Baby Story: Part Three- Resentment

 (I just want to thank everyone who is reading my story and I hope you are enjoying the ride! I plan to finish out this story in hopefully one more part so as to see you through to the wonderful entrance of my dear little Riley! I appreciate the support I have received, and hope you choose to continue on this blogging journey with me!)



Well I'll be fucking damned... RIGHT?!?! I didn't see THAT coming. Talk about blindsided. I think i was more shook up than Elvis Presley! But you can bet your sweet ass I was also ecstatic and excited and moved. I was moved almost to joyful tears. So how the hell did this happen? The doctor guesses I had abnormally "high" levels of HcG early in my pregnancy that made us believe I was further along than I actually was. So when I went in for my first ultrasound, my little fetus was not fully formed and could not be detected.

The first and only thing i think i could think of (i know that sounds funny) was HOLY SHIT WHAT IF I HAD HAD THE SAC REMOVED????!!! In essence, I could have aborted my child and never have even known about it. This thought echoed with and haunted me. And I still think of it now as I'm writing this. And while i would never change the fact that I now have the most amazing almost 8yr old daughter, I often thought about how I could have changed my situation.

I was happy about this twist of events and I was prepared to have long heart to hearts with Kenny about our hopes and dreams for the future. Wow, so amazing this news was. But I couldnt have been more wrong. Over the passing weeks and months Kenny started to change. He was becoming more distant. At first he passably played it off as work and school stress but then he started becoming more and more disinterested in accompanying me to doctor appointments, and even refused to talk about baby names...

I didnt get it! How could someone so forcibly impose their thoughts about what they would do If I didnt have this baby, all of sudden be SO uninterested in the actual baby? Did I do something wrong? What was going on? I would remember hearing all about family members or friends getting pregnant, and how their husband or boyfriend or fiance was so doting and loving and involved with the pregnancy and the baby. Then here I was unable to get this man to come to an ultrasound appointment; or talk about what we would name our possible daughter or son. It grew increasingly more frustrating as the weeks dragged on.

Our relationship was changing and I was slowly turning into the victim of Kenny's controlling and selfish behavior. I recall so vividly being somewhere around 5 months pregnant and craving so badly a bag of potato chips. For me, it was a very odd craving as I very rarely ate potato chips and I had been talking about it for a few days. I kept asking Kenny if he would please go out and buy some, but his response was nothing close to that of a loving, caring boyfriend. Instead, he tried to bribe me... he would go out and buy some potato chips... if I would perform oral sex on him. I was disgusted and I felt so degraded, and ANGRY! How could he possibly be serious?! Needless to fucking say, I did not get potato chips.

I really didnt understand what the hell was going on. I faced so much anger and hatred in the beginning of this whole ordeal about whether or not I wanted to become a mother. And all of a sudden, I was the one who wanted to be a parent and I was actually taking ownership of this situation we had gotten into. Not Kenny. It was almost like he had completely changed his mind and without ever having to say so. I became trapped in this vicious place of resentment and I began to fall out of love. It happened ever so slowly and gradually but I could feel it happening. And I started to feel very alone.

In my 6th month of pregnancy, Kenny and I had planned a vacation to visit my family up in Massachusetts. The day our flight was scheduled to leave happened to be the day Hurricane Charley decided to roll through Port Charlotte. It was one of the scariest experiences I have ever been through and I remember being huddled in the bathroom at my dad's house, fearing his long wall of sliding glass doors would blow in at any second. The home we were renting suffered window damage and as we struggled to find plywood to board up our home before our flight, I felt so unsettled. Everything was in such a state of disarray and I look back now at Hurricane Charley as a glaring warning sign of what was to come in my tumultuous relationship with Kenny.

Come to find out, all was not well in pregnancy-land, and I found myself visiting the hospital for 6 hours at a time after every OB appointment I attended. During my 7th month of pregnancy I was diagnosed with having toxemia (aka pre-eclampsia). And every suggestion of "take it easy" that was told to me at previous appointments finally made sense. No one told me how serious a condition I had until after a few 24-hour urine tests where it was determined I needed to be on bed rest. Silly me, I had been working, going to college, and playing your typical Betty Homemaker, that I really was blind to the fact that I was incredibly ill. But even with the loom of bed rest hanging over my head, it made no difference to Kenny. I was still cooking and cleaning and taking care of his bullshit when I should have been feet-up on the couch!