Co-Parenting : Forgiveness Required

I may need to do a search through all the posts on this blog to find it, but sometime back in 2011 I wrote a piece about forgiveness. The act of forgiveness, how and why and the importance of it all. Four years later I can finally report back.

Four years ago I was still rather bitter about getting divorced. Hurt and angry, but I had decided that maybe forgiveness was the approach for me. So, I took a deep breath, said many prayers and chose to forgive my ex husband for his behavior while we were married.

This was not an easy choice.

There is something that happens in a break up that makes everything seem worse. Everyone you know chooses a side. You may think that I mean his side or my side, but I don’t. They decide how each single parent should co-parent when the other party hasn’t lived up to their end of the bargain during the marriage.

The most popular among my peers was the one that removed my ex-husband from not just the marriage, but from our life. As though POOF I had two kids and POOF I magically get a check every month to help cover their living expenses.

I was so angry at the time that I do have 100% parental custody. I could fly to China tomorrow without my ex-husbands permission and he would just have to deal with it. I won’t…but I have the ability. Anger makes us do so many things.

Then I thought about simply arranging supervised visitation. Only I was so poor. We were barely scraping by so there was no way to cover the cost of providing supervised visitation. I was quite irrational at this point so I maintained our distance. We saw my ex-husband about once every few months and not for very long, a couple of hours at most.

Then something I found sadder than the possibility of having to see my ex-husband on a more regular basis. It was our sons. They didn’t know him.

As a child of a single family home I know what that is like. My father was not a good person, at least as far as his behavior back in 1985, but we were raised by my mother and maternal grandparents. I had a relatively happy childhood. We had our drama, but what family doesn’t? Perhaps we had more drama than average, but I think we are all more interesting to talk to because of it…anyway. That’s a different story. I didn’t know my father. I knew what other people thought of him. I knew where he was from and what I thought of the people from that place. But I didn’t know him and that is a great cloud over the happy times. All of those times I saw my friends with their dads were sad times for me because I had never known what that was like.

As I became an adult I tried looking for my father to no avail. He didn’t want to be found in the digital age and therefore had no digital footprint. That didn’t mean the sadness was gone. “Who was he?” “How was he?” “Did I have other sisters or brothers?” “Did I have a step mom I didn’t know about?” Always having those questions is sad. I didn’t want that for my kids. Who was I to make that choice for them?

That is what I found to be this sad thing. I was an adult who had lived in a set of circumstances that made me mad. So mad that I thought it a good idea to remove the person that held the other half of their DNA in his genes.

But was I so angry that I couldn’t find it within myself to forgive a man for his behavior? How could I call myself a good person if at the first test of faith I proved to have none? It is no secret that I am a Christian, perhaps a different breed than the ones you read about, but I try to have a simple faith, based on love. In our church we are taught to love and forgive.

I was faced with two options.

One my kids didn’t really remember who this guy was that we sometimes saw really was, so we could just gently fade away and he could become a memory.

Two embrace the pain, and allow them to fully know their father and make the decision for themselves.

To do the first would have been the easiest choice for someone as angry as I had been. He didn’t know where we lived, who we hung out with, where I worked, all I would have had to do was change my phone number and we would have been done. Simple. Clean. Heartbreaking for him and for me. I would be setting my kids up for the same thought process I always had. Always wondering why I wasn’t good enough to be loved by the people who are supposed to love you the most.

So I embraced the pain. The hardest and easiest choice on so many levels. The cold aloof anger has been replaced by hesitant resolve. Hesitant because everything we went through leaves a mark on the psyche, but resolve because it has turned out to be the right thing to do. My kids are 4 and 8 now. They know their father. They’ve seen where he sleeps and we know how he lives, where he lives, and why he lives.

Over the last four years we have fought and cried and been angry for past ills all over again, but there has been so much forgiveness and contrition. So much of what we have worked through together has made us better people for our next partners. We know more of how each of us failed the other that we will continue to work hard to not make the same mistake. We know that finding that next perfect person for our new selves will be hard, we each have a longer list of must haves…okay at least I do..but I am optimistic about the prospects.

Forgiving him has taught me more about my faith than any pastor could ever tell me. Forgiveness is not something that you do once and it is done, it is something you do every time you wake up and face the day. It’s choosing who you are and not wavering from that path every single morning. Choosing your words and actions before your emotions, and never letting the bad times get the best of you.

It’s also choosing to put the best choice instead of the popular choice.

Special note…A physically abusive spouse should be handled differently. An alcoholic husband or wife who did not exhibit abusive traits is very different from an abusive spouse. Alcoholics tend to only want to inflict pain on themselves though they learn to manipulate what they want out of people to get what they want. That’s how so many nurturing people become enablers. It’s like they can smell your ability to empathize on your sleeve don’t fall for that either.

