So with people all around me getting pregnant and having babies lately, I think about the time when I was pregnant and when Steven was young. What should have been a really joyous time in my life - wasn't. I mean, in many ways it was, but in so many ways it wasn't. It had nothing to do with Steven, or my desire to have a child - I most certainly wanted a child of my own! And I thought I was in a loving relationship, with someone I could build a future with and have a couple of babies with, and live happily ever after.
We all know that the fairytale ended, hell it never really even began. I saw more and more of the true colors of James when I was pregnant - it was the first time he put his hands on me. He poked me with his finger so hard it left a black circular bruise on my chest when I was about 5 months pregnant. He threw things, had tantrums frequently, and put his fist through our glass top coffee table.
Once, he came in drunk and was pissed at me about something, and when he was coming after me to hit me, he almost knocked Steven's bassinet over, with Steven in it! I think Steven was about 3 weeks old.
I had a little meltdown in the car when I got home tonight, thinking about how I didn't really get to enjoy my pregnancy with Steven, or my maternity leave once he was born. I had no support from James when I was healing from childbirth and trying to adjust to being a new mom. He never got up with Steven in the middle of the night (thankfully Steven slept through the night from almost the very beginning, or at least until 4am or so). I had to do all the cooking, all the cleaning, and the child care in the 8 weeks I had off before returning to work.
And I'll never forget the first day I went back to work. My dad was flying back home so I had to take him to the airport. I was crying because he was leaving, and crying because I was leaving my new baby at home to go back to work. I had nursed Steven when I got up, and he went back to sleep. No sooner had I arrived at work (an hour late or so because of having to take my dad to the airport) than I received a phone call from James, screaming at me that I couldn't have fed Steven because he was screaming and carrying on and he wouldn't take the bottle. I bought a different kind of bottle, went home, nursed Steven, and went back to work. It was a frequent occurrence, that James would call me at work, screaming the accusations at me that I didn't feed Steven, because Steven would be hungry within 2 hours of me leaving.
The more I thought about all this, what I missed out on with that whole experience, and what I went through, what the kids went through, I just got really, really upset. Our home was so unstable and James loved to scream and yell, that Steven became a very frightened, timid child because of it. Thank heavens I got Steven away from that bastard. Steven's still timid at times, but thankfully he's really come out of his shell in the last 8 years or so. I don't even want to think about what he would be like if I hadn't left James.
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