Three Weeks

Today makes three weeks since I placed my Roo.

I feel much like I did a week ago, in that I can't believe so little time has passed. It feels like months. I can scarcely remember what it was like to have a baby in the house. Sometimes it feels like I never was a mother, like I dreamed it all and I've just woken up.

I don't worry about Roo at all. I thought I would worry, thought I would wonder. I don't. I did at first. I wondered if she was awake or asleep, if she was being held enough (though now I doubt she was put down much at all), if she was getting lots of kisses and snuggles and if she was eating enough. But I know she is. I get regular e-mail and pictures from P and M. Roo is doing great. She is an exceptional baby - she sleeps all night, she hardly fusses, and she is holding her head up already. And she is beautiful! Everyone says so.

Roo has the very best parents. P and M are amazing people. The thought of the two of them never being parents breaks my heart. I am glad that they have Roo and her big sister. I am glad that Roo has them.

This past week has been the easiest of the past three. I am on a big obedience kick lately. I have been praying and reading my scriptures and going to all my church meetings. I feel like it has made a difference, as have the prayers offered on my behalf. I still have moments when I desperately miss my baby. I cry more than I'd like to. But by and large, I am okay. For the first time in my life, I have hope for my future. I really feel that things are going to work out, that I will be happy before long, and that I will marry someday and be a mommy again. I don't know when (soon, I hope), but I believe that it will happen.

I didn't when I had Roo. I couldn't imagine trying to date as a single mother. It seemed impossible. It wasn't important to me, because I had my baby, and that was all I wanted. But I placed her because I wanted more for her. And because I wanted more for myself. If I can believe that Roo will have the best in life, why not believe that of myself?

Three weeks ago, I lost my baby. It was, hands down, the hardest, most excruciatingly gut-wrenching thing I have ever done in my life. But for my Roo, I would do it all over again. She is worth it. And we will both be blessed.

I packed up some of Roo's things yesterday (September 29).

Target had these cute little plastic storage boxes that will fit neatly into the bigger latching boxes, so I got a bunch of them for small things. I put bibs into one, socks into another, and shoes into a bigger one.

I thought it would be harder. I didn't even cry. I found it rather easy to sort through things and pack them away. I thought I was going to cry a few times. I didn't. I still have hours more work to do - I haven't done any Roo laundry in three weeks. All of the sleepers and Onesies she wore the last week I had her are still sitting in the laundry basket. I haven't taken the sheet off the crib mattress.

I meant to do laundry. But every time I looked at the basket, I saw a sock or a bodysuit or a sleeper that I had strong memories of, and I couldn't make myself do it. I think I'll have my mom wash them. I'm just not ready yet.

I wonder if I'll ever be.

Telling H, and the Last Time I Saw Him

Warning: this is a long one. I haven't been looking forward to telling this part of my story but it's important, so here goes. You may notice that I don't use my baby's name in this one. I couldn't bear to use her name and H's in the same post.


I had told my therapist about my pregnancy, but one important person still didn’t know yet: H. There is no easy way to tell your (sort-of) ex that you’re having his baby. Especially when said ex has mentioned – more than once – that he has no desire to have children, ever.

My mother didn’t think I should tell him right away. I agreed. H and I had been fighting about stupid things again, and the pregnancy was still so new. I didn’t feel a very strong desire to clue him in yet. One night (November 10th, I think) we were chatting on the computer and I must have seemed odd to him – I don’t remember what exactly I said (I could look it up, since I saved all our conversations, but I don’t want to relive it) – but he asked me point-blank if I was pregnant.
I panicked. This was not how I’d planned on telling him. I wasn’t ready to tell him. I couldn’t.

I sat in front of the screen, frozen for a minute. Then I closed the lid of my laptop. This was not, I realize, the smartest thing to do. My refusal to answer can only have worried him. I composed myself and opened the lid 5 minutes later. I told him my computer had frozen and that no, I wasn’t pregnant. I felt sort of lousy about lying but I didn’t feel like being honest either.

