The Happenings of March (to be continued)

Woah you guys. It's been awhile! Thankfully my internet connection is back up (for now) and we can all be together again :) Crazy things happen every day, but let's talk about Thursday. Taurus Man and I had an open appointment at the OB-GYN's office because she expected me to go into labor before Thursday and didn't think she would see us until after the baby was born.

However, Thursday morning, Taurus Man and I overslept and were hustling to get there around noon, still very much pregnant. Just minutes away, the receptionist called asking if everything was okay and if I had gone into labor yet. I informed her I was all good and we were ironically just about to get there, so we saw each other about a minute later. My blood pressure was normal, slightly low as usual, and my weight had now gone up to 141 lbs, which my doctor attributed to my swollen extremities.

She was pleased to hear Taurus Man was finally accepted for a job and had started just that Monday after hearing about it for the first time and meeting his boss on Sunday. We chit-chatted for awhile as she squeezed in my vitals to the bottom of my care card and kept asking out loud why on Earth this baby was not out yet.

I slipped off my panties, got up on the table, covered my groin with the available folded sheet, and lifted my dress over my belly (I'm getting pretty good at this process now) as she and Taurus Man entered the ultrasound/examination room to get started. As per the norm, icy cold lube is squeezed on my belly as she feels around until the doppler, picks up that familiar galloping sound, and shows us the healthy heart rate of 152, the highest of all our visits so far.

She then grabs the ultrasound wand thing and rubs it all around, smearing lube all over my belly as she shows us Superbaby's head, opening and closing mouth, beating heart, spine, hands and fingers, butt, legs, knees, and feet. Taurus Man and I get all gooey and mushy inside as we look on. Superbaby's head measures at 39 1/2 weeks, and his/her hip to knee measurement is 40 weeks. "Baby is more than ready to come out," she says "Why is he or she camping out in there? Let's see if we can evict Baby today."

I'm such a pro at this by now that I automatically bring my knees up, keeping my feet together and as close to my butt on the table as possible. I wait for her nod to part my knees, letting one drop against the wall and the other in her hand as she inserts her lubed up gloved fingers into my lady parts. She gasps as soon as she goes in, not even passing my bladder. "This is Baby's head right here! Why isn't Baby coming? I don't understand. Right here!" I laugh as she continues upward.

I breathe in sharply as she touches my cervix and nods at me "Everything is ready. What is Baby waiting on? Did I tell you last week that your cervix was back? I pulled it forward right?" I nod at both questions as she re-positions herself and continues "It's a little back again so I'm going to pull it forward again and give you a little stretch again, ready?" This is my third stretch, and second pulling forward of the cervix. I nod and start to do deep breaths in through my nose and deep breaths out through my mouth as she taught me.

Taurus Man gives me his hand to squeeze and I close my eyes, still breathing through the sweet pain of such a sensitive area being touched and I feel the familiar rubber band snap down there as I feel her finger pulling my cervix forward. Only this time, I feel it repeatedly like sharp, painful slaps, as she goes back a few more times and pulls again, apologizing all the way and assuring me she's just as uncomfortable as I am, and encouraging me to keep breathing.

I want this baby out so bad I no longer think murderous thoughts in my head when she's doing this. By the fourth or fifth pull my right eye has gotten water-y and I breathe in sharply. She's surprised as I've taken the other stretches/exams with no fuss and assures me she's almost done before finally pulling out.

She pauses and tells me to let her know when I'm ready for her to go back in and do the actual stretch. She looks tired and I feel bad for showing that I felt more pain this time. This time, I believe her when she says she's just as uncomfortable as I am and imagine how her fingers must be uncomfortably twisting through the tight space down there to do her job. This poor lady does this all day. This time, I feel for her, something clicks in my head and I connect with her, and feel like if we're on the same page. I'm transported to another world and I have a twilight zone moment where I realize we share this moment and this experience as women, she knows what this feels like and how I feel, she's doing her job, dedicating her life to this every day, and she's helping me and taking care of me. I prefer getting all the pain done and dealt with as quickly as possible, so just as with my other appointments, I take two quick, deep breaths and nod for her to go ahead.

