Even after 10 years, it is still hard for me to hear about others' wonderful good pregnancy experiences.
It isn't that I begrudge them their happiness...no! I want them to be loved, supported, and happy!! I am glad for them!! Everyone should have a good experience.
But it still reminds me on a deep level of my own experience, and how different, awful, it was. How deeply sad, scary, and terrible it was. How - allow me a short moment of self-pity here - freaking unfair it was that I have nothing good to remember about that time. And since I will never have another baby (yes I mean that fervently and have been saying it for many years, I have always meant it and I will always mean it) my one experience is all I get.
It isn't something I ever talk about, or think about a whole lot. Only when I am reminded.
Basically what happened is I lived with my ex for a few years, we got married, a few months after we got married I got pregnant...a couple of months after that he met someone else and 4 months into my pregnancy he dumped me for that other girl . And she knew about me- she knew I was married and that I was pregnant. I was even friends with her for... about 2 weeks. He said "I don't consider us to be married anymore. Because of my "spiritual purpose" I cannot have "human obligations" anymore. We are now roommates. I will give you money when I can." (which was basically never)
After everything came out in the open, things got progressively worse and worse. I was the financial support- he was supposed to be establishing himself with work but as it turned out he preferred to party......
We were still living together and no one really knew what was going on. He would just tell everyone that all was well and fine. As time went on he was around less and less. I never knew where he was or what he was doing. So I went to work all day and I would come home to nothing. I was so deeply sad and hurt. And pregnant. He got more and more hostile, unpredictable, and- well, weird. Saying weird stuff. Being a totally different person than the one I thought I knew. He bought and installed an air conditioner for his new girlfriend (he told me this), yet I was scraping by for food...and I had no AC that summer. It was brutal.
It was scary and bizarre and I didn't know what to do. It was a time of being completely abandoned, discarded, and neglected to a point of danger. So I just went to work and came home. There was nothing else to do.
He wouldn't stay home the night I went into labor. I asked, he said no and left. But he came home several hours later and I went to the hospital around 2am.
I had to have an emergency c-section the next afternoon, so I was in the hospital for a few days. During that time he was supposed to have things ready at home.
When they wheeled me in for surgery, his lovely words of encouragement were "If you don't have a c-section you and the baby will die."
When I arrived home with the baby nothing- and I mean nothing- had been done. His friend was there and my ex told me to sit on the couch for a while and he would get things ready later, because he wanted to play a samurai game on the computer with his friend. I said NO, do it NOW- and to save himself further embarrassment in front of his friend he moved the bed and crib around so that I could actually lie down and rest.
Thanksgiving was a week after Daya was born. He left to celebrate with I-don't-know-who, I was left alone with the baby. That was probably the worst day of my entire life. I was as low as a person could get.
Oh, and right after the baby was born he actually asked me if a (girl) friend of his could *move in with us* because "she didn't like her current apartment". I said NO!! but he moved all her stuff into our apartment. I don't know where she went. I told that to someone at the time and they thought I was making it up. I assure you, I am not making it up, it really happened.
He took us to her one week doctor appointment but wouldn't come in for the exam.
When I returned to the waiting room he had left.
There are a lot of physical logistics to learn with a new baby, none of which I knew.
Remember, I don't drive.
I remember going into the bathroom after the appointment- with Daya- and having a little private freak-out.
I knew I couldn't afford rent and child care- I was barely keeping a roof over my head. I had 6 weeks maternity leave and I had to get myself out and move in that time. Thankfully a tiny studio apartment was available in my building, and I was able to take it.
So my post c-section maternity leave was spent moving...and I did most of that work by myself.
Also, I had to go to family court and file petitions. And interview for my current job, to keep it, because of a merger.
And I lost a 10 year friendship...a close college friend.
As it turned out, I spent my one-year wedding anniversary filing petitions for custody, child support (which I do not get although legally I should), and an order of protection. Because he had mentioned my death several times throughout the pregnancy- culminating with the night he came home just to tell me he had a "vision" that the baby and i would be found dead in the apartment.
I have exactly one picture of my pregnancy.
This is me at 30 weeks pregnant in 2005.
I went back to work six weeks after I had Daya, and I was still bleeding.
That is my pregnancy story.
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This year, as a 10 year mark, has been so hard. I didn't think it would be, but it is.
And on top of it loosing three long-term best friends this year....it is too much and I feel completely defeated.
It is a lot easier to muster up positive strength right after and during a crisis....easier to keep momentum and plow through, easier to believe things get better.
After a while, it gets a lot harder.
