She wonders if are you healthy;
I sit and rock you wondering when your fever will go down.
She wonders if you have enough to eat;
I wonder should I make you eat your broccoli.
She wonders if are you happy;
I love to hear you laugh.
She wonders if are you loved;
My heart melts with every smile and breaks with every tear I soothe.
She wonders what you look like;
I proudly display your pictures all over the house.
She hopes you get a good education;
I sit and help you with your homework every night.
She wonders what you will grow up to be like;
I teach you to be strong, independent and to believe in yourself.
She wonders if you will marry and have children;
I help you plan your wedding day and cry when I hold my grandchild for the first time.
She gave you life;
I am grateful to her every day that you are a part of my life.
She will always wonder about you;
I will always be thankful to her for bringing you into this world.
She will always be your biological mother;
I will always be Mommy.
Audrie LaVigne
Baby Toys
My gynecologist was seeing a pregnant patient who had brought along her young daughter to the appointment. The young girl had brought along numerous toys, and as the mother hopped up on the exam table, the gynecologist made conversation with the youngster.
“My you have a lot of nice toys there,” he said.
“I brought them for the baby,” she replied.
With a puzzled look the gynecologist said, “Well, how is the baby going to play with them now?”
The girl replied, “I thought while we were here, you could put them in there for me!”
Lynne Murphy
A Friendly Face
It was the beginning of November. I was larger—“larger than life!” —my husband, Jeff told me. I had a belly the size of three basketballs. I was expecting our first child and I was scared to death. It was just my husband and me; no family no close friends to share in our excitement, our terror. We were stationed in Japan and had lived there for two years when I became pregnant.
When I noticed the first pangs of labor, my husband and I raced through the crowded streets of Japan. Okay, raced isn’t quite the right word. It was more like “turtled” through the streets of Japan. Our hospital was at Yokota Air Force Base, which was only thirty miles away, but usually took us two hours to get to. I was too scared to notice the woman he nearly hit, the dog he almost ran over and the shopping cart he swerved around, and too tired to care. I did notice that he managed to hit every red light and a few train crossings.
Finally we got through the gates of the base and to the hospital. My contractions had subsided so the hospital told us to return home and rest. It was a false alarm. As we left, I noticed a rather tall woman, very much with child, being admitted to the delivery ward. We smiled in passing and I headed out the doors.
I cried a lot on the way home. I was so scared and dreaded another drive to the hospital. But what really upset me was that I was going to have a baby, and I had no one else to share it with. I was lucky to have my husband there. His squadron had deployed on a four-month cruise two weeks earlier. The commander allowed Jeff to stay behind until our child was born, then he had to meet up with the ship. That upset me too, that my husband would miss the first four months of his first child’s life; that I would be a single mom and have to deal with not only my own recovery, but also learn how to care for an infant.
“If only I had my mom! Or your mom! Or some close friends!” I sobbed to my husband. He felt terrible, but there was little he could do.
That night, the pains started again and grew in frequency. I kicked my husband awake and told him it was time to go. This time it was three in the morning. There was little traffic and we made it to the hospital in record time.
Sixteen hours and a difficult delivery later, I gave birth to a boy we named Eric. We were shocked, because the Japanese doctor who gave me an ultrasound a few months before said he was sure it was a girl. At least, we thought he said girl. While everything we bought was feminine, frilly and pink, we were thrilled that our Emma was really an Eric.
I was wheeled into my room, which I had to share with another new mother, and Eric was whisked away to the nursery. There was a curtain separating me from the other mother but I could hear voices and the quiet gurgles of a newborn. I lay staring at Jeff.
“Can you believe we have a little boy?” he asked all smiles. I smiled and nodded. Then the tears came to my eyes.
“What’s the matter?” Jeff sat down beside me.
“I’m supposed to be happy. Our parents should be here to meet their first grandchild. Our brothers and sisters and best friends should be here.” I felt my chin quiver.
“They’ll see him soon,” Jeff said. He bent over and kissed my forehead. “Should I call home?” he asked.
“Sure,” I let out a big yawn. I couldn’t move. My body ached. I felt like a Mack truck had hit me. And worse, the nurse would be in soon to get me up and to the bathroom. “They’ll be surprised to know we had a boy.”
Jeff picked up the phone. “What’s your parents’ number?”
I gave him the number and he called home to tell everyone we had a baby boy. After he hung up I heard a voice from behind the curtain.
“Excuse me,” said someone quietly.
My husband drew back the curtain and we looked at the tall woman I had seen earlier at the hospital.
“I heard you calling home and recognized the area code,” she started. “Are you from Massachusetts?”
“My wife is,” said Jeff pointing at me.
“Where in Mass?” asked the woman.
“Oh, it’s a real small town between Boston and Cape Cod,” I said.
“You probably don’t know it.”
“What’s the name?”
“Norwell,” I said.
The woman’s eyes lit up and her jaw dropped.
“I’m from Norwell, too!”
I looked at her, my eyebrows scrunched tight. I didn’t recognize her.
