In honor of my son’s 30th birthday - I shall tell the story of his birth, lol.
I was working at Bannister mall at Salad’s N’ Such at the food court, yup it’s as ‘80’s mall’ as you can get…but this was 1990 and I was a fucked up 20 year old who was doing all the wrong things - but somehow managed to have a job at this particular moment in time.
Jeff and I had been together for a year and our relationship was always very….what’s the word I’m looking for…
explosive
There were lots of fights, lots of bruises, lots of tears and tons of cocaine - but damnit I thought I could fix him, or myself…if I could just do this thing or that thing, it would be better and he wouldn’t be so controlling or he would know that I really did love him.
Yeah, it was one of those relationships - like every other relationship I’d ever had.
I was predictable.
I’ll skip ahead…
I worked in a salad joint, but I couldn’t stand the smell of lettuce.
Weird, right?
I mean, lettuce doesn’t really have a smell - until it does.
Literally every single person I worked with knew I was pregnant except for me.
On a break one day I went to the clinic that had opened in the mall and took a test. I WAS PREGNANT!
I was ecstatic! I was running down the mall telling every single person there the great news.
I was finally going to have something that was mine. Someone that would love me no matter what, no matter what a fuckup I was. Someone who wouldn’t leave me or hurt me or judge me. Someone that was safe, that would love me and that I could love.
For the first time in my life I had a purpose and had hope. It was a life altering moment for me.
Let’s just say that Jeff was not as thrilled as I was at the news.
When my grandparents found out I was pregnant they kicked me out of the house.
again
Shocking, I know…
Jeff wasn’t stepping up and I had nowhere to go so they arranged for me to go live with my birth father, Mirl in Climax, GA.
(Don’t let the name fool you - it was a dusty dirty wasteland in Southern Georgia - there was nothing there, NOTHING!!!)
Now, I hadn’t seen much of my birth father, he was around very sparingly - if you’ve read my previous posts then you know all this so I won’t rehash all that, so you can imagine it would be a little awkward to move to a state you’d never been to to live with a man and his wife that you barely knew.
Mirl tried to make me feel at home as best he could but his wife, Greta, was deeply insecure about me being there. She freaked out anytime we were alone and talking.
She tried to convince me that my real father was the unstable one who had multiple personality disorder and I was not allowed to say ice cream or hamburger in front of him as it would trigger one of his child personalities.
Greta’s mother lived with them too. She was about 80 and from Cuba so I found her and her stories fascinating for about a day until her and Greta would intentionally bang pots and pans on the wall right outside my bed just to keep me awake. They would try to poison me with random things in my food. They would avoid telling me if anyone called for me, it went on and on.
Greta was so unstable that - I shit you not - her and her elderly mother went out to the graveyard at midnight to put a curse on my unborn child and myself.
SHE PUT A FREAKING CURSE ON ME AND MY SON - Who the fuck does that?!?!?!
Needless to say, when an opportunity came for me to escape that insanity I did! One of my oldest friends made a detour to come see me as she and another friend were on their way to Ft. Lauderdale to go live for a few months as she went to a scuba diving school.
Umm….Florida, beach, sun, sand and zero Greta and her mother - I was fucking GONE!!!
I jumped in the Jeep and headed down to Florida for a while. Of course I had no money, no job, no hope. I was 4-5 months pregnant and was completely at the mercy of my friend, who - God love her, tolerated me for who knows why. It was a welcome break for a month or so.
When my friend went back home for the holidays I ended up back in Georgia with my birth father and his two crazy women.
One of Greta’s daughters came for a while and we started hitting up some parties and being social. I started dating a guy, he was a body builder so the majority of his time outside of work was spent at the gym but it kept my mind off the reality of shit at the house. It was during the Iraq war and Operation Desert Storm was heating up. He was going and discussed marrying me before he left, but I didn’t love him and he didn’t really love me, it just wasn’t an option.
I finally got a call from Jeff saying he missed me and that was all it took for me to scramble to find a way back to Kansas City, but who was I going to live with? I was coming up on about 7 months pregnant and had nothing.
I found a church and asked them to help me as I need to get back to Kansas City and I was stranded there in Georgia. They kindly offered to get me a bus ticket.
I sat on that awful Greyhound bus for about 2 days with no food or anything just trying to get back to something familiar.