I resume my deep breathing as she goes back in and shut my eyes tightly as she begins the familiar stretch. I have a mental image of her finger pushing around a muscle-y looking circle, trying to widen my cervix to give my body another head start on labor. I continue breathing through the pain, telling myself this moment will pass as she continues apologizing, until she announces that she's done. I breathe out a huge sigh of relief and she shows me her glove coated with a little mucus and blood and advises me, as before, to expect some mucus, blood, and cramping.

She wipes the lube off my belly and hands me a wad of toilet paper to wipe my lady parts as she and Taurus Man head back to her desk to allow me to get dressed. I join them and she says that's the very most she can do and it's all up to Superbaby to come out and join us now. She asks if I have any stiffening of my belly, and surprisingly, I don't this time. I feel a little pressure pushing down and some cramping, but totally normal otherwise. She writes up a letter and advises me to go straight to the hospital next week with her referral for me to be induced if Superbaby has not come by then. We review the signs of labor again, she asks that I call when I go into labor or after having the baby, that I come back in four weeks after birth to discuss contraception, and wishes us luck.

Taurus Man and I headed straight home as I was uncomfortable with the pressure and cramping and had barely eaten that morning as we rushed out, as opposed to Taurus Man skipping breakfast entirely and it being past lunch time. I start to feel a bit dizzy since my new normal eating schedule throughout the pregnancy has been to eat every hour and a half, and recline my seat as we rush home. We go straight up the stairs and to the kitchen where I wash a pot and Taurus Man takes over to make me a pack of ramen noodle soup, a craving that's come back with a vengeance.

I hear a shrill noise and look around on my kitchen chair (I now have a chair in every room of the house) before I realize it's my phone, ringing from my purse, flung over the living room couch. I get up and it stops ringing just as quickly as I had started hearing it. I walk over to the couch and fish the phone out of my purse. It's my paternal aunt's number. I sigh as I dial my mailbox to hear the voicemail.

My paternal grandmother calls from this number and leaves me uber stressed after every conversation. I am tired, hungry, dizzy, allergy-ridden, and cramping. I don't want to deal with this now. Instead of hearing my grandmother's voice, I hear my aunt, sounding extremely pissed, saying that she's in front of the house and nobody's there and since she's not getting through to me on the phone, she's leaving and had in fact come to drop off a belly firming thing my mom had sent for me with my grandmother in January.

I stare at the phone and check my missed calls. I had only missed the one call. Taurus Man and I ran upstairs as soon as we came home less than a minute before the phone rang. The water from my ramen noodles wasn't even boiling yet. Cancer Grump had come home right after us, parked his van in front of the house, and closed the garage gate to come in after us. Had she waited for even 30 seconds before driving off? Taurus Man asks what's going on. I feel like I'm about to cry. (Hormonal much?)

I pull up my aunt's number and quickly explain the voicemail to him and ask him why would she sound so angry that we weren't outside the house as soon as she came? She showed up unannounced, came for the first time in nearly 3 years, and sounded infuriated that we didn't psychically know she would be there and dropped everything going on in our lives to sit in front of our house all day waiting for her to grace us with her presence  I am on the verge of tears now. Taurus Man also knows that I've been worrying about this belly thing for awhile now, because if they were not giving it to us, we would have to spend around $1000 to buy one. He sits me down, tells me not to worry, and says I should call her back, he'll drive and meet her wherever she is, I just need to relax and get something to eat as I hadn't eaten all day. He guides me over to my chair as my eyes well up and I grab his arm as I feel some painful pressure pushing down towards my lady parts, as well as some tight belly stiffening (I would later discover these were contractions) and the cramping continues.

