For That One
Because of having abdominal pains caused by endometriosis, and having surgery to remove scar tissue and cysts around my ovaries, my doctor told me that if I ever wanted to get pregnant I would have to do it right away or else maybe never get pregnant. So there I was, terrified of intimacy but wanting a baby. I was already scared of intimacy from my past, and I was angry and disgusted with James and his so-called support. I had to make the decision to conceive a baby with this person who treated me so badly. It was either leave, or stay and have a baby. But did I really want to have a baby with him knowing how he treated me when he was hurting? I didn’t want to have a baby with him, but I wanted a baby. I knew that with my medical problems, I had to just live in this hell to have my hearts desire. So I did. I stuffed all that pain and concentrated on getting pregnant. I hated the idea of this man touching me, so how were we going to conceive?
Well because we were trying, at least talking about trying to have a baby, we decided to move to my dad’s house, the same house I grew up in. After the move, however, things got worse. It was a very stressful time in our lives, because we were also trying to buy a house. There was just so much going on. Our marriage was full of stress and anger and no real way to make up from all our fights. We were living in the miserable, depressing house that I grew up in, and you could just imagine the stresses of a house and baby planning.
One weekend we decided to go to the beach. It was our six-month anniversary, and we were at the same place and with the same people that we were with when we first got together. It was kind of a reunion of our reuniting. This vacation was supposed to take our minds off of all the pain we were suffering in our marriage. But it wasn’t, it was a reminder of what we would be normally doing on a vacation with friends. We should have been having fun, eating lots of good food and having lots of good sex. But we were not having fun, we were too poor to eat good food and I’m sure you can guess that we weren’t having good sex. As a matter of fact, all we did for four days was argue. He wouldn’t talk to me, and he would put me down if he said anything at all. I couldn’t understand what I had done. We were on vacation and it was miserable. There was so much anger and resentment already built up in a very short six months of marriage that you could cut the air with a knife— the tension was so thick.
So of course he brings up intimacy. He said he thought it was great that I was getting help—but when was he going to get some? He also stated how he felt rejected, and then came the guilt trip of how a man needs sex. I was trying. I couldn’t help the pain I was in from my past. I tried as much as I could, but knowing there was no love made it thousands of times harder.
So there we were, at the beach in July as miserable as could be. Then one day we were fighting (and fighting about how much we were fighting) and yelling and screaming, when all of a sudden we ended up in each other’s arms crying and caressing one another. By a miracle, by the beautiful grace of God, we made love. It was passionate, intense and extremely intimate. It was so intimate and intense that I started to cry. I was overwhelmed with emotions. I felt a vulnerability that I had never felt in my entire life.
It was an intense, passionate lovemaking session, but you know - this was all in God’s hands, because in this one incredible, blessed moment of passion, we conceived a beautiful baby. This was truly the grace of God. We in no way deserved such a blessing. I had prayed to my higher power every day about getting pregnant. And God chose to bless us.
About a month after we conceived and didn’t know it yet, it was my three-year sobriety anniversary, and we were continuing a tradition of having a crab feast to celebrate. This was a celebration for me, and James couldn’t say anything nice to me at all. He could only complain and make nasty remarks all day. When everybody came over; he wouldn’t even talk to me. He worked really hard to destroy my special day. He said “Why don’t you just enjoy yourself, because you really don’t care how I feel anyway.” Supposedly all I cared about was having a good time. I could care less how much pain he was in. And, hey, I got my crab feast so who cares about him! I felt like the most selfish uncaring wife in the whole world. I felt like I was manipulative and only cared about myself. I remember that day like it was yesterday. I bought into that guilt and shame all over again – hook, line and sinker. That day was terrible, and again I felt that I made a mistake in marrying him.
Finding out that I was pregnant did not lessen the stress in our lives, actually, it intensified with the addition of pregnancy hormones. So there we were approximately married for a half a year and expecting our first baby and living in my dad’s basement. We were scared but we never talked about it.
Now I was married, pregnant, and getting ready to buy our first house, (a beautiful condominium with a pond) with this man that I couldn’t stand to be around. He was always depressed and angry. Yes it was stressful, but that’s the time that married couples talk and plan and enjoy the whole process of buying their first home. Not James, he was absolutely miserable. He was constantly stressed out and very nasty. He was verbally abusive, and he would always start blaming our intimacy on the way he behaved.
Things were good when he was gone, because he worked out of town during the week and came home on weekends. My dad and I got along great. We went to crab feasts every Wednesday night together. I liked hanging out with him and my brother. And then on weekends when James would come home, I would again be walking on eggshells. I could not say anything right. He would get mad at me and pour on the guilt every single weekend. It was miserable.
During this time I tried to work, but I had morning sickness that lasted all day; at least for the first trimester. During that time I began a lifetime of home business ventures. I became a beauty consultant. I loved the products, but I could never promote the business. It happened that one day I had a very productive presentation lined up. After we moved into our condo, I was preparing for this successful show, when all of a sudden, I started to get back pains. I’m not one to suffer with back problems so I decided to rest a while. As these pains came and went, I decided to start to time them.
You see a week prior to this, James and I went to our first child birth class, and we had heard about a woman who had back pain that turned into labor – so with that in mind I started timing these pains, and sure enough they were contractions, ten minutes apart. At this time I was approximately thirty-one weeks pregnant. Not quite time to deliver but definitely getting there.
I was rushed to the hospital and put on a drug to slow down contractions and, for the next four to six weeks, I was on complete bed rest, and totally depending on James for food, drinks, everything. Did he lovingly take care of me? Did he talk to me and comfort me or even show the slightest bit of love and concern about me? No, he complained about his job, and he treated me as though I was a nuisance in his life. That’s what I got instead of love and comfort. I got grief, guilt and anger. I had to withstand this hell everyday because he worked the night shift, and when he was home we weren’t getting along. He was having a tough time on his job and was taking it out on me. And while I was miserable, I took it out on him. It was not a pretty picture in our house.
The highlight of my day was when James would leave for work and my dad would come and stay with me. At least then I could have conversation with someone. It was hard lying in bed watching my house fall down around me. But it was certainly worth it. I was under constant care from someone – whether it was my husband or my sister or my aunt or my dad, someone was always with me. I had to depend on everybody else for anything I needed. That was really tough for me - especially since that included my husband.