"If You Love Someone, Set Them Free . . . "

[Note: I cannot make these stories from my life nice and neat (or, rather, whitewashed and sweet) in order to make them more palatable, or easier to cope with, for anyone reading them. When the truth is watered-down, it stops being the truth! I have lived through all these things. It is my story. It is what it is. I can only produce these posts as the inspiration needed to cover these particular topics shows up to help me deal directly with their subject matter. (It is not easy to do!) Therefore, each post is more like part of a jigsaw puzzle. At some point, as I continue to provide the pieces of that here, you should be able to at least get a sense of the whole picture, for yourself. I have already sat here typing a previous post through an anxiety attack, which I am not prone to, struggling to breathe, as I tackled some of the darker experiences that I have been through. [This refers to my March 6, 2019 post titled 'Two Memories I Have From My Marriages.'] There are certainly more of those to come, both here and in life as well, simply because of living on this planet. We suffer from the pervasive consequences of Original Sin, the sins of others, and our own sin, and we must acknowledge all of that, at some point. This Blog is my mosaic. I am creating it by taking it one piece at a time, as I am able to do so.]

In mid-November of 1981, I delivered my son, after about 27 hours of labor which had begun just as I was climbing into bed exhausted at the end of a day in which I hadn't even been able to take a nap. Sleep was difficult to come by, being nine months pregnant and physically uncomfortable from that, so I was especially tired. My water broke, right then, starting my labor. So, instead of getting to lie down and sleep, or at least try to get some rest, I went and stood in the bathtub while all of that trickled down my legs, as I had never gone through any of this before to be sure what to do. At the hospital, there were times that my contractions, monitored by the strap across my belly, went past its ability to measure their intensity! I did do some things from my Lamaze class training, such as using a focal point to concentrate somewhere outside of my body (where my pain was), and certain breathing techniques; but labor was still a long and arduous process. The nurses called my ob-gyn to request more help for me through my IV, but that could only go so far. The rest of the way, I was on my own.

It really felt like that, too, since my husband was more chatty with the nurses than bedside to support me. This was nothing new to me, with him. One of the tougher things, besides my extreme physical exhaustion from before and during all this, was not being allowed to eat anything during the entire labor--- except ice chips from a Styrofoam cup--- while the nurses nurtured my husband's needs by bringing in trays of food for him. The enticing aromas wafted over to my hospital bed, increasing my hunger and my awareness that my own basic needs were on hold, for the duration of which I had no idea then. Eventually, I got grouchier, and my outcries from the contractions got louder. Losing my patience with everyone around me who wasn't in this pain, I verbally threw my husband out of my hospital room for awhile by telling the nurses to take him--- and his food trays they brought him!--- OUT of my sight and smell.

My doctor hadn't initially been alarmed that I was in labor for such a long time. This can happen especially with first time mothers who have never gone through the vaginal stretching before that is needed for complete dilation to birth a baby. But I was also a fairly uptight patient during my pregnancy, for several reasons, so for awhile the doctor thought that was contributing to my longer labor. In general, I had never wanted to have kids. It was nothing personal toward this baby boy within me that was trying his best to enter the world now and take his place in it. From the moment he was conceived I 'just knew' he was there, and that God meant for him to be; that he was going to be born and that I would fight for him to be, which I had to do at first. I talked to him, inside me, since he was no more than a speck of tissue, telling him these things about God's having a plan and purpose for his life! Despite this, though, the fact is I have always been extremely medically squeamish! This was a contributing factor to my 'never wanting kids' in general, because of all the lab sticks and poking and prodding of my body. Yikes! Add the labor; and then the delivery of this human being coming out of my vaginal opening. Yet, here I was. Following God's Plan. I definitely wasn't someone that would ever intentionally get pregnant. It had also really complicated an already heartbreaking situation for me. I had my hands full of heartbreak, at the time. It was probably the last thing I needed, when it happened. I did end up with his father marrying me, after some debate and discussion between us, in order for us to obtain the medical benefits to cover my pregnancy and the birth of his baby, since my husband was an Air Force officer. I had lost both of my (part-time) jobs, at the same time, due to the awful nausea from Morning Sickness, and was left unable to survive on my own, given my condition. Regarding our marriage, although we had the needed medical care for the situation, as a result, it was as obvious as his baby was, growing bigger within me, that this man did not want me or our marriage. So, all these things, and more, contributed to my pregnancy being very stressful for me, making it much more difficult, and certainly far less than ideal; especially for me being a first time mom.

