I hadn't a clue what I was doing when I got pregnant at 16. I know it must've devastated my mom, at first. She and dad had never told us kids, outright, that they were preggers before they got married. It was a scandalous thing in their day. It was still uncommon and frowned upon when I did so. They rallied round, didn't lose their house over it or anything, (thank goodness!) and I hadn't broken any hearts except maybe theirs a little bit. I know they went to great expense to make things as pleasant as possible for me and my partner when we married and I moved out. I loved being pregnant and getting ready for our son. We didn't know it was a boy. He was a preemie but flourished well. My doc was enlightened enough to have given me a book on natural childbirth AND trusted me, a month over 17, to take him home just two days after being born! I have never, ever regretted it even though his dad and I did part company.

But, not until we had a daughter. She was so easy. Came on the day predicted. I was in labour all of thirty minutes or so and went home the next day with her very healthy, etc. My cousin had predicted it was a girl. The only trouble I had before she was born was spotting and having to go to bed for a few days after building a rock garden all by myself. (Stupid, I know, but I was all of twenty by then and very independent!)

The next and last one, a daughter with my second husband, was a bit difficult. I did fairly well, except for morning sickness the first month or two, until two months before she was to come. Went into premature labour which they stopped, in hospital, with valium and alcohol. The alcohol was all in an IV so I didn't even get to enjoy it. Folks would come in the room and look at me strangely as I had alcoholic breath and was a bit tipsy. They sent me home with a prescription for 3 valium per day WITH three drinks per day! (Don't try this at home or without doc's supervision!:-) It did the trick for two weeks and then she said "enough is enough." My water broke as we were shopping, my mom, sister and I. They took me to hospital and I eventually had her, in the labour room just as the doc rounded the corner. (She was the first baby my mom had actually seen born, despite the fact that she'd had five of her own. In her day they knocked you out.) It was a very rough night in which I came close to dying from hemorrhaging. She looked like a little doll at 4.5 lbs. In fact we had to buy doll clothes for her first couple of months as nothing else fit.

I didn't know it as consciously at the time, but later on I realised I had communicated with each of my children before I became pregnant with them. I felt their little souls "knocking" on my door, saying "let me in, I am ready to be born." I cannot explain it any other way as each time I did feel a very strong compulsion to get pregnant, esp. with my last one. I loved being pregnant, esp. when they made ripples across my belly and kicked, esp. in that most comfortable position, spoon-style up against my partner's bum with my leg thrown over his.