Mother of Four

When I was a high school teenager the overall message I got in my society was that children and pregnancy was a curse. I just learned at my twenty year high school reunion that a classmate of mine lived in a cement water ravine because her parents had all her belongings in a trash bag at the door when she arrived home from school one day. In her mind, being homeless was easier than asking her parents for help with pregnancy. At that time, early 90s, we were conditioned to see pregnancy as the ultimate worst lot in life. So naturally my idea of becoming a mother was distant, I'd say I didn't want to be, or that I would try it later on in life, but the stigma was so bad on teen moms I remained a virgin till long after high school graduation, then pressured my after high school-first real relationship, to marry me so we could  live as a family. He had already dropped out of the grid due to his own teen pregnancy, in where he was raising a baby alone at the time. 

There are several women who graduated with me who are still not moms, at age 38-39, and are glad they never had children, sad they never had children, still trying but slowly giving up hope they ever will. I always said I'd never have any then at 21 I had massive baby fever

 and I purposely had my first. I intended that I would become a mother on purpose and give my daughter everything I lacked emotionally as a child... Only to raise a girl who needed different love than what I thought she would. 

My own mother has three children, I thought I'd have my one in 1998 and be done. 

Today,  I have four biological children that bless my life in ways I never thought possible. It's been almost a year since the baby was delivered over a month early, my first and only preemie. The littlest of all my babies, being born just 4 pounds. Her father correctly predicted she'd grow to be the biggest little, and at 11 months and 31 inches tall, she is.