Christmas 2013

It’s Christmas Eve. Friends and families are gathering, waiting for Jolly Old Saint Nick. Kids and bigger kids ever so eager to open their gifts.

Tonight parents and grandparents are wrapping gifts and welcoming visitors, trying to settle everyone for this holiday. It’s truly a gorgeous celebration that brings out the best in us.

Tonight reveling in the delight of a small Christmas miracle I’m thinking of the Christmas’ past in my life.

I have been feeling the dull ache of the season as a single person. No longer hollow, but still lonely. The kind of lonely that only other people divorced after a decade of togetherness will understand.

Christmas was Danny’s holiday.

We would spend the day with his family. Since age 20 I’ve spent few holidays with my family always content to keep with his family traditions. It was while blaring Shinedown driving way too fast home trying to drown out the ache that I made this realization. I burst into tears and was thankful no one could see me.

The terrible thing about this gorgeous holiday is that it brings back the pain that you thought was gone. The ache the loneliness. The anger. And you don’t know if you’re angry at the person or yourself.

Of all the times all year long that you just do your routine and think little of the other person who used to help manage your life this is the time of the year for the painful reminder of them missing. It really doesn’t matter what the reality was like at the time our minds fix it and we romanticize the past…we wonder what could have been if they had been a little more flexible or if you had been more tolerant. You daydream and convince yourself that just maybe…

But it’s not real. It will never be real so we cling to reality. The reality of the situation is all that matters.

My reality is that for all the promise the past held it got shattered, but it left me with the two brightest beacons of hope…my sons. I do not get to do things perfectly for them even if I would like to, the job that I work too much at for too little keeps the bills paid, but severely lacking in the gift giving ability department.

This Christmas I thought I had it figured out, but still came up short. While out for gifts I had gone up and down the aisles picking things out, hoping, praying I could get them everything they wanted. I know I can’t get them everything, but I can adjust their lists to fit my meager budget. By the time I left I had a few items that I had to leave behind.

There was no way I could afford them and God knows that I’m not going to spend every penny I have on Christmas.

Christmas is – in my religious tradition – about God…a celebration of the eternal, a celebration of birth and life and giving…but not of gifting. Give in ways large or small, but that is very different from gifting.

Anyway, I left it to God.

He replied…

When I came home this evening (after crying my eyes out in the car) I walked in the house and my babysitter had a surprise. Someone – I don’t know her name, but she works for Joshua Tree – had given the boys gifts.

Even now as I type it I have tears, because it’s all the things that I had looked at but couldn’t afford to buy.

Everything.

It seems that God guided the hand of a perfect stranger.

For as sad as I felt in the car before I arrived home, from loneliness and pain, I felt awed. I have no other word for it, but awe. I’m encouraged and blessed beyond words at this person’s kindness and I wish I could express how eternally grateful I feel.

There are so many things I could say, but they just seem lacking.

However I needed to share this with you all to perhaps give you a whisper of prayers answered. It’s a strange thing God’s been doing so openly lately in so many areas of my life. I just had to share.

From me and my family to yours I’d like to wish you a very blessed and Merry Christmas!!

The Inevitable Inspirational Research

Monday I shared this blog about starting Globe School. I have spent some down time during the day re-researching this insanity.

I just wanted those who read to know that I think it is slightly insane to leave everything you know and everything you’ve been taught to believe behind. As adventurous as it is – as much as I want this – there (in the world) is still that voice inside and out there that says this is impossible.

For the sake of my life I hope it is not.

Do I think this will be easy? No. I think it will be very hard, but perhaps it won’t be as hard as I imagine. I will no longer be able to tell my children that if they don’t behave we will go straight home!

Home will be where ever we are.

I have learned however that I am not the only person who would rather spend their lives traveling than as a random citizen. I am not the only one that has ever sought to teach their children on the road and outside of a classroom. I am not the only one that has ever wanted to circle the globe by car, foot, train, bike, boat, and with very few plane rides.

Come to think of it I should only need two, unless I can find a friend with a big boat. Now that would be an adventure!

I found this blog – Almost Fearless – and the author wrote this e-book about how to get started. I read it. I am still working through some of the questions it raised, but this is a work in progress.

First things first – set a date. I set one before I ever read the book. June 1, 2014…or January 1, 2014…really depends on how the universe (or God or whatever you want to call it)works. I prefer God. He is in charge of this.

Second – what is holding you back?

In a word…PLENTY!

Not the idea, but self doubt. Self-doubt has held many adventurers back for millenniums. We want to go out an conquer the world…but what we really mean is that we want to conquer our little corner of it never seeing what’s on the other side!

