Chicken Soup for the Expectant Mother's Soul Read online

  At just eleven weeks old, our little miracle was already so perfectly formed, yet so small—just four centimeters—that Joe nicknamed the baby “Speck.”

  It was much too early to tell the gender, but I saw a little girl taking her first steps, walking to school, getting her driver’s license, going to college, getting married, having babies of her own. Her whole life flashed before my eyes right on that screen. I thought about what a big, ugly world is waiting out there for Speck. One filled with cancer and war and junior high dances. How could I possibly protect her from all the bad, while letting her experience all the good?

  Yes, in that instant I realized there are much scarier things than that shapeless maternity underwear. But you know what else I realized? I’m ready.

  Kristen Cook

  The Journey Begins

  Most people return from Las Vegas with winnings or souvenirs. My wife came back with a baby.

  After loading Gina’s suitcases into our van at the airport, my wife handed me a small package. Thinking it would be a wonderfully tacky souvenir, I ripped through the paper only to find myself face-to-face with a positive pregnancy test.

  Now, my wife and I had been trying to have another baby for quite some time. So, when I saw the test, my first thought was “What the heck is this?” Not very poetic, unfortunately, but very much the truth. So, I immediately looked up to find my wife smiling.

  “But how?” I mumbled, knowing exactly how but not when or where.

  “I was sicker than you’ll ever know in Vegas,” Gina whispered, so as not to let on to our boys in the backseat. “So, my mom took me to a doctor. And, with all the other tests, they wanted to make sure I wasn’t pregnant. But, I guess I am.”

  Another baby. A third boy? A first girl? A swarm of thoughts and feelings went through my skull and down into my arteries. I’m happy. And scared. And worried that I won’t be a good enough dad. And proud of “big brother” Jeremy. And nervous that Gina and I will now be outnumbered. And sad for Matthew that he’ll no longer be the baby. And hoping we’ll be able to make them all feel special. And, most of all, so in awe of my wife who, once again, will show how a woman is a miracle, how she brings forth life and beauty and peace into a world so dearly in need of all three.

  There aren’t many things to top hearing that there’s a baby on the way.

  The journey begins . . . again.

  Jim Warda

  Inner Sight

  Sometimes the greatest “inner sight” comes from the insight you gain while trying to help others. I was reading through the posts of a women’s Internet group and stumbled upon a kindred spirit. There was a question posed by a young mother that caught my attention and inspired me to sit down and compose a letter of my own. She stated very simply: “I’m a thirty-something mother of two children. For months my husband and I have been considering having a third child. I am very hesitant about having another child for dozens of reasons (some being money, and mostly other selfish things). I would like to know if any moms out there are going through a similar situation of uncertainty?”

  Suddenly I felt I was no longer alone in my ocean of confusion and choice. Here was someone I could relate to! Maybe it wasn’t unnatural for me to be thinking so hard about having another child. I sat down at my computer and began to let the words and feelings flow.

  Dear Stacy and Others,

  I’m contemplating motherhood. Again. Everyone in the household seems eager and willing to welcome a new member to our family. My son is clamoring for a little brother or sister. My husband grins from ear to ear with every glance drool-faced babies lend him as he stands in line at the supermarket. Those little cooing bundles of “cute” instinctively single him out of a crowd and put on the charm. He puts his arms around my waist and tickles my ear with a half-whispered “I’m ready.”

  Dinner conversations often include lobbying from my six-year-old son. “Mommy, I think I should learn to knit. I could make socks and mitts and blankets. Little ones, of course.” It is a serious commitment when Pokemania has been replaced by knitting. I teasingly read off a checklist to the family. “You’re sure you are ready for mood swings and cravings and crying and late-night feedings and crying and colic and burping and more crying?” The husband smiles, “Oh, yes.” The boy chimes in with an enthusiastic “Yes!”

  They seem so sure, beyond the point of affirmation. How is it that they are so positive? Suddenly all eyes are on me. I look around for someone else to ask. No one steps forward. I think to myself, “Am I ready?”

  When I put the question to myself I find that I am at a crossroads. How does a mother decide whether or not to bring another child into this world? I could ask a million women, but this is an answer that is ultimately found alone. This is a question that requires long walks, hot baths, meditation (and perhaps large quantities of chocolate).

  At any given moment I can easily think of a logical list of reasons why being pregnant again might not be the best idea. Overpopulation, the trials of raising a child in today’s society, money concerns, the difference in years between children, and another ride on that carousel that reels past a million milestones a minute. . . . These all seem to argue against recurrent motherhood. There’s standing room only in the back of my brain as these taunting thoughts of certainty line up to be heard. “Are you ready to crave tuna fish and watermelon for months on end? Do you really want to watch your body become some sort of alien creature’s again?”

  Of course there is also the list of delightful wonders that childbearing promises as well. These thoughts gently come to mind and wash the roughness of argument away. Memory offers me visions: the anticipation of a new life, the first wiggles within the womb, the love that is shared between parents, the graciousness my son will learn from having a sibling, and the quiet admiration that comes when someone else’s grandmother spies your all-encompassing profile. I sit and remember what it’s like to have a tiny hand grasp my finger and how the first bubbly baby smile made me weep with gladness.

