I'm sitting in my favorite coffee house today trying to get some writing done when she walks in with her friend.
She can't be more than 15 or 16 years old. Laughing and giggling. Very pretty with long dark hair, dark eyes and tanned skin. She is wearing one of this season's popular floor length "maxi" dresses.
And she is also very obviously very pregnant.
She and her friend purchase their coffee and treats and sit at the next table over from me chatting happily away. I know that I am staring at them, which is terribly rude, but I cannot tear my eyes away from them so distracted and distressed am I by the sight of this pregnant girl.
Distressed and distracted not by her or her pregnancy, but rather by my reaction to her and her pregnancy.
"How can you possibly take care of a baby at your age?" I ask her in my thoughts. "You're just a child yourself!"
I wonder whether she's planning to keep her baby, if her family is going to step in with help and financial support. Will this young woman's parents step up and raise the child if she cannot or will not raise it? Is the father going to be involved? Will they live at home with her family? Or will this young woman try to live on her own with the baby?
Then suddenly some part of me contemplates getting up and walking over to this young woman to introduce myself and ask her outright if she's considering adoption. To tell her that there is a couple living just a few miles away who would make wonderful adoptive parents for her child. That the woman who would make a great mom is me! Standing right in front of her!
Urgh! Ach!! WTF??? How can I be thinking these things???
Quite suddenly my mouth goes dry and I start to sweat with the shame of it all. I am so ashamed that even just one of these thoughts has for one millionth of one second been rattling around in my brain. So ashamed.
This young woman's pregnancy is clearly none of my business.
And, further, I have absolutely no business whatsoever judging her for being young and being pregnant.
Soon the young women finish their coffee and treats and make their way out of the coffee house leaving me behind with my terrible thoughts. Leaving me feeling...
Bad.
Selfish.
Judgmental.
Predatory.
Does this make me an awful person?
It seems utterly natural that you'd feel this way. Please don't pick on yourself.
ReplyDeleteIn moments like these, I suggest that you pretend it's someone you care about who is having your feelings. I say this because I think you'd be more gentle than you are with yourself.
To be honest, I know that *I* am having these feelings about babies I see on your behalf. So, if I'm feeling this way I can't imagine what you're feeling right now.
So, be gentle with yourself.
~GG
Pretty sure I would've felt the exact same way during our adoption process. I don't think it's awful--I think it's perfectly normal.
ReplyDeleteThinking and feeling what you thought and felt does NOT make you an awful person. It makes you someone who thinks and feels deeply over a very difficult situation in her own life. Had you acted, I'm not even sure that would have made you an awful person, although it may have seemed desperate to the pregnant teen.
ReplyDeleteI had the same visceral reaction to a pregnant high schooler waiting at the bus stop around the corner from my house. So much so, that I wanted to pull over and ask if she wanted a ride just so I could talk to her about her pregnancy and what her plans were. Of course, I did not, but it didn't make me feel like a bad person, just someone very attuned to the pregnant woman around me and my fervent desire to have a baby.
Been there. done that. Was terribly afraid I was going to get reported for stalking pregnant girls (or at least freaking them out in public). It was like when you buy a new car. And suddenly EVERYWHERE are cars the same color and make as yours. That's how pregnant girls were for me when we were waiting.
ReplyDeleteI was afraid I was going to be come a lifetime movie...
Weirdly, I think it's a normal reaction :-) Thinking of you!
I've considered doing that many times!
ReplyDelete