Pansyiana: June 2006 Archives

In the comments box below, in my post Time To Tell A Story (I'm Still Judgemental), a woman named "Jane" tells a story that many years ago, she too was an unmarried pregnant 16-year old:

If you were a woman of my generation and became pregnant as a teen (I, too, was 16), your baby was taken away without you ever seeing or holding him or her. You had no "choice" to "give" your baby up for adoption. Your baby was taken, you were told to shut up and never say a word about it and act like it never happened, and you were treated like a pariah by your family forever. This was standard operating procedure for Catholic homes for "unwed mothers".

And that's why I'm pro-choice.

Because I know what it is not to have a choice.

A debate between she and I followed because of my lack of understanding what being pro-choice has to do with the circumstances of the adoption. During that debate, Jane states:

The reason you say what you say about knowing your child is still alive and with a family and how it's one big Hallmark Channel three-hanky Movie of the Week is because you had a choice. I wonder how you'd feel if you'd never been allowed to lay eyes on your child or hold your child? You would see that family as the enemy. As thieves who stole your child and destroyed you in order to snatch undeserved happiness for themselves.

Her words made me unearth some thoughts about my experience, and made me think my story was somewhat incomplete.
This is all very strange to me, because like I mentioned in one of the comments I haven't really talked about this in 15 years, and I don't know what is compelling me to talk about it now. Like I said, I have not kept it a deep dark secret or anything. But I certainly don't advertise it and I try hard not to think about it. Part of me thinks that I have tried to be this good, Catholic mother, and good, Catholic mothers do not have stories about getting pregnant out-of-wedlock at 15. The other part is much of these events are too painful to dwell on, and dwelling does nothing to help me get by day to day.
Lately, another part of is starting to understand that this series of events really affected why I feel and do so many of things I do today.

Fact is, in my retelling of the story, I did not mean to gloss over adopting out a child as easy because it was right and we all were so happy in the end. I was not happy in the end, but I think I made the best choice for my son, and that keeps me refelcting on it in a positive light rather than a negative one.

After I delivered my son, I got to spend three days with him at the hospital. Up until that point of my short life, they were some of the happiest I ever felt. Every friend I had came to visit me and see the baby. I had never been uncomfortable around babies because at the time my brothers were 5, 3 and 1. Baby care was second nature to me. I had a hard time listening to mothers education sessions between nurses and new Moms in other rooms as they taught the ladies how to change and burp babies. I remember wondering if the lady in the next room who was having a hard time of grasping the concept of changing a diaper without sticking the tapes to the baby knew what a blessing it was to go to a hospital, have a baby and bring that baby home. For her, the hospital stay was the start of her new life with her child and for me it was the end. I would have given anything to be in her position.

After I handed my baby over to his foster mother and went home, I never knew the an emptiness like I felt then. I was in a painful place that nothing, or anyone could make better. This was a true first for me. Things that were big deals to me before, like going out to breakfast were nothing.

I could have taken 6 weeks off of school, but I think I opted to go back 2 or 3 weeks later to keep busy. Life was spacey and weird. Everyone at school were still teenage high school students, and so was I, but I wasn't. People were mulling around about proms, games, and "OH-MY-GOSH did you hear about such and such?" I could no longer relate. I think this started a trend of cynacism that has stuck with me.

I tried to get back into the groove, and I did to some extent, but from then on, I felt like I was in a separate reality or something. I couldn't relate to anyone around me, and they could not relate to me.
I wanted to talk to people desperately about what happened, but no one wanted to talk to me about it. I remember I was working at the supermarket and a woman on my line, her husband recently died and she was telling me about her loss and her personal feelings, and I was a complete stranger. I thought she felt the same I did when I gave my son up, the need for someone to listen to you for whatever reason people need that. Well, that was how I felt at first, but no one wanted to talk about it. Everyone said "well that is done, just get on with your life" or "people don't talk about that kind of thing", so I swallowed it all real hard (and here we at least 15 years later).

I went to the diabetes clinic today and I lost three pounds since Thursday. I am also feeling much better since being on the hypoglycemic/diabetic diet.

My father-in-law and mother-in-law continue to lecture my husband that we need to put the kids in school so I can go to work, and we need to stop having children. Now mind you, they have no reason to give us this unsolicited advice, meaning they do not give us any money, let alone even Christmas gifts. They do not visit. My father-in-law has never even paid child support. My mother-in-law likes to have live-in boyfriends who stole thousands of dollars of my husbands childhood collectibles he had stored in her basement to sell for drugs.

Soooo, would it be totally innappropriate next time they give unsolcitited advice to shut them up say:

to my father-in-law: "why don't you marry your live-in girlfriend and stop shacking up like you are twenty already, pay something towards the support of your only child, and then we will consider moral and economic advice from you,"

to my mother-in-law: "why don't you stop sleeping around with drug addicts who steal from us, stop getting your car repoed, and then we will consider moral and economic advice from you,"

Granted, I know, you can't really say the child support thing as my husband is a grown man. But I love the way people comment and scrutinize our lives when their own lives have much more to scrutinize...and we wouldn't dream of getting into their business as much as they do ours.

