Even if one is not planned cognitively, a lot of planning goes on hormonally. Our DNA makes its own plans. What about you? Were you planned? Did it matter?
I was eight years old, sitting in the back of my parents car with my brother (two years younger than me) heading to a cabin on Lake Charlevoix Michigan with our parents, when my mom said to us, "today is our seven year wedding anniversary." I paused and thought for a while. My mom recalls hearing me giggle in the back seat. She asked, "Steven, what is so funny." I responded, "oh... I'm one of those." Even at the young age of eight I knew I was born a bastard. I was definitely not planned. Story goes that my father immediately asked my mom to marry her, to make an "honest woman" of her but she said, "no." She says that she wanted him to ask her because he really wanted to be married to her and raise me. She was 18, he was 20. He went off and worked for an oil company, putting up rigs in Minnesota. After a 6 months he came home and they made it work and were married shortly thereafter. Compared to most married couples I know they've got a good thing going. I'm sure my dad's parents weren't that thrilled that their son knocked up some poor mexican girl and I KNOW that my mom's dad must have been insanely pissed that his little girl was pregnant. -there are still scars there between them, I know it. In fact, I bet my dad's parents weren't thrilled about him marrying my mom, but their other two kids ended up divorced, one of them twice and still my parents (definitely the underdogs) chug along. They've been married for 35 years now. Was I planned? Nope. In fact, I have thanked my mother several times for not aborting me. -No joke, I know there were people in her life that would have suggested it. Glad I'm alive.
That's hilarious. As I was writing this I literally thought to myself "I'm pretty much setting b_b up here..." Glad you didn't disappoint.
I'm glad you're alive too. I was going to say something in this post about comparing one's parents wedding anniversary with oldest child's birthday. My parents anniversary: late September My sister's birthday: early April I imagine that is not an issue these days so much. I hope the words "bastard" and "illegitimate" fall out of the family planning dictionary.
Does anyone else know where they were conceived? I was conceived at Bishop Lake Campground in Brighton Michigan, in a pup tent that my father lived in for a summer when he was 19.
Nope, I wasn't even close to planned. In fact, I was nearly nearly aborted. I was the result of a teenage pregnancy (16, to be exact), so it's kind of weird having a biological mother that isn't even 40 years old at this point. Not that I see her anyway. Fortunately my aunt (who adopted me), convinced my biological mother not to go through with the abortion. Which is kind of terrifying to think about - that I could have ceased to exist prior to leaving the womb. Outside of that though, it doesn't affect me on a daily basis, and the family that I have has never regretted the decision.
| Which is kind of terrifying to think about - that I could have ceased to exist prior to leaving the womb.| Is it really that terrifying to think about? If you had never existed you wouldn't know it was terrifying. In fact, it wouldn't affect you at all. I mean, you could have died in probably several thousand other ways before or since you've been born. Yes, I guess you came close on the abortion one, but there are probably other instances where you don't even know how close you've come to being gravely injured or dying. (Car accidents are a big one that I consider in that regard. Five seconds one way or another in your path and you could have never gotten into an accident...or you could be dead. You don't really know.) I think it's more terrifying because you know about it than for what it actually is. We don't usually know how close we come to death on a regular basis. Of course, I'm not trying to tell you how to feel about it. I just don't know if I would find that a terrifying thought, personally. You would never have even known you were going to exist. (Well, probably, I don't know what term your mother was considering aborting.) Hell - you might not even have been you yet in which case ... in which case you wouldn't have died before leaving the womb at all... (?)
I've already been in a couple of car accidents that I'm surprised weren't worse than they were. One in particular where it was 50mph on a highway. It's terrifying to think that nothing that I've done ever would have happened, that my parents never would have had me and who knows what would have happened with them, and that there would be one less family member for the rest of my family.
