I didn't have a clue as to what I was doing with a newborn. I had no relatives around me, no friends to whom I could turn and ask for support - I was all alone - and scared out of my mind. My ex-husband had left to find a better life in a bottle. I was penniless, jobless and ready to be institutionalized. And that lasted about a day until I decided, ah, hell, I can do this. I've never quit anything before. And then I realized that this 9 pound load was a human being who was going to be dependent upon me for every thread of his life - at least until he was 18 and probably even after that. But I did know one thing: I was absolutely, forever irrevocably in love with my son. And like a mother wolf, the fiercely protective instinct welled up in me like a volcano erupting with unimaginable force.
Until of course I discovered that I was a miserable failure as a woman/mother because these grotesquely huge boobs that hung lifelessly on my chest were exactly that - lifeless. No milk, nada. And frankly, and I am sure that I will be hung up and tarred and feathered for this comment but I was glad. The thought of my breasts being used for food disgusted me beyond comprehension - ugh. Gross. When I called my OB and explained same, he said "get some formula, he'll be fine." So I did and my kid thrived. He ate like a pig, burped up enough "blah" probably to fill those bottles right back up but he gained weight, he smiled, he crapped, he peed and he thrived. That's all that mattered to me. I guess I was doing something right.
I was able to get on welfare. I got food stamps and WIC and state-assisted health care. My ex husband did not give me child support and I did not know where he was. Jumping ahead - he was pretty much absent the 1st four years of my son's life. Perhaps it was just as well. I learned how to survive on my own - but then again, I had been doing that pretty much since I was 8 years old but that's another story for another day.
I learned how to change diapers with ease. I made my own "nap" schedule for my son and of course for me. I learned how to heat bottles just right. I learned about vaccinations and fingerprinting my son. I learned about car seats and onesies and twosies and socks and more socks. Days blurred and blended into months. The seasons came and went. I was still alone and my body was as heavy and disgusting as ever and I vowed that I would NEVER have sex again.
Actually, I figured no one would ever want me again.
And just for the record: I was not TRYING to get pregnant when I found out I WAS pregnant in September 1999. I had been on the pill since I was 17 years old (25 years) and never, EVAH been pregnant. But I developed a bad case of bronchitis in Sept. 1999 and was eating antibiotics like they were going out of style. And THAT, said my doctor, was the real reason I became pregnant. I went "huh?" and he said, "Duh, don't you know that antibiotics can kill the effect of the birth control pill?" And I screamed after 25 FUCKING years is THAT what you are trying to tell me? And he shrugged, smiled and said "I can draw you a picture, too, of the other way." I politely declined then decided if I wanted to kill myself then or wait a day or two.
This was my luck. And that bad luck was going to be my life. I was going to pay for all the bad things I had done which were not really bad by the usual means but I figured this pregnancy and subsequent single parenthood future was going to be a punishment - a banishment from life as I used to know it.
At 8 months, disaster hit and my kid came down with a stomach virus that lasted for six weeks. Nothing would stay in that kid's stomach and once again, the fear I had quelled over the past 8 months - I figured I was skating through this single mom job and not doing too bad a job - wrapped itself around me like a constricting snake. As if the life hadn't been squeezed out of already.
Somehow, someway, my son survived and so did I. His first birthday came and went. It was summer, July, 2001. I remember the clarity of the day. I was sitting on the back porch with my son. He was in a diaper, his blond hair glinting in the sunlight. He grabbed a hold of a chair or something and pulled himself up. He looked at me, smiled and took three steps to me and fell into my arms in a gale of giggles and smiles. And then I realized so THIS is what it's like.
Of course when he said "Mama' for the first time, I knew I could do this. I knew I could win this battle I thought I had lost when I hadn't even started fighting.
Tomorrow: Job Search, Child Care Search and Starting to Let Go - Just a little bit at a time.
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