Unexpected MEGA Life Change and Nightmare Loss

March of 2020 I was getting scheduled for a hysterectomy. Covid hit. The final check-up and diagnostic tests for it were postponed. 

I wasn't supposed to be able to have kids without surgery.

Finally finding a child-free partner who was everything I'd ever wanted, was a dream come true.

Despite my medical condition, we used 'protection' just in case. The protection failed, nature found a way, six weeks before that postponed hysterectomy was going to happen.

...several months ago. 

At first, it felt like my body was violated. Invaded by a pathetic selfish rat/fish I didn't ask for. 

Held hostage by morning sickness that lasted all day and cramps that made walking across a room a challenge and together these made driving impossible. I felt like a prisoner and victim of the alien parasite taking over my body. 

Even taking care of mail and keeping up with normal bills was torture. Sitting perfectly still reading anything was like being on a tilt-a-whirl that just didn't stop. It became impossible. 

I went to the doctor, hoping for an ectopic pregnancy or some other legitimate life-threatening reason to abort. 

Instead, I found out that not only was my pregnancy not ectopic but all the stuff I've been doing for my health the last few years paid off and I am absolutely healthy enough to carry a baby to term, not only that, but the thing was doing incredibly well and giving all the signs of being a genuine genius, (at least according to the books Expecting Better and Brain Rules for Baby 0-5.) 

Since the damn thing wasn't threatening my life, I could not take its life. This decision was hard and made me concerned for my new budding relationship... would it or could it survive morning sickness, my body blowing up like a balloon, stretch marks, or the dreaded pregnancy mask and tearing during delivery?

Res being the everything I ever wanted in life, I didn't want to lose him. 

Holding my breath, preparing for a fight I told him I wasn't going to abort but instead  "Adoption's an option." 

His deer in the headlights expression lasted only a moment. "Whatever you decide I support you," he said pulling me into his arms. 

Well, things didn't stay that way...

Not even a little. The child-free man I fell in love with changed drastically over the next few months. To the point, he got so hurt he went to sleep in his truck because he glanced at my computer and saw something he absolutely did not want to see. 

My child-free partner, a few weeks before this whispered to me with his voice choking, "I want to keep the baby." While I on the other hand was still not quite sure if we as a couple could handle it, either financially or emotionally. So when he glanced at my computer and saw me researching hopeful parents, he was hurt. 

Pregnancy hit me like an overloaded mac truck on a steep decline with no brakes between making me unable to work and being something I absolutely did not plan on in life... If we were going to keep the baby every hope, dream, goal, and idea I had for my life had to change. FAST. 

Luckily my life has been an insane trauma-filled catastrophe leading me from one disaster to delight to horrific nightmare to beautiful accident of serendipity in a chaotic hurricane of amazing. To survive, deal, and thrive through it all I've become a master at exactly one thing in life. MENTAL GYMNASTICS. 

I've seen a lot of people keep kids that shouldn't have because it was what they or their family wanted and it wasn't what was best for the kid. I promised myself when I was six years old I would never do that to a child. 

Back in hypothetical land I also promised myself no matter how hard it was, I would always do what was best for my baby if I ever did get pregnant, even if it was through something like rape because back when I was a child... well the circumstances of my life were unspeakable, but still so much better than those of others I knew. 

Still, it turns out life in hypothetical land is much easier than actual life. The more I read and learned about pregnancy, adoption, and how to care for the life growing within me the more conflicted I became.

Apparently, morning sickness is a sign of a healthy baby and constant morning sickness that lasts past the first trimester is a sign of a genius baby. Add in an ultrasound with a dancing little fetus that does backflips off a tumor, backflips that feel like the caress of a butterfly's wing, and a fairy face that is so beautiful and perfect already it's hard to resist falling in love, and then the little one plays hide and seek with the ultrasound wand as it hides behind a tumor before popping back out again and all of this happening inside me... 

Walls and reasons and rationality crumbled. Poopy diapers, sleepless nights, another person to clothe and feed no longer seemed like quite the nightmare it once did when contrasted with such a strong adorable personality. 

Of course, there were still some struggles. Res, for instance, was not a fan of my sudden craving for raw onions all the time... neither am I. I used to hate onions but then straight plain raw onions, became YUM for almost a month! As for chocolate, it was bye-bye along with all things with little or no nutritional value thanks to nausea. 

Even eating a spinach tomato filled sandwich with white rice bread instead of brown rice bread was a sin that sent my body into a tailspin of toilet tango to where I couldn't finish the food no matter how hungry my body was claiming to be. 

And it claimed to be starving about every ten minutes after I ate, no matter what I ate. Despite that though, I was not putting on weight fast enough. Even with waking up three times a night to go raid the refrigerator.

Quite a few lbs behind where I should have been when the first trimester ended, a few tablespoons of mint chocolate chip gelato in whole milk protein powder hot chocolate became a nightly ritual until I caught up. The mint mitigated the nausea of unhealthy eating and aversion to chocolate. 

Then a fever almost high enough to cause birth defects, a cough (during the worst time to have a cough during pregnancy and a first time mom paranoia sent me to the emergency room where I got yelled at for going, TWICE! (for that story, you'll have to check out my FACEBOOK) 

https://www.facebook.com/AshRieN/posts/10158663362789356

Everything turned out okay... but the next day a family member who was expecting a month before me miscarried.

