There was a time in my life when I didn’t want children. A couple of things occurred to make me eventually change my mind, however. One, I was determined to prove I would never be the parent I had, at least not the woeful parts of them that I came to resent. And two, I started to get older and holidays with my family stopped feeling familiar. After that, I would come to talk about my future children with so much conviction that I even had their names together. They say words are spells, and for three years every time I spoke, I would make comments about wanting a baby and my willingness to raise my baby alone.
Now that I am pregnant, I know without a doubt I manifested my (unborn) baby and the circumstances attached. Surely, it doesn’t take much to manifest a pregnancy but as someone who was perpetually single and celibate leading up to my pregnancy (irony at its finest), I did have to manifest the man and so many of the other details. On the off chance that I would not be able to find a worthy partner, it had been written into my five-year plan to use a sperm donor. The idea was appealing but it required far more patience than I could muster.
In this new world, why would I wait for a man to do anything? Coming from a space of hyper-independence, it just seemed counterintuitive.
And suddenly, my eighth-grade sweetheart came back into my life (an everlasting on-again, off-again relationship). I had little to no idea about the kind of father he was, yet I plotted, planned, and penned. I wrote his name and our child’s name in a manifestation journal when circumstances separated him and I yet again – even created a manifestation playlist to bring him back into my life.
Equally determined and naive, I said in the worst-case scenario I would get a sperm donor for free – not realizing the emotional attachment that would immediately be present. My baby was far from unplanned. I told my boyfriend from the moment that we reconnected that he should take precautions if he didn’t want another child because I had no intention of practicing birth control.
To share my success in doing any of this, allow me to offer you this perspective: I’m five months pregnant and I’ve been celibate for the past two months.
Prior to us rekindling our friendship and subsequently our fling, I encountered many red flags that I ultimately chose to ignore regarding my partner. However, it required getting pregnant for me to acknowledge and then honor the part of me that knew I had to be done with the romantic aspect of our relationship. Upon finding out I was pregnant, I immediately felt so responsible for this little baby who wasn’t even a full fetus yet.
He deserved a full family but he also deserved parents who were going to protect him from unnecessary trauma – only one of us, me, even had the wherewithal to recognize trauma, so naturally, the duty had fallen squarely on me. And while some days were good, others looked like doors slamming and me being cussed out for purchasing the wrong blunt wrappers.
Despite the fact that I had been less inclined to have sex with my boyfriend, had been sleeping on the couch, and had even begun seeing other people – I spent the first three months of my pregnancy attempting to envision us as a family.
Well aware that a baby doesn’t make any relationship easier, I took to deep prayer and delusion, hoping that the instances of verbal and emotional abuse were one-offs. That his temper was a result of my wrongdoing rather than his inability to seek out help for his own trauma. Ultimately, the maternal instinct to keep my child safe by all means eventually outweighed my desire for my baby boy to know what it was to be a family.
Behavior that I had previously tolerated quickly became intolerable.
Now wearing my new bulging belly as a metaphorical scarlet letter, I’m obviously on ice until my little seed comes into this world and then some. But most of all, I’ve come to realize that as much as I already love my baby, he was the result of manifesting with unhealed trauma. I had to acknowledge that my hyper-independence is both a superpower and debilitating kryptonite at best and a trauma response at worst.
As a Black young woman who has seen so many Black women before me do it – no matter the hardship – I knew it was more than possible because I had already seen the impossible be done. I knew I had, at the very least, positioned myself slightly better than the women of past years with their unplanned pregnancies. In hindsight, I see how so many of the decisions I made were selfish but I’ve done my best to make peace with that for now. As some wise person once said, “Worrying only means you’ll suffer twice.”
One thing that I know to be true is that one day, and sooner than I imagine, I will have to answer to my son about why I chose so sorely wrong when it came to his father – in one way or another – this topic will come up. Unfortunately, that is also a trauma that is familiar to me.
Though nothing can prepare me for that day, I’ve already begun the process of accountability while also giving myself grace because I know I will one day have to answer to my little boy and maybe even again when he’s a grown man. I hope, if nothing else, my son will show me grace for leaving when I did as opposed to staying for a lifetime as penance for my initial decision to bring life into this world with such a waste-of-space man in the face of all the signs.
As for now, I recognize how powerful words and thoughts are more than ever before. With that knowledge, I’m determined to manifest the lifestyle that both my baby boy and I truly deserve.
I'm determined to manifest the world.
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