Eight years ago this month.

Eight years ago I was a fresh graduate. I was camping up in the remote hills in Ely with my family. We had just celebrated the fourth of July. I don’t recall much about the trip (why is that?) other than who was there, and small insignificant details. Like the ride in when I had to hold my belly. The rocky terrain wasn’t unusual for the area but I remember getting the okay from the Dr to travel, but to take it easy. I remember bearing down on my midsection and “holding” it. The rocks were big jagged ones that you couldn’t just fly over. We slowly rolled over them. That was the worse. The big CU-THUNKS and the rocking motion it set to the truck. It caused my insides to jiggle uncomfortable.

I was blissfully unaware that I was only weeks from giving birth to Estefan. I’m pretty sure I had his name picked out by then. I did that right after senior trip in May ‘02. I bought him his first pair of shoes when our bus broke down in front of an outlet mall parking lot. I walked into Gap and bought a pair of white tennies with navy blue trim around the sole. They were so tiny and I don’t even recall him wearing them. It was those shoes that I picked 4 names I “kinda” liked along with ones my mom REALLY liked. I put all four into the left shoe and repeated it for the right. I pulled out a name from each. I just so happened to get the same ones the first time. I then put one back and pulled out a second cookie fortune strip of a paper. Only this had no fortune for me. It was the name of my future. Estefan.



That was eight years ago. I could tell you about his birthday day(07-20-02) and every single day after that. It was what happened beforehand that I struggle to remember. I don’t remember being so bloated or why I was induced when I still had till Aug 1st( my actual due date if my memory serves me right). I look back at pictures and I look HORRIBLE. But I’m smiling like a big ‘ol idiot in each one. Like the weight of the world could be lifted and spared by what I carried inside me. Like I held a significant key to greatness. Like I had swallowed the proverbial canary. I can recall hiding in the girls bathroom one time because I hated what I thought others saw when I looked at myself in the mirror. School could be cruel without having to throw up in hallway trash cans. I must have been uncomfortable, but I don’t recall it. At all. In fact I maybe lying when I tell future mothers that “I never felt better than when I was pregnant” but as I say, I don’t remember being uncomfortable. But goodness gracious did I look it. It actually makes me cringe to see myself nearing the end stage. How did I let that happen-how did my Dr think it was okay for that to happen.*



My love celebrates his birthday this month and through out the years I find myself thinking of all the things I will want promiscuous girls to know someday. Not that being a mother at sixteen isn’t hard but all the other things I couldn‘t even fathom. It reminds me of when I read a book about near death experiences and most of them just said “it’s too much for the best imagination to imagine.” I would like them to think about these two scenarios out of hundred. Like when two people who didn’t love each other ending up falling in love with the same person and then having to share. Or when you finally find someone who loves you and your baby, gets a job in the future that has insurance that doesn’t allow that man to add his “step” son on his insurance because he is just that. How can they conceive of the thought of excluding a child from a family by simply stating to the step child‘s father (who has been there since he was 1!) the he can only include “his“ current family.** As if this child is not part of this family. I wanted to cry! Why? Why didn’t I know this? How bad others could hurt my son and him be (thank the Lord) unaware.



During this time before Estefan, I received a letter. The letter was from a women who was apologetic for the predicament that I put myself in. I still have the letter of her saying how much she enjoyed me (pre-baby). I take it the letter was meant to give her blessing and saying that I was still good and one day would be forgiven for my sin. I kept the letter and still have it. At the time it made my mom cry when she read it. I recently heard about the author’s daughter and her misfortune. Her husband had divorced her after she went crazy. All this stemmed from her loosing a baby inutero. I take it she didn’t think of her daughters pending divorce as a sin but as a tragedy stemmed from the hand of God. This has nothing to do with my son and I.



Every time I think of that women who penned her thoughts on flowered stationary, I think of what her daughter went through, I feel thankful. Through all the public stares, prom maternity dress, and hardships I entailed was shattered. Shattered by the gift I had placed in my arms months later. That in the end I came out the lucky one.



To another year with My Love on earth.



*this Dr. delivered my entire family, extended too. She had her licence stripped of her since I had Estella
** I'm currently fighting this. I WILL win it . I've done in the past.