Four Words a Parent Should Never Say — and How I Overcame Them

A happy announcement turned sour.

The conversation took place over ten years ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday.

My identical twin sister had just announced her first pregnancy. I was on the phone with my mom.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” I gushed. A new life, perfect timing.

Two years before, my sister married a guy who, from our brief interactions, seemed kind, stable, and — more superficial, I admit — the classic provider, with an ultra-lucrative career. (Plus, European, bilingual, polite — and told us he wanted children. I know, where did she find this man?) My sister, extremely successful in her own right, could ease back on grad school for a bit and pick it up again, no problem.

With a smile from states away, I waited for my mother’s reply.

“You know you can’t…” she said, force in her voice. A caution, a reprimand. A pause.

My heart dropped. Nausea started. “I know,” I snapped back. Almost — but not quite — surprised.

No explanation passed between us. We were like that back then, best friends, where a mother-daughter bond should have been.

I did know, all too well. For me, pregnancy was out of the question. A thousand reasons: among them, chronic migraines and depression, an ever-changing array of medications. My career as a doctor ended just as it started, then my half-time job began to falter — the need for many sick days threatening to yield to disability.

And, maybe most important, my and my mom’s shared understanding — until marriage, there would be no baby. At the time, I think I was in between my only two serious relationships. My romantic life had flatlined. Regardless, her unspoken message was clear: use birth control, whatever it takes (even semi-Southern mothers don’t discuss such details) — just don’t bring us all into the disgrace of an out-of-wedlock pregnancy.

“You have your cat,” she said. “And yourself. Got to take care of you before anyone else.”

I didn’t laugh.

“And I always pictured you adopting. It’s never too late for that.”

I’d imagined the possibility. Save the world, if I couldn’t save myself. “True,” I said. “I’d probably rather go that route anyway.”

“I think you’d make a good adoptive mom,” she offered. “You have that caring instinct.”

“Thanks.”

This conversation: so few words, so many years back. A good chance my recollection is inexact, skewed as any remembrance can be. But at the time, the emotional hit jolted me into hyper-clarity like a car accident.

That’s not fair, my voice of reason protests (or is it my mother’s voice I hear?). Only a dramatic exaggerator would compare a polite exchange to anything more than a fender-bender.

She only stated the obvious, warned me against making a very bad decision. No angry accusations — she even dropped me a compliment.

So why does this discussion stick? Why can its recollection, so many years and happenings later, still trigger tears, even an urge to overeat or retreat to bed?

Today I’m blessed with a lovely, lively ten-year-old niece eager to talk to me. Now joined by a five-year-old nephew who races around on our rare Skype calls and pretends to be a robot. It’s true — isn’t it? — that I lack the energy to keep up with them for even a day, much less if I took on the rest of my sister’s life, packed beyond my imagination.

My mother was right. I know I can’t. I know too well.

But part of me rebels against that childless sentence. Today I would respond differently to that call. That chat that shattered my happiness for my sister, that reacquainted me with my incapability.

Today I would tell my mother a story. Of one day, about three years ago. I’d tell it quick, as quick as I could before my voice shook and familiar tears came. Even here I’ll save the details for a later essay.

I’d tell her about that cat she mentioned — my beloved Siamese-tabby mix, my soul-cat, if not a human soulmate. How she was dying, slowly, of chronic kidney disease. How I hoped, as the song goes, that love would keep her alive.

In the end, of course, neither hope nor medicine could save her. But that one day, while she still shared this world with me, I grabbed my keys and told her I’d return with the bags of IV fluid her failing body needed. The simple trip I expected, though, turned into one major obstacle after the next.

I might not have felt good myself. I might not have had a job or a husband or any external measure of success. But that day, I did what I had to — I kept my promise — out of a love so fierce it wouldn’t allow any challenge to stop me.

One day, one trip. It may sound mundane. Still, if despite all precautions I became pregnant — now a literal impossibility, given my dating life and maybe my age — I would keep the baby.

You don’t know what I can do, I’d tell anyone who questioned my decision. You don’t know me.

I know there’s a ferocity inside my heart, the latent love of a mother who would do whatever it takes. Who is capable of absolutely anything — and who’d ensure her children, too, knew their own strength.