Family Matters

My Auntie's Pregnancy

This is a true story, every word of it.

My auntie was about 40 years old when she got married. Everyone was very happy for her and my mom was the happiest of all, because her youngest sister and her only sister will finally have a chance to be a mother (at that time, my mom did not even consider having kids out of marriage).

For my mother, parenting was the ultimate purpose in life. It was unthinkable that someone she loved would never go through the best experience in life. In part, this approach of hers came from an upbringing in old Iran, where women who never married and never had children were considered the "failures" of the society. I am pretty sure she was also very happy and fulfilled as a mother from the age of 19 (and she was already considered an old mother) and this contributed to her positive view of parenthood.

It was very exciting for the whole family to find out my auntie was pregnant. At the age of 40, you can imagine how hard and exciting the whole thing was. That is why we were all devastated when she had a miscarriage during the first weeks of the pregnancy.

My mom prayed every day for her sister to get pregnant. My mom already had 5 grandchildren, the oldest being 10 years old, while her own sister had not even experienced motherhood.

After some time, everyone was delighted when mu auntie got pregnant again. Feeling very stressed, she called my mom and asked to stay for the weekend at our place.

On Friday morning, my mom woke up in terror and asked my dad to call her sister and tell her not to come. Getting from my auntie’s home to ours took less than two hours by car, so we all looked at her in surprise.

"I had a bad dream", my mom said to my dad, "She should not come here today. It is bad for her. She will lose the baby if she comes. Call her now!"

My dad looked at her and did not know what to do. He was afraid to call my auntie.

"I can't call her and tell her you had a dream", he said, "What do you want me to say, 'Your sister had a dream'? She'll think we don't want her to come".

I have to say that we were on his side. We could guarantee she would think that. She was very fragile with the second pregnancy after the first loss and we did not want to look unsupportive.

My mom was confused herself. My dad debated this the whole day. My auntie was supposed to come the same day and my mom had only had a dream. We made fun of my mom the whole day about pretending to be Joseph the Dreamer and my dad, not feeling he could call and reveal that my mom was pretending to be psychic, decided not to call.

My auntie came that afternoon. She was glowing and happy. We had the most wonderful weekend together. We were all happy and cheerful, except my mom, who was worried and a bit teary the whole weekend.

The day after my auntie left, she had a miscarriage the second time…

Knowing how you must be feeling now, you should know that my mom did not have any more bad dreams about my auntie's pregnancies and she had 2 baby boys, who are now lovely teenagers.

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