The apple of my eye

One of the hardest things about being sixteen and pregnant was telling my Grandaddy that I was pregnant.  I knew Mamaw already told him.  I don't know why I had to tell him too!  He was disappointed, everyone was.  My whole family stood beside me and supported me, but I knew I had let them down.  I couldn't hide it forever, my ever growing tummy gave me away fairly easily.  My Mamaw told me, "one day that little baby is gonna be the apple of your eye, just like you grand kids are to me and Grandaddy."  Today is my baby's 15th birthday and that has stuck with me all these years, and Tyler surely is the apple of my eye!

I remember the day he was born, I had went to the hospital two days before with contractions.  They decided to keep me there and induce my labor with Pitocin.  On the third day of crunching on ice chips and consuming jello cubes they decided they would finally break my water.  My doctor was very old school, he had delivered me when I was born and now delivering my baby.  Needless to say it was a less than pleasurable experience being fifteen, in labor scared to death, in the hospital for two and 1\2 days, hungry with no pain meds!  As the nurses came in to prep me to break my water, they were to late, it just happened naturally!  They rushed me to a delivery room separate from my labor room, I was in panic mode about my epidural.  The head nurse quickly let me know it was too late for an epidural, and checked my chart to reveal that my doctor never ordered it!!  Are you kidding me!  Glaring in anguish, "Momma they have got to be kidding me right?"  Nope, they weren't joking!  Good ole' fashioned natural child birth with no pain meds.  I have to be honest though, I remember the fear going into it, but I can't remember the real pain.  I was in there for about an hour, but now it seems like it went so fast compared to the beginning stages of labor that I went through. 



The nurses layed his sweet head across my chest, and my already teary eyes began a cascade of joyful tears.  I was overcome with pure bliss as I held a part of me in my arms.  He was so tiny, 6 lbs 12 oz, just a little bitty thing.  I was exhausted but on a natural high of gratification in Gods creation for me.  It's hard to put into words a love a mother has for the child she has nurtured in her womb for nine months, even at sixteen I realized the new level of love I had just moved into.  .  This new life would be my responsibility to mold into who he was to become.  I knew I was writing a love story in which I held the pen.  I had great love then, but it grew as Tyler has.


" Be what you would seem to be -- or, if you'd like it put more simply -- Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise." The Duchess from Alice in Wonderland.  It was what it was.  I wasn't proud to be a teenage mother, but I was proud to be Tyler's mother.  Still am today.  My prayers are that he would make wiser choices than his Momma.  Yet, ultimately, I am who I am today because of all I have journeyed through.  It was never easy, but it was always worth it.  I owe so much to my own mother for making me take responsibility for Tyler.  He was my child, and she encouraged me to make the responsibilities that come with being a mother become my new priority over the life of a typical high school senior.  I can't imagine where I would have been without her love and guidance into motherhood. 

I wish Mamaw and Grandaddy were here to see how big T is now.  They would be very proud of the fine young man he has become.  I can't help but fancy them looking upon us today as we celebrate the day of birth of their first great grand-child.   Happy Birthday my sweet sweet boy!  You are the apple of my eye!!

Sixteen and Pregnant

"Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop."- The king from Alice in Wonderland.  Very wise huh.......kinda vague, but wise none the less.  I love quotes, I'm kind of a quote queen, I have them posted all over everything I have, notebooks, planners, around the house, and my office at work.  I love to ponder the words of others and see how they apply to me.  Makes you feel like you may not be alone in a situation in this sometimes lonely ole' world.