A film posted on the Irish Polyglot’s Blog about his 29 life lessons learned from being a constant traveler caught my eye.

 

This is reality for so many of us. We do everything “right” only to find that at the end all we have ever done is the journey around our own little corner of the world.

You never had your “big break” because maybe your “big break” was meant to happen in Spain or Mauritania or Australia.

I have for the most part burst my own bubble on writing my way through the planet because many people think this way. Plus – I am lazy…who wants to do that kind of research! I am not going to make a list of bus routes and car parks and can you climb a hill to see the sea.

However – there are alternatives.

I found WWOOF. It stands for “Willing Workers On Organic Farms” this fits quite nicely within the parameters of Globe School. Teaching the boys about plants and cultivation without the use of pesticides and chemicals. It gives you a prearranged schedule to work in trade for a bed and your meals. It is an interesting idea that I may try out locally before the end of the year. I am sure SOMEONE in Texas does this.

I have also started a Couchsurfing account. Not that I have plans of surfing couches, but I know there are families and single mothers out there who are travelers. I offer them use of my couch in exchange for their information.

How do they make it work?

Since I have had my account for a total of 30 hours, I haven’t learned that much from the site. I have explained some things to do in and around Houston. I am a great tour guide for Texas, especially Houston on the cheap, but we must progress beyond our door.

Remember what Bilbo used to say: ‘It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.’ – J.R.R. Tolkien

I am sort of hoping to get swept off to some place truly spectacular, doing something truly spectacular. However, I know that I don’t want my expectations to meet disappointment, so I will just say that I hope my adventure is good. Good can be dull or it can be interesting, but either way it is good.

Sunset in Wyoming – Definitely on my list to see.

If you would like to learn more about the places we will go follow my board on Pinterest – Globe School.

Do you have any helpful websites that I can browse? If so, link in the comments!

Why is this even an issue!? (Scout’s dropping ban on preference)

I am a cub scouts mom and a new person to the realm of being a scout. I was never into scouting as a child. Girl Scout cookie sales just didn’t appeal to me.

Boy Scouts though has always sounded cool. Camping, canoeing, going on adventures!

If only I had been born a boy. I would have loved it and participated for endless years.

But I wasn’t.

So I couldn’t.

NOW though – I have boys! Two of my very own to do these adventures with all the time!

Boy Scout Motto “Be Prepared”

Let me tell you what a blessing being a scout has been! We’ve been camping, made lots of wonderful friends, and participate in some awesome charity work.

Do you want to know what has never come up – not once!?

Sexual preference.

I don’t care whose going home to whom and come to think of it I don’t think anyone else does either. Like most things in life we are there to broaden our children’s’ horizons, not to change ours.

I read this article (well parts of it), and I can’t help but be intolerant of some of the disgraceful bias presented by religious leaders of my own Christian Sect!

As an Ally I tend to think more progressive and hope for human rights for all. I am regularly befuddled by prejudice in people that I know and love.

I am a Christian and there is only one hard and fast rule “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you” (John 15:12)

Then again the Golden Rule is always appropriate.

“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 7:12)

Basically I think the Almighty would agree with my view-point in tolerance and humility before chastising a populace based on a personal preference or birth fact without regard for their humanity.

We are all humans. We are all part of the human experience.

Why is this even an issue? Why are people so bent on intolerance that they can’t see past their prejudice and sectism?

I hope the Scouts do drop their ban. I hope that Scout parents nationwide understand that teaching your child about bias and hate is against everything that the Scouts stand for.

   Boy Scout Oath

What a difference a year makes!

I almost feel like I should apologize for my absence. I have been away too long. I will try to get better about this work/life balance thing. It’s just not as easily as it reads.

I have been thinking about where I was at this time last year and how much has changed in the last 12 months. Also about how much life is going to continue to improve in the next 12.

I can confirm the power of prayer.

I know you all remember the posts, the sadness, the written prayers for guidance and relief.

Turns out – God is listening.

Last year I had lost one of my best friends, was barely scraping by financially and barely holding it together mentally…scratch that. I wasn’t holding it together at all.

I was frustrated and lost and broke beyond words.

All I could think about was what could have been. I couldn’t see my light and I was having problems recognizing the parts of life that made me happy. I always asked myself how could so much happen to me in a year that my life and my self were completely unrecognizable?!

I think for me the answer lies in strength. I had to find strength to be alone. Strength to know that I could climb the mountain…metaphorically speaking.

I had to be willing to forgive the hurts totally and completely.

Who am I?

Another big question 12 months ago…I think this will always be a question for me because I learn and evolve daily. I am not set in my ways. I don’t believe that my way is the only way – even if sometimes I say it is.

Perhaps knowing this about me also answers the question.

A year ago I did not know that I could change so completely with little internal effort. I prayed.

