I'm not sure every woman born dreams of becoming a mother. I know I didn't. When I was 20 years old I found out I was pregnant, the damned condom didn't work. I wasn't too concerned about getting pregnant after my doctor told me my uterus is tilted and it would be very difficult for me to ever get pregnant. PLUS my periods were not anything nearing regular, maybe I got it three times a year? My doctor never seemed concerned so neither was I. I should have been. Of course I always used protection and even on the night I got pregnant we used a condom, but that's nowhere near 100% fool proof as everyone knows. So I was pregnant. I didn't find out until I was nearly four and a half months pregnant and my mother was pressuring me to have an abortion, not wanting me to go through what she knew was awaiting me. I have been and will always be pro-choice. I think it is every woman's right to choose what she wants to do with her own body, whether or not she wants to carry a child, whether or not she wants to get pregnant. These days it isn't called pro choice by so called pro lifers, it's called pro abortion. They couldn't be more wrong. I have lived for 45 years and I can  honestly say I've never, ever even once come across a woman who thinks it's ok to just run out and have an abortion. For every woman I've ever met abortion was always the very last, nearly desperate option you make that will haunt you for the rest of your days, and especially your nights and dreams. Nobody just wakes up one day pregnant and thinks "Gee, I just don't want this baby, I'm going to go abort.", it is a decision that tears a soul apart if you let it, it stays with you even when you're utterly convinced it was the right choice. So when I was pregnant at 20 I had the right to choose, to make my choice, that nobody else could make for me, that I would have to live with for the rest of my life. I chose adoption. For me, Lizzy, I could never abort, not unless there was something really wrong with the baby and I know there are a lot of women out there who know the baby they're carrying is ill and still choose to have those children. Those women are stronger than me, and that is their CHOICE. Every woman is different, every woman in that situation comes to a conclusion after soul searching and every woman has to live forever with that choice. I have a son out there, a son who grew inside of me, kicked me, made me sicker than I care to remember, who melted my heart the second I saw his beautiful face and I never once, ever, regretted carrying him and giving him life and giving a deserving couple the joy of calling him son. Whoever his mother is, I hope these past 23 years she's found the title "Mom" to be music to her ears. I hope his father appreciated every single time he held that tiny little hand of his young son, I hope he threw a football to him when he was a kid and I hope he cried when he watched his son reach goal after goal and I pray that every time that young man has called him "Dad" he's sent up a silent thank you to whatever Powers he believes in. I loved my son when I gave him a life I could never give him, unemployed and uneducated and still living with my own Mom. I hope he's enjoyed a full life, had every opportunity for success and loves the parents who chose to love him. I had a chance to meet his parents just before the adoption but I chose not to. Not for any selfish reasons or because I was afraid I'd look for their faces in every crowd, I knew adoption was absolutely the best CHOICE for my son, but I wanted them to never have a face to put to his, that maybe they'd feel more bonded to him because they never met me. I hope I was an instrument for their happiness. I hope they're all very happy, very healthy and enjoying a wonderful life, I have to trust that they are. I hope he's got siblings to keep him company and a dog to lick his handsome face. I just know he's handsome, he was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen in my life.