“What’s your name?”
She told me and I immediately gave her mine. We stared at each other in disbelief.
“You’re Kelly from South Street?” I asked. I sat up in my bed and straightened my hair.
“Yep. Can you believe this?” She was holding a small bundle and rocking her arms back and forth.
“This is amazing,” I said. Jeff and Kelly’s husband shook hands. I had known Kelly since elementary school. We went through high school together until she moved away some time around our senior year. We didn’t hang out together but had the same homeroom and many classes together. Now, ten years later we were having babies together on the other side of the world. She had grown quite tall since I knew her and her hair was different. But when she told me her name I immediately recognized her. Our babies were due on the same day, but both decided to come late. Kelly had given birth to a beautiful baby girl named Samantha.
The remainder of our time in the hospital was spent going through yearbooks, which our husbands dug up for us. We gave interviews to the base newspapers. No one could believe that two high school friends would be reunited in the delivery ward of a military hospital, half way around the world.
My prayers were answered, too. At the moment Kelly spoke up, I was completely exhausted and filled with such sadness, longing for a familiar face from home.
While my husband was shipped off two weeks later, Kelly and I kept in contact. Every Christmas I receive a card from her and Samantha, letting me know how they are doing.
Jennifer Reed
Unexpected Blessings
When the adoption agency said we were matched for a baby boy, we were overjoyed. We hugged and kissed in celebration that our dream was about to
come true. So when the counselor said we should be ready to fly to the opposite coast for his due date on April 27, just over a week away, we didn’t hesitate for a second in saying we would be there.
Most expectant mothers have nine months to prepare—we had just nine days. We had been expecting a full two-year wait for a child. We were shocked when the call came just three months after we completed the paperwork. “Is the nursery ready?” asked a business associate. Well, not exactly. In fact, we had nothing for a baby. The would-be nursery in our 1840s fixer-upper farmhouse was water damaged and very badly in need of rewiring as well as new walls, a new ceiling and floor. Once the room was finished, we could begin purchasing items for our future addition to the family.
Nine days? We could do it! After all, it’s not every day that a couple can fulfill their dream of bringing a baby into their lives.
We worked during the day and worked like mad by night. The thought of finally having a child of our own kept us going. As the baby’s due date neared, we were almost finished restoring the room. We made a whirlwind trip through two stores to buy the basic necessities—a diaper bag, diapers, baby wipes and blankets. Friends, family and sometimes even complete strangers who had heard our story showed up with used baby furniture, clothes and a host of other necessities to help us be ready in time.
As we boarded the flight with a stocked diaper bag and borrowed car seat in hand, we had accomplished nearly all of our goals—except for painting and putting up the last of the wood trim work in the nursery. The baby’s room would not be exactly as we had pictured it, but somehow we thought our son would not notice if a few final touches came later.
Three weeks and a long airplane ride later, my husband and I walked through the door of our home with our new son. The moment was one of indescribable joy for us. As we put our son to sleep in his cousin’s crib, we noticed an unexpected surprise: the painting was completed and the trim work placed! The nursery was finished! Next, we noticed that the refrigerator had been stocked with several meals for us.
Friends and family came throughout the next few days to see our new son and continued to bring items we needed, such as a playpen and a highchair. When our son went through a bout of colic, my mother-in-law gave us one of the best gifts of all—the opportunity to get some precious sleep.
Reflecting on our first few hours home as a family, we now realize that our blessings extended far beyond our new son. Little did we realize, we had already been part of a caring extended family, larger than we could have ever imagined.
Cynthia Hummel
Man in Labor
I think my oldest son thought he’d just stay as snug as a bug in a rug for as long as he could while I was carrying him toward the end of my pregnancy.
The doctor decided to induce labor after I had gone a couple of weeks past the due date. I was told to walk the halls at the hospital so the baby would drop a little into the birth canal and labor pains would begin.
My husband and I walked all afternoon and for almost three hours into the evening and nothing happened. We decided to go back into the labor room and sit down and relax a while.
While there, my husband decided to find a bathroom. I suggested that he use the one attached to the labor room because I was the only woman in labor that evening.
Within seconds, a couple of nurses burst into the room, flew by me and quickly opened the bathroom door.
There stood my husband—taking care of business! More embarrassed than I ever saw him before, he muttered, “I pushed the emergency button by mistake.” (Instead of the light switch!) He grabbed the doorknob and quickly shut the door.
The nurses burst out laughing, and I did, too.
I laughed so hard, I laughed myself into labor pains!
Very shortly, our healthy beautiful son was born. And while my husband and I rejoiced over our precious newborn, the nurses continued to recount their highlight of the day—the very first man in labor!
Brenda Ford Miller
The Decision
Not all mothers are blissfully happy when their first child is born. For some, the circumstances are difficult and confusing. That was the case the night my girlfriend dropped me off at St. Anthony’s Hospital. Alone and afraid, I was taken to a small room and told to put on a gown and lie on the bed. The nurses didn’t speak much to me—I was unmarried, young, alone, and pregnant, and such a thing was frowned upon, especially in the South in the early 1970s. Alone I bore the heaviness of the labor of childbirth in a darkened labor room, only occasionally checked by nurses who didn’t show much compassion.
