future. It was never in my parents’ plans for myself. She wasn’t supposed to know yet. I didn’t want her to know. Not yet.

Dad is even less happy than Mom was. “How are you going to be able to afford this?” I’m silent. I don’t know the answer, not really. “Babies are expensive. Diapers, formula, clothing…” He keeps going on, listing how expensive things are, and I flinch as though every word is a blade.

He’s right. Kids are expensive and this one… it’s wrecking my life. It’s ruining my future. I hate it, I hate this. But I got myself into this mess, and I have to live with it. I’m going to resent it, though. Nothing can change that. I will resent this baby, I do resent this baby.

It only lasts until I see my baby in black and white, shifting and moving on a screen in front of me. I’m going to be a mother. Somehow that seems more important than school right now.

On my eighteenth birthday, I go out for dinner with a small group of friends. A nod to being an adult, perhaps, or an attempt at being responsible. My evening does not end here. From the restaurant, we go to the Purple Onion, a small bar just off Whyte Avenue, and I flash my ID at the bouncer.

“Happy birthday,” he says as he is handing me back my ID. I open my mouth to thank him and it’s too late, he’s already moved on to the next person in line.

 I’m eighteen, I’m officially an adult and it feels so good, so freeing and irresponsible and reckless that for a moment I want to drink, to act like every other eighteen year old I know.

I don’t.

I drink orange juice and I dance, ignoring the acrid stench of spilled beer and cigarette smoke. When it becomes too much I move towards the doors, open to allow the chilled fresh air passage into the darkened bar. The dance floor is a mass of shifting, harried bodies that twist and grind to the pulse of classic rock and new pop, the music overloud and bass turned up too high. When I miss the taste of alcohol I kiss my boyfriend, and in his mouth, I find the lingering traces of rye and coke. Remember this, I tell myself.

I turn eighteen and it’s a short pause in my life as a mother.

My life doesn’t change overnight. It’s a steady process full of hard decisions that I know I need to make. It hits me in Safeway, when I bypass the cookies and pick up bananas—“According to your blood test, your potassium is low,” my doctor tells me, his accent rich and warm and soothing, even as I’m trembling and terrified of the implications. “You should eat some bananas, if you like them. You’re taking your vitamins still, right?” I’m all right, my baby is all right—I’ve begun to make conscious decisions for my child’s health.

Oh, I’m not perfect. Is anyone? I still drink pop, but I’ve stopped drinking coffee. It’s a give and take kind of situation. I trade in some of my poor habits for healthier ones, but some… some I can’t give up.

When I’m three and a half months pregnant the gut wrenching morning sickness changes from one breathe to the next. I have almost gotten used to the need to vomit at any smell, regardless of how fond of it I had once been before being pregnant; God only knows how many times I’ve had to beg off on cooking supper because the smell of raw meat makes my stomach clench in horror. I have spent this time exhausted, queasy, and generally unhappy. For all the pain and sorrow I’m going through, I thought I would have something to show for it, but instead my stomach is nearly as flat as it has always been.

I stumble into the tiny kitchen of our apartment, the smell of freshly brewed English Toffee coffee fills the air, and instead of the urge to vomit, I find myself inhaling deeply. The scent floods my senses with a sense of peace and homecoming, taunting me with its nearness. The rich warmth of the smell of coffee caresses me, a gentle touch that reminds me of cold winter nights curled up in front of the fireplace.

I glance over at my boyfriend, ready to share my thrilling revelation with him when I pause, caught up in his easy beauty. It is as though I am seeing him for the first time all over again, and I smile. Sleep clings to him, eyes hooded against the light of morning, shadow covering his strong jaw. “Beautiful,” I breathe, and as he takes a sip of his coffee, I swallow heavily.

There, clinging to his lower lip is a drop of coffee lingering, tantalizing, taunting, and tempting me. Soft, wet brown on the pale pink of his lips, caressing them, leaving behind a trail of heavenly coffee flavour. It torments me as my vision narrows until all I can see is those lips, with that single drop of coffee that hangs poised, before the sight of his deep pink tongue darts out to catch the drop breaks my vision.

Without thinking, I lean forward and catch his lips between mine, halting the progress of his tongue, savouring the first taste of coffee to pass my lips in three months. It’s a perfection that I hadn’t expected, the taste of the coffee bursting in my mouth, flooding it with the taste of English Toffee. It isn’t the same, getting coffee second hand, but it’s better than nothing and I sigh, relaxing.