So after going through all that, and I'd go through it all again if I had the CHOICE, when I got married of course we wanted to have kids right away. We married latish, I had just turned 27, I wanted our firstborn before I was 30. Isn't it hilarious how life has a way of saying "Oh just you wait and see what happens!"!? 4 years into our marriage we were still childless, we'd consulted my doctor who was beginning to push fertility treatments as a viable decision in our very near future. At the time we were living with my husband's parents, in their home, so there was the stress of that and the stress of my wanting us to move on and out and his parents being very in favour of that want, but my husband seemed rooted in place. However I did win out in the end and we bought our first place, a townhouse near his parents. I painted the entire place as he worked afternoons up until midnight so it was up to me to get the place in order and I loved every minute of it! My first place, a home to put my own personality into, my own space. If I wanted to just throw my utensils into a drawer all willy-nilly then my mother could say NOTHING because it was MY HOUSE! :) Maybe it was the joy of our first home, maybe it was the fact that there was no more stress, maybe it was just the right time and the right place but we weren't in our new home a month and I got pregnant! Now let me explain one thing, I'd completely given up hope at ever having another child. I was convinced I'd put the only child I'd ever have up for adoption and would remain childless. It was a struggle but I'd gotten used to that idea. I enjoyed the freedom that comes with being married but not having the responsibilities of a child. Of course when a woman makes that decision, when she gets that comfortable with her lot in life, the universe wakes up and says "Oh no, we cannot have that!" and throws everything into chaos. 


Now obviously I'd been pregnant before so I knew the signs of being pregnant, but this time was different in that I wasn't throwing up my toes every morning. I just felt hungry all the time but the thought of actually eating anything made me want to hurl...only ever one other time I had felt like that, when I was pregnant. So I didn't tell my husband at first, I just bought a test. It was a two-fer, the test, two in one. We'd just gotten a puppy the week before, her name was Ripley and her and I did not get along! I'd never had a dog before and I didn't have a clue what to do with one after petting it for a bit, though of course I love dogs and had always wanted one. Anyway it was about five am and my husband got up to take the dog out to do her duty, she was getting to the point where she sorta knew if she licked our faces in a certain way it meant she had to go out so out she went. I figured since I was awake I may as well take the pregnancy test, I had shown my husband the night before so he knew I'd be taking it that morning. So of course it's 5am and I'm blurry eyed and unbushy tailed but when I looked at that damned test? It was positive. Not strongly positive but the instructions said even a faint cross line should be taken as a positive result. I couldn't believe my eyes so I asked my husband as he walked up the stairs with the pup, he said it was a plus sign, I was definitely pregnant. We cried of course, tears of happiness, and couldn't wait until it was a decent hour to phone our families. At seven am I caved in and woke my mother with the news she was finally, FINALLY going to be a grandma! She was crying as she told me the very day before at work she had told her friends she felt she'd never be a grandma but alas, that was not to be! 


So we knew our first child was on the way and at 20 weeks we had the ultrasound and knew he was a he! He even turned his little baby stuff towards the screen so we'd be sure he was a he! Up until then I thought I had to be having a girl because my pregnancy was so vastly different from my first. With my first son I was sick for 7 and a half months, with this one I never threw up even once though there was that one morning I really thought I was going to! He was a great pregnancy, I was tired a lot and drank nothing but water and ate nothing but Chinese food (probably why I was drinking water all the time!) and that makes sense when you understand how much my son adores Chinese food! He was a dream pregnancy! My first son was 8 pounds 2 oz and much too big for me to actually pass through my body the natural way, he ended up being a c-section so I had the choice to have this child the natural way or another c-section and when they did one more ultrasound at the beginning of my ninth month and he was measuring well over 8 pounds? There was no decision to make, he was going to be a c-section baby as well! Of course my kid being who he is, he had decided he was going to be born that day no matter what, I actually began contracting as I was being wheeled into the OR! So at 3:23pm on 23rd October 1998, Paul Joseph Hardel II was born. The happiest day of my entire life. THIS son I was going to take home and raise! He was a perfect baby for the first 3 weeks of his life, never cried and slept through the night from the get-go. When we were home he would nurse every 3 hours but at night he'd go 4 or 4.5. Perfect kid, right? Well yeah he was but then the colic set in...that poor baby was sick with it for weeks, months! However my mother in law found out about this formula that severely colicky babies responded well to and I swear to god 15 minutes after his very first feeding he was an entirely different baby! He smiled, he never cried or if he did there was a reason beyond his belly hurt him which always broke my heart. His favourite thing to do was to say HI to everyone who looked at him and even quite a few who didn't. He brought teenaged boys to their knees to play with him 'cos he was so cute. He got the attention of everyone who came into even the loosest contact with him and he put them under his spell. Of course I'm biased, I'm his mama, I think he's perfect and have from the second I knew he was inside of my body.


