It was early July of 2018, a sweltering Sunday morning and I had not slept a wink. I hadn’t for nearly a week now and it was the overwhelming anxiety and absolute terror that kept my mind racing and my stomach churning like a hamster on a wheel. My mother was coming to visit from Florida for her special birthday week. As I drove to the airport I changed the radio station at least twenty times; just trying to get something to help calm my mind and keep myself safely on the road until I could pick her up and bring her to her hotel nearby my house. I had news. BIG news that would send her into a tailspin and I was terrified.

            A week prior I had taken a pregnancy test and the two pink lines showed up. It was unplanned and I had just gotten married a few months prior and we were planning on waiting a bit and just enjoying our lives by ourselves for a little while.

            After my own initial shock, my first thought was, “Oh God. How on earth am I going to tell my mother?” It was as though I were a teenager—I was that afraid of her reaction and response. I knew I was in trouble. I couldn’t have a drink, smoke a cigarette or take a Xanax. I had no crutches to lean on. I was cold turkey going to face the scariest, “biggest” person in my world and here she is in the arrival lane at the Pittsburgh airport. I found her as I normally would in such a circumstance. Leaning on her suitcase, yelling at someone nearby who had the audacity to get in her way as she was trying to exasperatedly “hulk” her luggage and yell at the police officer who is trying to move cars along. “Oh, the world has gone to hell! I can’t believe what your poor mom is doing at my age. Dragging my own bags. There are no more porters around to help with bags. No men are gentlemen. Nobody wants to work. It’s like a third world country in the airport! Do it yourself, Lady. Who cares?! Don’t they know who I am?! Everyone is a snowflake! (I still don’t know to what she is referring even to this day). Your old mom is getting up there but man, I deal with all of this stress just to come see you.” (As an aside–mommy dearest likes to believe she is Ivana Trump.)

            I half listen as I nod and “yes” and “that’s too bad, that sounds terrible” my way through the 20 minute drive to the hotel. As soon as we get in to her room – a Marriott Express—a place she would never have been caught dead in (and not-coincidentally would one year later be kicked out of and told never to return. A taxi cab waiting outside for her suitcase while security escorted her out.)

            I sit down on the bed next to her and spat out, “I’m pregnant.” She jerked backwards within a split second, recoiled, and gasped; putting her hand to her mouth.” “Oh God, oh God. Oh God! What do you want to do about it?”

            She was so upset that her world had come crashing down. Her only daughter having a baby of her own would stop her from being the most important person in my life. She HAS to be the center of attention AT ALL TIMES.