I was unplanned

They won't tell me directly, but I was. I was conceived during a Christmas party about a year after my brother was born. My mother has only told that story once or twice in my presence.

I was loved as a child and I have few regrets of my childhood. I feel my father was (and still is) rather distant, and was alternately uninterested in my activities and largely involved.

The knowledge that I was not planned to be has changed my adult life. I feel driven to make something of myself, to prove I was worth bringing into the world. If others have similar stories, I would love to see them added to this. It's not a cross to bear but yet another defining quality of life.

---

Arrowfall, my parents also divorced. I was aware of this (knew it would occur) for about 7 years. Like you, me and my siblings were the reason for prolonging the marriage. I personally wish it would have been sooner. Like my birth, I do not associate this with myself, nor feel anything towards the action.

Hi! It's me mom. I mean factgirl...

I just want to say that both my kids were surprises. Like getting flowers on a tuesday or finding ten bucks in the pocket of a shirt you haven't worn in a bit. Planned? The best stuff never is!

Enjoy the world while you are here, you were more than worth bringing into it, no matter how you got here.

At the risk of this becoming a grim getting to know you node, I feel obliged to share a bit of arrowfall here.

I was unplanned and untimely. My conception happened seven years into a marriage that began to die before it even started - and this event further staved off the inevitable and permanently bound together two people who really should have been allowed to go their separate ways. They earned it.

My mom was thought to be infertile after a particularly grizzly miscarriage earlier in the marriage. About the time she was realizing that no love was involved in this union she became pregnant. As a result, it took her several more years to enact a divorce she'd decided on long ago.

Both my parents love me very much - more so than they ever loved each other. It has been difficult to piece together this story as nobody in their right mind would admit these things to a child. But piece it out I have - mostly because I have been much more a counselor than a son to both my parents. This has allowed me to view the twisted legacy that resulted in my birthright from two radically different points of view.

So what has this knowledge wrought in my life? It is difficult to separate cause from effect in the circumstances between mother, father and myself. I have felt guilt from time to time because my parents felt an obligation to remain together - even after the divorce - for my sake. I think the main effect is that I have been a buffer between these two unmatched people. Because I served to bind them, I also keep them apart.