Eventually, though, the guilt got to me. Five days later – the 15th, I did something terribly cowardly – I told H the truth in a text message. He was, understandably, stunned, considering my denial of a few days before. He didn’t have a whole lot to say, but a few hours later he sent me a text message saying that he was strangely excited about things. He said he wanted to try a relationship again, which wasn’t what I wanted to hear. I was starting to realize that things were okay without H in my life and I didn’t want my head messed up anymore. And I knew that if I weren’t pregnant, he wouldn’t be making such offers. Pregnancy seemed like a really bad reason to be in a relationship.

But I was pregnant. Was I supposed to just ignore my baby’s father? Pretend he wasn’t there? I saw him in person a few weeks later. I knew it was a mistake as soon as I got there. I didn’t feel about him the way I had before. I wanted to leave as soon as I walked in the door. H knew I was pregnant but he didn’t seem the least bit concerned about it – probably because he was drunk.

I think he was drunk the last time I saw him, too. It was November 30th. I went to his place to watch a movie and have cupcakes. He had made me cupcakes, which I thought was nice. But I knew him better than I wanted to, and so as soon as I walked in the door, I told him in no uncertain terms that absolutely nothing was going to happen physically, period. He pouted. We watched a movie. He seemed to have grown extra arms. I spent the whole movie slapping his hands away from me. I had a cupcake.

The movie ended, and he H got even … grabbier. I jumped off the couch, angry. I told him to stop what he was doing. H seemed to think it was hormones. He sort of slapped my stomach and said something like, “lousy baby.” I told him not to touch me again.

“But I made you cupcakes!” he said.

“You made me cupcakes so I would sleep with you?” I asked.

“Well, I thought they might help,” he said.

I was stunned. He had baked for me to get me into bed? I felt so used, so betrayed.
“Well you were wrong,” I choked out. “Nothing is going to happen tonight.” I dropped down onto the edge of the couch, stunned by the revelation of his true character. I was even more surprised at what happened next: H packed up the remaining cupcakes, handed them to me with my purse, and showed me out the door.

He kicked me out!

I could barely drive myself home. I felt cheap and dirty and used and I wanted to vomit – not because of pregnancy hormones, but because of what kind of man H had shown himself to be, and because I had wasted myself, thrown myself away on him. But a small part of me – the part that allowed myself to be manipulated by H – felt guilty for leaving him without giving him what he wanted. I hated that part of myself. It was evidence of my weakness, I thought, of my defects. I know now that it was evidence of how I’d been manipulated, twisted around by a smooth-talking man with beautiful eyes.

I managed to get in the front door but as soon as my mother saw me, she asked what was wrong, and I lost it. I told her what had happened. I cried harder than I had since my father’s death.

We threw away the cupcakes, it hurt too much to see them. And I made an important decision that night. Nothing like that was ever going to happen to me again, because I wasn’t just me anymore. I was a mother (mother-to-be, anyway), and I needed to look out for the teeny-tiny fetus growing in my belly.

He was not worthy of her, I decided (I always knew she was going to be a she). And although H was, strictly speaking, her biological father, she was not his. He had not earned that right. I have never changed my mind in that, never wavered.

H continued to text-message me on and off until Christmas. Then I went a week without hearing from him. I got a wish for a happy new year. I had him served with paperwork to allow him to prevent an adoption. He ignored it, which turned out to be the most amazing blessing, and the result of a lot of prayer and fasting. H and I chatted a bit on-line in March, but he started criticizing me for not taking better care of myself (although how he would know what care I took is beyond me). I decided at that moment that I was done with him, period.

He sent me e-mail at the end of April. It didn’t sound at all like he wrote it. He mentioned custody arrangements, child support (from me to him) legal this, family court that. I wrote back saying that I planned on placing the baby. I didn’t hear from him again until a few days after the baby was born. He had somehow seen a picture on Facebook, even though I’d blocked him. I think he must have looked at a family member’s page. He demanded to know what was going on. I told him that nothing had changed, and I left it at that.

