“我刚结束了一段十年的感情，暂时不想约会，甚至都不知道怎么再跟别人交往。但我朋友Marla真的很用心在帮我，她一直想让我和她朋友Kate相亲，说了好几个月。她跟我聊她的事，给我看她的照片。但我很怕，所以总是找借口不去见她，我感觉她看起来过于健康了。她来自中西部，而且最糟糕的是她还有个孩子。我没孩子，因为我的童年很苦，我父亲是个酒鬼和性变态，我有两个兄弟姐妹都死于自*。而我心里觉得这都是我的错，我觉得孩子会毁了他们父母的人生，不过最后我还是同意去见Kate了。我们在一个公园见的面，当时下着三月罕见的暴风雪，雪真的一直下个不停，可我们还是绕着湖走了三英里。Kate紧张时会说很多话，所以我听完了她整个人生的故事。做母亲是她人生中非常重要的一部分，她还决定再要个孩子。之前她刚熬到漫长的收养流程的最后阶段，可是在最后一刻，女孩的父亲不让蕾丝边收养她的孩子。我听着Kate的心碎经历和她的决心，情不自禁地爱上了她，交往几个月后，她准我见了她儿子。他很棒，但是另一个孩子？一个小宝宝？我试着劝她别再要多一个了，她也想过听我的，有段时间她尽了最大的努力不去想再要一个孩子的事。可终她对我说还是想要，我也得做决定，后来我去巴厘岛做了两周瑜伽，每天坐着冥想静思。然后有天早上，我冥想到一个小姑娘坐在我腿上——我能感觉到她的体温，我觉得很幸福，她看起来也是。那是一种非常平和的感觉，同时还有Kate对着我们俩个微笑，睁开眼时我已经做了决定。但我不知道的是Kate也做了个决定，她需要一个能跟她完全契合的伴侣，所以她到机场准备和我提分手。但她没机会了，因为我一下飞机就对她说：‘我们结婚吧，我已经做好当母亲的准备了。’”
“I’d just gotten out of a ten-year relationship. I didn’t want to date. I didn’t even know how to date. But my friend Marla was really working on me. For months she was trying to get me to go on a blind date with her friend Kate. She’d talk about her. She’d show me pictures. But I was scared, so I’d find any excuse not to go through with it. She seemed too wholesome. She was from the Midwest. And worst of all—she had a kid. I was childless for a reason. I’d had a difficult childhood. My father was an alchoholic and sexually abusive. Two of my siblings died by suicide. And somehow I’d internalized that it was my fault. I had a belief that children ruined their parents’ lives. But I agreed to meet Kate anyway. We met at a park in the middle of a rare March snowstorm. The snow was really coming down, but we still walked for three miles around a lake. Kate talks a lot when she’s nervous, so I heard her whole life story. Being a mother was such an important part of her life. And she was determined to have another child. She’d just gotten to the end of a long adoption process, but at the last minute, the girl’s father wouldn’t let a lesbian adopt her child. I listened to Kate’s heartbreak, and her determination, and I couldn’t help falling in love. After a few months of ……
