R.E.S.P.E.C.T and Giving Yourself a Break

I've spent a lot of time thinking about Baby Daddy.  It hasn't been pleasant.  It's hard to find the right words.  I've been on this word craze lately where I don't want to use filler words.  I think words are taken for granted on a daily basis.  I think it's easy to talk about someone when you are somewhat emotionally disconnected because then you talk about that person in a very generalized way.  I've thought back a lot on what I've said about Baby Daddy in the past.

I can't be mad at him.  Without him I wouldn't have known my greatest joy.  

It's true.  But, also without him I wouldn't have known my greatest sorrow.  Nothing can truly prepare you for the moment of placement.  Don't get me wrong, it is good to educate yourself on the options and to make a birth plan and to decide beforehand who will be at the hospital while you are there or whether you want that time alone exclusively with the child you bring into this world.  But when it actually comes down to it... there are no words.  And he did that to me.  Baby Daddy did that to me.  Granted, I had a huge part in it because I took the risk on Baby Daddy being a man I desperately wanted to find.  And, the bigger the risk... well, I think you know the rest of that.

I realized I was pregnant immediately.  I know some women say that and it's unbelievable, but I knew.  That last time I had relations with him, I knew that I was taking a huge risk and I did anyways.  I am very body sensitive and the few weeks following I noticed the difference in the way I felt.  I knew I had to take a pregnancy test, but I also knew that I needed to be in denial for a little longer.  Two weeks later, I took multiple pregnancy tests, hoping the first, and second, and third, and fourth were wrong.  Six tests later, they all read the same, positive.  I was 4 weeks pregnant when I found out.  

I will never forget that day, the day I found out I was pregnant.  I was in complete disbelief, even though I was staring at the evidence that proved my disbelief to be invalid.  I think "awe" is the correct word.  That word is grossly misunderstood.  I think people think that it means something tender when in fact the dictionary defines it as "an emotion... combining dread... and wonder that is inspired by... the sacred or sublime," and in it's archaic form, "the power to inspire dread."  Thank you Miriam Webster, I truly would be lost in this world without you and your online dictionary.  So, what does sublime mean?  It means different things, but the sublime that is talked about in the definition is actually The Sublime, which is the same Sublime that Edmund Burke wrote about in his essay entitled, "On The Sublime" (soooo original, Edmund Burke), written at the beginning of the 20th century.  The Sublime is a branch of aesthetic philosophy which defines what the quality of greatness is, or that which terrifies and causes awe to the human soul.  Ultimately, The Sublime is defined as something that is so emotionally big that it can't be comprehended when experienced.  It has everything to do with The Romantic Movement in literature, something I can get real nerdy about very quickly.  I was alone when I found out I was pregnant.  When I was younger, I imagined what it would be like to find out you were pregnant and then tell your husband and the joy that would be felt because you loved each other.  I still hope for that one day.  But, the day I found out I was pregnant was harshly different.  I was alone in my bathroom crying and screaming into a towel so that my roommate wouldn't hear me.  I didn't know what to do.

For the next nine months, I would have you believe that I was the epitome of grace under pressure.  I was calm.  I was serene.  I was patient.  I was scared to let anyone see how ashamed I was.  I noticed the stares in the grocery mart when people would ask me if this was mine and my husband's first and I would tell them I'm not married.  Their eyes would dart to my ring finger and they would get this expression on their faces like they were mortified for me.  Mortified: to subject to severe and vexing embarrassment (Miriam Webster Online Dictionary).  Forget the fact that they should be mortified for assuming that everyone who is pregnant is married.  They were embarrassed for me and they would tell me so and suggest that I wear a fake ring just until I had the baby.  

