Almost Paradise Summer 2000

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Shopping in the lingerie department turned out to be a lot more exciting than I had bargained for. There, in the middle of Sears, my water broke, and soon I found myself in the middle of a scene out of an I Love Lucy episode. I drew quite a crowd: salesladies, customers, even a security guard. The woman at the counter kept asking me what she should do. "I don't know," I told her. "I've never done this before."

Before I became pregnant, I was an onlooker to my friends' experiences of pregnancy and motherhood. But I simply could not grasp what it would mean to have a baby, except in ways that were threatening to me. Rather than seeing it as something that would give me more of life, I felt like my world would be narrowed, and I feared the loss of my independence, my identity, and my freedom. Hearing my friends' stories was like peering into an abyss. I couldn't look for long. But then (surprise!) it happened to me. I felt excitement, but also tremendous fear—fear that left me unable to receive, to relax, to celebrate. I was stuck. I couldn't go back to what had been before I got pregnant, but I was afraid to go forward. It was so easy for me to feel like a victim. This had happened to me. I had no concept of the "joy set before me." It was all just words.

Funny that for some years my favorite Bible passage had been the first chapter of Luke, when the angel comes to Mary and tells her she is to have a child. "How shall this be," Mary asks, "since I'm a virgin?" How well I knew that "since," so typical of my own response to God. The angel answers, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you." Mary responds, "Be it unto me according to your word." My heart had echoed her words. I ...

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