Life Beyond Expectations
Mama, Please Love Me
A voice or something told me to go to the doctor. I was at work when I first found out I was pregnant. My breast has been sore and swollen for about a week and they hurt.
One of my coworkers told me that I needed to go the doctor and get checked out. She said that I should use some cotton balls for my soreness until I had an opportunity to get in the office. I acted as though I didn’t think anything of it, but inside I was afraid and hoping that I didn’t have breast cancer. Later on that night, I thought about what my coworker said and I made an appointment to see why my breasts were so sore and swollen. I made the appointment with Kaiser, but I had to work the 4-10 shift, so I didn’t get home until late.
My husband had cooked steak, gravy and rice. I normally wouldn’t eat so late at night. But it was around midnight when I finally got around to making my plate. The food was great and after I finished, my stomach turned and I began to vomit.
Now I was wondering, “Okay, maybe I have a stomach virus.” My appointment would be in the next few days.
At the appointment, I explained everything to the doctor and she said, “Well, first we’re going to just run a few test on you.” The doctor asked if I had had my cycle for the month yet.
I replied, “Yes, it just went away 2 days ago”
“Do you think that you’re pregnant”, the doctor asked.
“No”, I replied, “I’m on the birth control shot and it’s not time for the next one until next month.”
The shot is administered every three months.
“Okay”, the doctor responded, “We will just test you to see if your are pregnant anyway.”
“Okay”, I responded, “Cause I know I’m not pregnant.”
Being pregnant was the last thing on my mind. After the steak situation, I really only thought that I had a stomach virus. I waited patiently and nervously for the doctor to return with the results.
“Knock..Knock”, sounded from the door.
“Well, we know why your breasts are sore and tender”, the doctor started, “You’re pregnant!”
“What!?”
I couldn’t believe it. I cried like a baby there in the small room with the doctor.
“How”, I asked, “I’m on birth control!”
“Birth control isn’t 100%. It’s only 97.5% effective”, she responded.
I was still in tears, asking myself how could this happen because I had been so determined not to have anymore kids since I had my son at 14 year old.
“What do you want to do”, asked the doctor as she looked at my streaming face, “You do have options.”
“I want an abortion”, I answered.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive”, I answered.
The doctor gave me the paperwork and she gave me a telephone number to call to set up the appointment. I left out of the doctor’s office, crying. I called the number and set up an appointment for one week out.
The next day the hospital called and told me to come back in because there was a problem with my blood work and that it was an emergency for me to come back in and have an ultrasound. So I went back to the hospital.
“You’re six weeks pregnant”, said the nurse.
“Oh My God. Six Weeks”, I asked, “I didn’t have a clue.”
The nurse turned back around and looked at the computer screen.
“Oh My God”, she exclaimed.
“What”, I asked, still propped up on the table, “What is it?”
The nurse turned the computer screen around to I could see.
“You’re having twins!”
I jumped up off the table and my stomach immediately got upset. I ran to the bathroom, tears streaming down my face. I cried and flushed the toilet asking myself, “Oh My God. Why me? Twins?”
I left the hospital in tears for the second time—this time in shock. I pulled the car over to catch my breath. I was about to have an anxiety attack. I called my husband and told him the news.
“What”, he asked, “Get out of here. I’m on my way to the liquor store. I’ll see you when you get home.”
For me, I’d been praying about having an abortion. I was in tears and my heart and God wouldn’t let me do it. So, during the pregnancy I still couldn’t accept the fact that I was pregnant, especially with twins. I had made a commitment not to have anymore children because of the experience of my teenage pregnancy. I didn’t get to enjoy my teenage years like most teens. I had to grow up at the age of 14.
Back when I was in the 7th grade, my mom was very strict on me but not on my two brothers. She would keep me in the house and not allow me to go outside and play with the kids in the neighborhood for no apparent reason. At the time, we were living in New Orleans, in a white shack in the Lower Ninth Ward. Our lights and water had been off for at least a year.
My mom must have had about forty-two empty water jugs that my two brothers and I would have to fill up every evening from the neighbor’s house. We had to do this everyday just to take a wash off and for her to cook, and for me to wash the dishes. Around six o’clock in the evening, she would call my brothers inside from playing while I had been cooped up in the house all day on punishment. She never gave me a reason. She would just send us over with the jugs to get water, always making sure that I had more jugs to carry. She would tell me that I was the oldest. Mothers should never keep their daughters locked up like prisoners in their own home.
Each night, she would turn the electricity on at the breaker box and use the crock-pot to cook beans. My brothers and I had to have eaten red beans and rice for about a month with no meat. I would have to hot-curl my hair in the dark, wishing I could turn on the light to see. I would also have to wash my clothes and my brothers’ clothes on my hands and knees in the bathtub—in the dark. I would hang the clothes on the clothes’ line in the back of the house.
“I wish I never had you”, my mom would say to me, “I don’t like girls. They’re too grown and hot in their tails.”
We would eat bread sandwiches with hints of mayonnaise, wishing we had a piece of bologna. Some nights I didn’t even eat. I would just eat my school lunch and that would be it.
My mom was always getting evicted because she always ran behind her no good boyfriend, who was on crack, depending on him to pay ‘half’ the rent. But before he would get his check, he would owe everyone that he had borrowed from—crack—on credit. I can remember the ‘dope-boys’ knocking on the door for their money. My mom would tell us not to answer the door and pretend that no one was home. I was scared that someone might get hurt. I didn’t want to live in that type of environment, having no food to eat; no electricity to see; no fans or air conditioning for the Louisiana summers; no water to take a cold shower because we had no gas. So, when Mondays came, I was happy to go back to school.
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