I had an unplanned baby at 17. I never expected to battle infertility in my 30s

This is a First Person column by Lisa Richardson, who lives in Toronto. For more information about CBC’s First Person stories, please see the FAQ.

My mother had always claimed that high fertility ran in our family because of the ease with which she conceived my sister and me. When I was 16 and pregnant, I figured my mother must have been right. I would revise that belief some 20 years later, when I was ready to have another child and none was forthcoming.

The best word to describe my adolescence is turbulent. My mother’s problem drinking led to my father’s departure when I was 12, and from then on, all I could think of was my own escape. Four years later, I had moved in with my boyfriend and a baby was on the way.

I want to say that my pregnancy arose from contraceptive failure or because I was among the one or two per cent of users whom the instructions on the package said could slip through the cracks, but that would be dishonest. I got pregnant because I didn’t protect myself against it.

It was spring 1984 and I was living in Edmonton, barely making ends meet. How could I ever care for a child? I contacted my mother and confessed my circumstances. By then, I was most of the way through my second trimester, though you wouldn’t know it to look at me. My mother said I could move back in with her, “on the condition that you agree to give the baby up for adoption.” I agreed and returned home.

I went into labour just before midnight. That night was one of fitful dozing between sporadic contractions. By the next evening, the contractions were around 10 minutes apart, then five minutes. And then two. 

The pain was excruciating. 

I had never before been so exhausted or so thirsty. As my mother left the delivery room to look for ice chips, one of the nurses set the baby on my stomach. 

I wanted to scream that I couldn’t have any contact with him because I was giving him away, but nothing came out. The memory of his warm weight on my belly still triggers a bittersweet nostalgia. It probably always will.

I saw my baby once more before I was discharged from the hospital. I wouldn’t see him again for another two decades.

Giving birth in my teens scared me straight, contraceptive-wise. There would be no more risk-taking, no more accidents. I graduated from high school and got started on my undergraduate degree before pausing that to move to Toronto in 1990 in search of my own life.   

Two years later, I met my future husband, Chris. We clicked from the get-go and within six months, we were living together. A year later, we flew to Europe, where we lived for another two years before returning to Toronto in 1996 so I could resume my education. All the while, I diligently protected myself against a second surprise pregnancy.

That would change in the mid-2000s. By then, I had completed my university degree, obtained employment in my chosen field, purchased a house with Chris, and – best of all – was reunited with my son, Jayson, after he and his adoptive mother reached out to me when he was a young adult. 

Next up, children. I was 38, but given my reproductive history, I was sure I’d be in the family way in no time.

One month of trying passed with no success, then another and another. I clung to my optimism. A few baby-free months didn’t necessarily mean my mother was wrong about our familial fecundity, did they? 

After six more unsuccessful months, my family doctor recommended Chris and I consult a fertility specialist. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. How ironic it was to assume children would always come easily to me only to find the opposite was true. 

The next year-and-a-half was a blur of clinic visits and dashed hopes. I underwent two failed rounds of fertility treatments after which Chris and I hit pause. There were good things happening that deserved my attention: I was getting to know Jayson and I finally felt free to tell people about him. He came to Toronto to meet my extended family, and he and his adoptive parents attended Chris’s and my wedding a few years later. Jayson talked about returning to Toronto during baseball season. He’s a Blue Jays fan.

As good as it was to have my son back in my life, I still longed for a child to call my own. I was Jayson’s biological mother, but I wasn’t his mom. That title belonged to the woman who raised him. 

Then, three years almost to the month after Chris and I had started trying for a family, I became pregnant. All my feelings of inadequacy, of foolishness over believing that I could have another child whenever I wanted, disappeared.    

My daughter, Kathleen, arrived in August 2009. I like that both she and her big brother were born on a Monday. 

These days, I call Jayson Kathleen’s big brother as often as I call him my son. My daughter’s birth not only made me a mom, but it also made me feel that I no longer had to qualify my status as Jayson’s mother with the word “birth.” 

My reunion with Jayson had lifted the shroud of secrecy from his existence. Kathleen made it OK to welcome him into our family because the circumstances of his birth didn’t matter anymore. Today, I’m Kathleen’s mom and Jayson’s mother. I love being both.

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