I sat up at night crying into my hands praying for God to show me the way. I laid my burdens down and begged him to fix me.

I remember saying, “I quit! I don’t know how to do it. I don’t know what to do. I have no money. No new job possibilities. No food. No furniture. It’s all in your hands now. You guide me. You lead me. I am depleted.”

I think we all know this feeling, the hollow emptiness that creeps into our souls. It saps our strength and makes us question our every intention. Total vulnerability and despair.

I don’t know if I had ever done that before, placed my every thought, possession and fiber of my being in to God’s hands. I really can’t remember a time when I allowed myself to be so out of control with myself. Spiritually speaking, of course.

The changes came slowly.

First it was my attitude toward the situation. I could either continue to wallow in the pit of despair or I could pick myself up and start all over again.

So, I picked myself up. I did the daily routine. I forced myself to take the kids to the park, make play dates, bake cookies, clean house. All of those things that normal people take for granted.

And I prayed for strength.

I read books on codependency. How could I change this about myself if I didn’t know the behaviors that had been used to describe my life of 10 years?

I educated myself.

Next (about three months later) I realized I couldn’t do the daily grind at the university anymore and I quit. Granted I had a different life in mind when I quit…but what does that matter now. Point was I was unhappy; I was useless in the role I was in because I wasn’t busy. I can do a lot of things all the time or I can do nothing all the time, but remembering to do one thing once a month about drove me mad and I never remembered to do it. So, let’s face it…because I didn’t like being bored, I did a terrible job.

I prayed. God showed me my escape and I left.

I wrote.

March 2012 was the busiest month ever on this little blog. I went to Starbuck’s and wrote, almost every week day. I started a book or two and got to know how I felt about being me.

I found self-confidence…it had been missing for a while.

I prayed, God started to light my path.

A week into my employment sojourn I started to reapply to every temporary agency that I had ever heard of. I worked it. I went to interviews and submitted resumes; met lots of rising stars in corporate Houston. None of them wanted me.

So I stopped trying so hard.

I went into Accountemps one day in a last ditch effort to find anything. I redid all the testing I had done the year before. I took a new typing test. I filled out paperwork for hours. I looked up phone numbers I hadn’t called in years.

I sat quietly in a room until a man I had never met walked in and got to judge me.

I prayed.

God listened.

Evan got to play God for me that day. Apparently my resume was good enough to send to a few places, so I sat a while. I left with two interviews with companies the very next day.

I prayed. “God…I’m almost out of money again. Show me the way.”

I wrote about it I am sure.

I was a new person by every measure of the word. New attitude toward people and life. New outlook and fresh perspective. I was happy to be young. I was happy to be a mother. I was ready to embark on the world and make something of me. At least in my little corner of the world.

I prayed some more and went to the first interview.

Two nice guys with a logistics firm not too far from my tiny apartment.

I left with a job if I wanted one.

“God show me. God lead me.”

I arrived for the next interview a little early, but not too early. It was in a run down old bank in a small town near my small town. A ten minute drive every day and I could be at work. It was perfect.

What was I looking for?

A job in purchasing or logistics that could use my experience but not one that was too big and would have lost the human element. A place I could grow into. A place that would keep me busy. A place that felt like home.

The second interview wasn’t much of an interview, more of an in depth job description and run down of duties. I explained my past experiences and left feeling pretty good about it.

I called Evan when I got to my car and told him that if they wanted me, I wanted this job.

Not even five miles down the road and I had a job that started the next week. I was ecstatic!

Prayers answered!

I have been busier than I ever imagined since beginning in April. If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you know just how busy I mean. I am working 50 hours a week and have enough work for 80 hours a week!

But I have a life. I have a family that needs me and I want to want to be at work while I am at work.

I am breathing easier.

A few months ago the boys and I changed apartments within our complex so that we could all have a little more space.

Another prayer answered.

We’ve been able to employ one of our dearest friends so that she has a job that allows her the flexibility to live the life she wants and the love for my kids that I have. A person I trust explicitly.

Another prayer answered.

I have new prayers these days, but mostly prayers of Thanksgiving.

I know I have been absent lately, but I feel so blessed and happy that I can not begin to express how thankful I am.

Thank you God and my family for all that you have brought me through in the past year or so. With you my life has been a miracle.

Happy Thanksgiving you guys!

Topics coming soon

Ever have so much going on in your mind you don’t know where to start? Blogging is a fabulous way to get it out of your head and into the world, but so many of the anecdotes I have rolling around in my head need to be elaborated on and there is just not the time at the moment.

Here is a little list of topics that will be coming in the weeks ahead.

Feel free to weigh in on any of them and I will include them in my post!