When I was seven months pregnant, Baby Daddy called me and he wanted to come back to me because he had "no where else to go" and if I didn't let him come back then he would "be on the streets".  He didn't want to come back to me because he loved me and he was sorry he cheated on me.  He didn't want to come back to me because he knew he had done wrong and that he let go of the greatest thing that ever happened to him in his life.  Simply, he had no where else to go.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009, I was in pain all day at work.  My boss kept telling me to go to the hospital and I kept telling her that I just pulled a muscle in my back, "no big deal".  She kept telling me I was in labor and I had no color and I needed to go to the hospital.  I told her, "we are short staffed and you need me here today."  She didn't argue and I stayed.  I went home that night and I couldn't get comfortable.  I was scared.  I didn't have anyone to rub my back or watch over me as I slept in case I went into labor.  When the pain became too unbearable, I grabbed my overnight bag and I went down to my car and I drove to the hospital and I was admitted.  They checked everything and I was only in pre-labor.  They offered me a shot of morphine to help numb the pain and I told them I drove myself.  They asked if my husband could come pick me up.  You wouldn't believe how many times I had that conversation when I was pregnant.  I ended up calling my sister and she and her husband came and picked me up.  He drove my car home and I drove with her.  When I came downstairs, a Lamaze class just got out and all these women and their supportive husbands came out of the room just as I got off the elevator to meet my sister.

The next day, Thursday, November 12, 2009, I went to work and then during my lunch went to my baby doctor appointment and he told me I was in labor.  Apparently, the morphine hadn't worn off yet (small favors).  So I drove myself to the hospital and checked myself in.  Sixteen hours later, early in the morning of Friday the 13th of November, the most perfect child I've ever witnessed was born.  I fell in love with him.  On the 16th I placed him in the arms of a social worker and I left the hospital.  

For nearly 4 years I have protected his father.  I haven't said one ill thing about him.  I have protected a man who never protected me and was never there for me when I needed him the most.  And through all of it, I have beaten myself up.  I have taken all the emotional responsibility on my shoulders.  I have put Baby Daddy on this pedestal for giving me the most sacred gift.  And he did.  He gave me the most sacred gift, but he also left me.  

I've blamed myself.  I'm not enough.  Those words have haunted me.  He left because I fought back.  And so I have been docile.  I'm not loveable, his leaving is my fault.  Those last words are the most hurtful.  For nearly 4 years I have harassed myself with cruelty.  At what point do you finally let yourself off the hook and give yourself a break?  At what point do you finally give yourself a break the way you do to others?  I ask you all the same question.  That's what this post is about.  

Accountability.  There is something to learn in everything, even the easy stuff.  I have learned that I am enough.  I have also learned that it isn't enough to simply say those words.  You have to believe it and live it.  And that's hard, but I'm working on it.  If you don't learn from your greatest hurts then they may happen again.  I chose the wrong guy.  I took a huge risk.  I gambled everything I had on him and I lost and it hurt.  However, my douche-radar is working much better now and that's something to applaud.  Be kind to yourself.  Let yourself off the hook when what's snagged you isn't your's to take responsibility for.  Your actions belong to you.  And the actions of other's belong to them.  Give yourself a break.

Adoption.NET

I want to take a minute and let you all in on an amazing website that has so many resources available to everyone in the adoption world.  It is Adoption.NET and on this website you can find answers to different questions posed in the adoption world by adoptees, birth-mothers, and hopeful adoptive parents.  There are also different articles that you can read regarding important topics in adoption as well as discussion on the latest legislative proceedings regarding adoption in different states.  This website... let's just say I really wish there was something like this website when I was going through the whole process.

This is unbelievably exciting because at the click of a mouse you can connect with people going through the same thing you are going through.  Also, there is a section on topics regarding foster care which is a huge component in the world of adoption.

I know some great women (not personally, but through blogging) who have already contributed such tremendous insight as gust bloggers and I will also be contributing my thoughts as a guest blogger, once everything is arranged.  The goal of the creators of this website is to have this website be the largest database of "everything adoption" on the website.  It's really going to empower a lot of people out there and I am so excited to be a part of it.  Check it out.

