Happy belated birthday and a belated congratulations!
As always, I've arrived late at the party and the barn door is open and the animals have fled. So I hope you're feeling terrific and that you and S have found a reason to work together. Because you are about to be parents! What a wonderful thing!
(((((Jennifer)))))
Betsey
"There are only 2 ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."
That is incredibly wonderful news! I am very glad to hear that you and S will have a baby and move in together, and all that wonderful stuff. And- happy birthday! ((((((((((((((((((((Jennifer))))))))))))))))))))))))) Anne
Well, it's been a roller coaster ride - that's my opening understatement. I'm almost ashamed to post any of this, but I guess if I'm ever to post here again, one would have to know this info, so here goes.
S. has had a really rough time of coming to grips with our having a baby. His behavior has ranged from ecstatic to downright horrifying, with meltdowns on my bathroom floor, kicking furniture, and other nasty behavior. Mind you, he hasn't frightened me or has not threatened me in any way, and has all along said he would be here and take an active role in the baby's life, meaning, try to raise it with me.
The problem is, right before I found out I was pregnant, I had never been closer to leaving him. We had not spoken for three days because of something STUPID he did - he ran into an old GF two weeks earlier and made a date to see her without telling me, then when he did tell me, the day before he was to meet her, he lied about who she was (he said she was someone he used to work with at the food coop, and completely forgot he had told me all about her years ago). When I questioned him, he lied before finally coming clean. I didn't think he wanted to start something up with her, as she is with someone, too, but to lie to me after all these trust issues was a stupid mistake on his part. The reason we didn't speak for three days was because I knew if I spoke to him I would leave him, and I wanted to make sure I'd thought it through before I made a rash decision. Well, then I took a pregnancy test while on my way to Texas for 10 days, and the rest is history.
Here is the part I am ashamed to post about. S. asked me to consider terminating the pregnancy. He felt that we shouldn't be bringing a child into such a dysfunctional relationship, and said for all intents and purposes, before we found out about the baby, our R was over. In my state of panic over the shock of the pregnancy, over the horrendous state of our R, over his reaction, and over the potential of having to go it alone, I considered it. For about a total of 15 minutes. I have to give H2H a shout out here, because if it weren't for her coaching, I would never have made it through all the horrible talks with S. She was available to me day and night, through copious amounts of lamentation, hundreds of e-mails, including a detailed blow-by-blow of our talks that would have made a lesser friend overheat and walk away. Thank you, H2H, again, for being there (and remaining there) for me. I don't know how in the world I'd have gotten through it without your help.
The most difficult thing was that Dr. Jekyll would one day be affectionate and warm, excited about becoming a father, and the next, Mr. Hyde would come out and have a meltdown or tell me about his feelings, which were deeply hurtful to me.
Now, things are better. Mr. Hyde has faded into the background, and I'm enjoying a better R with Dr. Jekyll. I am more sensitive to S's feelings when he wants to talk about them, and I try to listen without personalizing them (an enormous feat - it's the hardest thing I've ever had to do). S. is truly thrilled to become a father, and we are slowly getting our issues on the table so that we can make a happy family for our child. At his insistence (not that I argued), we are in therapy once a week, and it is going well. And we are planning our garden in vermont, renovating his house here so we can move in over the summer, and otherwise enjoying a partnership that has eluded us to now.
In happier news, all my tests have been positive, and we've confirmed that it's a baby girl! I am due to deliver in late October, and so we are looking forward to our little Chilean surprise around the 20th or so. S. comes to all my appointments, and we've thrilled at the sight of our baby on the sonograms, and just the other day we heard her hearbeat. What a miracle. I feel fantastic, and have had no symptoms whatsoever (no nausea, no throwing up, no nothing). I feel strong and healthy, and went on my yoga retreat in Florida a few weeks ago, which was great. We leave for vermont tomorrow morning to prepare the garden for planting.
I guess as I go forward I'm going to need a lot of help getting through the very delicate labyrinth of S's feelings - his feelings of powerlessness, feeling trapped, that his life is changing in a way he hadn't wanted (he wanted to have a happy M first, which, of course I did too)... I am trying to be kind to him and still take care of myself. I'm hoping he can eventually see his way to taking care of me, too.
