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Prior to all this, I had a plan.

I would be nearing 30; I would be alone. I would not want to miss out on motherhood; so I would get pregnant and have a child on my own.

That was my plan, to be a single mother by choice. I decided that around the age of 20. Caught in a world where all my dating prospects were commitment-phobic, emotionally unavailable guys and where I could not get a grip on the fact that I might be infertile, the need to have a plan was paramount. It was safe.

So I did. It wasn’t much of plan beyond promising myself that I would have a child when I was ready for one, even if I was single.

I started to date my now-ex-husband when I was 21, and it was very quickly into that relationship that we decided to get married. So this topic of my being a single mom was moot.

Until we split up a year-and-a-half into our marriage, and I was once again faced with the real possibility of wanting a child and not having anyone to have that child with. By then I was in my mid-20’s - still not ready for a child but feeling like I would be in a few more years. Convinced more that my path would be one of single motherhood, I devoted a good amount of time to reading up on the topic - how and why women make the choice, and how they carry it out and live out the lives they feel are best for them and their children. I felt like I needed to really think about this, really educate myself and make sure I wanted it.

And I did want it. I knew I wanted a child (more than one, actually). I knew I wanted children more than I wanted a man. Better to be alone, I thought, than to have a children with someone who wouldn’t be a fully invested father. I knew I had the strength and determination to parent my children alone if that was the choice I made.

But my ex and I patched things up and were soon togther again. It was at that point that everything changed for me, and I no longer thought about being a single mother. When we got back together, it was on my part with a level of commitment that I’d never had for anything before. It was complete and absolute. My life - I was 100% sure - would be there with him. Rebuilding that relationship, getting pregnant, having my son - all thoughts of single motherhood were gone.

So to end up a single mother after all this - it feels both prophetic and surprising. Because of course, there are always things you cannot predict or account for. For me the surprise is how truly I believed this would never "happen" to me. And yet, did I not spend many years preparing for it?

I am surprised, too, at the way I’ve forgotten everything I read and instead find myself frequently asking myself, how am I going to do this- and do it well - for the next 15 years?

I will. I know that I will, somehow. Because life has now made me what I once was going to willingly choose to be. I am not yet sure what to make of that notion - whether it’s good or bad or maybe nothing at all.

But there is a lot about it that makes me stop and think.

by Tere

Photo graciously provided by carf, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved