Baby Mine

(A Mother's Journey), Memoir

“Did your son make it home for Christmas?” Lenny asks.

I've known Lenny for exactly one week. He greeted me at the bank right after my move back to my hometown. I went in to get a new debit card. My old one had been locked due to a change of address and a new cell phone number (if you can help it, never change your cell phone number- the world will no longer recognize you. It is the most difficult form of identity transfer.) Lenny helped me out, and we ended up talking about our grown/nearly grown kids.

“He decided to go to Miami with his girlfriend. Guess I can't compete with that!” I cackled. (My family tells me I laugh like a witch in my middle-aged-ness. I go with it.)

“Miami!” Lenny says in disbelief.

“How about your boys? Did they come home?” I ask.

“The oldest and the youngest did, the middle one went incommunicado till midnight on Christmas and then phoned to say he was at his girlfriend's house. We weren’t even pressuring him, but he said he was coming. We weren't mad, just disappointed, you know?”

Lenny has a genuine quality about him. His hair and beard contrast a frosty gray-white against his dark wrinkle-free skin, his smile friendly.

“Yeah,” I sigh.

“I know.“

My son and I have always been close. I was a young mom of nineteen when he was born. I didn't know much at the time except that I wanted to be a good mother and I had no clue as to what I was doing. His dad and I split when I was six weeks along in my pregnancy. He was twenty-eight and unstable, to say the least.

My pregnancy with my firstborn was physically healthy and normal. I was young! Otherwise, it was insane. My Mormon mother and family were distraught and ashamed of me being an “unwed mother.” I was advised to place my as-yet-unborn child (deemed “the Enchilada” by my doting brothers) for adoption (not terrible advice, considering the circumstances.) And so it was that I became involved with an LDS adoption agency. I would go to counseling and talk to other girls who were placing or had placed their babies with “good Mormon parents.” I would bring home photo albums and binders filled with profiles of happy couples better suited to the task of child-rearing than I was.

Initially, I had no problem with the idea of parting ways with a baby that I was not ready to raise. I was an intelligent young woman (or so I thought) who had just made a mistake. Maybe I could move on from this and go to college. I had dreams of going to Oxford (I grew up poor as f*ck but had decided that Oxford was the place for bookish, mousy girls like me who obsessed over Dickens and C.S. Lewis.) The thought of getting a clean slate helped me get past the idea that I had ruined my life just 6 months following high school graduation.

I had considered abortion first, to be perfectly frank. My mom even supported it, which was unlike her because of her devout commitment to “the Church.” I think her love for me surpassed her religious devotion. She could see how desperate I was. But then we spoke to the LDS counselor, who gave me a tiny plastic fetus to hold in my hands.

“This is what your baby looks like right now,” she said.

That was enough to sway my 18-year-old brain at the time. And to trigger my innate guilt complex.

I will take a minute to say that I'm staunchly Pro-choice. That being said, I'm glad that the woman at the agency talked me into following through with my pregnancy. It was the right thing for me. I value my son more because I was able to choose freely to have him.

I remember listening to a lot of Lauryn Hill back in those days, circa 1998-99. I would drive around playing “Zion” in my car on repeat (on a cassette tape!) Thanks for that, Ms. Hill.

My ex would call frantically and often. He would scream at me over the phone (because that's what a gal needs when she is facing an uncertain future with a baby.)

“Come back to Taos, Mama! I want to raise my baby out here on the Mesa,” he would beg. Then he would lose himself in a diatribe of cursing and nonsense when I refused to comply.