On the contrary, I'm very seldom ever alone; as in not in the presence of another living being.  Even finding alone time for prayer life is sometimes an obstacle.  So I often take much advantage of driving time alone, and if I should get a little time before bed alone.  I started thinking about being lonely when I realized that Tyler will be 15 tomorrow.  Four more years of high school and my baby boy just may leave this Momma birds nest.  The idea of it all is VERY traumatizing!!  I've been procrastinating about thinking about Tyler growing up for some time now.  Yeah, he's had girlfriends, a few teen experiments I've had to deal with, the normal stuff I found myself getting in trouble for at his age; but all the while I have really refused to deal with the fact that my child will be permitted to drive a vehicle this year (with me of course)!  I taught him to drive a couple of years ago, he is a pretty good driver.  I do have a dent in the back of my Tahoe where he backed into the side of my best friends house across the street, but other than that he's done fairly well!  (Asserting belief in that reassuring statement!) 

Tomorrow, May 16, my sweet baby boy turns 15.  I remember the day I found out I was pregnant with him.  My best friend Tina and I skipped school, I was devastated.  Sixteen and pregnant, what was I going to do and how was I going to tell my mother!!!!!  Thanks to good ole' Springville High School I didn't have to tell her, they called her and told her I didn't show up at school that day, immediately she called my boyfriends house, asked if I was there, and demanded to speak to me!  "Mandy, the school called me and told me you weren't at school today.....(long pause) YOUR PREGNANT AREN'T YOU?"  How in the world did she know!  I was pretty tight lipped about my recent "extra-curricular" activity, I was rarely absent in school, I was a good student, I was a good girl, how did she peg me!  At least I didn't have to tell her and she just asked me.  Little did I know at that time that very motherly instinct that would soon kick in for me saved me ALOT of anguish in explaining how I got pregnant.  She was very irritated with me, very disappointed in me.  A range of emotions floated around in the air of our home that week we first found out.  People began to ask me what I was going to do, give me advice on how a baby could ruin my life, I would never be able to follow my dreams, it would change everything forever, I could abort, I could look at adoption; everyone had a two cents.  I could never give a baby I carried for 9 months up for adoption, I knew that for certain.  The option of abortion never really was an option, Momma didn't raise me that way.  All I could do is grow up, I was gonna be a Momma, I was going to go to school my junior year of high school pregnant. 

At first it was kind of rough, everyone was really shocked that I was pregnant.  Then it settled down, became normal for me.  I stayed so tired after school, no morning sickness really, just a little sick every once in a while at night.  I remember my Aunt Renee saying that I was going to have a boy because little boys would never put their mommas through morning sickness.  I giggled, but was dead set on a little girl though; Whitney Elizabeth, I would talk to her and read to her in my tummy.  I really did LOVE being pregnant.  Everyone was so nice to me, and my favorite phrase was; "but I'm pregnant...."  Most everyone in my family catered to me, poured me drinks, brought me things so I wouldn't have to get up.  It was pretty nice!

My close friends gained weight with me as I began to pack on pounds, my school splurge was creamy curls, this huge cream filled honey bun with chocolate on top!  I don't think I went a school day without one!  There were a few challenging times being pregnant at school.  Like the day my coach decided we were going to run laps in PE, I explained to him my 5 month pregnant tail wasn't running no where, so I proceeded to walk the laps.  I guess to make the situation that I was the only one walking instead of running in the entire class (besides my faithful, best friend Tina) to make it worse my coach decided to punish the entire class for my pregnancy and have them continue to run laps until I finished walking my 10.  Those were the days if I could have fit under the bleachers me and my belly would have surely hid away!  Then there was the day I fell up the stairs between a class change, yep I said UP.  By the time the bell rang to change class again everyone was stopping me in the hall shocked to see that I was still at school since I had fell down the stairs and lost my baby!  Got to love small town high school!  I wouldn't have had it any other way. 

The day of the sonogram I was so excited.  I knew Whitney was a girl, no matter what the nay'sayers continued to say about the wide spreading of my back side and their old wives tails!  The sonogram technician asked me if  I was ready for her to tell me the sex of the wiggling baby inside of me and I looked at my mom in anticipation as she said it was a boy!  Tears immediately began to puddle up in my eyes, how could it be?  I just knew I was having a little girl to doll up in dresses, curl her pretty blond pig tails, the lace socks, and the ruffled booty diaper covers; oh no!  What was I gonna do with a boy!