  In those silent moments of self-examination I am challenged to set logic and warm fuzzies aside and look to something else to guide my way. Such a decision cannot be made with cold practicality or mere emotion. I am more than thought. I am more than feeling.

  Harriet Beecher Stowe once said: “Most mothers are instinctive philosophers.” I believe this to be true. Whether it is labeled as instinct, intuition or Universal Truth, most mothers would agree that something beyond the prattle of life converses with their inner being. I try to steal as much quietude as I can these days waiting for the sacred dialogue to begin.

  I think back to when I carried my son and how his spirit, somehow made known to me, seemed to have made the decision with me. (As if it were a task he had cosmically asked me to be a part of.) I always feel compelled to honor his presence in my life by saying “when I was pregnant FOR him” rather than “when I was pregnant with him.” We named him Ian, “gracious gift.” Although I parent and teach Ian daily, I also feel gratitude in knowing him and in being one of the guides in his life. How very different pregnancy and parenting seem when I consider them as requested privileges.

  As the question comes again I look and listen into something beyond myself and ask. . . . Am I ready? Is it time to be called upon again? Is there someone waiting for my mothering touch?

  Am I willing to carry this soul and shelter it with mine? Not just for nine months, but for our lives. Not giving mine up in the process, but becoming more of who I am because of it. When my heart can answer with a grateful “yes” and I feel the Universe whisper it back . . . I will be ready.

  Blessings,

  Ami

  Ami McKay

  P.S. I’ll let you know the due date :)

  Delayed Gratification

  Any woman who has dealt with infertility knows the painful longing that accompanies the condition. When my husband and I decided it was time to think about having a baby, I never dreamed it would be a ten-year venture with infertility doct
ors, consultants and lawyers. Although I was brought up in a very loving family, I was an only child, and I always wanted several children of my own when I married.

  Unfortunately, my mother had taken the fertility hormone DES (diethylstilbestrol) when she was pregnant with me, which was later linked to numerous medical problems in women, ranging form ovarian cancer to infertility. But because my mother was no longer alive, much of the medical information vital to my condition was unavailable. After my husband Ben and I had tried for nine months to conceive, I knew deep down that having a baby of our own would be a long ordeal.

  The first year consisted of fertility drugs coupled with artificial insemination. We felt certain this would work and were discouraged when it failed. In vitro fertilization (IVF) was then suggested, which is a process where the woman is injected with fertility drugs to enable her body to produce an increased number of eggs. The eggs are retrieved and fertilized outside the body, then placed back in her womb. Our first try was successful, and we were ecstatic. I was very careful, feeling so lucky to finally be pregnant, but I unfortunately miscarried twins at eleven weeks.

  The disappointment was unimaginable, but that same year I went through two more IVFs; one was an unsuccessful fertilization and the other time I miscarried. After so many months of hoping and praying, living by my cycle, doctor visits, blood tests, and discouraging phone calls, I knew that my mind and body needed a break.

  For the next two years, both my husband and I changed jobs and settled into a life of two working professionals. If we couldn’t be parents quite yet, we would be successful in our careers. After a move to Baltimore, we decided to look into treatments again, as well as the possibility of adoption. So, back to the same grind of injections, tests, doctor’s appointments—but all with the same disheartening results: no baby.

  In the meantime, we had some very dear friends, Kathy and Shawn, who had just had their second baby, a boy. They already had a three-year-old daughter, and Ben and I were their children’s godparents. When we visited their home near Seattle to attend the new baby’s christening, Kathy made it clear that she and Shawn felt satisfied with their family and didn’t intend to have any more children. They offered to carry a baby for us if we got to the point where we might consider using a gestational carrier. Deeply grateful for their offer of love, we told them that we hadn’t given up completely on trying ourselves, but that we would think about it.

  We investigated adoption but learned that the average cost in the state of Maryland was between $18, 000 and $25, 000. We were shocked and again discouraged as that was out of the financial picture for us. After six more laborious and unsuccessful IVF attempts, with spirits depleted, I finally picked up the phone and made the most difficult call of my life. It was a cold, clear, January morning when I poured my heart out to my dear friend Kathy, and asked if she would still be willing to carry a baby for me. What a feeling to know there was someone in the world with enough love and sympathy in her heart to offer such a gift! I would be eternally and profoundly grateful.

  With renewed hope, we began the process of having my frozen embryos sent overnight to a Seattle fertility clinic. Kathy would have to make a two-hour drive every day for two weeks for the procedure, which she did—graciously, generously sacrificing time with her family so that her friend might have a family. It was May 1997, and at the same time Kathy was trying to get pregnant with my embryos, I was also giving it “one last try” at home. I figured with both of us working at it, certainly something magical would happen.

  No luck. Kathy and I were both unsuccessful, and for the four months following that sad time, Ben and I were dazed, numb, almost mournful. We had used all our options—we had now been trying for nine years and we were at the end of the road.

