It was the spring of ’84; Tuesday, April 3rd, to be exact.
And Thelma Lou had come to the realization that this wasn’t going to be another scheduled Tuesday off. A pharmacy technician in the county hospital at the time, her usual off-calendar “weekend” had become another point in her life when the script had to be revised. Just seven months earlier, she had to do the same when she, despite the grim prognosis of uterine fibroids and deciding that attempts for another child in her thirties would no longer be apart of the story, found out she was having a baby. Now here she was, just months shy of her 33rd birthday, waiting patiently on her little surprise, her miracle baby. Contrarily, her miracle baby was not patiently waiting for the world. A pregnancy that had been almost too easy, especially compared to her first eleven years prior, had come to an abrupt halt when baby, breached and prematurely breaking water, decided to make her entrance ahead of schedule. Less than 24 hours and a cesarean later, I, tiny yet tenacious, entered the scene.
And the story was never the same.
Today marks 84 days; Thursday, December 16th, to be exact.
I, like my mother, had begun to accept the family I’d long fantasized about would remain just that: a fantasy. I, like my mother, decided that having a baby well into my thirties, while very possible for some, could be quite a struggle because I, like my mother, had to process the grim discovery of a growing uterine fibroid after having already battled with endometriosis for over fifteen years. I, like my mother, started to reimagine life apart from what I thought it to be and accept that it, in its current state, was already abundant. I, in the same fashion, began to rewrite the pages of my story, far from its original form.
Then came spring of this year, just days after my 37th birthday, when I, like Thelma Lou, had come to another point in my life when the script had to be revised.
Like my mother, I, too, will be a mother.
Like me, there is a little surprise; an unexpected miracle baby, entering the scene.
And the story will never be the same.