I have low credit on my phone since every call to my paternal grandmother finishes nearly all my credit. I hope it's enough to make the call. My aunt finally answers, still sounding angry and after I explain that my credit is low so I can't stay long, and we literally just came through the door from my doctor's appointment and I was very hungry and just about to finally organize something to eat, I ask if she can come back. She says she came and didn't see anybody in a how-dare-you voice and she's already up the road and going to the town. I ask where she is and say Taurus Man will come and meet her. She hesitates and first she says she's busy in the town and Taurus Man would have to come all the way out to the middle of the town and look for her because she's going to a jewelry shop with her daughter, then asks me to hold on and says to tell Taurus Man to start getting ready to leave and that by the time he gets there she'll be in the town. I repeat to her as I had in the beginning of the conversation when she angrily complained that nobody was home and she waited for me to come downstairs, that Taurus Man and I had just gotten home from the doctor's office and came straight upstairs to organize some food and I was hungry and waiting to eat. We were still dressed having just come through the door and Taurus Man would just jump in the car right away and go, reaching the town in only a minute or two. She tells me to hold on again and then says okay, she's turning around to come back.

My eyes are now full of water at her increasing harshness over the phone. Taurus Man tells me not to worry, go lie down in the room, he'll prop some pillows up for me to lean back on, and bring my soup when it's done. He'll go downstairs and collect my belly thing and I can relax and finally eat and not worry or stress over anyone. He takes me to the room and fixes the pillows for me, asks if I need anything else, and hands me my bottle of water. A minute later he comes back in with my soup and just as I pick up my spoon and start to blow the hot soup, the phone rings again.

My aunt says she's downstairs. I tell her okay, Taurus Man is coming. She says she wants to see me for a minute. I tell her I'm just about to eat and I'm very hungry and very tired (I am about to cry again). She says come, it's only for a minute. I sigh and say okay. (Telling people in my family "no" is akin to committing murder) My belly grumbles loudly as I regretfully push away my long-awaited soup and breathe through the next wave of pressure painfully pushing down as I feel blood collecting between my legs. I wait a moment for it to stop, and Taurus Man takes my hand and squeezes it as I dry my eyes and he heads downstairs with me.

We open the garage door, which I intended to lean up on, afraid of fainting with how weak I felt (low blood count & bleeding & no food all day is a bad combo) and find them parked across the other side of the yard not facing the direction they would normally be if coming from the town, in front of Cancer Bitch's business place. Luckily she's not there to be pissed about that. I walk over and find my paternal grandmother coming out of another one of their vehicles holding a plastic bag and smiling. My aunt has come out and is pulling at her too-tight preteen/teenager-esque cut-out clothes and standing there with her arms folded, a serious expression on her make-up caked face; over-plucked eyebrows raised, excessively lipsticked lips pouting, neck crooked to the side ready to start screwing around her head to say something with attitude.

My grandmother, looking nearly identical to her daughter, starts off with "I want to come when the baby is born and help you with things because I'm feeling bad to know you don't have anybody." My jaw nearly hits the floor. What is she up to? This woman has never been close to my brothers or myself and is practically an outright stranger to me. She was among the first phone calls I made announcing my pregnancy (in the naive hope of a sudden change), and as usual, had not seeked an interest other than to blame me for trying to diminish her "youth" with the impending birth of my child and complain (a favorite past time it seems). My mother had been helping my grandmother while she was in NY and in return my mother was promised that she (my grandmother) was coming to Trinidad to, among other things, specifically help me during my pregnancy and with the baby etc Although while she used my mother's boyfriend for transport and my brothers as caddies to shop in brand-name stores for her real grandkids, my mother literally begged her at every outing to buy something for the baby until she finally bought 4 thrift store sickening pink tutu onesies with the $1.99 tag still on (I had told her numerous times growing up that I hated pink and my mantra through this pregnancy has been "I do not know the gender and I do not want to know. I want a gender neutral theme. I DO NOT want anything pink or blue.") and gave them to me moping "Things are so hard in New York, I don't have any money. Everything was so expensive." Okay lady:
1. I don't want your damned bribery money or bribery things bought with the bribery money.
2. Tell that to the endless barrels every. single. year. (like the 7 from last year) and constant shopping you do for your other grandkids.
3. Why am I not surprised by any of this? At all?