  Our insurance was also running out. I had been covered for the very expensive IVF treatments, but the coverage would end in December that year. Because Kathy was so willing and encouraging, we opted to let her try one more time before the end of the year. So in October, our doctor was more than willing, once again, to perform the necessary procedure to retrieve, fertilize, freeze and ship my eggs to Seattle. Ben and I agreed this would be our last (the eleventh!) try at IVF. If it didn’t work this time, we would somehow accept the grave reality that God didn’t intend for us to have a family of our own; we would be grateful for what we had and devote our life to each other and our extended family.

  But at the last minute there was a hitch with the insurance company: A regulation stated that in the case where a gestational carrier is being used, two embryos (of the normal ten to twelve retrieved) must be implanted in the real mother (a “good faith” act, of sorts) while the other embryos are given to the carrier. Although we had hoped all the frozen embryos could be sent to Seattle for Kathy’s use, we, of course, complied with the policy.

  While we awaited news of Kathy’s IVF results, I was scheduled, as is routine in the IVF process, for a pregnancy test. The appointment fell on the day after Thanksgiving. Normally in an IVF, four to six embryos were implanted in me; this time, because it was just an insurance requirement, there were only two, and I knew my chances of becoming pregnant were slim to none. So as I set out at 5:30 A.M. that morning on the two-hour drive for my pregnancy test, I wondered why I was even bothering.

  After arriving home many hours later, I answered the phone to a nurse’s voice telling me—incredibly—that I was pregnant, that my blood hormone levels were fantastic, and that I should consider this a probable “keeper” —a true gift! Weeks later, when Ben and I heard the rapid little beat of our baby’s heart through the doctor’s stethoscope, we could hardly control our tears. We knew this baby was a gift from God—the results of ten years of persistence, prayers and great love.

  My dear friend Kathy could curtail her noble efforts. Ben and I would have our baby’s sweet smell and giggles on the carousel after all. The price we had paid through our prolonged trial and our tears would be small payment, indeed, for the beautiful, warm bundle of a very healthy Benjamin George Cameransi III, born August 2, 1998.

  Patricia K. Cameransi

  Enjoy Your Baby

  The love of our neighbor in all its fullness simply means being able to say. . . . “What are you going through?”

  Simmone Well

  “Time to open presents!” one of the baby shower guests announced, and everyone gathered around as Caren Danielson and her sister-in-law, Jan Byrne, made themselves comfortable on the living-room couch. Jan was eight months pregnant . . . only it wasn’t her baby. The baby actually belonged to Caren, who opened each gaily wrapped package with exclamations of delight.

  Caren had the time of her life. “I’ve wanted to become a mom for so long,” she told her friends. “And now, thanks to Jan, my dream is finally going to come true.”

  In Caren’s baby book there is an entry her own mom made when she was only a girl. Asked about her goals in life, then five-year-old Caren had answered without hesitation: “I want to get married and have a baby.”

  Thirty years later, Caren’s dream was just as vibrant. Her new husband, Eric, was also looking forward to starting a family. But then, suddenly, tragedy struck.

  Caren was working out at a downtown Chicago gym one afternoon when a blinding pain exploded inside her head. “You’ve had a brain hemorrhage,” a doctor explained. “You’re lucky to be alive.”

  A DES baby (children whose mother’s took an anti-miscarriage drug later discovered to be toxic), Caren suffered from several medical problems, including a blood-clotting disorder. Doctors could not conclusively determine that the blood problem had caused Caren’s brain hemorrhage, but they warned it could happen again. Especially if she got pregnant.

  “The stress of childbirth could kill you,” one doctor pronounced bluntly.

  “I survived a brain hemorrhage, maybe I could survive childbirth, too,” Caren told Eric later that same night. “We could still try, in spite of what the doctor said.”

  “I married you becaus
e I love you, not because of any babies,” Eric gently explained. “I couldn’t bear losing you.”

  But Caren wanted a baby so much, she was willing to try almost anything. And then she remembered a TV movie she’d seen about surrogate motherhood. “Maybe that would work for us,” Caren told Eric. “My health problems aren’t genetic. You and I could make a beautiful baby together—we’d just need someone else to carry it to term for us.”

  Caren and Eric shared their plans with Eric’s folks, who thought it was a great idea. They passed the word along, and a few weeks later, on Caren’s thirty-sixth birthday, she and Eric came home after a night on the town and their answering machine was blinking.

  The message was from Eric’s sister, Jan. “Mom and Dad just told me you’re looking for a surrogate mom, and I wanted you to know that I’d be honored to carry your baby for you,” Jan’s message began. “I think it would be the most incredible experience for me, and I know you and Eric would make great parents.”

  Caren played the message again and again. “So what do you think?” Eric asked, giving his wife a hug.

  “I think,” Caren managed through sobs, “that your sister must be some kind of an angel.”

  Jan is also a forty-five-year-old Madison, Wisconsin, divorced mother of three—Matthew, twenty-one, Beth, nineteen and Katie, fifteen. When her mom and dad told her about Eric’s and Caren’s wish to find a surrogate mom, something deep inside Jan had clicked. “I could do that for them,” she decided after many hours of careful thought. “I always loved being pregnant, but I don’t want any more children of my own.”