There are very legitimate reasons for why we don't have fathers// Unfortunately/ our society/ does not give a head's up about this// Instead/ we're fed/ stereotypes/in our heads/ that leads us to believe/ and believe only/ that a father not being present/ is only tragedy// But that's not the truth/ and to live by that as rule/ would be a travesty// it would undermine the goldmine that is stored in me/ hidden deep down in the cavernous heart of me// I am fine// I've been able to discover that in time// and despite/ my father's respite/from my life/ for quite a stretch of time/ i know I am divine/ secured in the choices i've made/ and the amount of light that i see shine from my life....
I'm pregnant. Pregnant without the person who helped me create this life. I am pregnant with my best-sista-partner-friend. It's better this way. I am happier pregnant with her, than i am with him. The presence of her in my life is a blessing. Her and my commitment to our friendship came before him. We have not ever believed that the role of a loved sista-friend was less priority than that of a loved boyfriend. No man can come between us. No one has. We support each other. We can be our true selves with each other, which in turn, teaches us how to be ourselves in the world. We reflect the other, this is why as sista-friends, we are also partners; it because of the other, that we have learned to be real together. When I was figuring out what to do, pregnant, in the beginning, balancing myself in the newness of the situation, she said: bring this child into the world, with or without him, and i knew i could because she was with me. And when i still didn't know which way i would fold, she was at the ready, to support me with whatever choice came from me. I chose this baby and she gleamed: "We're having a baby". Yes, we are.
I'm pregnant and he's not around, but she is. All the time. Supporting the coming of this life, into our life, with excitement, and calm, and clarity. We've paved the road as best-sista-friends and are now careening down the highway lane we took when we sharp turned at "parenting together". More and More we prove we are some alternative thinking-doing-living sisters, but we've never been happier.
...if there's one thing i've come to see/ it's being single mother isn't easy/ but neither must it have been/ so easy being "friends" with men/ who didn't/ in whatever ways/ take responsibility for creating their babies// Men who/ "couldn't"/ Men who/ "wouldn't"/ Men who/ "shouldn't/ Men who all of a sudden liked to flip switch/like they didn't have a thing to do with their dicks// These men/ must not have looked the healthiest choices for parenting with// So yes/ i guess/ i can respect our mothers anger/ and her sadness/ her frustrations and bitterness/ at his absence/ but in the case of men who did not do/ what many could/ would/ and should/ then/their absence makes sense…
I'm pregnant, with a man i chose to trust in a short period of time, because this is how i make choices and live my life and this is what makes my life feel inspired. A man i committed too because it felt like the right thing to do and i did it. I did it with loyalty. I did it with love. I did it with respect. I was ready to hit the "hard" of it together. We talked and agreed about what we were. We made decisions about who "we”, would be, moving together and understood that we were choosing an uncommon path together. We made the choice to do this “present” together. He's not here anymore; he left before we could unwrap it together. But “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina…”, what is here is more stable than he could be. I have a community that loves me. I am tightly wound and bundled in the heart and lives of a few good people who protect and nurture me through this, my first pregnancy. I am extremely lucky in the blessing of my surrogate family - friends and family weaving their own relationships around this child and me. There isn't a person who is part of my surrogate family that isn't happy about this child inside of me.
…/Those that aren't there/ aren't ready/ they know/ in their own ways/ that they can't live up to the expectations of "daddy"/ Even with many who stay/ there comes a day/ when one is forced to see/ that it might have been better to have stayed away/ and returned when they were able to find a way to stay for good// Parenting/ is a hard thing to do/ properly/ it's a hard thing to do without guilt/ without fear/ without anxiety// Parenting and trying to be a person/ is a real hard thing/ especially considering the rate of dysfunction most societies are living in// Exposure to a toxic person/ in the infancy of its gestation/ creates a painful human being/ incapacitated by the bruising of their soul...
I'm pregnant and I almost let it become a dysfunctional experience, by adhering to images of parenting that are faulty and untrue. My child's life is not irrevocably damaged by the loss of a father but my child will be irrevocably damaged if, the loss of their father is made a primary issue in their lives: demonstrated either by the quality of life they live and/or by the picture that is painted of the absent father by those who parent my child in his absence. The truth? The percentage of Single Mothers in North America is on the rise, but the teenage pregnancy rate is dropping. Women between the ages of 25 to 34 are choosing to become Single Mothers. Even still, beyond the statistics of whose having the babies, is the simple truth about women. We have babies in all sorts of circumstances, and whether we are offered other alternatives or not, will not ever change the fact that abortion rates will never be higher than the birthrate, and if such a day, were ever to come, it is surely a sign of apocalyptic proportions. “In sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, till death do us part” is first and foremost a mother’s creed and is a commitment to the outcomes of pregnancy. Whether we made our choice to procreate, in sick or healthy mind; whether our circumstances, at the time, indicated wealth or poverty; or up until the moment death could take it all away; women commit to what they've created. Whether a functional mother or not, the agreement and act of carrying a child, with few exceptions, is an unconditional declaration of responsibility. And i am pretty sure, that the rate of surgical abortion is nothing in comparison to the amount of men who abort their children by abandoning them.
So yes, I am pregnant. I'm not pregnant with who the morally righteous and judgmental might think I should be pregnant with but I am pregnant with who my spirit innerstands i should be pregnant with: partner, friends and family. He doesn't have to be here, because he has yet to be a “father” here, in a place full of people ready to receive and parent the child he helped co-create…
