Ok so the title isn’t telling the whole story but in a sense it gives a glimpse into my pregnancy and how it changed the trajectory of where my life was headed.
The Unraveling
So let’s take it back to a little over a year ago. In the summer of 2013 from the outside looking in my life seemed to be heading uphill. I was engaged, living with my then fiancé, working in my field, and very family oriented. My mother surprised me by flying into Houston for my birthday which was followed by a surprise birthday party planned by ex fiancé. Everyone thought my life was great and that I was combusting with an overflow of happiness.
Little did everyone know I was living in my very own little hell on earth. My fiancé was controlling and manipulative. I was becoming more and more miserable at work with each passing day. I suffered from panic attacks. There was a growing stress from his financial carelessness. Then the worst thing that could’ve happened happened. I was pregnant!
It couldn’t have happened at a worse time because I was scratching and clawing to keep my relationship together after my fiancé had gone into my phone demanding that any human being with a penis who I had contact with that it was must to cut all ties for him to stay. Which I did. Slowly I allowed him to control my minutes of the day keeping me busy with trying to conform to his family and their ever growing drama. I worked 10 hour days then came home cooked and cleaned doing what I thought a fiancé should do to prepare for marriage. Some days I only got 4 or 5 hours of sleep trying to fulfill his every wish. There were major issues with him upholding the agreement to pay half of the bills. Rent was late on the regular, cable would be cut off for months at a time, and I couldn’t save a penny either of us made.
I was doing worse splitting the bills with him 50/50 than when I had lived on my own. With all of that going on I was experiencing a level of stress that was foreign to me. So the furthest thing from my mind would be for me to become pregnant. I was in such a constant state of spinning in a circle of debt, drama, and emotional warfare that I didn’t notice I hadn’t had a period for nearly two months.
The Moment of Truth
July 15th, my 27th birthday, we were arguing as usual and he said “You are overly emotional. You need to take a pregnancy test.” I did just that that night. I went into the bathroom thinking, “I’m not pregnant. Can’t be. I’ve been losing weight, not gaining weight.” That was the longest few minutes of my life waiting to see the results. I looked over my left shoulder and saw that it read “pregnant” and I felt like my life was over.
I literally felt that any chance I had to get out of this toxic and hell bound relationship was pretty much gone now. All of my hopes, dreams, and promises to make myself or my family proud were now gone. I was going to be a baby mama. This was one thing I swore I would never be. I always planned to be married and getting settled into my career before having children. My future flashed in front of my eyes that I would raise a child in a family full of bat shit crazy country southerners.
When I opened the bathroom door I was fighting back tears and I asked him to come here so he could see the results. He came in and he peaked at the pregnancy test. What he said next I never expected to hear. He said “Hmmph. Well I guess we won’t get to do all of the things we planned on doing then.” I was shocked. I mean I was literally lost for words and just stood there watching him walk back into the living room to sit down.
Living A Nightmare
Following the unexpected news, he took me on an emotional roller coaster. He said “I actually want to end it all but I am willing to stay to ensure you won’t run back to Chicago with the baby.” Again I was shocked. The last thing I needed to hear were those heartless and insensitive words. Within hours my world came crashing down. I was now a soon to be baby mama stuck in a relationship with someone who told me that if I wasn’t pregnant he would be exiting stage left asap.
Over the next few days I tackled the hard task of putting on probably the best act I’ve done to date for my mother and friends that I was happy about this unexpected pregnancy. When I told my mother and my best friend, Alex, I could hear the disappointment in their voices. I truly tried to convince myself that this would somehow work out for the best, at least for this unborn child but let’s be honest I was scared shitless.
Fast forward a few days to Friday, July 19th by this time I had already gone to see an ob-gyn doctor. I had been feeling a faint pain in my lower abdomen but I ignored it. I had never been pregnant before and from what I read online faint abdominal pain wasn’t all that abnormal of a sensation during pregnancy. That evening I felt the pain intensifying. It began to hurt so bad I dropped to my knees and told him to take me to the hospital. When I went to the restroom I actually saw blood. At this point I was scared out of my mind and felt totally alone in Texas. I had to press my lips together to keep from shouting out “I just want my mama!”
