I'm Still an 'Oops Baby' but I'm Not the Reason My Parents Divorced. Neat!
My parents learned about the pregnancy when my mom's morning sickness appeared during their honeymoon. They didn't know about me prior to their wedding. This is somehow life-changing for me.
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There were fewer than 40 weeks between my parents’ wedding and my birth.
Quite a bit fewer. I wasn’t born premature.
And there’s nothing especially weird or rare about that, but in the context of who my mother is/was—a super-Catholic-y lady—it meant that I was the result of some pre-marital hibbity dibbity, which anyone familiar with Catholicism will tell you is heavily frowned upon.
Like, you’re gonna burn in hell for eternity unless you go to confession and straighten the eff up right now frowned upon.
So, the story running through my head for as long as I’ve been old enough to know about this mathematical situation is that I was an “oops baby” which resulted in my super-Catholic mother rushing a wedding to try to cover up the deed with her family and friends.
As some of you know, my parents divorced just prior to my fifth birthday, and I spent my life 500 miles apart from one of them at any given time, setting the stage for a lifetime of not liking divorce.
So. Young parents—a 23-year-old father and a 20-year-old mother (less rare in 1979)—rush into marriage because of an unplanned pregnancy, and then when it predictably crashes and burns a few years later, maybe I’m the reason for all of it.
That’s the sort of thing you consider when come to find out that your parents didn’t marry and very deliberately plan to bring you into the world. A divorce-causing “oops baby.” I’ve had some not-entirely-logical-but-still-present-anyway self-worth thoughts and feelings about that over the years.
Fast-forward to 10:30-ish p.m. on New Year’s Eve and my dad showing me a photo of him and his best man on his wedding day back in the late summer of 1978.
“Turns out, you were there,” he said to me.
“Yeah, I eventually figured that out,” I said.
“We learned about you on our honeymoon,” he said. “Your mom was so sick.”
And that’s when, a few whiskies in, I got to have my own little private moment while trying to pretend to not have one in front of my fellow New Year’s Eve revelers.
My parents didn’t rush into marriage because of me. They did that all on their own.
I’m not the reason they got married, and thus, not the reason for their divorce.
And somehow, as absurd and unimportant as all of this might seem to many of you, I received the gift of setting that weird guilt down at the literal tail-end of 2024, and entering 2025 feeling somehow just a little more worthy of existing.
As if not being this freak accident that messed up the lives of those two kids who would become my parents is no longer on me.
I hope it’s clear that I don’t actually believe children born from unplanned pregnancies or outside of marriage are somehow less valid people than our planned-for sisters and brothers. But there was something nonetheless liberating for me about this discovery.
And it calls to mind the narratives we all have running through our heads, and how much they influence our emotional experiences and worldviews. Especially about ourselves and our relationship partners.
It’s as if some significant change happened even though nothing actually did, all because I get to believe a slightly different origin story now.
And one wonders how different a new day, week, month, year can be with a healthier narrative through which to see the world.
Maybe we’ll find out.
Happy New Year, everyone. Here’s to 2025.
Matthew Fray is the author of “This is How Your Marriage Ends: A Hopeful Approach to Saving Relationships”, a relationship coach, and formerly the blogger at Must Be This Tall To Ride.
P.S. - I know these things can present really small to some of you in your busy lives and marriages/partnerships. But that’s exactly why developing mindfulness and communication habits around these domestic scenarios is so critical to maintaining peaceful, loving relationships. If you have trust erosion, and/or pain points and frustrations around things like this at home, consider working with me as your relationship coach to develop these skills and habits. This stuff matters. Book your next appointment here. - MF
I'm not an "oops" baby, but I had two of them. I talked to my kids about it, starting when they were in middle school, and explained that even though they were "unplanned", they were wanted, and I'm pretty sure they believed me, because I also told them about the abortion I had had before, when I got pregnant in spite of my IUD, when I had just quit my job in protest of more responsibilities, less staff, and a nickel raise. My husband was in school and had a part-time job, but that was all. And pregnancy made it very difficult for women to get and keep a good job (1980). So I had an abortion. But I didn't abort them when they came along, because by then I had a good job, my husband had graduated and had a good job, and I wanted them. So I think they're okay with it. And I think the vast majority of people are "oops" babies, to be honest.