The night before Austin was born was straight out of a soap opera, as was much of my pregnancy. Ironically I was the last of my friends to have sex, but the first to have a baby. Some would call that plain stupidity or ignorance, but I KNOW it was God’s plan for us. What I thought was going to ruin my life, turned out to be my biggest blessing up to that point, maybe even saved my life.
Right about the time I got pregnant, I had just turned 20. I worked dead-end jobs, mostly to have money to go out on. I still lived at home & helped my parents out with my little sister who was 10. My friends had all started talking about “trippin on acid & mushrooms”. Me, being the “prude” I was, hadn’t done anything like that & now I had a good excuse why I couldn’t! I would still hang out with them and be their designated driver. Our main hangout was at our friend Conner’s house. Wayne & Michael were his roommates, so it was the gathering place for us a lot of the time. We went over there one night and I asked Conner where Michael was, to which he replied, “Out with his girlfriend”. I said, “Well I hope they’re having a good time while I’m stuck here pregnant with his baby!” The look on Conner’s & other’s faces was priceless. No one there knew what to do with that information!
I told Michael about it shortly after and it was no surprise to me when he told me he thought I should have an abortion. I had considered it, again, when I first found out, I thought I’d ruined my life… But after the initial shock wore off & some major counseling with some of my closest family members, my brother Dale, my Granny & my two aunts, Sue & Jean, I realized there was never any other choice. I was having a baby. Needless to say, Michael wasn’t thrilled with that decision & we didn’t talk for several days. During that time, I had packed my clothes up & moved in with CeeCee, Michelle quickly followed suit. We were the three amigos & they were the ones who got me through a lot of the madness that ensued.
I just couldn’t bring myself to tell my parents, I guess because I was so ashamed of myself. That wall around my heart got taller & taller during that time, but my circle closed in on me. None of them were going to let me fall. Looking back on those days, it’s painfully clear that I was never alone. I had God and a huge circle of people who loved me no matter what and they all loved my baby already too. My poor mom kept calling our apartment, but I would tell the girls to tell her I wasn’t there. My brother was the first one I told in the family and my granny walked in on that conversation. When she finally made me come clean she said, “damn it!” But I begged her not to tell my mom yet, so she told my aunts instead. They showed up at our apartment one night & told me that there was no way they were letting me get an abortion, my Aunt Sue even said she’d adopt the baby. I’d pretty much already decided that I was having it, but that sealed the deal.
Granny kept telling me I had to tell my mom, but it took me a good week to summon up the courage. It seems so funny to me now, like what was I doing?! I literally tell her just about EVERYTHING now! I asked Granny to come with me for moral support & she did. Granny is the one who ultimately told her because all I could do was squirm in my chair & cry. All mom said was that she knew it. I had tried to tell her a few days prior when I went to her work & had lunch with her, but I had chickened out because I realized that probably wasn’t a great idea with her coworkers all in the lunchroom as well. She said she could tell that day, but she was waiting for me to tell her! Never underestimate a mother’s intuition. I tell my kids that all the time, I can see it on their faces, just as my mom saw it on mine.
Things moved quickly after that. Michael and I went back and forth, we were on, then off. A big MESS is what we were! All of us went to Red Rock Canyon sometime late that summer. It was so hard for me to be around everyone while they were partying down & I was now the pregnant girl, but I stuck it out. I was cranky that day & Michael was being a jerk. Our buddy Monroe was a repelling maniac & had all the equipment up on the big cliff. Michelle & Michael both went up for a turn. Michelle went first & then Monroe (who is, by the way, my husband’s best friend & who she is now with), tied a knot in the rope while he was getting Michael all belted up for his turn. As he stepped off the cliff I muttered just loud enough for those standing near me to hear, ” I hope he falls!” Well, he hit the knot in the rope & he fell, from about halfway from the ground! I couldn’t believe it, there is POWER in our words, so be careful what you say! I stood there for a hot minute with my mouth hanging open in shock. Everyone started to run toward him as he lay flat on his back in the dirt. But before anyone got to him, he jumped up & said,”I’m alright!” That guy is a beast! We all went back to Conner’s that night & Michael & I stayed up almost all night. I got over being mad at him after I jinxed him into almost killing himself. We talked about baby names, he sang Brooks & Dunn’s A Brand New Man to me while I laughed, in the back of my mind knowing he wasn’t & probably would never be, for me anyway. That was the thing though, he and I always had fun together and I’d be okay if I never expected anything more from him. I did though eventually, that’s when it wasn’t fun anymore.
