by Band Back Together | Nov 26, 2010 | Anger, Anxiety, Baby Loss, Compassion, Coping With Baby Loss, Faith, Family, Feelings, Forgiveness, Grief, Help For Grief And Grieving, Hope, How To Help A Friend With Infertility, Infertility, Livng Through A Miscarriage, Loss, Medical Mystery Tour, Miscarriage, Pain And Pain Disorders, Rheumatoid Arthritis |
*I know that not everyone out there is a Christian and I hope that nobody will take offense to this post. My faith is a very personal thing, but it helps me get through so much. My prayer is that everyone dealing with a life crisis will find something that will bring them peace and hope, whether it’s faith in God, faith in humanity, or faith in herself.
When I wrote about my miscarriages and TTC journey, it was the hardest piece I’d ever written. What I left out, though, was the behind the scenes issues. The emotions that I’m still ashamed of feeling. That probably sounds stupid. I mean, you can’t help how you feel about things so why feel shame? Well, it’s been six years and I still do, so I guess I can’t answer that.
When Jordan and I decided to start trying to get pregnant, we didn’t broadcast it, but we also didn’t hide it when people asked. And people did ask. We’d been married over a year at that point, and apparently that’s the time that everyone from your grandma to the cashier at the grocery store deems you ready to have a child. But when we realized we would need a little help expanding our family, we clamped our mouths shut. Our families and closest friends were the only people who knew what we were going through. But when we got that first positive test, we told everyone! I’ve never been the best at keeping my feelings under wraps and we were thrilled.
A few days before I got that positive test, my sister-in-law gave me the news that her sister-in-law was pregnant. I was pretty discouraged at that time thinking that the round of Clomid I had just finished had not worked. But here was this girl (who I love dearly, BTW) who had become pregnant accidentally. It hardly seemed fair.
But then I found out that the Clomid had actually done its job and all was right with the world again. I could be happy for my sister-in-law sister-in-law-in-law sister-in friend, if a little worried for her. After all, my faith had always dictated that “everything happens for a reason.” But then it all changed.
During the few days that encompassed the fateful ultrasound experience and gut-wrenching D&C, I lost more than my baby. I lost my faith.
I left the hospital a bitter, heartbroken person that I no longer recognized. I was angry at the world. I was angry at God. I didn’t go to church. I didn’t pray. I didn’t even sing; something that has always been my solace. For three months I was in this dark pit. Every time someone who didn’t know would ask about the pregnancy and we had to break the news again, I sank further.
At that time, I worked for an agency that provided low-income housing. It seemed like every other day I encountered another woman who was expecting yet another child that she couldn’t afford. All these women around me were getting pregnant so easily, some while actively trying to prevent it, and having the healthy babies that I wanted so badly. I couldn’t understand why I was being treated so unfairly. I couldn’t bring myself to go to the baby shower for my brother-in-law’s sister. Every time I saw a pregnant woman I would cry.
It kills me to finally admit those things. There are very few people in this world that I’ve told about that dark time. I still feel guilty for being so angry. But if my first miscarriage caused me to lose my faith, my second one brought me back.
My second miscarriage happened on a Saturday morning. I was in the ER for a few hours then sent home. The next day at our church was Youth Sunday. I hadn’t been to church in three months at that point, but Jordan’s best friend, David, was delivering the message that day, so I insisted on being there. Not many people at church had known I was pregnant that time, so we didn’t really have to talk about the loss.
Something happened that Sunday morning, though. The youth members all did a great job with their testimonies, prayers, and music. David delivered a beautiful message. And then the youth sang a song to tie it all together – Here I Am Lord. I had heard the song a hundred times before. I had sung it about half that many times. But that day, I actually listened to it. It suddenly spoke to my heart in a way I had never felt before. Thank God we were sitting in the balcony so the whole congregation didn’t see me burst into tears.
I suddenly was at peace. After being angry for so long, it was an incredible feeling to let go of it. In that moment I knew that, like Abraham and Sarah, we would eventually have a child. And that there was a reason for my losses. I knew that it was going to fall to me at some point to support others going through it.
I was able to do just that several months later when my best friend had her first miscarriage. I’ve reached out to others as well – old high school friends on Facebook, a friend at church, etc. It’s what I hope to accomplish by contributing to this site. It also sort of paved the way for me to do the same thing as soon as I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis in 2008. Since then I’ve found myself in something of an online support network of people living with chronic illness. Without that moment of clarity, I’m convinced I would still be that bitter person. I’m sure that the RA diagnosis would have been much worse than it was, emotionally speaking. I honestly don’t know how I would have made it through either of my full-term pregnancies, much less through a certainty of life-long pain, had I not had that renewal of faith.
I didn’t tell anyone about what happened to me that day until a few months ago when Jordan and I had the privilege to see David ordained. I figured that was probably the right time to tell him about the impact he had on me that Sunday so long ago. Today, my relationship with God is the most important thing to me. Through Him, I can do anything. There are days when I just need a nudge and there are days when I’m forced to ask Him to carry me. And I’ve come to realize that everything truly does happen for a reason, even if that reason isn’t revealed during this earthly life. But the choices we make when facing hardship will usually go a long way to reaching that revelation.
“But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.” ~ Isaiah 40:31
by Band Back Together | Nov 23, 2010 | Anger, Anxiety, Coping With Depression, Emotional Abuse, Infidelity, Loneliness, Major Depressive Disorder, Marriage Problems, Sadness, Self Loathing, Self-Esteem |
I have a fairly melancholy personality, but that doesn’t mean I can’t see the good things. Most days, I do see the good things. I revel in them. But I do have bad days. Maybe more than your average chipper wonder-girl, but not enough to be a ‘bad thing.’ Problem is, there are parameters around my life that make it difficult to have any bad days at all. And so on those days, I feel very, very alone. Today is one of those days. Today, I had to write. I’m not alone if I have words to keep me company. I don’t have to be scared if I can still be coherent. But really, I am alone.
I’m married, but I have no husband. He would rather spend time with his Facebook or his phone. Or his pillow. He doesn’t love me. He says he does, sometimes, but how could I ever believe him? He doesn’t like to kiss me. He only touches me when there’s no chance of anything more. I go for sex and get excuses, or yelled at, or worse, silence. Snores. When I’m upset, he goes to sleep. The self-proclaimed night owl can’t keep his eyes awake at 8:30pm if he thinks there’s something bugging me (or I’m feeling amorous). I have one bad day in months, and it’s further proof to him that we should never have kids, that I would be a terrible mother. As if I’m the one unable to care for someone else. The best birthday present he’s ever received is an email from his ex-girlfriend. At least, that’s what he told her. He doesn’t know I know that. I asked him about his favorite birthday present, and he said it was the concert tickets I just gave him. The ones I couldn’t afford, but I rubbed two pennies together to make happen. Because for some inexplicable reason, I love him, I believe in him, and I have hope for us. And for my next act, I will jump off a bridge.
I’m a sister and a daughter, but I have no family. They don’t understand me, and they put up a facade of attempt. It fails. They fail. Or maybe I’m the failure. Either way, they’ve fenced me out. And then criticize me for it. Do I deserve to be the black sheep? My guess is that if you met all of us, you’d wonder how I ended up the way I am. You’d wonder what they have to vilify me. You might tell me I’m better off being the black sheep, but I don’t feel better off. Not today.
I have friends, too, maybe, but none are nearby. None know me. Not the real me. Most days, I like it that way. There are only so many words I can share on any given day. And how do you maintain a friendship without words? Besides, I don’t even know myself right now, so how could I possibly expect someone else to? It gets a little lonely sometimes. Then again, people are self-absorbed, and they give bad advice. Last thing I need is someone telling me how they’d like to solve their problems, under the guise of my benefit.
I’m say a Christian, but I have no real faith. Belief, sure, but in what? Who is my God? I don’t know. He’s a stranger right now (he, or she, or it, or them…). As a recovering fundamentalist, I don’t understand God at all. I’d like to try better, learn more, figure out what was and what is true, but when it comes to God, there aren’t answers, just more questions. Questions, and narcissism. Funny how God’s attributes line up so nicely with your own opinions.
All in all, I have a great life. Sure, it’s lacking in some areas, but I have no shortage of things to be happy about. Most days, I’m happy. Content and smiling and good. I want more than good, though. I want more than a decent marriage, I want an out-of-the-park one. I want to be married to someone who cares about ‘us’ as much as I do. I don’t have that. I don’t have a spendthrift cheating drunk abuser, but I don’t have a true partner either. I want a family who doesn’t just love me but accepts me. I don’t have that either. I could sure use a friend, too. Someone I didn’t have to pretend with. Someone who could point out my own childish crap without making me feel guilty or condemned. Really, though, I just want some answers. About God. I used to have them, until I saw how lacking my perspective was.
Right now, during this bad day, lack is all I can see. And that is why, today, I hate myself.
by Band Back Together | Nov 17, 2010 | Abuse, Addiction, Alcohol Addiction, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Coping With Divorce, Coping With Domestic Abuse, Divorce, Domestic Abuse, Economic Abuse, Estrangement |
I am forty-three years old – an Interior Designer who has done well for herself over the course of sixteen years. I married thirteen years ago and have four beautiful children. My husband has had a series of losses in his life which turned him into a raging drunk, drug user and abuser (emotionally and physically towards the children and I).
