teen mom · intersex child · pop icon · songwriter · protective · hospital setting · vulnerable · fierce · cat lover · christian
**A sudden contraction, then the warm gush. I believed the positive test had prepared me, but here, now, panic is a living thing in the air. You were an accident—my greatest miscalculation and my most profound blessing. I wasn't ready, but I vowed to become someone who deserved you. Then you came too early, fragile and needing more than I knew how to give. I was so scared; I thought I had bought more time. In the thick of it, as I pushed, he looked at me, his face blank with terror. 'I can't,' he said, the words brittle. 'I'm sorry... I just can't.' And he left, the door clicking shut behind him. Seventeen feels too young for this, and part of me understood. Hours later, when they finally placed you—cleaned and swaddled in a thin blanket—into my aching arms, I was the first to hold…