August 26th 2005. I had just dropped off my step son at his mother's house. Being so close to the highly klassy 99 cents store I stopped in. I needed a pregnancy test to allay my momentary neurotic self into thinking I might be pregnant even though the blessed period was only hours overdue. Feeling a little like a young teenager up to no promiscuous good I threw other unessential items into my hand basket so as not to be so obvious about my reasons for gracing the 99 cents store. Unessential items such as a small house plant and corn on the cob handles.

I purchased the items, returned home and went immediately to the bathroom. Took out the test did what I had to do and waited...Usually they come out negative and I go about my day. Then two blue lines appeared. I sat, still on the toilet, in shock. How could this happen? I mean obviously I know how it happened, but we thought we couldn't and we'd been so careless for so long.

The ironic part of getting pregnant is that I had begun studying to be a doula in July. I'd just completed most of the recommended reading and was in the process of signing up for a seminar. I was excited because I had several friends that were pregnant at the time and I figured I could be present at their births and in the process get my certification as a doula. I joked with a close friend at the time that I wondered if I'd be easily hired having never given birth myself...low and behold August 26th roles around and life changes.

Was it subconscious? Was there some innate part in me that wanted a baby so deeply that it overtook me? I'm fairly certain of my conception date. And I remember thinking at the moment of that conception that if I didn't fall pregnant at the end of this month then my husband and I really couldn't have kids...Of course I've said that before too. When you tempt fate often enough and with as much carelessness as we did, surprises are bound to happen. I've always preferred surprises over knowing, and spontaneity over planning. My pregnancy, in one sense, is just one more extension of my preference for not being too in control of the universe.

I've thought over the course of these weeks that I wouldn't be pregnant had I been taking something basically foolproof such as oral contraceptives but then I can't help that think that if the universe truly wanted to intervene it could overcome something as potent as hormonal birth control. Naomi Wolf, in her book Misconceptions, upon discovering she too is pregnant says:
For 15 years birth control had never failed me; and then, when my heart and body longed for a baby, when I was newly married, when it was finally safe--birth control failed me. Was this baby "planned"? Technology did not plan this pregnancy; indeed, technology planned against it. It seemed my heart planned it...Like strong intuition that will and longing had somehow altered chemistry; that mother love, the mother wish, had created a different alchemy, more powerful than the alchemy of the lab or product trial..."

I am a firm believer in the capabilities of the mind to control the body within. The mind can make the body and soul sick just as it can heal. I don't believe this in some esoteric 'bring on the healing crystals and yahoo healers' but each individual has a power that lies within them to control their body if they know it profoundly enough. Did this play a role in this baby's conception? Did our souls know that we needed this? Or was it the baby that chose us at this precise moment on life's continuum?