Little did I know of the workings of such a place—of what had already been planned for me. The hospital had a social service director, and when an unmarried, teenage girl came in to give birth, they had a deserving family already in mind for the new child. They would help me see how inadequate and unprepared I was for childbirth, much less parenthood. And of course they were right.
After my delivery, I woke from a deep sleep. In the dark hours before dawn, I looked around the room: old linoleum yellowed on the floor beneath my railed bed; one small light on the wall behind me; a metal chair against the wall. Where was my baby? Was it a girl, a boy? I cried out, and in my drug-induced state, I vaguely remembered my mother bending over me. “It’s a girl,” she whispered. “She is healthy and beautiful.”
When I awoke some hours later I rang for the nurse and asked for my baby. She seemed puzzled, but after much persistence on my part, she brought in a small bundle and laid her in my arms. The baby was so beautiful, so small, so perfect. Thick, dark, curly hair topped her round pink face. Her eyes were as dark as raisins and her skin was as smooth as the finest silk. A baby! A little person! My mind was swirling with thoughts and my heart overflowing with emotions. I had no idea what I was doing, but this I did know: My life would never be the same.
Soon after, a social worker came to visit me. She explained that they had a family, a special and loving family who had been waiting for so long for a child they could love and care for. She talked to me about responsibility, my future, and the opportunities I would lose trying to raise a baby alone. Much of what she said was true. I was so young—only sixteen years old—but I felt deep in my soul that this was the most important decision I would perhaps ever make.
I told her I would pray. I didn’t know much about prayer—I had been to church as a young girl with my grandmother and my mother, but I had no deep religious feelings of my own. There had certainly been times when I had prayed in the past, “Please get me out of this mess!” but I knew this was a different kind of prayer. I needed an answer. I waited for it. I listened. Day after day I listened, with the socialworker encouraging me to do the right thing for this little girl. Each afternoon, friends visited me, quiet about their opinions. Each evening my mother and grandmother visited, also quiet. Everyone was waiting for me. I was waiting for God.
After nine days the pressure was mounting. The hospital wanted my bed. The social services department wanted my baby. I wanted my answer. One afternoon my girlfriend tiptoed into my room. She sat on the side of my bed and took my hand in hers. Eyes brimming with tears, she shared her hidden secret with me. She, too, had been an unwed teenage mother. She, too, had faced this decision. She, too, had been afraid. In heart-breaking detail she described her feelings and concerns at the time. She knew exactly how I was feeling! She told me that now, at age twenty-one, she knew in her heart that letting go of her baby to a loving and wonderful family had been the right thing to do, and she encouraged me to do the same. She left, and I was alone with my thoughts. I had prayed for God to give me an answer. Was this it? Logically it made sense. It must be right, but what was wrong with my heart? It felt like it was breaking.
That night my mother came again to see me. She had kept her opinions to herself as I had struggled over the past few days, waiting for an answer to my prayers. She knew more, saw more, felt more than she shared with me. It would be many years later when she would confirm the e
vents of that night with me.
I had been waiting for her to come. All afternoon I’d cried. I told my mother of the visit with my friend, of the story she had shared. I told her that after talking to my friend I had decided to let my baby go home with the family that waited for her. I had decided in my mind, but what was I going to do about my heart? The feelings there were quite different. I felt as if I was grieving. I felt something had died inside of me.
At last, my mother began to share her feelings with me. She did not agree with my girlfriend and told me of her own impressions over the past several days. I don’t remember much of what she said, for I was listening—listening to the sound of my baby crying in the nursery. I got up and walked down the corridor to the baby nursery at the end of a long hall. It didn’t occur to me that it would have been impossible for me to hear a baby crying so far away and in an enclosed room, much less to distinguish the sound of my own crying child. But somehow I just knew she was crying and that I needed to go to her.
I was unaware of my mother following me down the hall to the nursery—I was conscious only of the sound of my daughter’s cry. Then something happened that even now is almost too miraculous to describe.
As I peered through the glass wall that separated me from my crying child, a bright, white light seemed to descend from the ceiling above her and encompassed the crib in which she lay. It was luminous and shone directly on her little body. Then I heard these words, as clearly as if someone were speaking in my ear. “This is your child. She was sent here to you. No one will ever be able to love her as you will.” Suddenly, joy swelled within my heart and peace filled my aching soul, and I knew God had truly heard and answered my prayers. The next morning, a long ten days after her birth, I took my precious daughter home with me.
The years that followed were certainly not easy. I worked as a waitress, spent two years in college, and made many mistakes along the way. I know the decision to keep the baby would not be right for many young women; giving up a baby for adoption is a noble act of love. And yet time after time, the voice I heard and the light I saw that night gave me the courage to know I had done the right thing for this particular baby.
Chicken Soup for the Expectant Mother's Soul Page 17