~ Finding Love…this is such a hard thing to do. No one knows the rules any more. Are there rules? Are “The Rules” from Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider still the end all for practical decision making? Or at least…getting your feet wet. Are you allowed to speak to and get to know more than one man before going out on date? A friend of mine tells a tale that her mother dated three men at once and then agreed to one person’s proposal and then she stopped dating the other two. Can men even tolerate the thought these days? What is it that makes people go from relationship to relationship when really they don’t know anything about each other?

~ Child’s Play…making the most of the time you have with your kids. As a single parent working a daunting job I still want to make memories with my kids. I still want them to feel like I am present even when I am not. I want them to know I love them. I want them to have fun care free childhoods.

~ Turning a Blind Eye…I posted a photo (below) with a quote from John Berger today on Facebook and it certainly needs a longer explanation than I have been able to give in the comments. I believe in helping the poor as long as they are helping themselves. I don’t want a redistribution of wealth, I just think we shouldn’t ignore an epidemic. Sending money to disasters is all well and good, but look around your own town. How could you help there?

~ Computer Security…kind of a research project of mine. Coming soon are all manner of SOPA/ACTA/CISPA related votes and you need to be informed. Not to mention it’s a big election year, so what do you think the candidates believe when it comes to your rights to privacy, piracy, sharing of thoughts and ideas, intellectual property, and more in a world where nothing is done in the real world. The wealth of nations is transferred easily at the touch of a button and a kitten dunking a basketball in Milwaukee is news in Thailand.

As usual I type what I want about topics I find interesting. Things I want to know. Projects that need to be researched questions that need to be answered. Poems that need to be written and words that need to form sentences that form ideas which are made to be shared.

Reblog of Courageous from Oct 2011

I am reblogging this today because somethings need to be heard or read again. I love the meaning of this song. I hope you’re having a great day!

Small Wonders & Other Thoughts

On the way to work this morning I was hearing this song for perhaps the 100th time, I was singing along and I feel compelled to share it with you. It was written for the men in the world. Telling you about who you were made to be.

Who you should strive to be.

The influences on life and culture don’t speak to who a man should be anymore. They speak to how he should look and what he should be able to buy.

Who do you think you should be? What do you think you should be doing?

A few years ago, after I left my husband for the first time I discovered that EVERY woman in my office – there were about 35 of us – had been divorced at least once. Everyone. They had started lives with men and then found that although they looked old enough, they were…

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My Birth Story

This morning there was a conversation between folks on Twitter under the hashtag #borntoosoon. Check it out. This post is directly related to that conversation and sharing those stories. I am blessed to share, but I know that not everyone’s story is quite so dramatic or life driven. Some people are sick when they have their babies with out life factor contributions.

Having a child is supposed to be a beautiful experience. You’re supposed to glow and clean and have the whole baby makes three thing. Right?

To tell you about my birth I must first tell you a little about my life…and some details may be too much for some, but it is true. All of it…and part of what’s made me who I am.

It all started sometime in August 2005.

I was eating my favorite salad sprinkled with gouda, cashews, and cranberries. Each bite of my salad was delicious. I crunched and munched on the butter lettuce and yummiest nummies money could buy. I was at the restaurant my husband was the chef of and they made wicked awesome food. As I finished my salad I smelled…something…I still don’t know what it was, but I barely made it to the bathroom before I lost my salad.

I have never eaten another of those salad.

That evening my husband kept asking me if I was feeling okay. “No, I think I have a stomach bug.”

However…this stomach bug as I called it continued for another two weeks.

The evening I took my pregnancy test was the evening I had decided to run pizzas for the restaurant down to a high rise downtown. (I do mean literally run.) I had nothing better to do that evening so after work (I was a freight forwarder.) I helped out. Upon my return that evening Kate (the owner of the restaurant) pressed a test into my hand and said it was time.

When I got home I took the test and before even 30 seconds had past it turned positive. Who really needs the full two minutes?! Really?

I looked around our apartment. The apartment we had lived in – maybe two months – and almost cried. One bedroom, wooden floors, wooden walls, and so expensive! Not baby friendly in the least and we had not been able to rid it of sand fleas. (Yes those are real.) I walked to the living room and showed my husband who was ecstatic. He hooped and hollered and had a drink. He said it was celebratory, and it may have been, but as an alcoholic he was going to have a drink whether the test came back positive or negative.

I knew without a doubt that I would keep the baby. There was never a question of that. This was my baby and I was 25 years old. I didn’t have much of a clue, but I knew I could handle a baby, alone or with my husband.

