Breaking the Ice...

Hello everyone and welcome to the wonderful yet wacky mind of a single mom. I must warn you first and foremost I am highly opinionated and hard headed. You would be too if you knew my life. Here on this blog I will share with you all my honest life stories (and lessons) and so much more. I named my blog life as a single mom so I feel it only appropriate to explain to you how I got there. There are people who make assumptions out there. A single woman with a baby is occasionally assumed to be promiscuous. I know first hand there are plenty of reasons for a woman to be raisng a child (or children) on her own. Promiscuity has nothing to do with my situation. Nor was promiscuity present when my mother raised three children on her own. Be very careful when jumping to conclusions...

I was in a relationship with a man for three years. (off and on) He didn't treat me well. There were traces of physical abuse but mostly it was emotional. Of couse, I loved him and thought I could change him. We were engaged and living in upstate New York when I found out I was pregnant with my son. After the news things between us didn't get any better. We had very little money and I wasn't getting the nutrition I needed for the baby so I ended up coming back to Massachusetts to stay with his mother and father. The plan was that he would find a job- work his ass off and find us an apartment out there, then he would send for me.

Little did he know I never had any intention of returning to New York. The abuse was at its worst while I was in there and I missed my family. I didn't want to be somewhere where I knew no one- but him- when I brought a baby into the world. I did well for a while, worked full time at CVS through my pregnancy. I eventually told him my plan and he (having trouble with Massachusetts Law Enforcement) didn't want to come back to mass and square his name. But when I found out he cheated on me (again) I told him to stay there and never come back. Well thats when he came back, went to court did about 45 days in jail and claimed he was going to clean his life up and be a good man for his future wife and son. After he got out it seemed he had changed. I ended up leaving his parents house and went to my mothers until we could find a place of our own. He got a full time job at a moving company. He would have to take long road trips and be away my whole pregnancy. But the money was great and when the time came he would have even had paturnity leave. I thought things were going great, we talked on the phone all the time. When we saw eachother he was so romantic and would constantly tell me how much he wanted to be a daddy.

In about my seventh month of pregnancy I took a cab to work. I was on the phone with him, went to starbucks to get a bite to eat. Then I went to work, my usual routine- put my stuff in the backroom, put on my ugly blue CVS shirt, hung up the phone, then headed for the occupied bathroom. Mind you- I was seven months pregnant and really had to pee, and when I was standing there it felt like I peed myself a little. So I decided I couldn't wait any longer and went into the mens room. I sat down, cell phone still in hand, and when I looked down all I saw was red...

My heart stopped and I panicked. I had a thyroid condition and was considered a high risk pregnancy but everything had seemed fine. I thought I was loosing my son. I called 911 on the CVS phone because I was too panicked to realize my cell phone was in my hand. Waiting for the ambulance I tried calling him, my mom, him, my mom. No one was answering. In the ambulance the EMT actually said to me, "don't panic if you can't hear the heartbeat"... I will never forget that ride or the fact that I did it alone. As it turned out I had what you would call placenta previa. My placenta was low lined my entire pregnancy and I guess it ripped. The doctor gave me medicine to stop me from going into labor, then these terrible steroid shots in the butt just in case the medicine didn't work. (In infants the lungs take the longest to develop and the steroids just speed up the process.) It was a very traumatic experience for me, and my baby's father seemed genuinely concerned. He got his work to fly him home and his partner lent him his truck so that he could come and see me. I was in the hospital for four days total and he didn't make it back until my last night there. He held me the whole time and told me it was going to be ok. But then he said he had to work in the morning and he was just going to drive there and sleep in the parking lot.

I didn't want him to go and I didn't understand why he wouldn't want to stay there with me. I couldn't understand how he could hear the baby hiccup on ultrasound and want to leave me for even a second after this close call. I cried my eyes out but eventually I agreed he would go there work a few hours and when he got my call he would come and pick me up and take care of me.

He never came back.

Here's the clencher... Rememeber the partner who lent him the truck? Well he and his wife had a daughter together and lived in New Hampshire. That is where my baby's father went after he left the hospital and that is where he stayed. The woman left her first born daughter to run off with him. The two of them are (to the best of my knowledge) now living somewhere in Oklahoma with a daughter of their own and I think one on the way.

I know that I am better off without him but it doesn't change the pain that came from it all. The worst part is as much as I want to hate him I can't- he gave me the best gift in the whole world. I am a stronger woman now because of what he did, but I won't be that strong the day my son asks me where his father is. I don't even know where to start explaining all this to him.

So before you assume someone who is a single mother is a "slut"- take a step back... there are a million stories out there like mine. Single mothers and fathers tossed aside like a bag of trash. The reasons for this I could not tell you. I look into my sons eyes and know I will never leave, and I will never know how he did.