I remember having problems growing up with my “lady week”. Finally during a doctor’s appointment with my pediatrician, my mother asked her about it. Rather than referring me to the OB/GYN office, I remember the doctor saying “no need, she’ll never have kids anyways”. It didn’t shatter me as much as I’ve seen people on TV shows when they are told this. I never dreamed of being identified by who I was associated with. I wasn’t “_____’s girlfriend”, I was Brianne. So the idea of not having to be defined by who my children were or who my husband was, actually relieved me. Marriage and children weren’t a priority in life, it wasn’t something I aspired for. I aspired to be a writer, write some short stories and plays. If I got married and had kids, then fine. If not, I didn’t think it would be something earth-shattering to me.

Then, I had my first son and that changed. I realized my problem wasn’t with having kids; my problem seemed to be getting along with kids that weren’t mine. It does give a certain purpose, even if you’re 19 and a single mom. He was a blessing, and I treated him as a miracle because he was never supposed to have existed. Even though the doctor was obviously wrong, when my husband and I started talking about having kids I began to worry that maybe she was right and my son was just a miracle child. I made sure he knew that it might not happen for us, and 2 months after stopping the pill we were excited to announce that we were expecting.

Since then whenever I come across a show where people are having fertility problems or other complications with their pregnancy, I get sad and feel guilty. I wasn’t even supposed to have one, and now I’m on my second perfectly easy and healthy pregnancy. I’m reminded of this when I overhear things in the doctor’s office. When I see tears on a woman’s face because she was just told that he baby was either going to be born with problems or not even make it that far. Or the idea of having to terminate a pregnancy because of complications. This makes me feel guilty too, and I know it’s nothing I can control. But it doesn’t make me feel less guilty about the idea of “what makes me more worthy to have an easy time with it, when these nice seeming people have all these complications”.

I usually take a deep breath and decide not to question the good things. Every pregnant woman or mother or especially a combination of both has enough to worry about. Feeling guilty for things that are beyond  your control just adds stress to one of the most stressful times of your life. Plus, I’m sure they would rather not have “pity” for their situation either. We should just be thankful for the good things in our life, because it could always be worse.