I arrive at the bus station late at night and Jeff finally shows up. He wasn’t really interested in getting back together with me but said he would drive me out to Independence, MO to where my real mother was living so I could crash there.
This is where it gets weird…
My real mother, Georgeann, who went by the alias of Connie, was living with her husband, my 2 youngest half-sisters and her boyfriend (yes, her boyfriend - who was younger than I was) in the basement of her husband’s parents house.
I know, right? She was living with her husband AND her boyfriend - in the in-laws basement!
Her husband Duane was a really nice guy, I genuinely liked him and his parents were the kindest souls. His mother Dorothy took me under her wing and helped as much as she could. His dad, Jack, owned a small real estate company and they did taxes and stuff so he gave me a little job helping out so I could make a few bucks.
I had a rough pregnancy and struggled with preterm labor, every time I’d have contractions and need to go to the hospital my real mother would take me and drop me off.
Just boot me out of the car. Not go in with me and hold my hand, no comforting me or anything. Just BOOM, gtfo.
I was terrified of having the baby. I got no guidance or wisdom from anyone. I had no idea what to expect or even had the first clue of how to be a mother.
I would go in the hospital and they would hook me up to drugs to stop the contractions and then I’d call to have someone come get me again and go back to the basement.
I hated that basement. just mattresses all over the floor. My mother drugged up and nearly comatose most of the time with her weird boy toy. My two half sisters who were like little wild things. and it was so dark and, ultimately, so fucking lonely.
Eventually the real day arrived (I should have known as I’d spent about 20 hours scrubbing everything in sight with a toothbrush prior - Nesting is real, y’all)
I was in labor all day but nothing was happening so they sent me back home until things progressed further.
After I was dropped off again the next morning I had dilated a little further and they decided to keep me. I called Jeff to let him know, hoping at least someone would come.
Because I was on Medicaid I was not given any drugs or any comforts at all really. The day drug on and finally into the evening things finally started to happen.
No words will ever be able to describe what it truly feels like, the pain of contractions with no drugs, your body preparing to force a watermelon out of you…Jeff calmly leans down and asks if I can make it go any faster.
Women, you know how that went over.
As we get closer and closer to midnight a wave comes over me that was hot and intense. I thought I was going to throw up but the intense urge to bear down was so hard that I had no choice but to go with it even though the nurses were telling me not to.
They roll me out to a delivery room, give Jeff a hospital gown and we were finally ready.
After a few screams and grunts and the worst pain in my entire fucking life - I hear the doctor say “We got a nine pounder here” about the same time I feel the heat of my blood run down from the incision he makes to help get the baby out.
After his head was out, they tell me to push again to get his shoulders out - Jeff leans down to me and says that he thought that was it.
Like wtf, Jeff - the kid is gonna come out and just unfold like a roly-poly?
A few more pushes and it’s over and then the most magical sound you can ever hear happens - he cries. My son is born!
They clean him quickly and tell me I need to push once more to get the placenta out.
Jeff looked over, turned 8 shades of pale and left.
He literally left.
Left the hospital.
Didn’t say a damn word.
I didn’t care. My life had just begun, in that very moment, nothing else in the entire world mattered.
36 hours of labor. 8 lbs 12 ozs. 19.5” long - Jacob Patrick, I knew from the beginning that was his name, before I even knew if it was a boy or girl.
He was here, he was mine and he was fat and perfect.
24 hours later and they sent me ‘home’. I took this most perfect angel into that awful basement to find that my two half sisters had stolen all of his clothes, diapers and everything I had gotten for him.
I had nothing.
I was alone, with people who didn’t give a shit about me with a baby I didn’t know how to take care of and was fighting an uphill battle trying to keep my shit together.
I didn’t know I needed to burp him, or that what I ate had an effect on his tiny tummy since I was trying to breastfeed him like a mother should.
I was failing miserably.
Word got to my grandparents that he was born and they came to lay eyes on the little monster that I had created.
They took one look at him and told me to pack my shit and they took me home. Thank you Jesus.
You know my history with my grandfather - but honestly I could not have gotten through any of it without him. My grandfather loved that boy more than anything in the world and was a rock when it came to helping me take care of him.
I know this is long, I’ll cut it off here but I want to say that Jacob made me an adult, made me a better person, cleaned me up and changed me for the better.
I am so proud of the man he has become.
The plan was made, that night we would go out and ….