Reasons

The time had come, ready or not. I had been expecting this of course, but you can never be fully prepared. The pain was almost unbearable but there was no longer any choice. However I still couldn’t believe it was happening, and for all of the wrong reasons.

Nine months before I was alone and depressed. My relationship of over four years had ended suddenly when Grant told me he’d met someone new. I never saw it coming, though I’m sure there were signs. I was devastated. My life as I knew it was over. Nothing would ever be the same again and nothing mattered anymore.

Dejected and in desperate need of some company I headed over to the local bar. It was small and seedy but it was crowded that night. I took a seat at the bar and ordered a shot of whiskey. It went down so smoothly and dulled the ache so well that I had four more in a row pausing just long enough to order the next.

Just after I downed my last shot a dark haired, blue eyed stranger sidled up next to my stool. He ordered a beer and then turned to me with a smile.

“Hi there. Can I buy you a drink?”

I looked at him for a second, appraising him. He wasn’t the best looking man, but I was starved for attention and in no position to be picky. I smiled back. “Sure. Whiskey please.”

We drank too much and flirted the night away. When the bar tender kicked us out, it wasn’t a matter of if we’d go home together but a matter of his place or mine.

The morning after I awoke with a throbbing head and an empty bed. I couldn’t say I was surprised with either. Disappointed to find he had gone, but not surprised. It didn’t matter, life would continue as it had before him. I took two aspirin and went back to sleep.

Life went on as usual. I didn’t hear from the man, but I hadn’t really expected to. It had happened, and it was now time to move on. Or so I thought.

A month later when the doctor confirmed what I had expected, I had some decisions to make. I hadn’t planned on having children right now, if at all, and I especially hadn’t planned on raising one alone. On the other hand I couldn’t get rid of it. It was after all a living thing. It deserved a future, even a fatherless one.

Pregnancy wasn’t the joyful time for me that other women claim it to be. It was long and very lonely. This wasn’t a child I had wanted, but a mistake that I now had to pay for with the rest of my life.

As I prepared for the child’s arrival, I thought about the circumstances that had brought me to that place. It had started with a broken relationship on which I had wasted four years of my life. A long, slow decline into depression which led me to a one night stand with a man whose name I couldn’t remember if I ever knew it to begin with. Following that was months of morning sickness, gained weight and swollen ankles. I had no love for the child. I had a sense of duty, born of my own morals and upbringing, and resentment for putting me in this undesirable situation.

No matter the reasons, the fact remained that there would be a child in the next week or so, one that would be my responsibility to raise. I had made my bed, as the saying goes.

Now here I was, alone and scared. I thought I knew what to expect, but really had no idea what giving birth would actually be like. With no one there to comfort me, I had to rely on my own strength to get me through.

With a final push, my child arrived in this world. The nurses announced it was a girl and whisked her away to be cleaned and dressed. When she was finally placed in my arms, I looked down at her tiny face.

It was love.

It no longer mattered why this precious being had been put into this world. All that mattered was that she had been, and she was mine. She may have been conceived for all the wrong reasons, but everything was all right now.