Me: The Woman

Becoming a mother was never part of my life plan. I had a job I thoroughly enjoyed and was planning on turning into a life career. I was with a man I loved (and didn’t even realize it at the time) but had made no plans of marriage or a real future other than the here and now. We were having fun and enjoying the giving and taking of a relationship with no status or name, ok it did have a name “Friends with benefits.” We did what we wanted when we wanted and if either of us wanted to do things without the other, it was no big deal.

            Then on December 15, 2009, everything changed. After two years of being together, without meaning to our lives were changed. My immediate reaction was to leave and not tell him I was pregnant, more so out of fear than anything else. A baby wasn’t part of our bargain. I felt I was living out of a Danielle Steele novel, only this time there seemed no happy ending in sight. His reaction was for me to get rid of “It.” Never have I hated a piece of stick more than I did when I heard him say, “You’re having an abortion”. He might as well have punched me in the face. That’s when I realized he didn’t love me the way I loved him. But after a week or so he calmed down enough to accept the reality of our situation. Enough to try and see if we could make things work and become a proper family.

            My pregnancy wasn’t eventful and he took really good care of me. I barely lifted a finger and for a time it looked as if things would work out not just between us but for us as well. I was on a honeymoon without having to get married and was really hoping that he realized he loved me as much as I loved him. However, time did nothing for the rift between us, but simply hide the fact that it was still there. I still loved him but I was no longer his priority even if he took care of me the whole pregnancy. I felt alone and isolated from the man I loved and more often than not blamed myself for the rift between us and for the fact that our son wouldn’t have the family he deserved. He wasn’t even born and already I felt like a bad mother, a bad parent.

Then on August 24 of 2010, my son was born, one very tiny but healthy little boy. I wish I could say that the moment he was born I felt the weight of the world lift from my shoulders, but it was quite the contrary. I cried but not out of joy but sadness that my baby boy wasn’t going to have the two parents he deserved. Because of that and all the worrying about Jeremiah’s not only immediate but distant future, I fell into a depression that took me nearly a year to shake off.

I felt lost compared to everyone else around me. More often then not I would cry and ask my son’s forgiveness for bringing him into the mess that was my life and world. If Jeremiah spent a few days with his father, I would keep the curtains closed and would get out of bed for nothing more than just going to the washroom. I missed his father, the fun we had had and the chemistry we had shared. I missed the person I had once been. A happy, energetic, hyper and social butterfly I used to know. It seemed she had disappeared and been lost in the midst of all that had been happing.

I harbored thoughts of suicide. Of jumping off of my balcony and this caused me to fall further into depression that I would consider leaving my son without a mother and a bad legacy. All these thoughts would constantly paralyze me and when alone leave me in a vegetative state until my sin would come home and for his sake would I have to get up and function. But I knew I was only a shell of a woman. A shadow of the humoristic girl I used to be.

It took 9 months for me to realize that I could not be the mother my son needed, doing nothing in Montreal. The way I was living wasn’t healthy for either of us and I began to seriously think about what I wanted, not just for my child but also for myself. I began to ask myself what I was willing to give up in order to make a better life for the two of us. I needed a real change. I needed to change the way I thought and to begin anew the process of loving myself once more if I wanted to make a better life for this little being and myself. I began to open up again to the idea of returning to school and started to make amends with the people who had always been there for me and in my miserable depression had pushed away.

After baptizing my son, I made the choice to take my life in my own hands and told my son’s father that we were leaving Montreal so that I could go back to University to get my Bachelors degree. The fight that ensued was nasty and sadly, we’re still fighting it today. There are days where I still feel as if I am being punished for my past transgressions and my son’s dad and I barely speak more than a word to each other. What makes me saddest is that he only sees our son when it’s convenient for him and to the world he says it’s my fault that he can’t see his son. To be honest it pisses me off that he has the balls to say that as he is fully aware he can see our son when ever he wants but makes no effort to do so. Regardless of all this, I am not only happier now than I was a year ago but healthier as well.

There are still moments where I find myself crying, and miss my son’s father, but now I realize that it doesn’t matter because two separated and happy parents are better than two who are together and making each other miserable. More importantly, just because you love someone it does not mean that you are supposed to be together and take his or her abuse or heap it on to him or her. I am happy if nothing else because my son is healthy and I am doing what I believe is best not just for myself but for my son as well.