Abortion is always a hot topic, especially in the blogosphere. What I am seeing more and more are pro-choicers coming to pro-life blogs and offering their two cents. I find this intriguing as I never had much interest in going to a pro-choice blog to debate in the comments section. I also find the debate interesting, and yet also nerve wracking. The part I find nerve wracking is that to many pro-choicers, we "anti-choicers" are let's see, racist, we never have a grip on reality and see the big picture, we are constantly trying to force are religion on people, and spend all our energy in trying to "trick" women into keeping their babies by lying, oh and of course none of us care about children or any social justice issues. They know this for a fact because they came to all our houses one by one, asked our opinions on the variety of social justice issues and proved that not a single one of us has ever done anything involving any other issue.
What really bugs me though, is this nonsense about "shaming", "conning", and "manipulating" women into having abortions keeping their babies. I think the Planned Parenthood urban legend email is a good example of this bizarre stereotype. Growing up, I had many friends who had abortions, and behind almost every abortion was in the very least manipulative boyfriend.

Now I am going to tell my story. This has been on my mind a lot lately after putting it in the farthest reaches of memory for many years. I am not sure why. I just read an almost identical account two days ago and thought it was a sign of some sort, plus a few other strange coincidences here and there.I have also been kind of feeling like since I avoid large parts of myself, I do not blog about issues that are on my mind because then I might have to reveal things about myself I would rather not. I actually told this story in the comments box at Generations for Life, when someone asked me a question. I figured if I put it in the comments box there, maybe I should retell it here.

The Sear's Guy came while I was at the doctors. He stayed 5 minutes (he did fix the dryer) and charged $118. Life!

I actually really wouldn't care if he came today earlier or later, except I have to go to the diabetes clinic at 3. It seems since my last OB appointment last week, I...gained...n.i.n.e pounds. Oh the shame. I knew I gained weight because the reflection in the mirror was looking a bit less like me, and a bit more like Miss Piggy.

I have been having trouble with hypoglycemia (syncope, sweats, seeing stars) and in order to preempt that, I stuff my face. I will eat a bit of cereal and still almost pass out, then add a few pieces of celery to no avail, then add a cookie or whatever I can quickly stuff in my face. This happens a few times a day. The doctor decided to send me to the diabetes clinic nurtitionist to learn how to eat with hypoglycemia. I started whining "I feel so bad, I used to be a personal trainer..." She said to me "I know you know how to eat right, but it is really hard when you do not feel well. You need to be a patient now, not a caregiver." She was right. I don't know at all how to transfer any eating common sense into "please don't pass out now..."

Frankly, I know nothing about eating to prevent hypoglycemia. So I have to go, and the Sears guy is supposed to be here. Life!

He was supposed to come last Wednesday between 8-5 (yes, fo' ra-yel, between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.). At about 3.45 p.m. after sitting around waiting all day for the Sears guy, we get a phone call that he was running late, and will not be able to come until next Tuesday. Not later, not tomorrow, another week! I was like "Lady, I have five kids and dryer!" I didn't say that, but I was most certainly thinking it!

My husband was annoyed, so we went to look at new dryers. Our budget really was not as large as I liked if we had planned on the purchase, and if I bought a new dryer, I want an upgrade. I want a front loading job (and washer) that can handle my king size quilts, not another version of what I have already, so I opted to wait until we got the older one fixed.

You know, there is a spiritual lesson in this that God seems to love teaching me a lot (I get it, I do-see I'm even blogging it Lord). We really count on Him to make all the little everyday stuff work as well as it does so we can function almost normally. I remember one morning my husband lost the car keys in the snow, but he could not find them because he had to leave before sun up. I was amazed how such a little thing like a key really changed the course of the day.

Today Mr. Sears Dryer Fixer is supposed to come between 8 and noon. I have a doctor's appoinment at 8.45, so I might not be here when he comes. Aside from wanting my dryer fixed, I have this thing about having strange people (actually, maybe "strange" is not the word because he could be perfectly normal and nice), but you know, outsiders in my house. It always makes me uneasy. I never feel like the house is as clean it should, I have to be like polite, and I am always hoping Fastolph doesn't do something horrible and dangerous so I don't have to start screaming at him in front of people. One time he started randomly hammering nails into the walls out of the blue when the um, landlord was here. Honestly, he never did that before.

This Mary Kay lady keeps calling and I keep putting her off for the same reasons. Also, since I am a fat, lazy, pregnant lady, the house really is not as clean as I like at all. She won't seem to take "no" for an answer. I could never be a pushy sales person.If a pregnant lady said "I have morning sickness and don't want to clean my house" I would be like "OK". I never make any money and sales stuff.

I am going to go do something constructive. I got up 45 minutes ago to do my work-out, and here I am blogging. I'm going to gain 500 pounds with this baby.

This commercial is a dramatization of my toddlers and their older sister.

This cracks me up because the mannerisms are exactly like my children.

On Friday I had a doctor's appointment. For reasons that are unknown, not only do I have the usual morning sickness, but when I eat a meal, I get sweaty, rapid heart beats and greatly fatigued that I immediately go to bed and sleep. When I called the doctor and said these are MS symptoms I never had before, they asked me to come in. The midwife deduced that I am hypoglycemic, and needed to eat smaller meals more frequently. I said that I understand hypoglycemia and am used to the symptoms when I don't eat, but when I eat? She just shrugged and gave me a script for an anti-nausea medicine (which is actually a anti-histamine).
Afterwards, she said let's listen to the baby's heartbeat. She could not find a heartbeat, which sent me into an instant panic because the last time that happened it was 11 years ago, and an ultrasound determined the baby had died. So I went for an ultrasound and I was so relived to find out the problem was the little bugger just wouldn't sit still. I was certain I would relive another miscarriage. But there he was kicking up against the walls and propelling himself backwards with his little feet.

Oh yeah, I said "he" because it looks like another boy. And "he" will probably be five years old before his father and I agree on yet one more boy's name.

In the meantime, I am still getting sweaty and sick when I eat.