When I was pregnant with my second, the nurse asked if I wanted to keep the pregnancy. I asked her why she would ask me such a question. She said, ‘Well, since this one is so close to your first baby, some moms would think it wasn’t a convenient time to be pregnant.’

A spouse isn’t always convenient, but love helps you not count the cost and time it takes sharing your life with and caring about someone you love.

A puppy certainly isn’t convenient. Love makes the puppy worth the time and effort it takes.

Living children aren’t always convenient…believe me on this!

Your boss and co-workers…

Life…

Every time I was pregnant, I felt that I was a participator in something separate and sacred. I could not decide it’s face shape, hair color, or personality. Those things were decided without my being asked. It wasn’t mine, it was its own…

When at last the baby was born,  I was excited to finally meet the little stranger who’d been inside me, and  each time I was amazed at the fact that the newborn tyke had hair. Lots of hair. No baldies here. Something with 10 fingers and toes, skin, brains and hair had been growing and living inside me. 

MY BODY MY CHOICE? I never felt that my body also meant the baby’s body. I felt that my body was mine, and that a baby’s body was its. I thought of it as a sacred entity; its body, its self. 

Society often presents pregnancy, nursing, and motherhood as something inconvenient, dirty, time wasting, career killing and menial. In a way, it’s an anti-motherhood attitude; yet without mothers where would society be?

I wonder how people would feel if there were a time machine, and a mother, at will, could go back in time and abort any children who proved to be inconvenient in any way. A mother could say,  ‘That’s it, I’m off to the Planned Parenthood Time Machine Clinic. You are going to be aborted after all!”  Would the troublesome child nod in agreement and say, “Why mother, your body your choice. Hop along now, don’t tarry”?

Or would they rage at the mother claiming she had no right to destroy their personhood, to which the mother could respond, “Why don’t worry child, you’ll just be a cluster of cells when I do this, and you won’t feel a thing…” or “Why child, don’t fret, you’ll have no knowledge of what I’m doing since you won’t have the gift of self-awareness, much like a puppy…” Would the child nod in agreement and say, “Very well dear mother, off you go- hurry it up- .” Most likely the offspring of the mother would revolt and shout that the mother had no right to end their life.

The acceptance of a pregnancy termination is based in part on denying the sacred personhood of a unique separate human within. Where would you be now if you’d been terminated in your mother’s womb? 
***
What Angels See

I turn the knob slowly till it will turn no more
And gently push the door to your room
Soft footed, I step long over the board that sounds
At your bed I stand and gaze on your sleeping form
To see what it is that angels see when they guard your sleep
Little one, I once hardened, am awed, a sentimental fool
What propels your functions? From where did you grasp your perfections?
You’ve melted this heart of ice yet you stretch and yawn unaware
I long for the stillness of the angels to gaze and to stay
So many cares and worries call-
Child, may your angels ever watch over you
Long after I’m gone.

Michele Marie