Her miscarriage pierced me. She wanted her baby. She and her husband had tried for years to conceive and even though their little boy was going to have a disability they were excited, not all conflict and roller coaster of emotions about it... like me...

Her loss made me question if I was worthy to be pregnant. 

Luckily many of my friends and relatives who know me best and know the care and nurturing I give Messy believe I will make a great mom. It helped, but there were other factors still to consider before I could commit to keeping the baby. 

Given the right circumstances I thought they might be right, but a great mom is not the only thing a child needs. 

Stability, a two-parent household, food, shelter, etc, etc, etc... 

And while Messy has Res wrapped around two paws and her whole tail and he will absolutely make a great human daddy and I've always been pretty decent with kids due to my Utah education I still wasn't sure we could do it.

So I went back to trying to do an online business and am scared out of my mind it won't succeed. So just in case, you want to give us the best baby gift ever and help make keeping the baby the best option:

Breastfeeding is the one part of being a mom I actually looked forward to when it seemed like not having kids wasn't an option so going back out in the job field between C-PTSD (more on that sometime) and aching to be a breastfeeding mama working away from home is something I don't want to do. 

When carbon monoxide poisoning hit (another hey check my Facebook for more on that) and I feared brain damage, miscarriage, and more, despite doing everything I could to give this person a healthy body I felt like no matter how hard I might try in life I would still be a bad mom, because though I've far too often been accused of trying too hard... there is so much I have absolutely no control over. 

I've been shot at, abducted, raped, put on chemo, starved, stalked, harassed with death threats, made to go on the run, and more... the idea of bringing a child into the pervasive insanity is not something I'm willing to do. 

While I've learned how to avoid a lot of those things by setting healthy boundaries... once again shit has hit the fan. 

Every morning without fail, Res has brought me breakfast in bed. Those few hours of being unconscious always cause morning sickness to have me shaking and ready to blow chunks. Whenever anything has gotten bad, he's been there to make me a meal or fix the problem, even in the midst of us having problems he came to fix the carbon monoxide leak. 

This man built me a squatty potty, hasn't ever balked at all the disgustingness of pregnancy, the constant gas, the growing belly, the insanely constant appetite, through all of it he tells me I'm beautiful, he loves me, and has been working day and night to make our lives better. 

 

When we first started dating Res built a bathroom for me, digging through thick heavy red clay to put in a septic tank by hand, watching him sweat with his shirt off... you can definitely say I got pregnant from sitting on a toilet!  

Since getting knocked up, Res has gone to work from before the sun is up and worked until after the sun goes down, then he comes back to work on more plumbing, electrical or mechanical until four A.M. Stopping only to check in on me and our growing baby. 

This man, this incredible support, is being torn out of my life for the next four years. 

But no matter how wonderful he is, losing him, is something I absolutely can survive, but being a single mom... our child losing a wonderful loving father... him missing all those precious moments of first steps, first words, first time spitting out food with an ew yuck face... 

IS DEVASTATING. 

I would give anything to change what is, but Uncle Sam has decided to be Uncle Dick and while Res and I are both doing our best to deal, navigate and give our child a two-parent future... things right now are rather grim. 

Res still wants to keep the baby, wants to get married, and spend our lives together. 

I'd just wrapped my mind and heart around the whole white picket fence picture when the news came. 

Finally excited to be a mom, perfectly happy being pregnant and the world once again spun away. Left drifting and spinning without direction or any clue of how to make this work, while still nauseous and about to pop, I went to Facebook for the love and support I'm so lucky to have found there. 

As hard as facing the future is for me though, this is so much harder on Res. He is doing his best to deal but being a father unable to protect and be there for his child, having the woman who gives him the love he never believed he was worthy of forced out of his life and being unable to do anything about it has left him feeling worthless. 

So here we are on this gaping precipice the future before us laid out in garish detail. 

There is more to this story... but many of the details I am keeping private out of respect for Res and his family. 

I will say this though there are villains in this world. Truly terrible men who destroy the lives of others without regard. The rest of this story involves a man who violently breaks the arm of his daughter, who accuses a teenage drug addict of the unspeakable to avoid getting caught cheating on his wife, and who left Res broken, shamed, beaten, and locked away for a decade. 

Because of that man, my child may not have a father for the next four years, because of him, Res and I may give up our child despite how much we love each other and have done everything we can to help our baby. 

Res continues working like a madman to give our child a great life, a good home, to the point of nearly killing himself. Half starving himself because he forgets to eat, falling asleep out in the cold garage, collapsing into my arms with exhaustion... he is a true superman. I love, admire, respect, and would do anything for him. 

Including being a single mom, my third worst nightmare, only having my child go through the horrors I have or worse, and losing a child ranking above this... all of which I planned on avoiding by not having kids... 

So anyway, that's what's been going on... I know when I turned to FB, many wondered if I'd lost the baby, but nope, our little Piglet is as bouncy and as active as ever just like Daddy.

Speaking of Piglet, I need to eat... AGAIN!