November 2003
None of my underpants fit.
30 pairs, I counted, each spilling my growing flesh over their edges.
I call my mother, crying, from my bathroom floor.
It is happening, it is real.
I am not prepared for this, let alone what else will be coming.
May 2004
My body knows what it wants but not how to do it.
It is no longer mine to control, this excess belongs to you.
My mother rubs a tennis ball against the lowest part of my back, futile attempts against pain.
Exhausted, I nap between speaking sentences, between words.
The doctor is not prepared when I wake up and say you have to come out now.
March 2010
We have moved so many times since your arrival.
But this is the first move that is only ours, another first for us to share.
Showing up on her doorstep, my mother cooks you dinner while I sit numb.
I am walking us away from so much, from all I thought I knew.
It would have been smarter to prepare, I have nothing but what fit in our backpacks.
January 2011
Walking home together from the park, you're laughing up the rocky path to our door.
Foreign, I see the stack of papers on the doorstep before you reach them.
Again, I call my mother, and sob quietly while you play in your room.
She comes over to sit with me while my father takes you to go play, unaware.
Inevitable but his accusations tear at me. He had the papers prepared on our anniversary.
(note - this was inspired by my amazing mother and my journey into motherhood and unpartnered motherhood, and pulled into existence by my current professor for an assignment)
