Pizza Hut Post Notes

I made this up of course.

About a year or so before I had my first child, I saw a little girl with Down syndrome in Pizza Hut when I went to pick up a pizza. She was beautiful. She had piles of curly brown hair and huge sparkling blue eyes. Her dad was holding her, waiting in line for a table, so she was actually “taller” than I am. She stared right at me, right inside of me. I felt like we knew each other. She waved and so did I. It was surreal and obviously I never forgot it.

Last week, or so, I came across a post on a board where a woman was trying to decide if she should keep her fetus with Ds or “try again”. That evening I got to thinking about how a person would explain to a real human with Ds why they were not wanted. I thought that having that conversation might help a woman to figure out her feelings.

These two events collided and became the post, Lunch at Pizza Hut.

So while I like when you tell me I am brave to be so honest, the truth is I never even considered an abortion. I skipped all the prenatal tests because I did not want to be put in a position to even think about it. By the time they found the baby’s heart defect on ultrasound I was 28 weeks pregnant and there was no way I was turning back. It wasn't even on our radar.

Would I have chosen to abort her if I was in a different life, or at a different point in this life? I would hope that I would have still chosen to go forward, but I am me now, not some other me, so I can’t answer for her.

I can only say that I am glad I am me now and that Kimani is mine. And if you're going to be reading this blog, you’ll need to get used to the occasional bit of creative fiction.