Pregnant?

That was my initial reaction when my daughter called me. No you can't be pregnant. That would make me a grandmother, and I'm absolutely not ready to be a grandmother. Grandmothers are the little old grey haired matrons, and I'm NOT a little old grey haired grandmother. You would have thought I was reacting to a teenager instead of the grown, married woman who had graduated with honors from college while working full time. This plus the fact they had been married almost five years.

So the next morning I was off to work where I bemoaned this fact to my best friend and colleague. Well, being my best friend she reacted in character and there after only addressed me as "Granny." I was mortified. I was crushed. I was OLD!

Now this friend, D, as I have lived strangely parallel lives even though we didn't know each other until about ten years ago. She was born, and has lived in the Megapolis area all her life, and I was born in Hometown, and she is (ugh) three years younger than I. We still have traveled many similar paths. We married about the same time, chose the same rather obscure china pattern, and our oldest children are the same age - and were best friends in high school.

Well, it was just a few months later that D told me her son and his wife were pregnant also. We were BOTH going to be grandmothers. That made things much better. We immediately began fantasizing about pushing strollers around Little Suburb on our arthritic knees. Ah, our lives run parallel yet again. I began to reassess the situation. This could be fun.

Later my daughter shared with me that when she made that initial call, she felt like the young, unmarried teenager telling her mother she was pregnant. I thought I had handled the call well, only falling apart AFTER I hung up, but she knows me all too well. We are very much alike.

As the months went on, I was really getting excited. I told her I had the feeling that the baby was a girl. When she went for the first ultrasound, it was too early to tell, but the technician thought it was a boy. Well, that would be OK, but I wanted a granddaughter! Of course this was the same technician who also had the "feeling" she was carrying twins. Turns out she was wrong on both counts.

Now I had a profile ultrasound image of my granddaughter after the second ultrasound. She looked like her mother, me and my mother. I don't remember my grandmother that well, but we have STRONG genes! Once I found a picture of a girl who was about ten. I told my mother I didn't;t remember posing for that picture. She said she was them girl in the picture! I found pictures of me at one year. My granddaughter, Lady Bug, looks like those pictures.

My daughter paid me the highest compliment in the world when she said that she wanted her parents in the delivery room with her. She was living in Hometown now. Being afraid we wouldn't get there in time, my husband and I, along with our three dogs went to our weekend house close by. Lady Bug was born January 16. It was cold. We spent January 1 to her birth date in a poorly insulated house. It was worth it!

I was able to keep her for almost two years because her mom and dad found work here. I only had to give her up who V got really sick. She is still so precious to me. I love being a grandmother, and now she has a brother. How great.

As for D, she had a grandson following our Siamese twin life style. In April, her youngest got married. Lady Bug was the flower girl and her grandson was ring bearer, and there will never be two grandmothers who were more proud. How things can change!