No mother wants to admit this, but it's undoubtedly been the case for many of us. We find out we're pregnant and wish we weren't.

That's the situation Keri Fisher describes in her essay, "The Not-So-Happy Accident." Even though Keri was already a mother of two, happily married and living a relatively comfortable life -- the ideal circumstances for procreation -- she was distraught when she realized she was four months pregnant with her third child. (The fact that she was on Depo-Provera, a supposedly fullproof birth control drug, undoubtedly contributed to the sense of shock.) 

It's tempting to think that response is selfish, but I can relate. When I found out I was pregnant with my son, it was indeed a surprise and one for which I was colossally unprepared. I spent the entire first trimester trying to figure out how, exactly, to recalibrate my lifeplans now that a child suddenly planned to crash the party. I was depressed. But I also felt guilty, guilty for being sad about such happy news, for being pregnant when some of my friends desperately wanted children and couldn't have them, for already being what I perceived as a bad mom before the kid was even born.

But, just like Keri, I adjusted and even warmed up to the pregnancy as time progressed. By the time my son arrived, he no longer looked like a party crasher. It felt like he had been at the very top of our guest list from the beginning.

As Keri writes, "Pregnancies can be unwanted. But babies rarely are."

Image: iStock on Babble.com