I began to come to terms with the idea of a little boy and came up with a name; Tyler Mitchell.  Tyler because it was a cute name I could see myself calling my child and Mitchell because it means, Who is like God.  It all became more real as I started buying boy things and talking to my little boy and praying over this sweet little person growing inside of me.  At 16 years old the magnitude of love I was capable of was rich, but I never knew I could love someone so much that I hadn't even met yet.  I had this drive and determination in me to be a good mother.  Looking back I try to imagine my Tyler having to bear these emotions at the age he is so close to now.  I can't imagine.  Back then it didn't seem like so much to digest, rather it just was what it was and we made the best of it.  Now as I reflect on all that I did ingest throughout my teenage pregnancy I can see how much I grew from a little teenage girl into a nurturing mother in the matter of 9 months.  I had made a decision to keep my baby and I was really going to be someones mother.  Someone was really going to depend on me at 16 years old for his every need.  I had to do well, there was no option of failure. 

Maybe Wonderland isn't so bad afterall?

in·tri·cate/ˈintrikit/

Adjective: Very complicated or detailed.

  

Intricate is the word of the year for my life.  Very complicated, every little detail as a matter of fact!  I have moved from my former blog titled M@ndy's Roots & Branches, well because my branches became very heavy and eventually fell off.  The top heaviness of my tree seemed to somehow uproot my very being.  Very intricately did these branches start disassembling themselves in the fall of 2009.  Divorce seems like such an understatement when used in everyday language.  You divorce someone, you cut them off from your life, you move on right?  Not so much.  It's been a very emotional process.  Nine years of your life with a person can become genuine routine, for myself anyway; I began to know who I was, what "our" goals were in the coming years, everything becomes built around your marriage and family.  My childhood dream had started to form, all without the white picket fence of course.  It's what you know, what you do, you eat, sleep and breath the American Dream.  When those branches are torn from you and you no longer have to prune and take loving care of them any longer a hole starts to form, like the tree was cut down almost, those rings on a tree stump reflect what was.  You have no idea what to do with yourself, you no longer provide shade and gallant foliage, you don't know yourself any longer with your limbs all gone, roots are exposed coming from the earth until they are completely ripped up in a flood that moves faster than you can hold your poor disintegrating roots into the ground. 

As a matter of fact, this very quote inspired the name of this blog.  Alice falls down the rabbit hole and her dress poofs up like a parachute.  Alice exclaims; "Well, after this I should think nothing of falling down stairs."  After coming out of this year alive, I should think nothing of falling down stairs myself!  In a figurative manner of course!  I have a lot of life behind me.  I have been out on my own for 13 years.  An abundance of love, memories, quite a bittersweet symphony of  events that have left me somewhat wondering around looking for what's next. Almost anticipating the next catastrophe- I approach everything with caution and a firewall that would make Norton and McAfee pay me off for my secrets!  September of 2009 I felt my life was falling apart.  In June 2010 I turned 30 and I would like to think I have a lot of life in front of me.  Getting off of these training wheels have been trial and error.  I've lost a lot of who I was, which makes me feel as if I'm in wonderland.  In the words of Alice herself; "I wonder if I've been changed in the night?  Let me think.  Was I the same when I got up this morning?  I almost think I can remember feeling a little different.  But if I'm not the same, the next question is 'Who in the world am I?' Ah, that's the great puzzle!"  You wake up one day and you have no idea who you are.  Then you want pieces of yourself back so you can feel whole and real again.  It becomes hard to function in a fashion that you are not accustomed to.  As you meet new people, face new challenges, start soul searching......do I want to be everything that I was?  This is my chance, my clean slate to start a new.  Do something different, let go of my old ideas of how things "should" have been and let God create a new me!  

Maybe Wonderland isn't so bad after all.