Posts Tagged With: Parenting alone

It’s an interesting world to live in. One where you share your life publicly but feel like there are some things that should be kept private. Whether it be to keep it from family, try and pretend it isn’t happening, or to save someone else from ridicule. Maybe thats an honorable thing? To keep inside what you know will hurt someone else and what they do? But in turn if that hurts you, by lying to the world, is that ok? Who in the end is more important? Those that can learn from your story and benefit in their own lives? Those that harm you but you want to save? Or yourself?

I am 28 weeks pregnant and doing this all alone. Well, my kids are here and I have some really awesome friends that support me, but otherwise without a partner. It’s hard to even say, but though this wasn’t completely unplanned (the words “we should have a baby” weren’t spoken by me) it has still ended up here. At some point between lies and broken promises I asked for space and it turned into any pregnant woman’s natural disaster. I found myself loosing weight and vomiting constantly from the stress that was being put on me. When someone lashes out its always hard, when you are pregnant, it’s unbearable.

When I was pregnant with Tajh (my oldest) I should have been stressed out. Before I became pregnant with him I was not with his father. We were both living our own lives (after being together for over a year) but still spending time together (i.e. obviously sleeping together). I also had a pretty large drug problem. Prescription pills were redly available and I took full advantage of that. One night at a party I was the epitome of a “stupid girl” and did way too many drugs and made some terrible choices. I could use the word “rape”, that awesome trigger word that would get me out of all responsibility for my actions, but in the end I took too many drugs and passed out. I can not blame anyone except myself for that. While the boys (we were 18.. cause and effect just isn’t there yet so not “men”) should not have taken advantage of the situation, I should not have been so incapacitated I couldn’t protect myself. I am not minimizing rape, just speaking about my specific situation.

Enough on that, but basically Tajh’s Dad really had no reason to assume Tajh was his, and for the most part he didn’t. We both moved down to Tucson for school (living separately) and lived our own lives. I had a hard time being alone and moved back home after my first semester. Though he wasn’t totally involved I was thankful he spoke to me, came with me to appointments at times, and wasn’t as mean as he probably could have been. He could have used the “its not mine” and run away, but he didn’t have that in him. I will not give him full credit (who wants to give their ex credit), but in the end he chose to error on the side that the baby may be his and he should be minimally supportive. I don’t think I realized it at the time, but even though I was strong and confident in my decision to have Tajh no matter what, having him not run away was so important for me.

Today I am here. The father of this baby doesn’t answer my phone calls. While living his own life he has decided to completely avoid responsibility. Money might cover “things” but the baby doesn’t know that. The baby also does not know his voice, he has never felt the baby move, and never met my midwife. I would love to just be angry about all this, to have hatred for how terrible I have been treated, but really it’s just sad… I know what he is missing out on, I’ve done this before, but there is no way to explain that to someone who is on the run. When someone has hit “fight or flight” you can’t stop them. There is a large part of me that wants to hold all their “friends” who are supporting this flight accountable. How can you support him missing out on being a part of things? How can you support him not taking responsibility like an adult? But then again, real friends call you out on your bullshit… So I guess we see where they stand.

Look, I get it, life is hard. Im 28 weeks pregnant, running 30 miles a week, taking care of my 5 Littles 2 cats and a dog, trying to eat when Im stressed about all this, trying to be excited about this baby alone, creating my birth plan, thinking about how sad it will be to give birth alone (well with the kids there), but I’m doing it… Because I have to… Because I can’t run away. I have to show my children that running and anger gets you no where in life. You must always push through and do the best you can no matter what. Strong is beautiful and confidence should be the priority.

I really did struggle with posting this. I haven’t blogged recently because I was afraid of “letting it out” in some way, but I had to. If you read my blog and have been following me for a while you deserve to know what is really going on in my world, otherwise why should I have a blog at all? My desire to empower Mothers to be strong in their parenting outdoor wildly amazing children means I must tell the entire story. My kids and I are still adventuring strong. This week Little Tru (4) has 11 miles on his legs, which means I spent 11 miles next to him listening to his little stories and playing in the mountains! (ok 3 of those miles were during a Thanksgiving Day road race)  A pregnant Mom can still take her 5 Littles outside to play in the mountains! Men not needed 🙂