Dear mum,
I’m pregnant! At the worldly age of 42 I conceived, a gift and a miracle indeed. I find myself at 6 months pregnant reflecting on the fact that it has been 7 years since our last conversation. I know I have ‘told’ you many times in the past months about this amazing phenomenon which was happening to me, but nothing will ever equal what it would have like to tell you face-to-face. I hence turn to a love we shared, the love of writing, to attempt to put into words this moment and what it means to me.
You know my struggles with my health and how worried I was about my body and how it was ‘failing me’. You said to me on several occasion, “don’t worry Siobh, we’ll figure it out”. That was the way it had always been that you would be there to help me work it out or to fix it for me. Somehow over the past 7 years I have had to find a way to do that for myself – it’s not been easy that is certain, but I find myself in a place in my life where I have the confidence and the tools to deal with the roller-coaster of life. In that journey I made peace with the probability that I could ‘mother’ others and that I have so much to offer to people around me in how I could support and empower them.
Then on Christmas Eve in 2021 there came a moment where I had to choose between taking a pregnancy test or a covid test – I chose the pregnancy test. You would laugh mum at the story of how I came to know I was growing a human. I had to take three tests just to confirm I was not imagining it, especially as the first one I had in the bathroom had expired two years ago! Little did I know there are no ‘false positives’, but I was in disbelief. Calling Pete on the phone as he was away visiting family did not change my disbelief, but his reaction of pure joy made its way down the phone and encircled me. You would have been the next person I called, to hear the excitement in your voice would have been a gift, but I close my eyes now and I hear and feel it.
You had such a love of children and the pure simple joy they bring into one’s life. It was a trait I always admired in you – how you just ‘joined’ in with a group of children as if their age and yours were of no consequence. I know you longed to be a primary school teacher, but I wonder if anything would have gotten done, it would have been so full of fun and play. I adore the little people in my life, and yet I always sensed I may not embody your pure gift of all children. For me the whole notion having a child lay with who my co-parent might be. I found him and the greatest gift is that he is a soul you knew and loved because you saw how he saw me. It is the most interesting feeling to have a person truly ‘see you’, it brings such a sense of safety and calm. You gave me that feeling of being seen (maybe all mothers do – I’ll soon find out), and Pete gives me the same feeling albeit in a different way. His pure joy and excitement on the phone when I told him, and over the past few months as we have navigated the various steps of pregnancy have brought me so much peace.
You are going to have a grandson, to accompany the extraordinary granddaughter you already have. These little people already embody and will embody all the beauty and wonder you saw in the world and brought into your children’s lives. You taught me the wonder of life’s narrative and it is a lesson I carry with me every day. There are always moments, of hurt, pain, difficulty, but there are also moment of incredible beauty and wonder – after all it is all part of the narrative of life.
I hope I can be as amazing a mother to this little one as you were to me. It brings me such simple pleasure to have this avenue to share with you and others the wonderful experience of growing a human life.
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