When I

Became an
Aunt

Britani Stevens
Interpersonal Communications
October 25, 2017
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Emotions can get the best of everyone, especially when it comes to a situation

with a close friend or family member. Our emotional intelligence, our ability to

understand and manage our emotions, may be hard to control, especially because

everyday we are faced with situations where we are experiencing positive emotion or

negative emotion. Being a single mother of two toddlers forces me to experience a

number of emotions on a daily basis. I am able to feel joy, fear, frustration, love, and

sadness and that makes me more open to be able to give other mothers or even

women without children, advice on ways to handle emotions. This past June, my sixteen

year old sister, Hannah, was faced with an extremely difficult situation that was almost

too much for me to cope with. In her situation I had a rush of emotion topple over me. I

was angry, scared and felt joy at the same time.

Being ten years older than my sister, my one and only sister after growing up

with 5 brothers, I have always found myself being extremely protective over her. I never

wanted to have to see her struggle with anything in life. She was supposed to learn from

my mistakes. Hannah was the star player for her fast pitch softball team where she was

the lead pitcher and a power hitter. I couldn’t help but notice that something was off with

her on that scorching hot June afternoon. I kept trying to tell myself that she just has

heat exhaustion and she is wore out but I knew something more frantic was wrong, her

shirt was tight and her face was glowing. Could it be? Could my baby sister really be

pregnant? No way, I thought to myself.

I received that horrifying text message later that evening and Hannah had wrote,

“Brit, I am scared and I need you now more than ever, I think I am pregnant.” My heart

was racing and I was so mad at her because she was smarter than this, but at the same
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time, I had to be there for her. She needed me. I calmly told her that she needed to get

a test and take it, and let me know the results, so she did and it was positive. At that

point, I made her a doctor appointment and told her I would be there with her.

So a few days had passed and the day of her appointment came. I was in

complete shock when the doctor came in and told her that she is in fact pregnant and

she is 21 weeks, due in October. WOW! At that moment, I was petrified, I was shaking

and I felt like I was going to vomit. Hannah had a short four months to prepare herself to

become a mother, but even worse, we had to tell our parents. Since fathers tend to

mask their emotions more than mothers do (Dunsmore), it was him that we feared the

most. Since women are faster to recognize facial cues than men (Hampson), our mom

knew that something was up as soon as we got home.

Telling our mother wasn’t nearly as rough as telling our father. Mom was at least

able to control her emotional labor, she managed her emotions appropriately and

necessarily. Dad ended up yelling and cursing and slamming doors, it was obvious that

he was hurting and upset and angry. Our dad doesn’t cry often, but he did that day.

That day, our lives had forever changed. I was going to be an aunt and I knew I would

love this child unconditionally.

In this life changing event, our family became closer than ever. It became evident

to me that hakuna matata(Rice) was a real thing, it meant no worries, and Hannah lived

by that quote. As a family we experienced facilitative and debilitative emotions together.

We all felt anger because the baby of the family was having a baby of her own, and she

is only sixteen. We wanted her to reach for her goals and play college ball and go into

the Air Force. We all felt fear because the father of this precious child was not going to
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be there and Hannah had reached an all time high of depression. There wasn’t a day

that had gone by that she wasn’t found curled up in her dark cold room, bawling her

eyes out. We weren’t sure if Hannah was going to be able to raise this child on her own

or if she was ready to become a mother at such a young age.

On October 2, 2017 Hannah delivered a precious baby boy named Carter. I was

so excited and felt so much joy when my sister had asked me to be her birthing coach

and not to leave her side. I captured every memory made that day in my forever

memory because other than when my children were born, I had never seen my family

be more complete. Everyone had tears of joy and for the first time in a long time,

Hannah had a smile on her face as she held her son for the first time. Every ounce of

anger that I had was gone. Every ounce of fear that I had, well, it was still there. I watch

her with her son every day and can’t help but smile. I am a proud aunt and a proud big

sister. Hannah and Carter are doing great and Carter’s father is actively involved in his

life as of today.

In the last four months, I have learned to be able to control my emotions and

have learned that not every action needs a reaction. The power of touch is a strong

form of communication, hugging my sister while she was in labor, let her know that I

was there for her and allowed her to trust in me. Managing emotions is a major part of

every life event.

Works Cited
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Dunsmore et al., 2009. Page 243 of Interplay: The Process of Interpersonal

Communications.

Goleman, Daniel., 1995. Page 236 of Interplay: The Process of Interpersonal

Communications.

Hampson et al., 2006. Page 242 of Interplay: The Process of Interpersonal

Communications.

Rice, Tim. 1984-1994. The Lion King. Lyric Writer “Hakuna

Matata”http://www.lionking.org/endcredits.html. Visited October 26, 2017.

Stevens, Hannah., 2017. Sister. Life changing event occurring June 2017 - October 2,

2017.