The Valentine's Surprise

For some women, the surprise comes early. They are young and afraid, inexperienced and naive.

For other women, the surprise comes late. They thought they were crones and finished, and though wise, they are no less astonished, and perhaps even more ambivalent.

I fall closer to the latter case, honestly. I'm processing some news I got last week: that I was 5-6 weeks pregnant. I'm a late-30-something woman with a teenage son, recently remarried, and... well, we just didn't mean to have this happen. In searching for resources on handling a surprise pregnancy over 35, I've found things that range from patronizing to didactic. Things like, "you should be grateful you got pregnant, not everyone has it so easy." Uh, yeah. Things oriented toward telling one's parents about a pregnancy. Right. I have to tell my kid. Trying to figure out an appropriate way to tell my husband that I was pregnant, I kept finding things like, "Bake some cinnamon buns, and while they're baking, announce you have a bun in the oven!"

Telling my husband was nothing like that. I tried to find a nice, nonthreatening place to tell him quietly over his favorite meal, and of course, I found myself stumbling over the words, and he sat there, in stunned silence, picking at his food. As I watched him, I couldn't stop worrying about _him,_ and apologizing to him for having to give him unwelcome news.

Now, I'm a humorist at heart, and a professional writer. It's probably more appropriate to say that I'm a compulsive writer, because I always want to share the random things that pop into my head. But this topic, much like my other blog on binge eating, is more about writing about the things we don't talk about—things that we as women don't talk about.

So as I continue to suck it up and smile every time someone congratulates me, I figured it would be nice to write something that would let other people know that they aren't alone in feeling the conflicted feelings that come with an unexpected pregnancy.  The ups and the downs are part of the journey, an inevitable, inexorable tide of life. But who wants to ride the coaster alone?