 If she really cared and could pull her lips away from her daughter's family's rear end long enough to spare a thought for anyone other than herself or them, where was she when I needed help 8 freaking months ago when I was puking my guts out and couldn't move on my own, preventing Taurus Man from working because there was no one else to help? Which I had told her when she called to quarrel with me for not calling despite my insistence that I was just getting out of the hospital from needing IV fluids and meds and on my way home. And for the record, why was I calling someone who never cared and made every effort to praise herself and that family, contributed to my body image issues growing up insisting I was always too fat the few times she saw me as a teen (I was a size 5/6 and eventually went down to below a size zero), and was constantly looking for ways to belittle me and make me feel insecure and ashamed of my body and self? I don't read the newspapers anymore and hardly watch TV because I don't want to be around so much negativity anymore. So why have I been putting up with her?

 I definitely do NOT want the soon-to-be-if-not-already-publicized-and-only-there-for-the-self-benefits "help" from a cold, detached, judgmental stranger around my newborn baby while I recover from a potentially painful and helpless position and try to establish bonding with a child I still could not connect with. I know all too well that these people are all about benefiting and praising themselves and ridiculing others Experience is one helluva good teacher. And with these people? It's every. single. time.

So in my shock, I say something along the lines of "What?....umm......o.........k? Wait...are you serious? And you're coming here NOW to....? What? Wait, what?" She strokes my arm and gives this weird big smile that gives me goosebumps "yeah, and how come you're not calling me? I'm calling and calling and you're not taking my calls and your mommy is calling me and scaring me because she's so worried that something is wrong because she said you're not taking her calls either."

I stare at her. Self, be calm and do not yell at this bitch I say to myself. I try to smile and answer her, "I saw your two missed calls and I barely have credit on my phone to call ($55 of credit was finished calling her twice in about a week and a half to listen to her complain about herself just the freaking month before. She knows neither Taurus Man or I are working and we both have medical expenses. Why doesn't communication work both ways?). The last time I spoke to my mother (about a week or week and a half before) I told her the magic jack (our main means of communication) isn't working which she knows and right now our main form of communication is through email, and she knows that." My grandmother's face falls. She looks like if I just told her Santa Clause isn't real. I'm guessing she had no clue I was in contact with my mom. I'm guessing her guilt-trip intended line had no backing to it.

"Well you're not calling me and your mother is worried and said she's scared and that something is wrong with the baby." She says coldly. Now her face is serious; lips pressed together, staring at me with what my old Social Studies teacher used to call "dagger eyes", arms folded as she pulls away and simultaneously deepens and harshens her tone. I look from her to her daughter, fighting back hormonal tears as they both stare me down as if waiting for the cue to attack. Why are my mother's phone calls to me of interest to her anyway? Can't I have some privacy? Must this ______ family stick their nose in EVERY. SINGLE. BIT. of my personal business?

In any case, even if it were her business, every phone call my mother makes to me sends me into a stressed frenzy for days as I have to explain to her that her ex-boyfriend dreaming I had the baby does not mean I'm in labor, and just because my pregnancy isn't identical to hers, that does not mean something is wrong with my baby. I go through things like this in every conversation with her as she makes snarky comments and puts me down assuring me the baby with be just as scrawny and ugly as I am or underweight and sickly because my pregnancy isn't going "right" like hers did etc. I would like to smack her and her we're-just-friends-now "ex-boyfriend", but I go "mmmhmmm, okay" instead and I spend hours locked in the bathroom crying after each phone call.

