Looking Back

AS my son is in this new reality and his Dad and I are relegated to the sidelines, I have much time to look back on my many failures as his mother.

#1 that I was careless as a young twenty something who conceived a child into less than great circumstances. I am sure though that he was a gift from God to save me. But it was a long road that both my son and I had to walk, mostly alone.

I know now that I most likely had a pretty bad case of Post Partum Depression. I remember the moment I realized that this baby was coming. How I sat and thought this is it. Nothing will ever be the same from here.

My labor really wasn't bad. But I screamed at the pain. I cried for the epidurals. I really tried to quit pushing. He was born at 8:30a.m., after much frustration from the doctor that I had to literally be convinced to push. I remember the sun was shining through my window. I remember just before he slipped out of me, that they had given me an epidural. I only held him for a moment before they whisked him to the nursery.

My Second biggest regret is that I refused to even consider breast feeding him. I remember at my first visit when they were asking me how I felt, I told them I didn't want him. I was pretty sure my Dad would kill me when he found out. Obviously he didn't. But then as the pregnancy progressed I expressed my desire to keep him. Just to note that not once did any of the staff think that I should be monitored more or talked to more. I guess they just accepted that young unwed mothers often refuse to bond with the baby they carry within their womb. So not one did I ever consider breast feeding. I am not sure I could have anyway. I was so full of churning emotions and self loathing.

So as I am waking up from the stupor, I think closer to 11a.m. I am thinking to myself how I don't really want to wake up. I don't really want them to bring that baby back in here. But of course they do. Of course he is such a cutie. And he looks just like his Dad who swears that he could not belong to him.

I bring this baby back to my house. My mom driving us home in her white older Buick. She was in love with this little baby. I was confused by him. I was lost as what to do with him. My sister began to stay with me. She was in college and working. Somehow I came to expect her to be his caregiver. We fought a lot about how she was living with me, but not helping me with him. But really why should she? She was an Aunt. She was living her own life.

At any given moment I would load that baby up and take him to my Mom. They have a very special bond to this day.

He would cry and cry and cry. I would pick him up, put him down, glare at him, cry with him, hug him, pat his back, and put him down. I tried so hard to make him quit crying. But I didn't know how. He was mine, but somehow he wasn't exactly mine.

A deep depression set in. He was born late July. I was doing okay. Just trying to piece my life back together. Thanks be to my Dad for supplementing my income where the Welfare left off. But it became a reality that I had to go back to work. My son began his life in childcare at 5weeks old. It wouldn't be until he was nearly 11 that I could stay home with him.

I tried to put on a strong façade. I tried to make up for the fact that during this time his father was absent. He met his father for the first time just a few weeks shy of turning one. Yet, I am now facing the challenges of why I didn't care enough to fight for him. It is so much more complicated than that.

I ran into some of my old non kid friends that still smoked and partied some and since they were the only ones that were really reaching out to me, guess what road I started down. It was a very dark and lonely road. It was sometimes dangerous. It made my father deeply sad and my mother to tell everyone that I was shoving my son off on her, which by the way is mostly true. Unfortunately my parents were my enablers. I am deeply grateful for all that they did, but I couldn't pull myself up from the darkness. I was surrounded by darkness. I was alone. I hated myself and all that I had done that led me to that exact point in my life.

My 2003 I was at the end of a bad run of quitting jobs, self destruction through very heavy drinking, and bad relationships. I am here to tell you that during that time I was a bar fly and I was looking for love in all the wrong places. If someone asked me to dance, well they could by my future. It was a bad place to be. But all through this I loved my son. I wanted him to be happy. I spoiled him. But I was at a place where after work I would pick him up from daycare, take him to a fast food place get him something to eat, me nothing, and drive endlessly around our tiny town until it was time for him to go to bed.

I told my Dad and he said I was being silly. He was in a very stressful situation at work. He honestly didn't know how to deal with depression or the signs. I told my mother who had her own set of issues. She told me all about how bad things were for her. and to get over myself. So there I was sitting in my truck with a three year old boy and a bunch of broken dreams and dying slowly from the inside out.

I honestly don't know when I was able to get past that point, but I know I did. I ended up working at a Cell Phone place and finding a new meaning to my life. But it was a dark place too.

I feel the need to get this all out. To let others peak into my reality. To know that I am going to seek help for depression, because it still pulls me down. It still drives me to binge eat. To feel alone, to see darkness despite the sun. But there are many good days and a good husband helps me a lot.

Please let the Lord work on my son while he is in this middle ground.

B. Alwildia Garcia
December 10 2016