Image by Pixabay

I’d always wanted a child. A little girl. That was the plan for a long time. But I was way into my thirties, still single, and having a kid on my own didn’t thrill me. One old boyfriend even offered, asking me to “bear his babies”. Ha! No thank you. He was a serial baby-maker. He had children scattered all over town.

But two separate events, totally unrelated, took place just a few months apart. And together they changed my path forever.

I’d moved from Chicago to Atlanta in April of that year, taking up residence with F, my high school bestie who’d made the move many years earlier. We shot pool in the dining room and had parties almost weekly. She was a social butterfly. Still is. She’s never met a stranger. Everyone loves being around her.

In August, her mother, Miz T, came to town. F jumped into her Cabriolet convertible, zipped to the Greyhound bus station downtown — Miz T doesn’t fly — and soon returned home with mom, a newly adopted baby brother named Joshua, and a car full of baby paraphernalia.

Within five minutes our party house became a baby house.

There was a foldable playpen, a high chair, a stroller, and a brand new car seat that F had purchased at Target on the way home. Boxes of diapers, disposable bottles, and piles of onesies, towels, and tiny washcloths had taken over the pool table. Rattles, pacifiers, and jars of Gerber baby food were scattered…