After a series of abusive situations involving the children, I finally made my way to the attorney’s office and filed for divorce. Was that the right thing? I have been nothing but punished since that day in July 2009.
He destroyed the business I have had for seventeen years. He took all the money I had to support me and the children. He stole from the house and took all the money in our accounts.
He has not only hit me a few times, but he hit the children to the point that child services got involved. After they interviewed the children, they told me I would be charged for never turning in all these abuses in the past year. The children and I are all in counseling.
My first attorney did everything wrong, My second attorney took what money I had left and dumped me because I couldn’t pay any more. A guardian ad litem was finally appointed to our family and I had to pay for that out of the investments I had left. She actually believed him and never interviewed half my witnesses. She also never talked to the boys. Then, I was sent to another attorney (a third one) who said he would finish up the divorce for a flat rate. Well, I can’t come up with the rest of the money. He and my -soon-to-be ex’s attorney seem friendly and I feel like I am just getting screwed.
The worst part about all this is that the children are so messed up from the divorce and the abuse they suffered from their father. I have done everything I can to protect them but the Florida courts don’t seem to care.
We are getting ready for trial now and I can’t seem to get anyone to understand how bad this is for me and my children.
They hide in their rooms when he comes to get them.
My nine-year old ran nine blocks away and called me from a gas station because she was afraid to be with her dad.
My four-year old has seen his father throw me up against my desk and hold my head down as he threatened me. He nearly drowned at his cousin’s house and his father was nowhere to be found.
On his second birthday, he took my son out of his car seat because he was crying and stuck him out the window as I was driving down the highway.
My six-year old keeps getting thrown into walls by his father, his dad calls him pussy boy and tells him he cries like a school girl.
He makes him sleep on a sofa at his house to punish him for his mother filing for divorce.
My eleven-year old is pulling out her eyelashes and eyebrows.
Where am I to turn? I don’t know how to get people to understand what is going on and change this for my children.
I bought my house when I was single and have fixed it up, paid the mortgage on it for eleven of the fourteen years I’ve owned it.
In 2004, I walked into my house to find a lender and a lady sitting there because he wanted to refinance the house. I was stupid and signed the papers not really knowing how bad I was going to be screwed – until now, when I can’t afford food, let alone the house. I am about to be forced out onto the streets.
His attorney is trying to get me out of the house so he can move in. The only reason I would do this is for my children so I know they have a bed to sleep in and a roof over their head, but in the process I have nothing.
No money, no place to live, no support and an attorney who told me to marry better next time. My whole family lives up north and the few friends I have here have their own problems.
I never thought this would be happening to me.
I have gone to the courthouse for help with the abuse center. They can’t help me and just send me to the shelter. I can’t find a job and am so confused. I can’t figure out what is going on.
I guess I don’t know what to do at this point. I have tried everything I can except to just take the children and run away. Believe me, I have thought about this so much, but what kind of life is that for them? What if I got caught and then can never see them again?
Do I just give him the kids and walk away? I know that would kill me. I can sleep in my Suburban for a while, but since I can’t secure a place to live because he ruined my credit and took all our money, I will lose the children anyway.
I am a rat stuck in a very bad situation. Crying is not helping me out of this giant mess. Where did the strong business person go? Why can’t I get anyone to understand that I divorced this ass to make my children’s lives better? Where do I go from here?
How do my children survive this nightmare?
by Band Back Together | Nov 17, 2010 | Addiction, Addiction Recovery, Adult Children of Addicts, Emotional Abuse, Family, Psychological Manipulation |
I find it hilarious when someone has a perception of me varies wildly from who I actually am. Sometimes, it makes me want to correct the misconception, yet other times it tickles me sparkly to let them think what they want.
Life is absolutely filled with more humor that way.
When I got pregnant with my first son, I had a role in my family: The Fuck-Up. Disregarding all of the surrounding circumstances (my mother’s relapse slash hatred of me), the blame for all of my actions fell squarely on my shoulders, at least as far as my family was concerned. Although many of my actions were not *ahem* the most mature, my family gave me far less credit than I deserved, especially considering that I was 20.
When my pregnancy was announced, my parents were shockingly supportive of me. Well, at least until I found out much later, of course, that they had asked my brother – who is 10 years my senior – and his future wife if they would adopt my child in the event that I “freaked out.” They had such a low opinion of me that they honestly believed that I wouldn’t assume responsibility for my child.
(note: I am amazed that the keyboard has not ignited with the fury of a thousand suns as I type this).
