oh mtv...

i think it is silly how much flack mtv catches about the show "16 and pregnant". apparently the show makes having a baby so young look glamorous and sends the wrong message. when i watch the show my heart breaks for these girls. i'm not even sure why i watch the show. i feel a lot of things but none of those feelings are ones associated with glamore.
although i was not 16, i feel like i commiserate with these girls. one of the strongest emotions i feel when i watch is sadness. i am not sad for the girls or their families; i am sad for the baby. it breaks my heart to watch and know that the baby's mother is so distracted by her own situation to realize what a gift she has been given. the time passes so quickly and that will be the only infancy that baby will ever have. i, undoubtedly, transfer my own guilt to the girls on the show.
without question harper has been loved from the very first day i knew of her. but i know i could have loved her more. there are so many things i would change if i could.
the truth is that having an miss-timed pregnancy is hard. i gave up so much for her. unfortunately it is the kind of giving up a person is painfully aware of because a baby is the very *last* thing that they were thinking of in the first place. all of the ways that my life was going to change were all i could think of. there was no way i would go to graduate school. there was no way i was going to get a full time job. employers are not too keen on hiring people that look like they might need maternity leave before their first check clears. i would never live the typical newly wed life. this was it. i had to think about diapers and health insurance. car seats and onesies. teething and socialization. life was going to tail spin out of control and i was going to have to find a way to pilot it back to safety.
the guilt that comes after finding safety is realizing how much i didn't really care about any of those things that i thought i was giving up. they seemed so important. i made myself a martyr. i loved her with everything. i thought i was doing everything.
all that mattered was not that i loved her but that she loved me.
that is the beautiful thing about a baby that people so often miss. my baby loved me. i didn't deserve her. i didn't have anything to offer her. giving up everything was nothing. everything i gave meant nothing.
i know that now and i wish i could go back and drink up that love.
watch those arms and legs move across the inside of my belly.
hold her in my arms and stare at the wrinkled brow.
kiss her cheeks.
breathe in the sweet scent of her infancy.
she's only 6 but she's growing so fast.

i hear all the time how crazy i am for having kids so young. i am sure every mother that has had a child young hears the same thing. i guess the only sense i can make of that statement is that if i would have waited to have kids i would have had more years without having to think, worry, and dream away every minute of every moment of the rest of my life.
but i do dream beautiful dreams for my sweet babies.