That's true but that's a very different context than "I died before I was born, aka my family as I know it doesn't exist." You are experiencing the terror of your family as it exists now losing a part of it. (And I realize, this is a slight flaw with my analogy. My apologies.) But if you had been aborted/died before you were born, especially if it was in the early months, you never would have been a part of your family, and so you as a person a) wouldn't have existed and b) therefore wouldn't have existed for your family to miss and/or mourn. I think it might be terrifying to think about in the same abstract way that dying is terrifying to think about, but then again I'm not convinced you would have been truly 'alive' and imbued with consciousness at the time of the abortion (again, depends on the timeframe) so there would have been no 'you' that existed at all, which means that maybe on very fuzzy theoretical levels your consciousness could have then developed in some other being, so your chance on earth wouldn't have been annihilated at all. This is a very fuzzy, Buddhist/reincarnation/don't-believe-in-souls/pro-choice argument here and I realize it recognizes only my personal viewpoints and may not make sense because frnakly I'm mixing theologies here, but that's why I was thinking maybe being aborted before achieving consciousness isn't that terrifying at all.It's terrifying to think that nothing that I've done ever would have happened, that my parents never would have had me and who knows what would have happened with them, and that there would be one less family member for the rest of my family.
Eh, my parents have never kept much from me. I prefer it that way, it's better having found out younger as opposed to finding out now in my 20's. That would be a bit world shattering now wouldn't it. It's a situation that I was able to learn how to deal with at a younger age, and I appreciate having had that opportunity greatly.
My parents tried unsuccessfully for years to have a child. They were at the point that they were both entering their mid-thirties and they were exploring adoption when my brother was conceived. Then when he was only 5 months old, I was conceived. A couple years later my father was scheduled to have a vasectomy, but that plan was interrupted when he won a ticket lottery to get seats for the 1984 World Series (the Tigers were playing the Padres). He cancelled his appointment, got drunk, watched the Tigers win the series, and lo and behold, my sister was born the following July. Her middle name is Tiger Lilly (no joke) as a commemoration of one of the greatest teams in baseball history.
Made all the better because it's true! Everyone called her Tiger until she was about four years old. Around that age, she was finally conscious enough of the world that she requested we not call her that, instead preferring her given name. She didn't (nor did I) know what the meaning of Tiger was, but she knew that it wasn't a normal name.
Though I've never met the man, I immediately like your father. That 1984 team meant the world to 7 year old me.
I think I was one of those - Let's hope the second child will save our marriage - babies. I didn't.
I'm here now and my parents love me; That's all that matters. I was supposed to be aborted. If I wasn't I was expected to be born with severe birth defects. Turned out fine, as far as I can tell. Apparently others say I have an above-average intelligence, and among my family I'm considered the smartest one, though I think I'm pretty stupid myself. It took me a long time to learn how to tie my shoes, though. Stuff in that vein was (maybe still is) pretty difficult for me to wrap my head around as a child. Handwriting was always messy, but that's because I was a lefty.
Ehhhhhhh, the wrong way. Leaving it at that, I'll just point out to all of the parents of children teenage and younger on hubski something I'm sure they already know: you think/hope your kids have forgotten the worst things you say to them, but they haven't. Anyway, that was a sad story about your husband's parents. But maybe it's the kind of thing that can tie a new family together; having a "history" as it were.
I don't think so, but I also don't think I was entirely unexpected. I'm also told that I was never expected to be an only child (not that I was expected to be a twin). I don't think I was planned, as my parents are very meticulous planners and for them to plan to have me as my mother was slated to finish her dissertation seems unlikely. As for the story about your husband's family-- yikes. It would make sense to me to start a family under those circumstances too.
My mother told me a number of times how much she wanted a girl. I assume I was planned. The feeling of having been wanted meant something to me, but not as much as feeling loved in the present. However, it meant a lot when a dear cousin named Lil sent me a letter my father wrote when I was born that showed how happy he was.
I actually don't know whether or not I was planned. I've always assumed I was planned, but it certainly is possible I wasn't. I'm the first child in my family, and at the time of my conception and birth (I believe) my parents lived in Florida, since my father was in the Navy at the time. Six months after I was born we moved back to Western New York. Looking at the circumstances it's hard to say one way or another. Of course raising this topic in my family may be a bit awkward, but hopefully it will come up at some point.