Within a month we were issued an evacuation warning for Katrina…the big one. The hurricane that destroyed so much of the Gulf Coast. Luckily we didn’t have to leave, but we had an influx of people from the Eastern states moving west. Then there was the evacuation for Rita. The second hurricane to hit the gulf that season. Knowing that we would be evacuating we planned to leave at 11 am on that Wednesday. We were in traffic for 6 hours. Normally our drive is an hour and a half to that particular destination. Can we say stress? Oh and it was not we as in my husband and I, it was we as in my mother, my niece, my brother, and myself. My husband chose to stay.

A few days of what should have been rest and relaxation were not. I was tense. Super tense. My alcoholic husband was left in a city shut down he could do anything if left alone. Ugh – it was horrible. He did the worst thing ever. I mean I couldn’t have imagined anyone doing this, but he did. He broke into my parents house seeking booze. My parents who don’t drink.

I believe in wedding vows and stood by the whole for better or worse vow. I have stood by it over and over no matter what happened.

I believe it was at my next appointment that my OBGYN told me that my blood pressure was looking a little high. Ugh…you think?!

Weeks past with no contact from my family…I continued to work, go home, sleep a lot, get sick a lot. I soaked in the tub a lot. I continued to allow the problems in my life to grow instead of changing anything. Looking back (you know hindsight) there are so many other things that I could have done. Left. Run. Never gone back. But the past is the past and I can’t change anything…except change the present.

I was four months pregnant when one afternoon I went home to find my husband wallowing in self-pity. The restaurant he had been working at was closing because they weren’t making enough money. The owners had announced it before their shift began and my husband – instead of completing the day and final two weeks – left. He walked to the liquor store and then to the apartment. He drowned his sorrows and that night was the first of our major fights.

I never really cared what he did before we had another life to take care of, but now we were responsible for another person. A helpless person. A person that need us to put them first.

I screamed he hit the wall, screamed back and drank more.

The next few weeks are a blur. I was still getting sick on a daily basis. The baby was growing. The OB was still concerned with my blood pressure, but it wasn’t bad enough to put me on anything. But if it didn’t go down she would put me on bed rest, so I tried. I ignored the chaos that was my spouse and continued my routine. Work, food, sleep, bath, sleep, repeat.

I tried to keep all the bills paid, but I was missing work because I was so sick and the husband wasn’t working…apparently it wasn’t a priority. “There’s time!” he would say.

We lost our electricity first, then our gas, then we lost our apartment. At six months pregnant I went to live in a pay by the week motel in the worst neighborhood in Houston.

We ate food from restaurants or what could be heated up in a microwave. (I don’t own a microwave now…the taste makes me want to vomit.)

We rode the bus anywhere we needed to go and it took three hours to get to my doctors appointments that were only 10 miles away. I worked. I couldn’t see doing anything else. I worked and saved what I could and scrimped by. Danny drank, ran errands, but mostly he drank.

At 27 weeks I ended up in the hospital. My blood pressure was so high that the doctor was certain I was going to have seizures. She had the team at Memorial Hermann bring it back down. I spent three days in antipartum. Just trying to stay calm and figure out what to do. So I wrote a plan and started working the plan.

After that I went to the doctor every week. She would run tests. She would give me a thing to collect a protein sample (if you have had a baby you understand and if you don’t know ask I will comment about it.) Everything kept going up. She had me checking my blood pressure several times a day. If it got beyond a certain point I was to lay down, feet up.

It was somewhere around week 30 that Danny got a job. His plenty of time excuse…so he went to work at a different restaurant downtown. He figured he had 10 weeks to get everything in order. He said this was his plan the whole time. (sure.)

At 32 weeks and 2 days I had my last OB appointment. She was not happy at the level of protein, the height of my blood pressure, or the edema that had slowly built to ginormous proportions in my legs. The straw that broke the camels back?? The size of my nose. I have a little nose by most measure, at least normal. It had grown. I was looking a bit like a clown.

She had me exit to the hospital. I took one bus back downtown and then the train to the hospital and walked in and took the elevator up to the 7th floor. They were waiting and asked where I had been. I said I didn’t have a car. “Oh.” said the nurse.

They immediately hooked me up to monitors and started IVs. I got antibiotics and then a shot of Benadryl because I am allergic to antibiotics. Around 8 pm they started inducing me, it was time to have the baby. I freaked out. I was supposed to go put the deposit down on an apartment the next day! I was supposed to get the furniture out of storage. I was supposed to work more! I was supposed to have another 8 weeks! I was given a sleeping pill and a shot of stadol and told night night.

The next day I woke up when the anesthesiologist came in the room to hook me up to a epidural drip. Nice…

The doctor wanted to be prepared for the what if’s and she had them giving me something. So I now had five bags of stuff hanging dripping into me. I got two shots of steroids to help the babies lungs develop as quickly as possible. My husband disappeared for a while and said he would be back. I called my mom, my sister, my sister-in-law and they all came as soon as they could. We had a sit in. A watch and wait and watch tv and only when Danny left was there any laughter. Any joy.