If you know of anyone who has found themselves in an unplanned pregnancy, guide them to this website.  If you know of a couple who are struggling to grow their family and they are confused as to how to find information out there regarding any decision they feel they are faced with, guide them to this website.  If you know of a person who was adopted and they are at a place in life where they have a ton of questions and they need some answers, guide them to this webpage.  What an exciting time we live in to have so much valuable information readily available!  Check it out, folks, you won't be disappointed.

Most Sincerely,
Other Mother

http://adoption.net

Monogamy and Keriah

This is weird because I have marriage and death on my mind at the same exact time.  And there is some anger in there as well that I have not been expecting.  I've known birth-mothers who have hated and bad-mouthed the birth-fathers of their child and I never understood that.  I haven't really spoken much about Baby Daddy on here, in detail.  And, quite frankly, I don't know if I'm going to.  We'll see.  For a long time I felt pity for Baby Daddy.  And to this day, I don't even know if he is alive.  And I don't know if I even want to know.  So, there you have it. 

Scratch that.  I just spent the last hour-and-half trying to locate him.  The last electronic imprint I can find on him is from 2010.  I also found his mug-shot from 2006, which was 2 years before I met him.  When I knew him, I didn't know he was a criminal.  I didn't know of his criminal background until he cheated on me and left me for another woman whom was already married... and pregnant with his child, it turns out.  As if that isn't enough salt in the wound, it turns out she was 3 weeks further along in her pregnancy than I was when I found out I was pregnant.  She ended up mis-carrying due to her meth use.  I learned all of that from his mother when I was seven months pregnant.  He wanted to come back to me, I told him where to go, and that was the last time I ever heard from him.  I never told him I was pregnant.  That's where I'm at right now, emotionally speaking.  I never expected to feel these feelings of anger towards him.

I am frustrated that I can't find any information about him after 2010, but I'm not frustrated for me, I'm frustrated for "my" little boy.  I hope Baby Boy will never have a desire to look up his dad, but if he does, I'm sad for him that he will most likely be led to a dead-end.  And I'm relieved that he will most likely be led to a dead-end, and sometimes... it's horrible.  Sometimes, I hope that dead-end is that his dad has passed away.  And then I feel pity again for Baby Daddy that if he is gone from this life, that he left it never knowing the beauty and light of "my" son, whom he helped to create.  And then I hate him.  I've never said that on here.  I hate him for his lies.  I hate him for his manipulation.  I hate him that he used me so poorly.  I hate him that he misled me.  And then I realize that not all the hate belongs to him, because at that time in my life, I thought that to love someone was to trust them... and I trusted him way too easily.  So, there you have it.

What do I tell Baby Boy if he ever asks about his dad? 

Then there is my job.  I work in the field of divorce.  I see divorce every day, Monday-Friday, and an occasional weekend when I have to take work home with me.  The type of work I do, I am a microscope to parents who are involved in extremely high-conflict divorce cases and who can't co-parent together and in attempts to emotionally injure the other parent, they use their children as ammunition in their war against each other.  Sometimes I find myself wondering, "What if I had told Baby Daddy?"  And then I go to work, and that question is answered as I navigate and negotiate between warring couples and advocate for their children.  My little boy... it scares me to think what his life could have been like. 

Marriage is a curious thing to me.  I want to be married so badly, it's unreal how deeply I feel this hole inside me that will only ever be filled by companionship of a husband and our beautiful children.  I'm no where near that, and that realization tinges and tingles my eyes with tears of frustration that I push back because I'm afraid to let them loose.  I have this fear that lives in the back of my head that keeps telling me that marriage doesn't last.  And that fear is mostly correct, 50% of marriages don't last.  But, 50% do.  And I want my future marriage to be part of the 50% that lasts.  But, how does that work?  And that's when the fear in the back of my head whispers loudest.  I don't trust men with me and I don't want to. 