The staff finally wheeled me down to x-ray after more than 24 hours of labor, to see why this baby still was not coming out, as by this time the main medical concern had switched to the risk of fetal distress. They discovered that he was turned, not breech but backward! (My labor likely would have been much shorter had they done this sooner, but it is what it is.) As soon as they wheeled me back to the OB/GYN floor, the doctor took his gloved hand and during my next few contractions used those already awful moments to grasp the top of the baby's head, within me, and gradually turn the baby around so he would be completely in Birth Position. Then, the doctor cut me open with a scalpel from my vaginal opening through my anus, called a 'Fourth Degree Episiotomy' (the fourth degree being the maximum possible cutting of this flesh), so that my healthy baby boy (around 8 1/2 pounds I believe) would soon be able to get some rest himself after all this, along with his exhausted mom. With just a few pushes from me, then, out he came! It isn't exactly the cutest analogy made about a baby's birth, but (especially since my rectum was also cut open, to accommodate his size) it felt just like how it feels when suffering from severe constipation and then very painfully, but with equivalent relief, I can finally have a BM. That's what he felt like, finally sliding out of me--- just like when painful straining is followed by the great relief of finally pushing out a REALLY BIG piece of POOP! Then, I still had to get stitches down there, to separate my two openings from one another again, before I was finally sent to a patient room to sleep; just for a few hours though, because my doctor woke me then to examine me. That's when my breast milk first began, just as I sat up in bed, literally squirting out from my breasts! I breast fed my baby, for the extra health benefits for him from that. The hospital sitz baths helped my stitched up bottom ALOT. (I took all of those the nurses offered me. Aaaaah!) So, through a great deal of effort by me, my sweet baby boy had arrived! No matter what I wasn't able to be for my son, in his life, much of which must be another story for another time, I am the one who carried him in my womb, and then birthed him into this world. No matter what, that makes me his actual mother, by matter of fact. All I ever did for him, from carrying him to everything else I did on his behalf, was out of my great love for him. Ultimately, though, that was also to include my choosing to let go of him.

My marriage to his father didn't gain any traction during my pregnancy. In fact, what we did have together, almost since our beginning, which was a great, nonstop, sexual relationship, primarily, was killed off, ironically, by complications arising from the new life I was carrying within me as a result of that. At one of my earliest doctor exams, with my husband there with me, my ob-gyn noticed that I had suddenly started growing some warts in my vaginal area, and he cautioned that we must abstain from sex through the rest of my pregnancy, to avoid it spreading and possibly complicating things for the baby as well. The doctor's concerns were that they could enlarge or multiply, and said that any treatment for them would have to wait until after delivery. He told us that if they would enlarge, they could even complicate the delivery of the baby. Apparently they came from a common virus that doesn't always produce them, but the change in vaginal discharge due to pregnancy can cause them to appear solely during that time. He checked my husband as well, while we were there, and saw no sign of them. I had not been with any other man since I had first met my husband, to that present day. The doctor concluded that the pregnancy had most likely caused this breakout, and that therefore it would clear up once I was no longer carrying the baby. That is exactly what happened! I have never had them since. (Only during that pregnancy. >sigh!< Not only does a fetus take over your entire body, in ways, during pregnancy, but you can also lose the pleasurable use of your own vagina, if something like this happens, because IT is now the baby's birth canal and as such must be protected for that use, which finally occurs once you get through the rest of the entire nine months' toll on the body.) This development, of doctor-directed celibacy, for us, didn't help things between my husband and I, at all, since great sex was our strongest bond with one another. Our relationship continued going nowhere but downhill; and, just before I had the baby, I realized that this marriage was never going to truly be that, for us. We remained together a short time after bringing our boy home from the hospital, but it was not a good situation for any of us, and I did decide to divorce him. I was raised in an unhappy home, in the midst of a long-troubled marriage between my parents, which greatly impacted me and my childhood in several negative ways. I did not want that to be the legacy for my son. At all.

