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Surprise Child: Finding
Hope in Unexpected Pregnancy Part One of Three
By Leslie Leyland Fields Reviewed by Dave Andrusko Good afternoon and thanks for being part of the discussion. Parts Two and Three are celebrations of grassroots pro-life activism. Over at National Right to Life News Today (www.nationalrighttolifenews.org), we closely review a federal judge's decision overturning a Baltimore City Council ordinance attacking CPCs. Dr. David Prentice updates us on using " A Child's Own Adult Stem Cells for Heart Repair." And one of those active in the program tells us about 12th Annual Cardinal O'Connor Conference on Life. To do the best job possible I need your feedback on both Today's News & Views and National Right to Life News Today. Please send your comments todaveandrusko@gmail.com. If you like, join those who are following me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/daveha. Editor's note. I wrote this review of what I consider to be an invaluable book several years ago. Leslie graciously added an update at the end.
The rough outlines of her story are as simple as the tangle of emotions an unexpected pregnancy can bring in its wake is complex. Already the mother of four (three boys and a girl), she had finally got the job she wanted: a tenure-track position as an assistant professor English at a state university. Although she had written two books and edited another largely about life as a commercial salmon fishing family on a remote island, a college professorship is not necessarily something you'd expect from someone who lives nine miles north of nowhere-- a "house on a cliff over the salty North Pacific waters of the Gulf of Alaska on Kodiak Island." And then, her life firmly on track, wham, she's pregnant at 42. Seemingly a blink of an eye later, she is pregnant again at 44. Surprise Child is loving in spirit and life-affirming in every way that matters. When you finish the final chapter, you'll feel like cheering, as if you'd just watched Rocky. The stories of the 25 or so women chronicled in the book are a testimony to the power of the human spirit and the strength that faith in a loving God provides. But Surprise Child is also brutally, unflinchingly honest. Fields has interviewed women who had no intention of being pregnant, or who had made their peace with infertility or an inability to carry a baby to term, or who had arraigned their lives around the sure knowledge that changing diapers would never again be more a distant memory. There are no doubt women who "knew" there would never be child-bearing days (or were convinced they were history), only to discover otherwise and meet this sharp U-turn with equanimity. This book is not about them. Surprise Child tells the story of women (of any age) who watch with dread to see whether a line will appear in the pregnancy test stick. When the results are positive, they could feel (as Fields did initially) overwhelmed by "darkness of anxiety, resistance, and fear." Surprise Child is written for women like Fields. As she writes resources for women in her circumstances were few and far between and none particularly helpful. She writes to convince these women that they have what it takes to carry their baby to term, regardless of circumstances or the siren calls to abort. As I told her in a phone interview, as a man, a husband, and a father of four, reading the book I felt like I was eavesdropping on a conversation between women. But Fields told me that some of the most poignant early responses to Surprise Child have come from men. "I never knew" might be a good summary of their comments. Thus the book is also for the men in these women's lives, for crisis pregnancy center volunteers, for church members who might be lulled into thinking an unexpected pregnancy poses no challenges for a woman of faith, and for extended family, all of whom might not have the faintest clue of the existential dread that can wash over women. Fields, for example, was utterly devastated. A woman who loved being a mother, all she could think was that "Just as I had emerged into relative light and safety," her life is dramatically changed. "What did I do in those first minutes?" she writes. "I stood over the test stick frozen, my breath gone for seconds, Then suddenly with a convulsive shake I sucked in the air I had lost; my heart went mad with drumming; my hands fisted, then went limp. And then I began to run shouting, looking for someone to help me carry this." Everything in Surprise Child is priceless advice to women and girls facing an unplanned pregnancy but nothing more than her shrewd insight into the rush of emotions that threaten to steamroll a woman when she discovers she is pregnant with a child she not anticipated. "You are trying to live out the next two or three years of your life in these thirty minutes, in one day,' Fields writes. "Everything you fear visits you in one crushing blow. You feel weak, vulnerable. You think you cannot do it. You are right--it is impossible to live