The rest of my family (save for me, of course. I get a special CHARGE when I get to confront people who have pissed me off.) is so non-confrontational that one might assume that each member is far meeker than they really are, I rarely heard about what a Fuck-Up I was considered to be. Aside from snide comments here and there about “responsibility,” everyone was pretty mum.
It was only when I met, and subsequently married The Daver, that I realized just how poor my family’s opinion of me truly was. You would have thought, by their reactions, that Dave had rescued me from the streets, where I was selling crack and dancing (badly) for spare change.
Somehow he had turned my life around for me. You would never have guessed that I was already at the top of my nursing school class, TA’ing for Organic/BioChem AND tutoring for A & P, while working as a waitress and bartender 20 hours a week BEFORE Dave walked into my life.
My brother, who I have a long and sorted history with, decided that if Dave (whom he adored/s) liked me, then I couldn’t be all THAT bad. My parents finally accepted that I had become a more mature and responsible person, although their time line was off by a factor of about a year and a half. In their minds, I only began to turn my life around once I had met Dave.
I do, of course, appreciate that my family loves him as one of their own. I know that I’ll be left out in the cold the moment Daver and I split up, as both of our families prefer him, but I just wish that they could see that as wonderful as Dave is, he did nothing to change who I am and what I will do with my life.
It dawned on me, as I prepared my home for hosting Thanksgiving this year, that if asked, my family would probably mention that they were “having dinner at Becky’s house” and something to the effect of “she’s really turned her life around, hasn’t she?”
Like I was some sort of street urchin in a Lifetime Original Movie who had some sappy predictable plot line: unmarried, younger girl gives birth to a child out of wedlock, heads down the “wrong path” until she meets “the man of her dreams,” and she miraculously changes her path, learns to cook and clean, and becomes a responsible upstanding citizen with an immaculate home.
Who can -and does- now crochet motherfucking platitudes to hang on the wall.
Yeah, motherfucking right.
I can’t do anything about this, of course. It’d probably be easier to train my cats to unload the dishwasher or teach the coffeemaker to speak Ebonics than it would be to get my family to change their opinion of me.
It just sucks that they have to be so off-base with their perceptions, I mean, why can’t I be mistaken for a Fighter Pilot rather than a Fuck-Up
Or, I suppose, more accurately: The Becky Formerly Known As Fuck-Up?
by Band Back Together | Nov 16, 2010 | Anger, Caregiver, Faith, Family, Fear, Feelings, How To Help A Friend Whose Child Is Seriously Ill, Maple Syrup Urine Disease, Pediatric Caregiver, Pediatric Transplant |
My daughter has been waiting over nine months for a liver transplant.
And my daughter is angry.
She’s angry at God. In her eyes, He’s the one who created her with this disease, it’s His fault.
She’s angry with me. I’m her mom. I am the fixer of boo-boos. Yet with this, I am powerless, and that frustrates her.
She’s angry with the transplant coordinator; afraid that she’s completely forgotten about her.
She’s angry with the organ donors who, as terrible as this is, haven’t died yet. She doesn’t completely comprehend that a tragedy has to happen to a family in order to have her transplant. She just knows that a donor has the liver she needs.
I try to soothe her anger, but I’m not very successful.
Maybe because I am, well, not angry, but frustrated too.
by Band Back Together | Nov 13, 2010 | Adoption, Anxiety, Blended Families, Family, Love |
I sing you to sleep.
The boys, whom I gave birth to, wouldn’t fall asleep to my singing. We sing together at night, before they go to sleep, but their song is filled with silliness and laughter. But you relax as soon as soon as I start your song.
I didn’t meet you until you were five months old. I was your fourth mother. I was nervous that you wouldn’t bond with us, after having been uprooted so many times. But, the second time we visited you, it was clear you recognized us.
The weekend you had your first sleepover with us, we went out to dinner. A woman stopped by our table to tell us how beautiful you were, and how she loved watching you stare at me.
“Babies always know their mommies,” she said.
I may be your mommy, but you are still not my daughter. We wait. The court is still considering its decision. It is a decision I am glad I do not have to make myself. We have come to know your birth mother, your birth father, your birth family. Both of your birth parents love you very much, and would like you to be with them. Part of me hopes they can do all the things they need to do to make their lives safe and secure enough to have you back. But, another part of me knows that it is a herculean task.
I also know that if you do go back, we will be devastated. Your father has already started looking into therapists, just in case. Your silly brothers, who adore you and compete to make your smile, will have a really hard time adjusting. I suspect this will make my postpartum depression look like a party. But what really worries me is you. Will you be safe? Will that nice lady and man you have playdates with be able to continue their progress? Will you miss your brothers? Will you grow up to be the happy, healthy, amazing woman I know you can be?
Who will sing you to sleep?