I’ll never forget the day we found out that we were having a boy. Michael, Mom & Granny all accompanied me to the Doctor. I’d been telling them from very early on that I was having a boy, again the mother’s intuition thing. Anyway, the four of us left the doctor’s office & Michael treated us all to lunch. It almost felt like a normal family thing. It wasn’t though & never became one. We were hit & miss, and he always had his “Ex” on the side. A fact that I was MORE than aware of. So I didn’t let myself get too caught up in the facade we put on when we had to. I still carried a torch for Lee. I saw him at a party that Carly had one night when I was about 7 months pregnant. CeeCee and I had rented a room at the Holiday Inn as a little retreat for the two of us before I became a mom & wouldn’t be able to do anything like that again for who knows how long. We checked in, got ready and then went to the party. It was off the chains by the time we got there, as most of Carly’s house parties were. There were people everywhere, most of them younger, but we knew them all because they were all the same age as my brother & stepsister. I was sitting on the kitchen counter, taking it all in when I locked eyes with Lee. I didn’t even know he was there. He came over and was giving me a hard time, flirting like always and it felt good. Good to be noticed, despite my baby bump. He ended up going back to our hotel room, where he and I lay there talking pretty much all night. He told me how he had always thought it would be him I would have a baby with someday and we wondered how things had gotten so screwed up… We laughed, we cried (a lot) and he told me he still loved me and would love my baby too. And that we’d always have New Year’s Eve, which was a vow we’d made several years prior. That we’d spend every one of them together for the rest of our lives. In fact that New Year’s Eve before the party, a bunch of us decided we’d go to Dallas to stay with some friends. I wasn’t dying to go, but CeeCee was going with Wayne and Michelle was now dating “third guy” (not awkward at all), and I had fear of missing out. So I rode in Michelle’s car with her and third guy. We got to our friend’s townhouse that night which was a two-story. We decided it would be so cool if we took a group picture on the staircase. Somehow the pregnant girl ended up on the second stair from the top. Then the person above me, who was a little tipsy started to free fall towards me! The next thing I knew, I was in a heap of a dog pile at the bottom! Everyone was screaming and trying to get off me as quickly as possible. I was fine until I went to the restroom and saw that i had some blood in the toilet. I called my mom, who said to call my Doctor or whoever was on call for him. They said to come home if possible and to take it easy. So that’s just what we did. This was well before cell phones, so i called my mom back and told her we were coming home. She said, “Well you’re never gonna believe who stopped by and is currently asleep on the couch…” it was Lee, he’d come to kiss me at midnight per our agreement and I wasn’t there. He was clearly drunk so my parents made him stay. I thought it was the sweetest thing ever, insert eye roll here. Lordy, I was a pushover! Anyway back to the Holiday Inn…. He held me close all night and we fell asleep with his hands on my belly, telling my baby how much he wished he was his. It was so sweet, naive, and heartbreaking all at the same time. We woke up the next day and went our separate ways. I didn’t talk to him again until the night before Austin was born.
Late in my pregnancy, I found out I’d have to have a C-section. My baby was breech & unless he turned on his own, they’d try to turn him. However, my doctor was concerned that it would be a moot point to do that because my hips were too narrow to have him naturally regardless. So they scheduled the surgery & that was that.
Being that the whole thing was planned out, we made arrangements of our own. My Dad was flying in from Corpus with his mom, my grandma in tow. He was taking Dale & me and a bunch of our friends to dinner the night before my c-section to celebrate. He spoiled me rotten, and took me to get lots of silky pajamas, just he & I. I remember feeling so relieved & just like being the daddy’s girl I was before. It took me forever to tell him I was pregnant, the thought of disappointing him further was too much. But here we were, it was a great day! When I was with Dad anyway….
Dinner time rolled around & Michael told me that he wasn’t going to make it. Wayne & Conner & some of their other friends were taking him to celebrate at a STRIP CLUB!! I was FURIOUS!! I ranted to all my friends about it at dinner. CeeCee was with me the whole time & tried to keep me calm. Lee actually came with my brother and friends and hugged me BIG when he got there. My grandma said to him, “Oh, you must be Michael?”, to which he replied, “No, I’m Lee, the ex-boyfriend.” Ughhhh.
