About Babies

It seems like one veil after another is being lifted these days. Things that have baffled me all my life are suddenly becoming clearer than clear. Ive have now decided I want to have a baby. WHAT!!!!!! I stayed clear of that all my life. Im ready now. Science allows women to get pregnant after menopause. It still can happen. Ive decided that if the opportunity ever presents itself, Im doing it.
That said, Ill tell you what has straightened out in my head. Baby thoughts got me thinking about why I couldnt make it work the first time. I had a son. I had a baby. But he didnt feel like mine. Shocking! Why was that? Ive thought this over all my adult life. Bang! It became so clear today. I was terrified. It was a trauma being reenacted all over again. When I was 6, my mother had a baby boy, David. She was never home, so the childcare fell on me. It was a nightmare. Things happened that scared me to death. It was just me before David, and then it was just us two. I was alone during measles, and scarey things on TV, and scarey noises, breaking a full mayonaise jar on the floor with mayo and glass everywhere, and my newborn brother falling out of bed on his head. I was sure he would die. There was nothing I could do. And if there was anything wrong when mother did come home, I would be severely punished. One night I thought I was having a heart attack, when my mother and step dad didnt come home when they said they would. I busted out of that trailer, carrying a chair, and ran terrified about a half mile to where I could see cars pull in from the road into the trailer court driveway. I watched every headlight as they filed in, never being the one I was praying for. It must have been hours before they returned late into the night. When they passed me by in the car, they just kept right on going. Mother apparently thought I should carry back that chair, since I was so naughty to be out there at that time of night with it. What happened after that, that night I dont remember, but you can be sure the punishment fit the crime.
Fast forward to when I got pregnant at 15. I married the inseminator and had my son at 16. He moved me way out of town in Birnamwood, WI. I didnt know how to drive, but that didnt matter, I didnt have a car. I talked him into getting this new fangled thing they called a telephone and that became my only lifeline. I went into labor for hours before I got to the hospital. I came home to a 100+ year old house, that never had any remodeling since it was built. All the while I was pregnant and after the baby there was just an outhouse (were talking WI winters here). There was no hot water. All we had for heat was a monstrous space heater that scared me to death. It would always go out and I would not go near it. David worked nights, so I was all alone at night with a newborn. Do you see where Im going with this? There wasnt any food, or health care. David kept spending all the money on toys; snowmobiles, cars, motorcycles, etc. I had to hand wash cloth diapers and if there had to be a bath, I had to move a giant metal tub in from outdoors, and boil the water to make it warm, which took forever. David always stunk, so I refused him sex. He began an affair and then he rarely came home at all, except to brutally rape me in front of our son. He started drinking and everything went from bad to worse and I feared for my life. I ran out of that house one day barefoot, and never came back.
Back to present. I was traumatised all over again by almost the very same scenario. I spent every night terrified. Danny once chewed on an extension cord and got shocked. I thought he was going to die. I was so depressed that I started to take it out on the baby by yelling at him. It had to stop. Obviously I wasnt a fit mother, and I was not going to do to my son, like what was done to me. I let my mother in law take care of him during the separation and divorce. I went into a mental hospital and never recovered from what I had been through. Eventually I wanted my son back, but she wouldnt give him to me. She got custody. There was no support for me. I didnt have parents, no education, no money, no nothing. The state paid for a hotel room for me. Writing this down right now, I just want to scream. All I ever wanted was to be a wife and mother. I wanted a life as an adult that I never had as a child. I figured that was my shot and I screwed it up. Ive been running ever since.
Knowing why I abandoned my son doesnt make it any easier or heal anything. Its still as raw as it ever was. Except now I finally grew up and Im ready for a baby. How sad and pathetic is that?