He didn’t respond until August 22nd, and when he did, I wondered again what sort of man I’d gotten myself involved with. He had, apparently, been cyber-stalking me and keeping tabs on what I was up to. He knew that I had kept the baby, and he was going to fight me for custody.

I felt betrayed, I felt angry, and I felt lost. I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. How could this have happened? I had been so careful to keep his damning influence away from my sweet, precious baby. And now I was supposed to hand her over to him? The thought made me realize, for the first time I think, exactly what sort of man I had gotten involved with – a heavy drinker, a smoker, an atheist, a potty-mouth, a man disrespectful of women. H is NOT a bad person, I want to make that clear. But he has made a lot of bad choices in his life, and I couldn’t bear to see my sweet baby suffer because of his mistakes. I didn’t want to worry about what she was exposed to in his care – what she heard and saw and what fumes she breathed in. I worried enough about her when she was in my arms. How could I keep her safe when she was with H, or his chain-smoking mother?

For weeks I had been feeling that my baby wasn’t meant to be mine. This e-mail from H solidified that feeling. I had to keep her safe. I had to make sure that her father was the sort of man who would bless her in church and teach her the gospel and respect her mother.

I didn’t respond to H’s threatening letter, and I have not heard from him since. I can only assume that in his cyber-stalking he found out I placed the baby. I don’t expect that I will ever hear from him again, and that is just fine by me. My baby and I are both better off without his influence in our lives.

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch …

I’ve spent so much time processing my emotions lately that I’ve sort of lost track of the story that I was telling. So I’m going to go back to where I left off, which was the end of October, 2008.

My therapist told me something that stuck with me, something that I have repeated probably a hundred times since I heard it. I was lamenting that my life seemed to be a never ending series of horrible mistakes.

“Now, I want to stop you right there, Jill,” he said. “I need to make sure you understand something about all this. You may have made a mistake, but God doesn’t make mistakes. This baby is unplanned, but it’s not a mistake.”

I have never forgotten those words. I was shamed a bit that my therapist, who is not a member of my church, could see something that should have been so obvious to me with my knowledge of God’s plan for His children. I thought about those words, and I knew that my therapist was right. God had a very specific purpose in sending me this baby. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew that there was a greater plan for me and for my unborn child.

From that moment on, I viewed my pregnancy as a blessing. I had made a mistake, yes. Don't think that I forgot for a moment the severity of my sin. But God can make ugly things beautiful, and out of my trespass had come the most wonderful blessing. I realized what an awesome responsibility pregnancy is. I resolved to take better care of myself - I had the opportunity to nurture the tiny body I was growing for one of God's precious children.

Pictures

In the nine weeks that I had Roo, I took more than 1200 pictures. There are probably a few children who have been more often photographed - Suri Cruise comes to mind - but I think that I may have set a record with Roo because of the space of time in which the pictures were taken.

Since placement, I have looked at those pictures a lot. Not every day, but every other day, I think. And I have cried. It's hard to see those pictures and not miss her desperately. It's hard to see pictures of her in her crib, in her car seat, in the Pack and Play, and think that she will never be in them again. It's hard to see pictures of her in my arms as well, but at least I know I'll get to hold her again plenty. But when I hold her again, as when I held her on my first visit, it will not be as her mommy, but as her birth mother.

Last night, I looked at my Roo pictures. And for the first time, I didn't cry.

I felt that certain acute sadness, an emptiness, to which I am accustomed. But there were no tears. My time with Roo seemed so long ago. It was a strange feeling. It was kind of nice not to fall apart, but at the same time I mourned the loss of such strong emotions. It's hard to explain. I'm glad that I was able to just enjoy looking at the pictures and not cry, but I feel like when things get easier it means I'm losing some of the strong emotional ties I have to Roo, and it scares me a little. But I think that that, too, will get easier for me with time. Soon enough it won't bother me that I don't cry.