I'm glad you've come back - and brave post, girl! Though you & I talk mountains about each other's situations, I find that posting here helps to keep me honest as well as focused, and I particularly like getting the opinions and perspectives of our BB friends.
As you know, I totally understand the feeling of being ashamed to post some stuff. But I have come to see some new things in this feeling of shame, and one of them because of you: (1) feeling ashamed tells me that I have an idea of 'how things should be' or some expectation that hasn't been met. I've learned to question those 'ideas' and 'expectations' and really pick apart whether or not they are True, Right or simply something I formulated without full consideration of other ideas, without being able to see another option.
And (2) Helping you through your situation these past month or so has shown me that one of my most 'shameful' experiences served a good purpose, a lesson for us both. I was able to work through some of my unfinished business from that time and realize that I could put most of it to rest AND help someone else through a similar circumstance. It helped to heal me from the shame by knowing that it wasn't just ME and that others experience similar disappointments and hard times. So, I want to encourage us both to keep posting and considering the wise perspectives that the board offers us.
And for all the times you were shown your propensity to find skewed cherries atop the wonderful sundae (thanks SD, we use that phrase all the time!), I want to give you a big Gold Star for your handling of things lately. You have shown much patience, much compassion of S. and IMHO are focused on resolving issues, not who's right or wrong, or who needs what more right now. Honestly, I have been impressed!
So here's a big hug for you and my future little student sailor girl you're carrying too!
Thanks, H2H, and thanks for the gold star! It was really hard to bring that stuff out on these boards, because I am acutely aware that some of my friends here on the BB will be horrified at the thought of even remotely considering terminating a pregnancy. It's a hard balance to strike - made more difficult by trying to protect the one you love and are trying to make a life with, against the judgment of people you care a great deal about, and whom you rely on for solid support and advice.
We are having some rough times. The renovation (read: demolition) at S's house is slated to start 20 June, we are away for the next 9 days, and S. has picked this crucial getting-ready time to build his own sawhorses (no, he's not cutting 2x4s and putting those metal sawhorse-kit clamps on them, but actually chiseling, by hand, with chisels, mortise and tenon timber-framed sawhorses, WITH ornaments). Lovely, and useful, to be sure, but he's NOT cleaning his house, packing, or getting ready in any way for the renovations. This translates into a farther out moving-in time, which is hardly acceptable given that I'm going to be 7 months pregnant at the EARLIEST time we can POSSIBLY move in, IF he were on the ball, packing and getting things done to prepare.
I've come to realize that he's not doing it because he doesn't want to. He doesn't want to leave the comfort of his bachelor pad, his haven, the place I'm forcing him to leave because I got pregnant and now his life is changing (my words, not his). I'm "forcing" him to move into one of the other apartments in the house, because it has more room and more light, because it has a space where I can have my home office, because it HAS A KITCHEN, and which also happens to be the most readily rentable apartments (because it will be the first available). He is balking. He wants to rent that one out and take one of the other apts. (so that NEITHER of us gets what he wants? I'm at a loss to understand why).
Our therapy has been good, but we are having a hard time sustaining the way we talk to each other in T when we're out in the world. Our T is fantastic - she has us talk directly to each other rather than to her (because she "can't go home with us," she says), and she interrupts only to guide us in a direction or coach one of us. We are practicing mirroring, and it works very well in T, but goes out the window in our home talks.
So there's where we are. Struggling... It's OK, we'll find our way through, or we won't. We'll stay together, or we won't. I'm giving it my very best - giving up a lot of my voice-time in T so that the T can dig into S's issues (which run very deep and which he really needs an individual T for), giving up some of my desires and needs so that I can take care of S., who is more immature than I'd ever imagined, for the sake of building a strong family into which our child can be born.
Nothing is more important to me than this child. And nothing is giving me greater joy than to see my body change and grow and accommodate this little miracle, anticipating her debut into the non-amniotic world, and preparing to give her the best life I can possibly give her - a place of safety to grow and develop, all the resources I have, and all the love in the world.
(Geez, one would think I'd become a big old sap! )
Betsey 
((((((((((((((((((((Jennifer)))))))))))))))))))))))))