Everything was okay. Jonsey was going to work every day. He
would work from 3-10 and be home around 11. I would usually wait and eat dinner
when he got home. We would stay up at night and watch the news and then Jay
Leno. Usually though Jonsey would be asleep soon and I would still be awake.
During the days, there wasn’t much to do. I was getting
along in the pregnancy where my doctor appointments were almost weekly. The
baby was still doing great. He was growing like he should. I remember having to
take that awful glucose test though, for some reason, you never forget that and
the taste of that soda drink and you definitely don’t forget all the bruises on
both arms from them having to draw blood 6 different times.
I remember having heart burn though, something I never had
before and a lot of acid reflux, both of which meant the baby was growing some
nails and hair. I was starting to look big and even bigger because the baby had
dropped kind of early. He was always moving around, and you could definitely
see it when he had the hiccups. He moved a lot though at night when it was time
to sleep and he was always digging into my ribs and of course my bladder.
Everything was becoming so routine though and I was getting
bored. I didn’t have any friends; I didn’t know anybody else there. We
occasionally would go to the church the in-laws went to but it just wasn’t the
same as the church I had gone to in North Carolina. It was more of a
contemporary church and I just didn’t really meet anybody there.
Soon, I was becoming so bored, I would find whatever was in
the in-law’s kitchen and just bake. I kind of got carried away with it and I
had to stop baking stuff because we all just didn’t have time to eat it all.
I was really getting anxious about being pregnant and having
the baby. For some reason, I thought that maybe I should tell the adopted
mother and Dad about it, about being pregnant and getting closer to having the
baby. So I can’t remember if I wrote them a letter or if I called them. But,
somehow I told them. I was really hoping that they would be excited and it
would break the ice and start to smooth things over. I couldn’t remember the
last time I had talked to them it had been that long.
But, my hopes would be crushed once again. I don’t remember word for word all that was said about
the baby, only that the adopted mother made it a point to tell me that
grandchildren were a ‘gift’ and were only supposed to be enjoyed if they were
brought into the world the ‘right’ way. What was the ‘right way’? Her idea of
the ‘right way’ was me marrying someone they approved and being an obedient
little girl. Never mind that I had waited until I got married to have a baby
which most of the world and girls my age were not exactly doing.
She was rude about it and I remember when I heard that, my
heart just broke all over again. I think the news came from the adopted mother
in a letter and I remember reading it when the mother-in-law came home from
work that evening. I also remember sitting there in the living room crying and
her holding me. I just wanted the adopted parents to be happy for me, that’s
all. Of course I never heard from the adopted Dad, it was just the adopted
mother doing all the talking.
I remember not too long after that getting a letter from
Michael. It was hand written and I don’t remember exactly what it said but it
was hateful and very judging. He made it a point to tell me how wrong I was for
getting married and now having a baby. It sounded like someone was telling him
what to say and I had an idea of who that someone was.
So, once again, I was forced to just deal with it and move
on. It hurt though. I thought I was doing it all right, getting married first,
then having a baby. Sure we were living with the in-laws but it was just
temporary, we were going to be on our own feet again soon. I just could not
understand what I was doing wrong and why they just couldn’t accept me and be
proud of me and want me to be a part of the family.
The news kind of depressed me and I remember at nights lying
in bed crying. Not only was I dealing with the heartache of my so called family
but I was scared about having the baby. I knew it would hurt and all and I
remember realizing that nobody else was going to be there when I had him. It
would have been nice to have my family there but that was not going to happen.
I was also finding out that Jonsey wasn’t much of a
comforter either. I would cry at night and he would just ignore me. I was hoping
he would hug me and tell me it was going to be okay but he never would. I soon
found that sleeping with a ‘hugging pillow’ actually helped me sleep. It was
the only thing I could hold on to and hug, that and it really helped when
sleeping on my side with the baby.
The time of summer was going by quickly, which I guess it
would if you were following a routine pretty much all the time. Finally we had
enough money saved up to find our own little house. I don’t remember how we
found it but we found a small single wide mobile home about less than a mile
from the Atlanta Motor Speedway. It was in a very nice and clean trailer park.
It was not junky at all and nothing like the trashy small place we lived in up
in North Carolina. It was a nice little mobile home, with three bedrooms, 2 of
them were a bit small, and 2 bathrooms. It was definitely more space than what
we needed. But, we would purchase it (I think) and we would start moving in.
The in-laws helped with some of the expenses, under the impression we would pay
them back.
They would help us move our things into the home, we would
move about 15 plus minutes away from where they were living. We would be one
side of Interstate 75 and they would be on the other side.
It was finally nice to be in a place of our own, we had our
own privacy and we would make into a home. The closer we got to the due date,
the more I would do to make the place feel like home, it was the ‘nesting’ mode
I was finding myself being into more and more often.
We would occasionally go over and visit the in-laws on the
weekends, we didn’t have a washer and dryer yet so we would have to go over and
do laundry until we got one. Sometimes we would just drive to the speedway and
drive around, if there was anything going on there. We lived so close to it
though, we could hear the races and cars on the tracks from the house.
But, as we settled into our new place and learned our way
around the side of town we were now living in, I would be getting closer to my
due date. If I remember right the move happened about a month before the due
date which was October 3rd. I was so ready to have the baby too. In
fact, we had a couple of trips to the hospital thinking that I was in labor,
only to be reminded that they were just early contractions. Again, I was so
ready to be not pregnant anymore and would do anything to just have the baby
already. I remember before we moved, the mother-in-law and I would walk around
the neighborhood just to see if it would get the labor going but it would not.
But, now that we were moved and getting closer, I knew it
was getting close to having him. My doctor appointments were becoming weekly
and I had met all the doctors but one. I was supposed to have met all of the
doctors that practiced at that office so that when it came time to have him, I would
know them all. But, I had one or two more weeks of appointments left and at
least one doctor left to meet.
The first week of October, I would go in for my normal
doctor appointment that Wednesday, October 2nd. I was already dilated
at a 2 but the doctor wasn’t too concerned. In fact they thought I would go
past my due date and even told me that if I did, they would schedule a day to
induce me. So, they sent me home and I was really hoping and praying that the
baby would come on time and not later.
Well, my prayers would be answered the very next morning. It
was around 10:00 and I had slept in that morning. I got up and went to the
bathroom and sure enough my water had broken. It’s funny how you just know what’s
going on and even though you’ve never been pregnant before, you know what it
means when your water breaks. I sure as heck knew what was going on, it was
time to have a baby and even though I wasn’t even having contractions yet, I
knew that when the water breaks, it’s about time.
It was Thursday, October 3rd at 10:00 am and I
was getting ready to have a baby that day, or at least I thought I was.
Until next time, be blessed and inspire to make a
difference!
~The Adopted Child
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