The last time I spoke to my mother she was avoiding my grandmother's calls so now I wonder what kind of chummy relationship they're having behind my back despite my mother's hatred for her in-laws, for my grandmother to use her as a supposedly excusable trump card in coming over to ambush and interrogate me like this, days away from my due date, knowing fully well about what a difficult pregnancy I've been having and how stressed I've been. To top things off, I'd like to bash in my grandmother's head with my phone. I spent $60 in phone credit last month and was left with just about $4-$5 by the middle of the month after TWO phone calls to only my grandmother, who spends the majority of the call insisting that I should call her instead of her calling me, telling me to hold on as she carries on conversations with her daughter and grandkids in their house, talks about supposedly not having money and things being hard (her favorite topic choice for conversations with me), and complains about the last time she was sick in NY.  I purse my lips and try to force a smile at her and start saying "I can't call because I don't have much credit on my phone" as my aunt butts in.

"I'm hearing rumors that you're bad-talking me and my husband and my children somewhere, like facebook." I'm like "What?" She screws around her head and says "You're talking about me on your facebook status, you better clarify who the ______ family is....you better clarify your status and clarify who you're talking to" Apparently I need to clarify a facebook status I wrote nearly a week ago [to my paternal aunt: aka facebook police: aka personal stalker: aka possibly menopausal narcissistic nutjob. The gist of it was something like "The day people from the _________ family can stop being manipulative story tellers, liars, and thieves, is the day I will stuff the biggest medium-rare steak I can find down my throat. Note: Pigs will also be flying and gold will be falling from the heavens." That was right after a phone call with my mother as she again insisted that I contact her family and go help them with things in their house, it was my duty to probe through their private lives and forcefully invite myself into their circles (after being threatened and outcasted), as well as my responsibility to go over to certain relatives' houses and help them cook and clean and took after their children like I used to as a teen and ask them to please come and cook for me and help me with the baby until someone said yes.

I had told her that in nearly three years of living here, I had tried to establish contact with the few members of the family that had not completely outcasted me and after going through hell and back with Taurus Man's heart attack, my own terrible health, and the beginning of my pregnancy last year, I decided to stop being the only one to run around calling and visiting. I told my mother that relationships are a two way street, people in the family have my number and know where I live and I left the door open to them to be involved in my life and none of them have taken it up to be there. I assured her that yes, I did tell certain aunts and uncles that I was pregnant and yes, they know where I live and have both mine and Taurus Man's number and not a single call or visit or concern was placed from any of them.

I did not believe it was my responsibility to continue feeding these unhealthy, stress-inducing one-sided relationships. Calling and visiting works both ways, and with everything I was dealing with last year, I could not realistically take care of my suicidally depressed sickly self and heart attack recovering husband as he had his two operations done and recovered, and once my pregnancy begun, I was bedridden with morning sickness and fainting spells and had more days where I was too weak to even lift my head off the bed than days where I could get up and move around. I'm not the kind of person to call up everyone and cry my sorrows to them, and as far as I see, that's none of their business anyway. I let them know about Taurus Man's heart attack and then again about my pregnancy. I left the communication ball in their court and no one picked it up. I've had enough to deal with as things have been, and I was not making that my problem.

But still, my mother insisted that I needed to go help a pregnant aunt and I needed to go around to the family asking repeatedly for help with the baby until someone would agree to come. I'm usually the first person to jump up and help people, but when I myself am in the position I have been in for the past year, my priorities have changed and I chose to put myself and my baby first. I was definitely not going to beg anyone to come and be there for me to hear any crap about it after or have anyone throw it back in my child's face in the future (something my mom's family regularly does). With each phone call I continued to insist that I was fine and I was not going to beg these people that I had been non-existent to for the past year, others for the past three years, and continued asking my mom to please drop it. Obviously that did not happen.

