On regrets and secrets.

Jacie,

Maybe one day, i don't know why or where or how... you might hear a whisper about your conception and how you may never have existed.

I never want there to be any doubt about the things that were true. I've often wondered why some things are so scandalous, why the truth sometimes has to be hidden or sugar coated. Why people frown upon telling children the way things really were. Secrets, make even the smallest things mean something- secrets - they make people wonder why. I always was going to tell you the truth.  This is what happened.

I remember after Che was born, the second of our 'accidents' don't worry you were all happy accidents and you are all loved as equally, if not more than some very well planned children.

After Che was born, there was a period where we (your dad and i), were both exhausted- to be honest i can't remember what caused it or how we got there... but there was so much anger and frustration - that when i thought i was pregnant again, and the test confirmed it... i threw the announcement at your dad in the middle of an argument.

I just remember hissing 'I'm Pregnant!'

And he said 'No, you're not!'

I am, whether you like it or not.

At the time- things were so wrong between us and around us... Che wasn't even 1, Tivi was barely two. We were stressed and out of sync.

We didn't want another baby.

I'm going to be unfair and tell you only what it was like from my side. What i remember of it now anyway.

We both knew that the way things were, adding another child to the equation was a bad idea. We discussed our 'options' - there are always options.

For weeks, we tiptoed around the word 'abortion'. It was an option. Honestly at that time i was angry with your dad. He brought it up, asked me if i knew what having another baby would do to us. We were so messed up... at the time it was just the worst thing ever.

We can't have another baby he declared.

Well do something about it then, i spat back.

The lines of communication between us had frayed before this. As time drew on, i needed to talk. Abortion is something - that is against my nature... i've always been a go with it kind of person, and although i really am i guess 'pro choice' - i had in the back of my head, the thought that life was hard, but if i chose wrong i wouldn't be able to take it back. Ever.

I didn't know if having another child would break us, nor did i know not having one wouldn't do the same.

I told Aunty Vinnie. She knew the stress i was under already. She didn't say much. It was just good to say it to someone. I told your other Aunties- my oldest friends. They gave me varying pieces of 'advice' and support.

Your dad was shut off - i told him he needed to talk about it.

He resisted at first. Then he called Nanna.

She was anxious, but always always supportive. She wanted us to keep - well you, but she said essentially it was our decision.

Dad booked the appointment.

I told my sisters. I didn't tell your Aunty Phuong... i should have, but for some reason i feared her judgement.

I did fear judgement. We were the ones everyone joked about all the time. I was never someone who talked ever about having children, because i never saw myself having them!... the shock of Tivianh was enough - then with Che we became part scandal part running joke.

Once is an accident, twice is just silly and the third time - well that's just stupid.

Haha, that's how it felt anyway. I ran with the jokes... but really it did my head in - along with all the paranoia that i didn't know what i was doing as a mother and everyone probably saw that.

Anyway, i could tell you in detail of the day we sat in that carpark outside the abortion clinic... early for our appointment, silent and tense.

Of how we'd left Tivi with Aunty Van and Che with Aunty Marii, who i will forever be thankful for, for what she did for me during that time...

I could tell you, how i didn't want to get out of the car and i asked your dad one more time if he was sure. In retrospect- everything i did already told me what i should have done from the start. Listen and trust myself.

I could tell you about uncle Vu's phone call and the anger it incited in me.... but i don't want to.

What i will tell you is that, I sat there, and burst into tears.

Your dad, he just stopped being silent and distant, and something changed in him- and he said 'Let's not do this, clearly you're not sure. We can't do it...'

I cried some more.

Then he said this 'I would have a million babies with you, we'll be okay.'

He said more along the lines of 'All that other stuff - we can't afford it and it's more work... it doesn't matter.'

But he had me at a million babies.

Right at that moment all the tension that had been for months and months surrounding us, the silences, the frustration - Everything that was horrifically wrong between us... shattered. Gone, just like that.

He ran in to tell them we'd changed our minds.

We went to eat Pancakes.

He rang Nanna.

She was overjoyed, relieved... so happy to have another grandchild, but happier still i think, that her son had come out of a very grown up decision, taking what she knew was probably the harder option for him.

We didn't call anyone else.

We ate and we were happy and came back and gathered up Tivi and Che - and i was so thankful to have sisters and friends (Thank you Marii) who didn't raise an eyebrow, bat an eyelid or question me when i returned and said we'd gone to breakfast instead.

Jacie, from that moment in the car- when we decided that we were keeping you - ( i say 'You' but then you were just an 'it' to me... and i had no concept of who you would be) everything was great.

You were a certainty. A choice. A plan.

It was new. Because we had you on a decision, made by us - albeit AFTER the fact of your conception.

Haha, if there is anything you need to know from all of this, it is that - there has never been a single second since that day that either of us have regretted our decision.

Sometimes, we look at you and Dad remarks that he can't imagine not ever having you. It's a thought that will forever be a hypothetical.

You are Daddys favourite. He loves his Tivianh, and he adores his Che, but you- you are the light of his day. I see it every time he's watching you- he smiles. There is not much you can do wrong. He is easier on you than he is on the others, although he says he is not.

Tivianh she was a force beyond me, Che he was a gentle certainty... and you... well you are a sparkle.

From that day in that carpark, from the moment you were real... you 'fixed' us. Every day since, you have been this loveliness that bounces from room to room.

Everyone says you look like Daddy, you have his frown and serious eyes. When you smile though, it brightens a room and makes people involuntarily smile with you.

You smile a lot, because you know it will keep you out of trouble... because i can't resist that giggle of yours.

I love how you come sit in my lap, how half asleep at night, you will throw an arm around my head and say 'I love you my mum.'

When i thank you for just being you, i mean it. You have no idea what your just 'being' did.

When months before you were born, Nanna came to see us, and tell us she had been diagnosed with terminal cancer... your dad well... he saw the pattern in our lives.

One for one. You were his anchor, the way Tivianh was mine.

You were the most extraordinary gift to Nanna. She got to spend this time with you as a baby something she'd missed with your sister and brother. Daddy got to show her, his youngest... she was proud of him as a father...

We named you after her, that's why you will forever be told - that's an interesting way of spelling Jason! haha... Janice is a hard name to make masculine. 

She adored you. Daddy see's her in you. Remembers the year and a half we spent with her when he looks at you. Misses her when you achieve things, reach milestones he knows she would have loved to see.

One day, you might hear about how you almost didn't exist, from someone other than us.

It won't be news, or a scandal... your mum was never great at keeping secrets, or a big fan of living with regret.

All the things that will make up who you are kids, are all things worth knowing, i hope you all know, what it is you've done for me. If i complain daily about the task of being your parent... know this truth - i have never once regretted having any of you. Even you my big hairy accident. I would have a million children with you too. (i'm just saying that because i know we can't any more, so don't get any ideas! hahaha)

Anyway - so Jacien Lukan De'souza; That was (the beginning of) your story.