What I want is to trust one man with me, just one.  And that man, I know he's out there and I know he is looking for what I have to offer him, and I have a lot to offer him.  But, it's getting harder to find him.  I'm not the only single girl who has noticed this.  My roommate and I talk about it all the time.  I just want something real.  Someone who can be real with me and not leave me questioning his motives and whether I'm "doing" our relationship "right", and whether or not he's going to leave me; that's my biggest fear, is to be left.  Does that make sense?  I don't know what I'm doing.  I know what I'm not going to do anymore, and that's all good to know, but when it comes to dating, I have no clue what I'm doing.

What I do know is that I've got to figure some things out about myself still.  I've come a long way, but I haven't gotten "there" yet, wherever "there" is.  I think "there" is a place where I'm content.  Content in a way that is secure.  It makes me think of Keriah.  I don't know how many of you are familiar with Keriah.  I don't know a whole lot about it, I've just been reading up on in.  From what I understand Keriah is part of Shiva, which is a week long mourning period in the Jewish culture that first-degree relatives (mom, dad, sibling) observe at the death of their loved one.  At the funeral, the mourners rend/tear an article of their clothing and they wear this same garment for the whole of Shiva.  It's believed that the practice of Keriah is rooted in a more ancient tradition of tearing at your hair and clawing at your skin during mourning, which from what I understand is forbidden in Jewish law.  But the idea is the same, it's a visual representation of extreme sorrow, while also allowing a mourner to show their anger and sadness in a physical way.  It's quite beautiful, really.  It seems honest.

I think that I'm going through an emotional rendering right now. 

That's an interesting word, "rendering".  It can mean a translation to something else.  "Translation" is also an interesting word with spiritual connotation, but the basic meaning is a change from something to something else, a transition.  I'm in this emotional bog right now where I am transitioning.  I recognize how far I've come and I'm implementing what I've learned and I'm so grateful for it all, but I also realize that there is further to go.  Baby Daddy... I've never felt anger towards him and I do now, and I think that my anger is more honest than my feelings of Zen towards him were because there was no enlightenment in my lack of anger then.  It was fake.  I didn't know how to feel about him.  I was trying to figure out how I feel about me. 

The fact that I feel the way I feel when I remember him tells me that I've got to tear through and remove the part of me that is still hurt.  I can't carry that kind of baggage into a future with a good man. 

I don't know if I've made all these connections effectively enough.  Keriah is about honesty.  It's about transition too, I believe.  It's facing the fact that you hurt and it's letting the hurt be known and seen and felt, and over the course of Shiva, experienced.  And then the mourning ends and you move forward.  I don't know how much of this anger is straight anger or masked sorrow.  That's the thing about grief is it can take a while to sort out what is what.  It's taken me nearly 4 years to realize that I have all of this inside me and that it is directly connected to Baby Daddy.  It makes sense.  It wasn't just Baby Daddy though.  It was all the guys who came before him, too.  None of them were "keepers".  I was desperate for marriage and an identity because I had no clue who I was.  I know better who I am today.

It's hard not to compare all the men I've dated.  They were all scumbags.  Truthfully, they were emotionally and physically abusive scumbags.  Today, I know a couple of guys who aren't scumbags, they are really great men.  And one of them I really want to see what will happen with because he's great.  I've talked about him recently on here.  I don't know what he thinks of me.  He's hard to read.  And I can't help but recognize that I'm probably really hard for him to read, as well.  Heck, I find myself hard to read and I'm me... so, there you have it. 

This post seems really depressing, or maybe not, I don't know.  I'm emotional right now, so it's hard to gauge how it comes across.  What I do know is that I'm not the woman I used to be and that's good, and it's also sad because I lost a lot of innocence.  But I'm stronger now than I ever was and that's a good thing.  I don't know how I will ever answer the question about Baby Daddy and that's not good enough for Baby Boy because every person, at some point in their life, wants to know where they came from.  I will learn how to answer that question because I know it will be important to Baby Boy and he deserves to know if he ever wants to know.  What I do know is that the confusing emotions I feel right now about Baby Daddy are more honest than I've ever allowed myself to feel since I met him and it's uncomfortable, but change and transition usually are, and so I'm doing it right.