For the past few weeks my hormones have turned me into a water fountain even though I hate letting myself cry, so the more my mom kept pushing this family thing, especially as she spoke about people that have hurt me and wronged me, is the more and more I let it get to me until I got to a point where I needed to vent about it. Hence, my status. Bad move on my part, I know. Terrible judgement call. But considering the fact that that's the only hormonal release I've put out into the world for anyone who knows me to see at 39 1/2 weeks in, I think I haven't done too badly at managing my hormonal emotions.

To back myself up here, I have less than 200 friends on facebook (now brought down to 92 and still deleting), most of whom are school friends from different countries. There are some of Taurus Man's friends and cousins, a few cousins on my dad's side, and specifically four cousins from my mom's side. Those four cousins are the only ones who would know anyone from the family name that I referred to, and seeing as none of them are in contact with me on facebook, nor do I ever see any activity from their profiles, I assumed that it would be safe to put that little status out there, especially as it became quickly covered with songs, links, etc and other notifications that sent it way down to the bottom of my profile.

Why even have it there then? That was my way of getting some of my hurt out there, without actually telling anyone anything to hurt them or cause problems. I was sure nobody would see it and I would have some time to think things over, get the hurt out, and then delete it. I rarely update my facebook anyway, and the only people that are in frequent contact with me are some of my friends, who care less about some family name they've never heard of. The internet crashed either that same day or the next morning. No biggie, I would delete it as soon as the internet came back. I was still upset about the family thing, but I was cool and no longer crying about it.

Yet, here was my paternal aunt, a week later, yelling in my face that I was using her name and passing rumors about her and making people say things about her. What the WHAT? I had used the family name,  which she was related to by marriage, and that meant I was accusing her of things when she's always been there for me and was causing problems and gossiping about them all on Facebook. :O <<<<See my face right there? With the jaw dropping through the floor and straight through to the netherworld, surprising even the devil himself? Yeah. I assured her the status was not about her or anyone she claimed I was talking about, told her specifically who it was about and she interrupted me again to continue yelling that yes, I was accusing her and talking about her and passing rumors about her, her husband, and her children as I stupidly continued repeating "no it's not, I never accused you of anything, I never talked about you, I never spread your name, etc".

I was a sobbing fool by this point. Do I get no credit of having the slightest bit of character that she would so readily and seriously assume and wholeheartedly believe that I would go around falsely accusing people like that? I repeated that it was not about her, again told her who it was about, and told her that I had not accused her of anything or said anything about her, her husband, or children. Still, she continued to rant and went on to say that the entire _____ family has been there for me my whole life and she has always stood by my side and been for me my whole life and that hit a nerve. I was just standing there quietly, crying and taking it all in like a 2 year old being scolded for breaking the cookie jar, but this lady had her facts mixed up.

I told her again that it was not about her, I said nothing about her, and as a matter of fact, the family had not been there for me, and when some members of the family (named a specific instance) were doing certain things (specifically referred to events that should have ended in me calling the police) the rest of the family stood by quietly and watched, no one stood up for me, defended me, or was there for me and my support from this family had been nil.

She started yelling again and said I was a liar because she supported me my whole life and she was there for me my whole life and she let me use her phone to call my dad. Are you for real? My dad asked her, as his sister, to let us communicate with her phone as he wasn't in the country to know what was going on when the ______ family was unleashing hell on me, and three years later, this is something to hold a grudge about or demand praise for? Had my thank you's and my dad's thank you's not been good enough? Has the times of my parents financially supporting her family or the fact that to this day my dad still runs errands etc. for them when he's in the country not been good enough? What exactly does she need to repay this debt of my ear touching her cell phone? And I say DEBT because the rest of her rant was about how she was there for me and supported me and even let me talk to my dad on HER phone. Are you FOR REAL? As I later told Capricorn girl when relaying the matter to her, BITCHES BE TRIPPIN, YO.

I continued crying and insisting that I had not slandered her name or her family's and the _____ family had not been there for me