We had been living in Beijing for more than two years when my husband Arnie and I accepted a cross-posting to Tokyo, a city considered to be a plum post among Canadian diplomats. We had always wanted to live in Japan. In fact, when Arnie was first seconded to the Canadian Foreign Service, we had hoped to be posted there. We recognized this as a rare opportunity and didn't hesitate to say yes to the offer.

In the few weeks we had to prepare for our departure, we bid our many wonderful Chinese friends a tearful goodbye, thankful for the memories and experiences they'd help us create. But my heart was heavy for another reason: I suspected that I was pregnant, something I hadn't planned or indeed welcomed. I didn't feel ready to have a child. I wanted to tackle Japan in the way I had explored China, travelling when the spirit moved me. My burgeoning career as a freelance writer had also just begun to take hold in China, where I had the good fortune to write for Time magazine and the Associated Press. I was eager to secure my writing career in Tokyo and knew that no one would hire me if I were pregnant and likely to leave after only nine months. Having a child would definitely constrain me.

After seven years of marriage, family and friends had begun to nag us to have a child. It was on their timetable, but not part of my grand plan. It wasn't that I didn't like children; I just didn't want anything to detract from my ambitions. My view of parenting was one that I'd drawn from my own childhood. My mother had happily made motherhood her career, and proudly proclaimed that, in raising her children, she hadn't been bored a day in her life. I knew for certain that I would be. I also knew that good parenting requires putting a child's needs before one's own --not just occasionally but in some cases forever. I wasn't sure I was that selfless or strong.

I had trained as a social worker and regularly saw children suffer at the hands of parents incapable of providing the unswerving love and support they deserved. Their pain so consumed me that I burned out, and eventually gave up working in the field. If that was the effect of someone else's kids, I couldn't imagine how I would cope when my own child got sick, was bullied, or simply went through the normal strains of growing up. I felt I wasn't ready to parent a child then — and might never be.

I had counselled many women with unintended pregnancies, helping them understand how to avoid such predicaments. I was irate that I had allowed myself to get pregnant. How does a family planning specialist get pregnant by mistake? Of course Arnie had been a part of this, but unlike me, he was ready to have a child, and was not upset about the unexpected turn of events. But he recognized that bringing a child into the world requires two committed parents. He listened attentively as I spent the next few days anxiously working through my predicament, and helped me come to a decision: I was just not ready to have a baby.

No woman ever considers abortion casually, even those who are pro-choice. I had stood by the bedside of many women before and after their abortions, and felt I knew exactly what I was in for, both physically and emotionally. But this knowledge did little to help me face my own dilemma. I grappled with the issue of responsibility to the unborn child in a way I never had before. Abortion was anathema to me, but I saw it as my only option. I would have to arrange for one as soon as I arrived in Tokyo.

It was not the most auspicious beginning to our sojourn in Japan. From the outset Arnie's colleagues at the Canadian embassy in Tokyo tried their best to ease him into his new surroundings and responsibilities. Many of their spouses invited me to lunch or on an outing to acquaint me with the city that would be our home for the next three years. I appreciated their overtures, but was obsessed with my predicament. I was not in the mood to socialize with people I didn't know. Luckily, six months before our arrival, my dear friend, Paty, whom I'd met in Beijing, had moved to Tokyo with her husband Eduardo, a diplomat at the Mexican embassy. Paty was also pregnant so I anticipated that she'd be able to refer me immediately to a doctor. When I told her I was pregnant, she was elated. "You're pregnant! That's wonderful! We'll have our babies together. How great!"

"No, Paty. It's not. I'm not ready to have this baby. I want an abortion." I couldn't believe what I was saying. "You have to help me find a doctor."

Paty didn't take kindly to this request. When we lived in China together, she and Eduardo ended every visit with us by discussing the merits of Arnie and me having children. Convinced that we would make great parents, they never missed an opportunity to show us when we behaved in a manner that proved their point. It had become an amusing ritual that they carried out religiously whenever we parted company. Paty was therefore thrilled that I might be pregnant, and tried her best to dissuade me from contemplating an abortion. When she saw that I had made up my mind, she reluctantly agreed to contact her obstetrician. Later, she called to say that he wanted to meet Arnie and me over tea at his home, which seemed strange, but I reasoned that this must be a custom in Japan. All I cared about was that he was a good doctor and would see me right away.

We entered his small cottage and sat on the floor on tatami mats, drinking green tea from traditional Japanese cups. He spoke no English so Paty acted as our interpreter. I hated having to speak through someone else, but I knew I could count on her to convey what weighed on my heart and mind. It was a distressing, difficult discussion. I left dispirited but ready to face what lay ahead.