I ask the doctor for permission to take up yoga again, the gentle stretches relaxing and helping to maintain my stress levels. I slip back into the movements as though I had never stopped practising, a flashback to being a child and doing yoga with my younger sister as a warm-up before we would go to gymnastics. The older woman on the television never failed to amaze us with how flexible she was, and we would follow her instructions, laughing the whole while.

I press up into a back arch, my stomach lifting towards the sky and I swallow slowly, head dipping backwards as I relax into the movement. Breathing slows, my heart rate drops as I just am. Beside me, my sister is giggling, watching as I shift my five-month pregnant body, abdomen finally swelling with new life.

“You better have the baby before my birthday,” she tells me in all seriousness.

“Why?” It never fails to amaze people that I have retained my flexibility so easily.

“Because I have to be fourteen still when you have her!”

When I lower myself to the ground at last, it is with a laugh as I turn my head to the side. My sister and I look at each other and we smile. I am becoming a mother, and yet I have never felt closer to my sister.

I go for walks, and I take long, hot baths. I read, water swirling around me as I take the opportunity that was never mine before. One bathroom and a large family meant that relaxing in the bath was not an option, not something I could do without inconveniencing everyone else. Now I devour books as I soak in the tub, stopping often to drain and add water, keeping the temperature hot enough to turn my skin red. It isn’t a punishment, a way of hurting myself. I love the heat, the way it drains the tension out of my muscles and leaves me limpid and relaxed. I love to read, and I have the time right now. Time that I know will fade when my baby comes.

When the heat of summer is too much I lay on the couch with the fan cooling the sweat upon my body and I take naps. In the background is the hum of talk shows and soap operas, legal dramas where justice is served, and after an hour the show is over and the loose ends are tied up. These shows are a mindless break in the monotony of the day-to-day. The house is clean, supper ready to be cooked, and I have nothing else to do with my time. My kitten bats at my toes, and I grin from my place on the couch. Everything is slowly shifting and coming together. My life is changing, and taking a different path than the one I swore it would take, but I can’t find myself caring about the changes any longer. “Everything happens for a reason,” I tell myself as I roll over, toes moving away from the kitten. My eyes close and I listen to the children playing outside my patio door. Soon my child will be here.

I refuse to allow people to smoke around me or in my house. I hate the way it smells, even more than I hate the way it lingers on my tongue, bitter and acrid. The choice is for me, I don’t want to smell it or taste it in the air. But the choice is also for my baby. Carrying it within me affords some protection, but not enough. I have read the statistics; hours spent scouring the Internet as well as reading my mother’s nursing textbooks. I devoured the knowledge, the information, and I refuse to take the chances with my child. The change isn’t so difficult. My parents stopped smoking years ago, and the few friends I have who smoke are happy to step outside instead. The only time I have problems is when I go out, and I’m so far along now that going out is no longer the pleasure it once was. I would rather stay at home, cleaning and relaxing, getting ready for the child who will be here, home, soon.

I have become the perfect example of a young, conscientious mother-to-be.

“You never used to want kids,” my mom tells me, drinking the coffee I have made for her, as we sit at the dining room table. She laughs, reminding me of all the times I swore I would never get pregnant, would never have a child. “You said it was gross.”

“It is!” I laugh with her, one hand dragging across my swollen stomach as I sip at my juice. “The whole thing is gross, but…” I trail off, waving my hand in an attempt to say with my body what I cannot with words.

“It’s worth it,” she agrees, smiling.

“It’s gonna hurt.”

“You forget the pain, afterwards.”

I’m not sure if forgetting the pain is worth it, if it will really help as much as my mom seems to believe it will, but I only have her word on it. And she is right. It is worth it.

“I’m going to be a mom.” Tears sparkle, blurring my vision. I’m due any day now. Any time, in fact, if my doctor is to be believed. Five centimetres dilated, and it could happen soon. It frightens me and thrills me, and I wonder if I’m ready.

My mom leaves, hugging me and promising to be there when the time comes. I believe her.

Three in the morning, I am lurched out of bed with the urgent need to use the bathroom. It takes me ten minutes to realise that my water has broken, and it is time. Despite all my promises to myself, the sworn vows that I would never be a mother… the time has come.

I’m going to be a mom.