It Figures

While dealing with the last minute craziness of our finalization, my friend was dealing with a possible, unwanted pregnancy. I felt like I mostly just listened to her talk about it, voicing her anxiety about her missing menses. I didn’t want to voice an opinion because I felt it would be clouded by my angst over never having been pregnant. I wanted to remain supportive because she was very worried and just wanted the ordeal to be over. I found it hard to continue listening to her plans to terminate, even though I understood her reasoning. I always identified as pro-life, but I think that was mostly due to not wanting see abortion used as a form of birth control. My friend told me she realized she made a bad choice during her fling but she shouldn’t have to spend the next 18 years paying for that mistake (meaning, dealing with the fling guy because he would have, in her words, “made her life a living hell.”) She kept hoping her period would arrive as every pregnancy test showed negative. Thankfully, a week late, her period started and the anxiety over making a choice she didn’t want to have to make was alleviated.

 

Primero’s friend was not so lucky. She had to endure a very lengthy procedure, including blood transfusion, because the baby wasn’t viable and her body, due to her health issues, was not going to be able to sustain the pregnancy. It was a very harsh lesson for her, to not be flippant with her health and to be more prepared for a pregnancy, if that is possible for her in the future.

 

We had breakfast with Mini Momma and Grandma the weekend after the adoption. When the kids left the table to go to the bathroom, I asked Grandma about the two older expecting siblings. She informed me it was now the three oldest who were expecting. She shook her head and said, “They’re supposed to be breaking this cycle.” The second oldest brother’s girlfriend is due any day (she had the baby the weekend after our breakfast outing). The twin sister is due sometime in the summer, July maybe? And the oldest brother just found out his girlfriend is expecting. Grandma hopes the twin sister will stay in school, since she is only 16. The brothers might both be out of school, I’m not sure. It’s so crazy that three of them are having babies so close together!

 

Esperanza’s friend had her baby boy the day after our adoption. That Friday I got a frantic call from Esperanza because the baby’s father called CYS telling them her friend is not a fit mother. Sadly, due to an old case the girls mother had on her (so the young woman who had the baby was in foster care at one time), CYS opened a case. They told her she couldn’t live with her mother and had until 4 pm on Friday to find another place to live or she wouldn’t be taking her baby home from the hospital. When Esperanza patched her into our call, she was crying and it just broke my heart. How awful for her to be experiencing this, how awful that she has been made a victim a second time by CYS! Thankfully, they were able to work things out and she was allowed to go home with her son the next day. Still, CYS keeps lurking around, popping in for daily wellness visits. I warned her that she would need be a “perfect” mom. Last week they used the oven/stove to warm the apartment and forgot to turn it off before CYS got there, so it became a point of concern. She was so worried about it and said she feels like they are just trying to find a reason to take her baby. It’s maddening because I think she is doing a great job as a new mom and you can’t help but see how in love she is with her baby. She invited me over to see the baby, so I’m excited to go get some baby snuggles and I plan to take her some diapers because I know she had run out this past week. Anything to keep her baby out of the system!