Not right away, but soon, when my baby was still only a toddler, I also decided to transfer my custody of him to his father, after he met a wonderful woman which he would marry, whom I knew right away was a true gift from God as a (step-)mother for my son. I did this so that this precious little boy would have a loving, stable, two-parent home; something I did not think I would ever be able to give him, myself. That will be another story for another time here. While emotionally this decision nearly killed me, and, there were people around the situation that simply didn't understand it, and therefore criticized me and accused me of not loving my son as a mother should, I did make what was the best possible choice I could for my son and his life. It wasn't about me! Then, to help me survive on my own, alone, my son's father paid for a 6-week Nursing Assistant certification program at the local community college, in order for me to have a stronger skill set for earning a living for myself. Following that, I was mostly, but not completely, out of the picture, for that newly-formed family to go on with their lives, and me with mine, as I didn't want my son to be emotionally torn between the two. I had helped with bonding my son to his new mother, so that he wouldn't be traumatized by my exit as that. . . . I was only 26 years old, at this time. As hard and heartbreaking as all this was for me, my focus was only on wanting the very best life for my son. While I thought I was making the best decision I could, on his behalf, at the time, life gives us no guarantees about anything. As it turns out, it was a wonderful life for my son, in that situation, and all that I had hoped it would be, for him! Also, I was so glad, during my later relationships (as I kept trying, for awhile, to find someone who could love me), that my son hadn't even known these men, or had them as bad influences or role models in his childhood home, as step-fathers. They wouldn't have been good examples, for him. Especially when I was going through so much intense domestic abuse, with my last husband, I often thought to myself, as I would cringe and cower from this man, that I was so grateful my son was never put into any kind of situation like that, in his life. I was loving my son, every day, through my letting him go, so he could live his BEST life!

What I did more than anything else was place my little boy in God's hands, tearfully and prayerfully asking Him to somehow seal the special relationship we had with one another while we were together as mother and son. I hoped that it could somehow survive all our years apart, while my son grew up in other places, all around the country and the world, as part of a military family. That included a wonderful 'other mother' for him who was there for all of his everyday and special moments as he was growing up. I had dreamed that someday, when he became a man, he may still have room in his heart for me, or want a relationship of some sort with me, again. The two of us had been extremely close, when I had him with me, originally, and although he was very young then, it was clear that he loved me deeply at that time, as I also loved him with all my heart! It all really came down to that risk I took (in order for him to have his best chance for a great life, regardless of what happened with me as a result of that), to place him in another mother's arms, in a two-parent home with his father, many miles and years away from me. It would test our relationship by the truth summed up in Richard Bach's famous quote: "If you love someone, set them free. If they come back they're yours; if they don't they never were". I haven't set eyes on my son since he was about 9 years old, largely because they didn't live anywhere near me, although I was sent some milestone photographs of him as he grew up, by his other mother who actually raised him. She is a truly wonderful woman, and is truthfully the best human being that I think I have ever known! That's a fact.

Through the blessing of the internet, my son and I have recently begun emailing one another! He is grown now, married to a lovely young woman whom I have never met, and busy 'living his dream', as he puts things. I am so very happy for him! As for me, I stay busy with life, too. I'm well aware, at age 63, that mine is shorter than I would like it to be, from now on out, for me to find enough time to express and explore those things about myself which are still blooming and blossoming, within me, even at this stage in my life! I hold whatever may or may not come to be, with my son, with an open hand. I have told him not to feel any stress or pressure to get together, especially as he lives in another country around 8,500 miles away! I have told him that we can always find time in Heaven, in Eternity, to visit together, someday, if he wants to and it comes to that. I feel reasonably hopeful that we can have a good relationship with one another now, if only by email, even though he does not need me to be his mother, anymore, in his heart. He is now a grown man, and the mother he loves is understandably the woman who raised him. He sent me a great email that caught me up on his life, in a beautifully written, detailed narrative which was such a gift, to me, from him! He took the time from his very busy life to do that--- FOR ME! I saw, and felt, that compassion and care toward me from him, and was deeply grateful to him for that. The only difficult part for me, so far, of dealing with our new (email) relationship, after our many years apart, was the reality check that my heart received at the close of one of these new emails to me. He signed off with "regards" to me, before his name. OUCH! Knowing he is factually, genetically, my child, led me to HOPE for him to find it in his heart to "love" me, unrealistic as that may be at this point. I hope he can and will find room in his heart for me, now, and actually be able to love me again, but I am not counting on it. I'm not trying to replace anyone in his life, either. I replaced myself in his life, many years ago, so he could have and live his best life! That was truly my heart for him, when I made that devastating decision. Maybe God will whisper to his heart, some day, reminding him that there was a time when it was just he and I together, at first. As close and loving as we were toward one another, though, I then taught him, gently and lovingly, to let go of me, so he could fully embrace his new mother, and a much better future with her and his father. I don't know if he can love me now. Only God knows, and only time will tell. I felt a barrier, of sorts, behind his word "regards", though; maybe that's just because I have a mother's heart toward my son.