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A New Life Was Created and Another Reborn

Life and self worth.

By Ashlee GrantPublished 6 years ago 7 min read
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I had so much anger towards everyone and what I had been through. I felt like nobody wanted to hear my story. I never told anyone what he was doing to me. I let a monster get away with so many things. I always wondered, maybe I was the real monster. A monster of my feelings and my thoughts, my actions and my words. I was in self-destruct mode and I never thought I would get out of it. I was the master of my fate and I thought that he was all I would ever be worth. It took two years for me to realize my self worth was not all I thought it was worth. I deserved love and happiness, a chance to live my life free from control. I deserved all of this, but would it ever happen. I knew I had to change something and I was the only one that could make the change.

Was I making the right decision. It was something I had to really consider. Was I ready to live a sober life without a man that I loved, without drugs and alcohol, without self-destruction. Was it time for me to change or was I going to continue down the path I was on. Then it happened, I found out I was pregnant with my daughter. I knew from that moment on, things had to be different. I wasn’t in charge of my own life anymore, but the life of another human being as well. I was going to be a mom and that changed everything. I grew up quick, I started working more shifts at work to save money, I went back to school, and I started getting everything in order for the baby to make her arrival. A month after I found out I was pregnant, the father showed back up, wanting to try and make things work. I couldn’t say no, I wanted my daughter to have both of her parents, so if he was willing to try, then so was I. As time went on, I realized he wasn’t going to be too involved; I was buying everything, going to doctors’ appointments on my own and really was on my own.

He was there when I was sick, when I needed comfort, when I was stressed, and when I needed to talk. We started going on real dates. He took me to dinner, to movies, bowling and other fun things. I finally felt like it was a real relationship, it was everything I ever wanted from him. I remember the night we told his friends I was pregnant, they were very nervous. They knew he wasn’t ready to be a dad and I could tell that they hoped I knew it too. As I got farther into my pregnancy, I knew I was in some way alone already. He was still going out partying and doing his own thing and I was home, at work, or at school. When he asked me to sleep over one night, I was shocked. It was a really nice night, we had dinner, talked, watched a movie and cuddled. It was a great night.

As Christmas past and the new year came, I was only eleven days away from my baby shower. I was excited and I was ready to be a mom. As the days grew closer to my baby shower, I got bigger and more anxious until finally it was the day of my baby shower. We all got up early that morning to get things ready and be at the park on time. I still had an empty space in my heart that day because the dad wasn’t there. Even so, I had a great day. Good food, good people and I got lots of nice presents for my daughter. As the day ended, I still had lots to get for the baby and what I thought would be three weeks before the baby came. Monday came and I spent the day shopping, I got a few things for me at the maternity store and then spent the remainder of my day at Babies R' Us getting the rest of my registry. I was prepared for this baby to come, but I still had a lot of setting up to do. On that Tuesday, I had a doctor’s appointment and it would be my last. The doctor would induce the next week if I didn’t have the baby before then.

I spent that whole week in and out of the hospital and as Friday came around, I was in labor. It was time for my daughter to be born. As I arrived at the hospital at nine in the morning, my contractions were still far apart and I wasn’t that far along, but I was in pain. I wanted an epidural and I got one. At just around noon, I was four centimeters dilated and trying every position I could to dilate more, I sat up for four hours before they came back in to check me again. I hadn’t dilated anymore and around four in the afternoon, I received a call from my doctor. I had to have a C section, the baby was face down and she was in a dangerous position. At five in the afternoon, I went in for surgery and at five twenty-six at night, my baby girl was born. I was a mom and I finally got to meet my baby girl. I couldn’t have been more excited. I was a little out of it, but I didn’t feel anything as the epidural hadn’t fully worn off. By the time I got up to my room to be with my baby girl, it was almost ten at night and I was exhausted.

The one person that should have been there came and I couldn’t have been happier that he was there. He spent the first night with me, helped me with the baby and really comforted me. The next night he left because he had to go back to work. He gave me money and said he would talk to me and come back if I needed him. He made sure he was there to be on the birth certificate, so I felt like it was out of my control not to put him on there. The night I came home, he was there and every night after that for a week. Then it was every other day and then eventually it was when it was convenient for him. The day he left, he came over with twenty-eight hundred dollars and a letter explaining why he couldn’t stay anymore. I commended him for not staying if he didn’t want to but I also hated him for it. That was one of the worst days of my life, he was gone and I knew my daughter would never know her dad.

How do I live with myself for giving my daughter an absentee father? How do I know that I have the strength to do this on my own? I knew that I had because I wasn’t going to be without my baby girl. I knew that I had to be the best that I could be and that was all my daughter deserved. It wasn’t about her having both of her parents, it was about me being the best parent I needed to be for her and to make sure that no matter what she had the best life. I know I made the right decision, but it took a long time for me to realize that I had and not in the way that I regretted keeping my daughter but in the way that I realized I was meant to be a mom.

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