Martika was the first person we told.

In her kitchen. The very same kitchen where Madisyn and I had first met.

Everything seemed oddly similar to the way it had been on that initial evening. Madisyn was dressed in a flowing pastel skirt that matched her silk-wrapped sandals; and I was once again wearing faded blue jeans, a T-shirt, and canvas tennis shoes. But it was our friend’s kitchen itself that brought back the most vivid memories from several years before. The sweet smell of herbal teas danced with the nutty aroma of freshly roasted cashews, and stacks of self-help books crowded the fine china in oak cabinets. It was always comforting to visit the heart of Martika’s home, and it felt like a perfect place to share the news of our pregnancy for the first time.

“I’m sure it’ll be just fine,” reassured Martika, her giddiness evident. “Scott, I’m dying to know,” she began. “Is it her?”

We all knew who she was talking about, and it was the only thing I had been able to think about since I had seen the matching plus signs on the pair of white plastic sticks. I’d had a strong connection with my unborn daughter since before I met Madisyn, and found myself regularly communicating with her in my dreams. And although my wife and I had both been anticipating her arrival during the past several years, we had decided to focus on our careers before having children, which made the news even more exciting when the day finally arrived.

“Of course it’s Autumn,” I asserted confidently. “She’s been waiting patiently for years, and when she saw that the window was finally open, she flew right in.”

“How does that make you feel?” Martika asked Madisyn.

“A bit left out, but I think I’ll get used to it. I’d better, huh?” Madisyn laughed. “Every girl goes through a Daddy’s little girl phase, right? This one just seems to be starting a bit earlier, that’s all.”

It’s true that I’d developed a stronger relationship with Autumn than Madisyn had, although I was pretty sure that the pregnancy would even the score by the time it was over. However, I was sensitive to the fact that having a relationship with our unborn child for many years before she was incarnate didn’t exactly start the journey on an equal footing with my wife.

“So are you ready to become a daddy?” Martika asked me with a twinkle in her eyes.

“Yeah, I guess so. However, I would have expected a much stronger connection with Autumn now that she’s closer, but she’s been unusually silent since the beginning of the pregnancy.”

“You haven’t communicated with her?” Martika seemed surprised.

“Not recently.” I sighed. “Sometimes I wonder if I’ve imagined this whole thing—if we simply made a baby like everyone else.”

“The first thing to remember is that conceiving a baby is not the same as creating a baby from nothingness,” Martika explained with a familiar sparkle in her eye that emerged whenever she shared her vast metaphysical knowledge. “Every baby’s soul has always existed, and as new parents, you are just inviting it into your life. But it’s the initial process of a child choosing its parents that I find most fascinating.”

“Are you sure a child chooses its parents and not the other way around?”

“I’m absolutely sure. By the time a child is invited in, the parents are already well on their way down their own karmic paths of this lifetime. But at the beginning, a child soul only possesses a single unopened envelope of karmic debt, which is used to comparison-shop for parents. The soul essentially is looking for parents who have the most compatible karmic currency to help pay down this karmic debt.”

“Karmic currency and karmic debt?” Madisyn interjected. “We sound more like a bank than prospective parents. Maybe I don’t fully understand what karma is and how it works.”

“Similar to the scientific law of gravity, karma is an absolute spiritual law that governs the nature of cause and effect,” Martika replied.

“Simply put, if we do something bad to someone else, our karmic debt increases. If we do something nice, it gets paid down.”

“Isn’t that the same with everyone you meet?” I asked. “What makes the relationship of a parent and a child any different?”

“Our karmic debt works hand in hand with our soul contract—the agreement we make with the universe before we’re born about what we need to accomplish during this lifetime. These are usually core lessons we need to learn about relating to ourselves and other beings on this planet. For example: compassion, greed, family, anger . . . that sort of thing. So let’s say a key lesson we need to learn in this lifetime is compassion. If our parents have a nice, easy life, providing us with anything we need or could want, we might not be in a position to learn why we must be compassionate to people less fortunate than ourselves.”

“We wouldn’t be able to relate,” I noted.

“Exactly. But if our parents’ karma provides for a lifetime of financial struggle and they’re unable to provide us with the basic needs of food, shelter, and clothing, we would have a much deeper understanding of why compassion is an absolute necessity in this world.”

“So having a difficult childhood isn’t necessarily a bad thing.”

“Not from a karmic perspective. It might be exactly the foundation that allows us to pay down our karmic debt and learn our core life lessons.”

“Well, I hope that Autumn has already learned compassion,” said Madisyn. “I don’t want to have to lose everything we’ve earned just to teach her a lesson. But I guess since she’s been hanging around so long, she’s probably the only one who wants us.”

“Unlikely. If you consider that every living being has a soul, there are literally millions dying each day. For every conception, it’s likely that there are thousands of souls waiting in line to be reborn. It’s just that Autumn’s karma is perfectly matched with your own.”

“Who would’ve thought that making a baby could be this complicated?” I said with a wry grin. “I think I learned the abridged version in elementary school.”

“I know what we should do!” Martika exclaimed suddenly. “Meet me here tomorrow afternoon and bring some comfortable walking shoes. I know the perfect way to honor the beginning of the most amazing journey you’ll ever have . . .”

As Martika walked us to her front door, I had the distinct feeling that everything was oddly different than it had been when we first arrived. The pungent food smells were deeper and more complicated. The precarious stacks of books were suddenly flirting with gravity as we walked by. And the paintings appeared to have taken on additional brushstrokes while we were having tea.

Yes, everything seemed oddly different—precisely because it was different.

Nothing would ever be the same again.