The next day, Paty called. "He won't give you an abortion. He had thought that your marriage was in trouble. But after meeting you and Arnie, he saw that you are happily married. He just doesn't feel comfortable giving you an abortion now." She paused a moment and said, "Oh, he told me to tell you that this baby is a gift."

I was inconsolable. It had taken so much to come to this decision, and now some stranger, who knew nothing about me, was deciding what was best for me. This baby wasn't a gift. I wasn't ready to become a parent. I had to find another doctor, one who wouldn't impose his own views on me. But it was only a week since we had arrived in Tokyo; Paty and Eduardo were our only real friends. I didn't have a lot of time before I would be too far along in the pregnancy to have it terminated. I was becoming desperate. I needed someone to recommend a doctor fast, preferably an English-speaking one to whom I could directly state my case.

Arnie discreetly checked with staff at the embassy. Dr. Yanaihara was a graduate of Stanford University and one of the few English-speaking Japanese doctors in Tokyo. I arranged immediately to see him in his office, a more appropriate setting, I thought, than the tea party rendezvous at the home of Paty's obstetrician. Dr. Yanaihara examined me and confirmed that I was indeed six-weeks pregnant. My heart sank. Panic seized me.

"Doctor, I don't want this baby!" I blurted. "I'm not ready to be a mother. I want to terminate the pregnancy." The weight of these words was unbearable.

"Do you know how many women I see who are infertile, who'd give anything to have a baby? This is a gift," he said, wrapping his arm around me. I cringed, hearing those words again. "You'll see. I'm going to make you love this baby."

I left his office, dejected and confused. I knew that abortion was legal in Japan from my work at The World Health Organization in Geneva. Gender selection was frequently done when Japanese women discovered they were pregnant with a girl instead of the prized boy. That was unconscionable to me. Surely, the fact that I felt incapable of taking on the responsibilities of parenthood was a more valid reason than choosing one gender over another. Why, then, was I having such a tough time? How many doctors would I have to consult before I'd find one willing to give me an abortion?

I hated that I was in a foreign country, without a clue about how to navigate through its maze of rules and morés. This was no ordinary culture shock. I needed to be in Canada where I had contacts in the medical field, spoke the language, and knew how the system worked. I mentally packed my bags, berating myself for thinking that I could resolve this situation in so alien an environment.

As I entered my apartment, I found a letter awaiting me from my friend, Song Nan, a well-known artist in China. It was in English, a language he didn't speak, which meant that he had asked someone to translate it for him. It read, "24 August 1982, the 7th anniversary of your marriage On this day, a cactus in our home bloomed. This flower is white and beautiful. We believe that perhaps you are pregnant. He or she will be as beautiful as the flower."

Amid his exquisite handwriting was a drawing of the cactus. I had never told him about this pregnancy. That he sensed my condition from afar astonished me. The letter fell out of my hands and onto the floor. I called Arnie, but he was unavailable. I tried for hours, unsuccessfully, to contact Paty. When I finally reached her, she told me that she had just returned from the hospital. She'd had a miscarriage.

I was stunned. She had wanted this baby so badly, while I was desperate to end my pregnancy, but couldn't. The more I thought about how things were evolving, the more frightened I became about altering them. I was never a spiritual person, had never believed in fate, and indeed believed that, with good planning and hard work, we could all design our own destinies. Given my ambitions and fears, reason dictated that I not have a child at that time But fate had taken the decision out of my hands. Something had intervened to make me take a path I hadn't planned for myself. I began to believe that if I tried to change things in any way, I would deeply regret it.

I resolved that this child was meant to be. A gift. I have never regretted my decision.

* * * * *

When my daughter Alexandra was about eight-years-old, I visited Paty in Belgium where she and her husband were posted. As we chatted over a cup of tea, I told her I was enjoying motherhood more than I had ever imagined. She smiled. "That's why I did what I had to do."

"What do you mean, what you had to do?"

"I knew that the way you plan things, it would never be the right time for you to have a baby. There would always be something more important that you thought you had to do. I knew you'd love being a mother. Some things you just can't plan. The doctor never said that he wouldn't give you an abortion."

I sat frozen, flummoxed, trying to grasp what Paty said. She looked back at me, smiling confidently, without fear of recrimination. When I found my voice, I said, "I don't know whether to hug you or hit you!"

Paty remains amoung my most cherished friends. Alexandra, my best teacher, turns 19 in May. She was the inspiration for her brother, David, who arrived three years later, as planned.