I couldn’t freak out that day. I was on way too much medication. The cirvadel did not work for inducing me, so it was replaced with pitocin and I sat there all day hoping to have my baby naturally.

It was 6:45 pm when the plan changed.

My son was having complications and my urine had turned brown…that would be a sign my liver and kidney’s were shutting down. My body had had enough and was quitting on me. Just when I needed it to work. I never dialated past a 2. I was wheeled to the OR and given enough medication to knock a horse out and Dr. Prom had Elijah out of me in 20 minutes. He was born at 7:15 pm, March 23, 2006. My husband was there. The NICU team was waiting. Elijah cried but only just.

I don’t remember his APGAR score, I was just glad he was there. I was glad to have him born in one of the top hospitals in the nation. I was glad to be on the mend. Glad to be alive. Glad to see the end.

I spent the next five days in bed…mostly…I got round after round of magnesium and fluids and pain medication. I learned to manage the NICU security staff. I learned where the NICU library was and read up on the benefits of what would help my son the most. I couldn’t do much at first but the nurses were happy when they saw me wheel myself in every day.

I was in the hospital 7 days. The day I left was torture. It was 3 pm and I was told to go home and not come back for at least 48 hours. Um…not only no but hell no. I was back the next day. I spent every day there. Learning, holding, and helping my son.

To the point that I was readmitted due to complications with my incision. It reopened. The edema that had built up in my body was coming out any way it could and one day I was sitting in the NICU quietly holding my son when I felt something like water on my legs. I put him back in the isolet and walked to the bathroom. I think many women would have fainted. I calmly walked out of the NICU and back to the seventh floor. I told the nurse at the window that I had a problem. Held the cover up that I was holding away from my body and she grabbed some help and moved me into a room.

I spent another week in the hospital. The following two weeks I had home health. By the end of the third I was finally in our new apartment. Two bedroom in a great, family friendly neighborhood. Things were working out.

What did I learn? Nothing works as planned – ever…even something that is as natural as having a child.

Any other time in the past I would be dead now. I wouldn’t have made it past the 27th week.

I have also learned that life factors are major indicators of Pre-E, Eclampsia, and HELLP Syndrome. There is a reason things are supposed to follow a plan. But even if you have a plan, something can and will mess it up.

If you would like any information on premature birth and contributing factors visit www.marchofdimes.org

Now we are 6 years later…happy, healthy and growing.

A question to Single Parents

How do you do all that you do?

I for one know that I don’t do everything I wish I could. I tend to sacrifice the things that I want to do for me for the things that I want us all to do as a family. For the life I want us to have as a family.

I admit to crying into my pillow at night. It’s part of failure and loss of what you thought this whole life thing was going to be like. I have somehow unearthed the passionate urge to finish my formal education and really really really want to do it. That however would mean hours away from my children….so priorities come into question.

I have lots of different visions for my path, so I won’t be defined by not completing my degree. I just want one. I want the fun of being around like minded educated people. I love discussing philosophy and the plight of humanity. I love to encourage educational pursuits although I don’t feel that everything taught is accurate.

Go out and experience.

My friends and I have been talking a lot lately about the changes that are going to occur in the Texas Educational system. Well…they are not changes to the system so much as the rewriting of history. The reeducation of teachers to an agenda that makes everything that is wrong in the world seem right. While reading up on these changes I cringe.

That’s another question entirely.

How do I as a single parent – BENT on teaching my child the truth – home school and work full-time to provide for the household?

I will have to homeschool for them to read the great philosophers, to know the why and how of the Constitution, for them to know that history is in fact written and rewritten to fit a bias. The war in Vietnam is a great way to emphasize this theory. BEFORE the internet went all private I did a research paper on this war. I found some incredible real life testimonies that made my blood boil and skin crawl and decide to never join a branch of the armed forces.

I have never been one to bury my head in the sand when it comes to truth. I would rather hurt because someone told me the truth then feel better with a lie. There is no greater injury.

But back to my original question – How do you do all that you do?

Aren’t you tired? I know that last night as I was leaving work I got a list from the sitter and had to go to the grocery store. After an hour and a half of picking up everything we needed I made it home. My son comes running out. I love it when he does this, but then I found out his behavior did not meet expectation yesterday so I have to reprimand him. Then the sitter wants to talk about things that I don’t  care about. I listen. Michael runs up to me and starts screaming when yes I hug him but don’t hand over my telephone. He is a bit of an iphone fanatic. Then all I can remember is the din of noise until about 830 when the kids are finally in bed and I get to sit down to watch TV. However instead of watching anything I pass out on the couch. Throw in a screaming fit and a little playtime at night and you’ve got my evenings.