Is This Really My Life?
He took me to urgent care where I am admitted instantaneously shaking with fear. The doctor scheduled me to have an ultrasound done because he feared that there was an issue with where the baby was located. As I was wheeled into the room I guess it was the natural maternal instincts that kicked in because my only thought was please let my baby be ok. The ultrasound technician applied the ice cold gel to my stomach and searched around for my baby. Once she finally found my baby I heard it’s heart beat for the first time. It was a beautiful and scary sound all at the same time. All of those emotions were put on pause when the technician said, “We have a problem. The baby is in your Fallopian tube.” Instantly my eyes filled with tears that just ran down my face like a faucet that couldn’t be turned off.
Things happened even faster after this. I was transferred to a hospital because I was now being scheduled for surgery due to having an ectopic pregnancy. My baby was stuck in my Fallopian tube and there was no other course of action but to remove it. Which means I had to lose the baby in order to live because a baby doesn’t have room to grow in the tube and the more it grows while stretching the tube could’ve resulted in the tube rupturing with me potentially dying from internal bleeding. By Saturday afternoon I was now being prepped for anesthesia to go into surgery.
After surgery it took me nearly a week to heal to be able to go back to work. The mountain of emotions that just continued to build up inside of me were nearing the heights of Mount Everest. I went through this traumatic experience and hadn’t seen my mother or father. To be honest I was embarrassed about my life. I was embarrassed by who I willingly became engaged to, I was embarrassed about the financial restraints I was under, I was definitely embarrassed about having become pregnant and then losing the baby. I doubted everything about my future and my ability to one day bring a healthy baby into the world one day.
Clearer Skies
I only knew of my pregnancy for all of four days and those four days changed my life for the better. Slowly I climbed my way out of my depression. I realized that I had to take control of my future. Everyday I prayed to God for him to open a door, to create a new pathway for my life to change, and for me to walk towards happiness. Soon he opened that door for me and I have never looked back.
God taking his angel, my baby back to heaven forced me to take the rose colored glasses off that I wanted everyone to view my life through. That pregnancy truly let me see my ex for who he was and I knew that he was not the man God created for me to be his wife. So I left.
I no longer cared about being embarrassed about the state of my life. Slowly I began to rebuild my life and work on myself. I took time to ask myself hard questions about how I even ended up in such a controlling and mentally abusive relationship. At the end of the day I rushed into that relationship after leaving an ex boyfriend of 2 years who suffered from the “can’t get right” syndrome. I think a part of me wanted to prove that someone could fall for me fast, want to make a life with me, and wanted to marry me.
Now I know that those are horrible reasons to get into a relationship and definitely the wrong reasons to get engaged. I also took time to just learn to be comfortable being alone. Since the age of 14 I always had a boyfriend. It was high time that after nearly 14 years I learn to take sometime to myself and not depend upon the emotional crutch of having a boyfriend in my back pocket to fill a void inside of myself. I also learned that when faced with thinking of the future about how I would provide for a child I have to look at what environment that child will be born in to. Did I want my child being born into a family that suffered from having an impoverished mentality satisfied with just getting by? No. Would I want my child, boy or girl, being raised in a family where women are looked at as less than and pawns to be controlled? No. Now I know that I can’t just look at my future husband for who he is and will grow to be but I have to look at his family tree. I have to thoroughly examine what legacy my child will be born into because what a child is exposed to during their formative years makes a huge impression on who they become as adults.
Would I have chosen the lesson of learning how to slow down, love myself, and follow God’s plan with it all being jump started by loosing a baby? Of course not but I trust with every word that I have written that God knew what He was doing. That major loss set me up for major wins in life, some of which I’ve already experienced.
-MonaLita
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