P and M had family pictures taken last week and they sent me some of the pictures of Roo. She looked so right with them - they are her family, and she is their baby. She is getting so big. Her little belly hung over the waistband of her skirt, and her cheeks are as round as ever. She looks happy and healthy. They are the best pictures I could have asked for. I have looked at them more than a dozen times. But they have never made me cry.

I have it figured out. My pictures make me cry because they are of my baby, and I miss my baby. But the pictures P and M sent me are of their baby - not mine - and I can't possibly miss someone else's baby. I think I prefer their baby. She's got the whole world open to her, she has two parents who love her, and she is content. I think sometimes I cry for my baby because of all that I wasn't able to give her by myself.

I hope and pray that someday I will have another baby, one to whom I can give the world. And in the meantime, I am thankful that I was able to give my baby the world, even if it meant giving her up.

Time

I painted the living room this week. I think I may have mentioned that. The paint is dry now and I've started to clean the floors and move some of the furniture back into place. Not everything is going back into the room because it was a bit of a mess before, and I want the room to keep the soothing, HGTV feel it's got going at the moment.

The walls were white, now they are blue - Rain Washed, according to Behr. It is a different room completely now. Roo has never been in this version of this room. I wonder if that will make it easier for me. Will I think of her less in here now that it feels so different? I'm not sure. I don't think that anything but time can make me think of her less.

Time has already helped me some. The first week, I spent every second of every day wondering where exactly Roo was and what she was doing. Now I can go several hours at a stretch without wondering in such detail. When I was painting, I passed a lot of time not wondering about her at all. I was too focused on the task at hand.

I did think, from time to time, about what I would be doing if I still had Roo. I tried to imagine painting with a baby in the house, and I have to say that I don't think it would have happened. The logistics simply don't work. Of course, I would rather have Roo than a Rain Washed living room, but I've got a Rain Washed living room, and I'm happy with it.

Looking around the lower floor of the house, you would never know that there was once a baby here. The kitchen table bears a parenting magazine or two, and (for some odd reason) the assembly instructions for the crib. But you'd have to know they were there to see them. Downstairs, the house says that adults live here. It's only as you move upstairs that there are traces of what once was. The first landing has a pile of Roo artifacts - the folded up Pack and Play, a laundry basket full of odds and ends like blankets and the baby monitor and the Boppy pillow. The hallway upstairs holds a few odd items that suggest a baby, and then there's my room, where lies the bulk of the detritus of my nine short weeks of motherhood.

I imagine that it will only be a matter of time before the pile on the landing shifts upstairs as well, or perhaps into the garage for more long-term storage. Slowly but surely, all signs of a baby are being pushed up, away, out of sight. Before long there will be nothing left to ever suggest that a baby lived here, or that I was ever a mother. I wonder what that will be like but I am not too anxious to find out. I'm sure it will happen soon enough. When it does I will deal with it as best I can.

And, in time, it will get easier. When my dad died a year ago I couldn't imagine that there would ever be a time when I didn't collapse under the weight of my grief. It seemed unthinkable that I would ever be able to speak of him without tears, that I wouldn't miss him more than I could bear. But with every month that passed, it got easier, if just the tiniest bit. I got used to his absence. I stopped expecting to hear the door open at 5:15 and I adjusted to being the only one in the house who liked ketchup and baseball and 100-degree weather.

I expect that it will be something similar with Roo. One of these days, I will think of her without such acute pain. It will hurt, yes, but not quite as sharply. One of these days, I will go seven, eight, nine hours without thinking of her. I will learn to be alone again, to be a selfish single woman again, to be unexceptional and unimportant again. I will learn to live my life without her, and I will be okay without her. It's only a matter of time.

I'm praying for patience.