So I watch my sweet little boy grow and all of a sudden he's in preschool, then he's in kindergarten, then he's in third grade and now he's in eighth. One thing that has been his gift from the beginning is his imagination, his intellect and at first we thought he was going to be a musician like his dad, he did love his guitar and at three years old was writing real song lyrics that not only made sense but sorta tore at my heart strings because he sang about something he knew nothing about, finding true love with someone who didn't agree. I honestly thought he was gifted with words and you know what? He's going to be 14 in 2 days and he's still gifted with words. However when he was 6 years old he saw Star Wars for the first time (well the first time he actually sat through and paid attention to anyway) and that was it, that was what he wanted to do, he wanted to be the next George Lucas. At six years old he started writing his film he calls Galaxy Hunters, it is multi-layered and populated with magical beings and though back then it was pretty Star Warsy, it's grown into something I cannot comprehend came from my child. I remember when we went to see Avatar in 3D I turned to him and asked, after the film was over, if he imagined things like that in his mind and he said yes. Now I like to write and I think I'm pretty good at it but in no way could I ever do what he's doing, creating entire worlds and beings and creatures to inhabit them. 


I know every mother looks at her child and wonders "What is he/she going to be when they're grown?" and most of the time we're never close. I remember looking at PJ when he was sleeping in my arms at 2 months old and I whispered to him "What will you accomplish in your life?" and now I ask him the same question and he always answers the same thing. "Mama I'm going to make films that people will remember their entire lives. I'm going to make films George Lucas goes crazy for." and instead of telling him "Well son that's great but why not major in business at University just in case?" because in my heart I know he will do exactly as he imagines for himself. I don't question if he will do this incredibly thing I believe he will. It never occurs to me to tell him he can't, I'm too busy telling him he CAN and that he WILL. I believe in my son. I don't listen to my mother when she says "Why PJ, why should he do such incredible things with his life? Why not prepare him for mediocrity because that is probably where he will end up in life." I say to her "WHY NOT my son? WHY CAN'T PJ be the next George Lucas?" I mean really, George Lucas had to be the first, WHY can't MY SON be the second? WHERE is it written in the stars that he can't? WHY would I ever even consider limiting my son or his ambition? He aims for the stars and I research way in which to make sure he reaches them. I research the best schools for him to go to, the best classes for him to get involved in next year when he enters high school and what extracurricular activities he should be involved in. I had limitations put on me, first being a girl and then because my mother never dared to dream for me. I was told I couldn't when really? I could have. I was very athletic as a kid, I was gifted in softball, if I had known there was a woman's softball team that went to the Olympics nothing would have stopped me from setting that goal. I lived for that sport, every waking moment was spent practicing it, I taught all the boys on my block how to throw, catch, hit and run and where to throw and why. I helped the boys on my block do well in Little League whilst I was left on the side lines because I was a girl. I swore to god when I was young that I would never put limitations on my children. I have always believed that if a child can dream it and believe it then they can achieve it and my son WILL achieve his goals. My kid rocks! 


I will say this, I knew boys grow fast and a lot but damn it! I need to install a cow in my kitchen because the kid drinks a fucking gallon of milk a fucking day! He's growing tall and strong and ever so handsome, and I marvel that at one time he was small enough to live inside of me. His foot is about as big as he was when he was born! Oh, also, he wasn't as big when he was born as we thought he was going to be but he sure was LONG! He was nearly 23 inches and at 7lbs 9oz....well I was glad for the c-section! He's come a long way and I am so very and incredibly proud of him. I never imagined there could be such a powerful love as there is of a mother for her child, it baffles me that there is absolutely nothing I wouldn't do for him!