How do you guys go to school and work full-time?

How are you finding enough time alone to find a partner in life?

Do you ever lose it like I do and send the kids to bed early because their ability to give you five seconds of silence is just gone?

This is all coming because it’s all time to register for classes if I am going to go back to school. I really want that communications degree, but I don’t know if I will find the time or patience.

Single Parenthood is Trying

Holy Tuesday Batman!

It is Easter week and I am sitting at my new desk, typing on my new computer at my new job. I love it here. I can wear jeans and tennis shoes every day and if my hair is a little bit wind-blown no one cares. Alas I love riding with the windows down and the radio loud. This is the kind of place that likes people to stay 30+ years and retire.

This I could get used to.

So, what is going on with me? Besides the shiny new digs? Plenty…

My ex-husband was readmitted to rehab. Yes. It was less than a month before he gloriously (not really) fell off the wagon again. This time though I was not a witness and didn’t try to attempt to save him. I think this should get me life lesson points or something. I didn’t run to his side when he was released from his last rehab facility. That I know gets me points. As that seems to be all I have done for the last 6 years.

In the three weeks I was working at the restaurant where we met I told few people the depths to which we sank in our personal life since disappearing from there so many years ago. The one person I did speak to (because he was our roommate before we had children) got completely irate and my ex should be glad he has disappeared again. That sort of made me sad. Not that he didn’t understand the events of the last 6 years until they were explained by me, but because I never realized how bad things were.

Love Survival really is blinding…

Well…most of the people at the restaurant I avoided like they were the plague for the last six years, but it is in seeing them again that I realize the ex husband was the problem…yes…again.

But guess what – I got the two best parts of him in our boys. Elijah and Michael are amazing.

I have been having problems with Elijah’s anger and behavior, but it is not the end of the world. Although…apparently I think I am yelling too much. Yesterday he told me that I would have been happier if I had never had kids. WHERE DID THIS IDEA COME FROM!? I grabbed him. Hugged him. Talked to him. Held him for a minute while I fought tears. I explained that I would be miserable without them. They are what wakes me up every day and brighten my thoughts every moment. They make me.

I told him to NEVER think that. EVER!

Michael on the other hand…he is nearly two. Any parent knows what that means.

This is the age that we do occasionally wish we weren’t parents because everything is a struggle.

He is trying to exert his independence while I trying to shelter and control. He wants to walk by himself and not hold my hand. He doesn’t realize that I want to hold his hand because the cars will run him over or dogs might eat him. (Not my dogs…I don’t have any…but someone’s.) I do not remember this happening with Elijah, but every night is a battle at bed time. He doesn’t want to sleep in his bed, he doesn’t want to sleep at the appointed hour, he doesn’t want to bathe, he doesn’t want to drink milk anymore. He doesn’t want to listen anymore. He gets frustrated by his inability to communicate and he is willful.

Needless to say evenings have been FUN lately. (Grumble grumble)

This reminds me of another conversation I had recently with Elijah, and what I found in his bag yesterday morning as I was getting him ready for school.

He wants a dad.

Have I told you guys this yet?

He asked me to find a new dad for him because while he loves his dad…the distance and sobriety rules for seeing his kids…he doesn’t see him. Heart crushing agony there (at least on my part.) I feel HORRIBLE for him! It brings up new anger issues within myself. All the things that I hate my ex for rise to the surface when these talks happen. Then there are the papers that I found in his bag. They must have had a “What do you want to be when you grow up?” day.

He wants to be a dad. That’s it. Not a policeman. Not a doctor. Not a pilot. A Dad. I admit to crying a little.

I reached out to my girls group and one of my good friends explained that he doesn’t want to be HIS dad. He wants to be a good parent. He wants to do stuff. He wants to show his kids how to play in the sand and enjoy mundane things.

He wants to be like the person who is raising him.

I hope she is right. I hope that this isn’t another attempt at telling me he wants a dad.

I haven’t talked to him about it yet. I think I will tonight though because he doesn’t get to watch TV or play with toys because he has been lying about his behavior marks lately.

This is the most wonderful, challenging, heartwarming, heartbreaking experience I know of…and it’s only going to go on and on.

So…anyone know any single dads that want a chubby Italian wife with two gorgeous boys? 😉

EDIT: I think (as it is Holy Week) I should say one last thing. I am surviving because I believe that God will never give you more than you are able to handle. He is truly the one that keeps me in His hands and provides for me every step of the way. Without Him I am nothing. Every step of my struggles this last year has only proved that He is making my path. Not me. After looking over my life experiences I can see why the points fit together as they do. Why I had to go through every thing I have been through since childhood. These are the things that God knew I would have to go through to get me where I need to be to be the best I can be.