The Joys of Being Pregnant
On August 9, 2010, life as I knew it changed forever. It was a normal summer day at home, much like any other Monday that summer. Everything on the outside appeared to be the same as usual, but on the inside, I knew there was a change. I was two weeks pregnant and I wouldn’t know it until about 5:30 that night.
It was a very emotional discovery, finding that I would become a mother in a little less than nine short months. Not only did that discovery change my life, but it also changed the lives of many others who love and care about me. My mother, 33, would become a young grandmother and my step dad, 26, would become an even younger grandfather. My boyfriend of three years would have to throw away his childhood and become a man for his son or daughter. I was scared to death that the shock and severity of my situation would destroy any chance of gaining the support of them, but all three, along with the rest of my family, kept loving me and began to love the new life growing inside of me.
I am now eleven weeks pregnant and I have had the privilege of actually seeing my baby via ultrasound. He or she was almost a centimeter long on the first of September and resembled a peanut or a lima bean. Seeing the baby’s heartbeat flashing like a tiny strobe light hit me like a ton of bricks. The “embryo” that I had heard of in books and diagrams was now a child to me; a living, growing baby who was developing arms and legs and eyes. A baby that may grow up to have my dimples or my boyfriend’s blue eyes. He or she would call me “mommy” and love me unconditionally. And I would love him or her right back, as strong and as hard as I could.
I keep the pictures from the sonogram on the refrigerator, but my favorite one is in a little white frame in my bedroom. I look at it often and I wonder how much the baby has changed since that picture was taken. My next appointment is the 29th, and I am so anxious to be able to see how much this life inside of me has grown and be able to take home more pictures that I will treasure as much as the first one.