it all, to answer all these deep needs and fears in a single hour or a single day or week. As each day passes, some of your fears will fade; some will disappear entirely; some may slowly become reality. But in this moment, you do not need to answer all the questions. There will be time in each day to find answers to find reasons to hope." In that same Introduction, Fields will fast-forward to tell the reader, "Each one here had her life interrupted, each one here has a child who came to her unbidden, and each one now cannot imagine her life without the child." Just because we know there is a happy ending does not diminish in any way the power of Fields' riveting narrative. She intertwines the stories of a number of women who faced down their deep apprehensions with an explanation of her own children's in utero development and her concomitant feelings as the pregnancy advances. These women are absolutely convinced they "can't be pregnant." They "can't" be because the boyfriend doesn't want the baby, or because they already have four children under five, or because they are about to be the first one in their family to go to college, or because their husband is about to be deployed to Iraq, or because they have an eldest child with significant disabilities, or…... "So many bad situations!" Fields writes. But Surprise Child tells us that for all this, women can and do persevere. Their stories are miniature profiles in courage, the kind that humble the reader. Fields is not a Pollyanna. She fully realizes that women do take the lives of their unborn children, misled into thinking that the road to "freedom" and "growth" passes through the abortionist's curettage. In fact, the exact opposite is the truth. More than one woman whispered to Fields that the child had "saved my life." In some cases, this was literally true. Leading lives of self-destruction, they suddenly realized that they could no longer do drugs or go on alcoholic binges. Others became better, richer human beings because they "did not give in to fear." I could go on for pages. Let me conclude with a lengthy quote from Fields, one that captures the heart of her message of encouragement. "You did not listen to those who may have urged to end this pregnancy. You have changed your life, sustained other losses to bring this baby to light and air. And now you have something to show for these months and sacrifices: beautiful bone and flesh and blood of your very bone. But there is more. You are more than you once were. You emerge from this birth more resilient and resourceful, wider and deeper than the woman who stared unbelieving at a test stick forty weeks ago. You've traveled so far and done so much. Rest now in all you have created and become." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ An update from Leslie: My surprise kids are now 8 and 10 years old. Micah and Abraham both wrestle and play the piano, but they are as different as hedgehogs and parrots. One is intense in all he does, ready to compete at the drop of a flag ; the other is perceptive and relational, ready for a heart-to-heart at the drop of a shoe. I was 45 when Micah was born. I felt old, too old to be a mother again and felt it a kind of judgment. I still cannot gloss over the pregnancies and those hard baby and toddler years, but they passed quickly. I am certainly no younger, but I have been energized by the very things I dreaded doing all over again: science projects, homework, enforcing chores, piano lessons. Our entire family (4 others ages 22 – 15) continues to be enlivened by these two marvelous boys who still insist on sharing a room and even the top bunk. My speaking and writing career, put on hold for those years, has resumed with greater force, a force that has much to do with love. I've learned some things since this journey began ten years ago. I've learned much from the readers of "Surprise Child" who continue to write to me in their need for support and prayer. I keep learning that being pro-life is about being pro-people: about supporting babies, their mothers and their fathers. We can do better. I hope we will. Surprise Child is available in book format and full audio format. The book can be purchased on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Surprise-Child-Finding-Unexpected-Pregnancy/dp/1400070945/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_4) or Leslie will send a signed copy for $10 (including shipping). The audio format is also available directly from Leslie for $10 total. She can be contacted at leslieleylandfields@gmail.com. |
When
I noticed that I had dashed off eight or nine typewritten pages
worth of notes about a book that is only 160 pages long, I
smiled, realizing this only confirmed what I had known by the
time I finished the Introduction to Surprise Child. Leslie
Leyland Fields has written an immensely important book, one that
prods your mind, touches your heart, and speaks to your soul.
Surprise Child is a small masterpiece that all pro-lifers should
read and then read again and then share with others.