We got through dinner and CeeCee and I went back to my parents’ house after. I had moved back in with them a couple of months prior to save money and they’d help me with the baby. Michael was supposed to stay the night because we were supposed to be at the hospital at 5:30 the next morning. But when he bowed out of dinner, I told him not to bother. He called me when I got home & we fought. I was super upset and my brother and all of his friends had gone to some party, but they called to check on me. When I told them what was going on, they left & headed to our house. My brother was still living at home too, it was all of their senior year in high school. Almost right after I hung up with them, Michael called back & said he was on his way. I tried to tell him not to come, knowing all the boys were on their way & it would get ugly if they were all there at the same time. None of them were fans of Michael or the way he treated me. He wasn’t having it though and he got there before they did! So we’re awkwardly sitting in my bedroom and CeeCee was in the living room with my parents. There was a sound on my bedroom window (conveniently located on the front of the house) that sounded like one loud knock. Michael looked at me and said, “What was that?” I got up and looked out the blinds & there stood Lee & Shan! Oh, snap! I told Michael I was going to check it out & I’d be right back. By the time I got to the door, my Dad (step, but I HATE calling him that), had let them in. He loved them and also wasn’t a fan of Michael’s for the same reasons. They started giving me heck for Michael being there and I was unraveling at that point. I began to explain to them that I had never chosen this, but it was my reality. And didn’t they know that I’d change it if I could?! Then I heard a voice behind me say, ” You boys got a problem with me?”. I turn around and there stands Michael! Both Lee and Shan stood up, but I was pretty sure that Michael could easily kill the both of them. I screamed at them to “GET OUT” while trying to push Michael down the hall back to my room. They left and we went back to my room. At some point during this, my stomach had started cramping, but there was no time to deal with that.
A little while later, we were still lying in bed and CeeCee stuck her head through the door & said she needed to talk to me. We went into the bathroom & she informed me that Lee & Shan were back and that they had brought a gun! My dad had taken it away from them and took it in his room. He made them a palette on the living room floor and they were both in there passed out! At this point, I’m freaking out! I knew they were too drunk to drive and probably wouldn’t get up, so I did the only thing I could do, turned out every light in the house and prayed Michael wouldn’t get up for any reason. Thankfully he didn’t and everything went off without a hitch. I never slept that night, my stomach was KILLING me, so I slowplayed getting everything ready while everyone else slept. At the latest possible minute, I woke Michael up and told him I’d overslept. He hurried and dressed, and we ran out the door, just in time to get to the hospital by 5:30! He never saw the other boys in the living room, I had left the lights out. If that’s not divine intervention, I don’t know what is. I prayed that entire night that everything would be okay, and it was…. until it wasn’t.
Once at the hospital, we got checked in. The nurses asked me if I’d been having contractions and I told them that my stomach HAD been hurting. They got the monitors hooked up and sure enough, my contractions were 4 minutes apart. Things happened fast after that, they wanted to get me into the operating room ASAP since I was scheduled for a c-section. There were already a lot of family and friends at the hospital and I got to see a lot of them before I was wheeled away. It was cold in the O.R., I was shaking like a leaf. Then Michael came in and started to stroke my hair back to calm me or maybe himself. My Aunt Jean was a nurse at that hospital so she was allowed to come in and video. There was a drape up between me and the Doctor and staff, so I couldn’t see what was happening. I lay there while Michael and Aunt Jean watched. At one point Michael leaned over and whispered that it looked like they were gutting me like a fish! Finally, I heard my baby boy cry, it the BEST sound I’d ever heard in my life. Then things got crazy, he’d apparently ingested meconium, which is another name for poop. They estimated he was in utero longer than they’d calculated & had pooped because he was overdue ( which explains A LOT that I’ll let you in on later). They pumped green sludge out of his tiny baby lungs through a tube they ran down his throat. He gagged and cried & we all cried too, it was the most pitiful sound ever. Things are a bit blurry after that, I remember waking up in my hospital room to a BUNCH of random people, some of whom I had never met. It was a CRAZY ride, and it had only just begun!
Now I can see just how much God had his hands on every last detail. He brought beauty out of a situation I didn’t think could ever be possible. That’s what HE does, even for a bunch of messed up, sinner kids. He brings it all full circle & reveals Himself in ways we can’t possibly wrap our small minds around. And I’m so glad He does! Can you imagine where we’d be without Him?!
2 Corinthians 5:7 NIV
For we live by faith, not by sight.
All those months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds, I’d spent worrying, crying… were for not.
HE had us all along.
