Unplanned Pleasantries

As a little girl, I had big dreams. I wanted to be a college graduate, a wife, a mother. I’ve achieved these dreams, but not in the way my little girl imagination had laid it out.

In the perfect world inside my head, I thought I would go to college, find a husband, start a career, then have a family. My plan left no room for hiccups.

“Life is hard,” my dad would repeat to my young ears. I thought “hard” meant “difficult,” as in, I could still live a perfect life with just a little elbow grease.

These childish interpretations weren’t confronted with reality until I hit my 20s. I did become a mother, but my husband and I are not his parents. In fact, my husband isn’t even his biological father.

Not how I wanted my life to go.

Although I had been struggling with mental illness for some time (that wasn’t in the plan, either), I wasn’t aware of the gradual curve my path was taking. Since emerging from the dark forest of crisis and beginning to round the bend, I look back and see how my path has deviated from where I thought I was traveling.

The course I charted for myself isn’t nearly as colorful or meaningful as the one I have actually been on. I never would have chosen to send myself through those scary woods, but I have reentered the sunlight with a new appreciation and perspective.

Part of coming to terms with my unplanned pregnancy and the subsequent adoption was accepting that my life had taken an irreversible turn away from the golden path I’d seen ahead.

Unplanned pregnancies are just that: unplanned. They don’t fit in with life as we know it. But in reference to my own journey, I have to believe my unplanned pregnancy was planned by Someone. My bad choices are my own, but the good things that came of them — including my child — are not something for which I can take full credit.

I prefer to think of unplanned pregnancies as “unplanned pleasantries.” No, morning sickness, stretch marks, and an aching back are not pleasant; but Dominic’s smile, his persistent curiosity and the way he spits out his food for fun ARE pleasant. Even if I am not there to see these every day, the knowledge of their existence is enough for me to call this experience “pleasant.”

Perhaps being a birth mother was not in the cards you thought you held as a little girl. But if you are like me, you might also look at your child — the precious result of your unplanned pregnancy — and be thankful.

By shifting my paradigm from “this is not what I wanted” to “this is better than what I wanted,” I feel free to love Dominic without any resentment. It lets me let go of the life I wanted, and call the life I have “pleasant.”

 

Do you ever feel thankful when you see or think of your child who you placed? Can you see any ways your life has turned out better than you thought it would? What do you think of calling an unplanned pregnancy an “unplanned pleasantry”? Comment below to share your thoughts.