Was I an unwanted child? I don’t think so.

I haven’t talked much about my mother. She is deaf. Not hard of hearing, but deaf.

She married my dad when she was 23 and had me exactly one month before her 25th birthday. “Your dad played a dirty trick on me!” she would often say.

Later, I figured out they had been using withdrawal for birth control and my father hadn’t pulled out. I was laid out flat to finally comprehend my mother perceived my conception to be a “dirty trick”.

Was I an unwanted child? I don’t think so. But it is clear my mother felt betrayed at having her choice stolen by my father, whom she thought she could trust.

As a young adult, I told her it was hurtful to me when she said I was the result of a “dirty trick”. She hasn’t said it since.