if words can paint a picture let me share this album with you

can you imagine what it's like to be told that after being told that you'd never have a child, you're pregnant?

seeing two pink lines on the pregnancy test, and knowing what it means to have everything in your existance suddenly stop

it can't possibly be this easy, because nothing is. specialists tell you that it's a high-risk pregnancy, that your chances are higher than average for early labor and a small baby, but they have no idea how much higher. They don't have a clue if your body is capable of sustaining the pregnancy, either. because for this, you are the baseline.

learning to relax at every appt that goes smoothly. In and out of the office in the time it takes to go to the library and browse. nothing unexpected, all signs point to normal development.

everything's fine.

nothing's fine.

waking up one day and wondering if the queasiness is ever going to end. Standing over the stove as a wave of vertigo threatens to collapse your knees on the spot. Sitting alone at home one night and feeling your sanity slipping away... depression. Is it normal to feel this way? Why can't I stop crying? I just feel like the last control I have over my life is gone, stolen by a baby growing inside me that I had given up hope of ever having, and by the fear of losing her that drives me back to doctors time and again. Listen to the specialists, try not to worry.

imagine the morning when everything is hard, when it's such an effort to do anything, and normal life is only a memory of someone else's life...

I became a mother that morning. And I still don't understand how the fuck it happened, or where this baby came from, because I don't remember her first cry. I wasn't there. I was dreaming of her first laugh, her first smile at me. I was hearing her whisper in my ear. Hush, Mama, it's alright.