Growing up I often wondered why the age difference between my brothers and I was so much, like 8 long years, and if you entered our house, rarely would you see pictures of me in the family pictures.
I felt left out and unloved, my friend once visited me in my house and summed up exactly what I feel in one statement. “Seriously! if we haven’t been friends since forever I’d have wondered if you even live here” when I asked why “Look at all the framed pictures, can you find you”
She totally nailed the way I felt, many albums were dedicated to my two brothers and my album, just one paled in comparison, for one it had no special frame work, and two there were only few of them compared to my older sibling’s.
There was a time I actually asked my brother, the one before me, if I was adopted, it wasn’t like I was treated that way, I was loved and cherished but the age difference, my absence in most photographs made me feel that might be the case.
Then one day, my brother took my money, added some money to his and used it to buy PS2, I was so angry when I found out that I just picked up the gun and broke it, making sure he couldn’t make sure of it again.
Out of annoyance, he called me “born by mistake” and I was hurt but curious, curious as to the circumstances of my birth, I rushed into the kitchen to ask for clarification from my mom, “No baby, you are not born by mistake, you were unplanned though” She went ahead to tell me about her long journey to motherhood.
She was about 23 when she got married to my father, and for the first year of the marriage they were unconcerned about their status as far as children were concerned, until people started asking questions.
They both went for testings and they were both certified okay, yet they couldn’t reproduce, they ended up having my two brothers through IVF and other fertility procedures, and because of the cost, they decided to stop with two children.
7 years after she had given up childbirth, she discovered she was pregnant with me, “We’ve been errr… doing it without protection, how was I to know I could get pregnant naturally after trying for years unsuccessfully?”
“I’m not a mistake! I was a surprise package!” I said and danced around excitedly, my mom’s mouth was agape, I guess she wasn’t expecting that response from me. Buy hey, if they’ve been trying for years and ended up having me naturally, what does that make me?”The greatest gift ever”
And that’s how I feel today, not only did the realisation that my mom gave birth to me accidentally make me feel great, it also assured me that yes when I become a woman and I’m ready to have my own children, then I shouldn’t have problems, because that was my first fear at the beginning of her story.
That explains why I wasn’t in most of the pictures and why my own pictures were not framed, I was born at a time when those kind of frames were out of market and my parents weren’t so rich.
But one lesson it thought me is that, in such situation, such knowledge should remain between you and your husband, no need making it known to your other kids so they don’t hurt each other with it.
Comments
Comments
