"Being Entirely Honest With Oneself..."

by Allison Liccardi
(Missouri, USA)

"...is a Good Exercise.” - Sigmund Freud


had always imagined that I would have 8 or 9 children running amongst fields and over wires, following the husband that I would love and I to church. There would be braids and dresses, ties and toys, crying and teaching. I can still smell that wonderful smell of a freshly opened pack of pampers and the peculiar smell of an infants skin.

I remember lying my daughters against my chest during times of fear under the assumption that their innocence would protect me. I had preferred more boys than girls and yet was blessed with my first two children being female.

Now I sit here at 26, unmarried, and longing for a family while I write down an appointment to get surgery preventing me from bearing children. I want more children, I want a family, a large family.

Then questions and pleads from my doctors kick in. We do not know if Multiple Sclerosis is hereditary and even more importantly what if you are in a wheel chair at 28, God forbid of course.

All of these naps and the unbearable pain, I do not really have a choice, outside of selfish reasoning. This was the third time I have signed the paperwork and yet I still am not ready. So why do it? I am not prepared to sign my will over to a satan born demon, no that is not acceptable to me and yet what if...

I suppose I do not have a choice, not if I have a soul...It isn't fair to the children that I have or to the children that I would have. This is sickening and yet of course there is always worse that somebody is facing at this second. So I count my blessings...