What You Don’t Know About My Unplanned Pregnancy

The other day, I told the director of a shelter for pregnant women that my pregnancy was unexpexted. To my surprise, this woman had the nerve to laugh at me and replied, “Well, you know how babies are made, Emily.”

Maybe I am dramatic, but her judgment felt like a punch in the stomach. I was speechless. Of course I am not an idiot. I know how women become pregnant, the thing is that I had just come to terms with the fact that I might not be able to have more children.

After five months without a period, I found myself having a transvagional ultrasound and being told that there were multiple cysts on my ovaries. Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), my doctor told me. My periods were nonexistent; I was 25 and ovulating maybe once every six months. This will make it harder to get pregnant , he said and I let that begin to really soak in.

I already had reservations about my ability to concieve which stemmed from my body’s ultimate betrayal: cancer. My body was the enemy, the cancer cells and radiation had contaminated me from the inside out. Perhaps it isn’t logical thinking, but I no longer trusted my body to be anything except a disappointment.

So in July, when I was diagnosed with PCOS, a hormonal imbalance that would also affect my fertility and increase my chances of miscarriage threefold, I had began to prepare myself for the cold, hard truth: that I might never carry another baby inside me.

Two weeks later, I ovulated for the first time in six months.

Two weeks after that, I conceived a child.

My body was not the enemy anymore. Despite the circumstances and it being unplanned, my pregnany felt like a miracle . A gift from the God I wasn’t so sure existed anymore.

It wasn’t in my plans, but this baby was a blessing. Something that I thought I would never have again. It couldn’t just be a coincidence, because the odds seemed so insurmountable. It seemed impossible.

My unplanned pregnancy taught me that maybe everything does happen for a reason. Maybe there is a higher power and a purpose to all of this, a reason that I was put here.

There are so many women, especially those who have survived cancer or been diagnosed with PCOS, who have fertility issues. They cannot concieve; they suffer from early miscarriage. But somehow, I am here 18 weeks pregnant with a little boy, who will come into this world so loved and wanted. A little boy who was unexpected in every way with a mother who feels entirely blessed to feel his little kicks every single day.

So before you judge me, before you mock the terms “unplanned” or “unexpected”, you should realize there is always more to the story than you know. There are silent struggles and quiet pain that people go through which you may never know. And at the end of the day, it does not matter if I intended to get pregnant or not. The creation of a life is always something to be proud of, despite judgmental, pro-life assholes who believe it is okay to lecture others about how babies are made.

You know what I have to say to those self-righteous individuals?

(At least you won’t get pregnant!)