“The Mesa” was an area outside of Taos, NM, where I lived for all of two months with the ill-fated father of my child. I met him while traveling with a friend. It was the hippie commune of my Joni Mitchell bohemian dreams. And he was the handsome, Latin, dreadlocked lover I never knew I wanted. My teenage sex drive overrode my senses. I shacked up with this total stranger and lived in an Earth-ship hut of our own making- built of recycled tires, mud, and glass bottles. There was no running water or electricity. I spent my 19th birthday there, getting unhappily stoned (weed never sat well with me, but when in Rome…) with the other lost ones of my generation. By the time the first snow fell across the Mesa between the Angel Fire Valley and the Two Peaks mountains, I was pregnant. And very disillusioned. My lover had the temperament of a frenzied, strung-out monster; so much for the Land of Enchantment.

Adoption counseling saved me. I bonded with the other girls. We were our own tribe- raised LDS, not necessarily “bad kids”, who had just gone off track a bit. I couldn't relate to my friends anymore, most of them had already left for college and seemed to be having the time of their lives. I was stuck at home with the repercussions of my actions. These girls knew exactly what I was going through. Everyone was kind. And while the rest of the world shamed and shunned me, I found acceptance among these so-called Jezebels.

I did have one good friend who came to my aide. She stayed by my side for most of the pregnancy. We would stroll through the city, arm in arm and hand-in-hand. She would tell passers-by that she was the father. We’d have sleepovers and she would bring me Goodwill bags of baby clothes. She held a baby shower for me. Many friends showed up. I had decided I would send my “Little Enchilada” off with good gifts and lots of love.

I chose a family for my beautiful unborn child- a good-looking Hispanic couple who had already adopted a little girl. But as my due date drew near, I began to wonder if I could part with him. I had every reason to give him up: lack of money, no partner, no education beyond high school, and no real plan for my life. I had one reason to keep him- I had fallen in love with this little boy. My heart began to break at the thought of being without him. I would cry late at night. My mother would come into my room to comfort me.

“You can keep him, you know. I will help you,” she whispered to me one especially difficult evening as I sobbed into her arms.

It was at this moment that I knew I would be the one to raise my son.

The week of my boy’s birth was eventful for more than one reason. Despite all my protests, his father wanted to come for the big event. I was less than elated. The last night we had spent together was a violent one- he had assaulted me. I warned him not to come near me again. I got a restraining order, which he ignored.

He showed up at my mom and stepdad’s house just days before our son was born. He screamed and shouted and beat at the door. I called the police. They took him to jail. And that is where he was the day our son was born. He stayed away after that.

My best friend drove me to the hospital, followed by my mom, stepdad, and two younger brothers. Some of my other friends met us there. My dad drove from out of state to join the group. One of the nurses noted that I had “quite the entourage.”

Being the earth-mama hippie that I was, I opted for a natural birth- no pain meds, no epidural. It was a long labor- 16 hours, I think. I was stressed and slow to dilate (I can’t imagine why.) The baby had started to swallow blood because there was no more amniotic fluid left. The doctor was telling me something about a “dry birth”, which was confusing to me at the time. He was considering a C-Section, much to my dismay.

My girlfriend stepped in. She asked everyone else to leave the room. She sat by my side and calmly said, “Squeeze my hand as hard as you want to when the contractions come, and in between, just breathe.”

I did as she said. I’m surprised I didn’t break her hand. But within the hour, I was fully dilated and gave birth to a mostly healthy baby boy on that late August afternoon.

They did have to take him to the NICU for the first day. He’d swallowed a lot of blood and couldn’t eat. He was vomiting. I worried. And I didn’t like him being away from me. That is when the adoption counselor called.

I told her I was having second thoughts and that I wanted to take the baby home for a few days. She told me that the likelihood of the adoption being successful would decrease if I took him home. I think we both already knew that it wasn’t going to happen. I felt some remorse for disappointing the family, but not enough to change my mind.

I did take that baby home. Motherly love trumped my fears and insecurities. I knew it wouldn’t be easy- it wasn’t. But I also knew that he was mine. Twenty-four years and many trials later, I have no regrets. Hopefully, next year, that baby of mine will come home for Christmas. And I will be waiting with open arms, always.

The Author with her son

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