TTSOML #126: Pregnancy

I became pregnant a little over a month after my suicide attempt. I sort of wondered if it was because any resididual aspirin had thinned things out to make me extraordinarilty fertile or something. It had been flushed out of my system, but I didn't know if it someone affected my blood.

At any rate, I knew who the father was because I don't just sleep around, and even if it started off on a drunken foot, it was mutually drunkenness and there was almost always protection. I made sure of this, and only a couple times where it was not, and I knew he didn't sleep around either. I knew him for about 6 months. I wasn't in love with him at all.

I grew to care about him very much, as a person, a human being, a friend, and that was about it. We got along very well, and fulfilled a need. I was depressed and at least that was one outlet. I felt sort of guilty, then, but I remembered asking God about it, and I felt like God understood. I didn't feel condemned at all. I knew God understood. So, that's what it was. We joked around and there were some other Mexican guys I knew whom I practiced my Spanish with.

He wasn't someone I could ever see myself married to, and then, after I told him I was pregnant, I found out he was already married anyway. I'd asked him before and he said no. Because Bujanda had lied about being married, when I asked him: "Are you married?" I decided to be broader in my questioning. I asked: "Have you EVER been married?" I figured that covered the bases, because I wasn't out to take someone's man from them.

So, I found out, it was a lie. I was mad at first, screaming even, but not because I wanted to marry him or anything. I was just pissed he'd lied about that.

I remember when I first took a test (which I saved), and it showed up positive, what my reaction was. It had only been a little over a month ago that I attempted suicide and my "family" was nutso and unsupportive. I remembered getting a small smile on my face, and even though I hadn't intended this, I knew I was "old enough". I was keeping this baby. This was my gift from God, and it was a smack to the face of death. Not only that, I knew I would be an excellent mother. I'd been a nanny and worked with children almost my entire life before college and even during college. I knew I could do it, even if it was on my own, and I knew my child and I were going to be as thick as theives--I and my child were going to be the family I always wanted. I knew I could provide a happy life for my son, with my personality and enthusiasm, and knowledge and tolerance for childish quirks.

I remember praying to God at that moment, a prayer of thanks for giving me a blessing. I knew my child was a blessing and I felt being a mother was a privilege. I was excited by all the things I could show my child and teach them, and knew I would be supportive and affectionate in a way my own family never was.

I thought, at first, it was going to be a girl. I'd had another dream, about this time, of this girl swirling around in her yellow dress. I thought this was maybe a premonition of my future daughter but I didn't know. The father, however, disagreed strongly. "No," he said, "It's a boy." He was SO sure. I asked him how he could be so certain and he said all the babies in his family were boys. I thought it was an exaggeration and then he made a list. He wasn't kidding. They were all boys.

I found out he had children with his wife: two boys. One was extremely academic and going to a private school and the last I learned, was studying computer science at a private college in Mexico. He told me both of his boys were left-handed. The other one was younger, and very artistic and had a dramatic flair for being loud and funny.

I told Christa about this. I wouldn't tell her who the father was, but I told her about the boys and their intelligence and I told her about Nacho. I think some people assumed Nacho was the father. Even at the dependency hearing, I was asked if Nacho was the father. Nacho was the one who was shot the day after he visited me at my house for the second time. I wonder if someone thought that by killing Nacho they were getting to me. Probably not. I really don't think it's likely, but it's not totally impossible. He was shot after my baby was born, and after I told the FBI about him. Within a few weeks, I believe, or a month of my telling the FBI. But I'll get to that in order.

When I went to a clinic to confirm the pregnancy, it was positive. I went to a Chelan family clinic first and they refused to do an ultrasound to confirm the due date. I was going to go with a midwife but in a hospital setting. I told Christa about this. That I was planning to get a midwife. A new midwife arrived and her name was Stacey Stubblefield. She seemed so bubbly and cheerful, I liked her a lot, but then I had some questions about her. I was still going to Dr. Malcolm Butler as my PCP. And he was an obstetrician so I ran things by him.

In hindsight, from the very start, they were setting me up to have my baby taken away from me. I didn't know it at the time, but it was clear not only to me, but to some of the nurses on staff at the hospital that what was going on and what happened was odd.

So I told Stacey I'd already been told I'd be high risk and need a C-section because of a narrow pelvis. She said it was narrow from one angle but not abnormal on the other angle and that we'd see what happened. She also refused to do a 18 week ultrasound, which I felt was important to make sure everything was okay. I also wanted documentation that the pregnancy was farther along, too long after my suicide attempt, for there to be a connection. She refused, and I decided to go to a different midwife in town, whom I now wish I'd stayed with. Laurie.

Laurie felt it was essential to have the ultrasound done. She also wrote some beautiful chart notes. I later found out Stacy, on the other hand, was trying to write me up as drug seeking AND, for the first time in my life, SHE was claiming I was an "alcoholic", because I'd put a check in the box that asks for ones alcohol habits, and I checked the box for "occasional/social drinking". I later found out from nurses how Stacy was trying to run me down. But first things first.

I never asked the father for any financial help or support. It was going to be my own thing and he was fine with that. He DID pay for food for me, whatever I wanted to eat, and for expensive prenatals I wanted and for mercury-contaminant free cod liver oil. I was going to be sure my baby had the best. I ate organic food while pregnant, especially for animal products, I took good vitamins, and I started running to get oxygen moving to not just my heart and brain, but to my baby's heart and brain.

That was the happy time. Then, my family entered the picture and they were not happy at all.

If anyone wonders what this has to do with the legal and police problems, you'll soon find out. Police trumped up charges against me, when I was pregnant, and tried to make me out to be a criminal next, and it was then, that I found out, I HAD been profiled by police. Because one of the officers said, "We know all about YOU. Police know about you from Oregon to Washington state."

Why would police all over Oregon and then Washington, "know all about" me when I'd never done anything wrong? Exactly what was in my records? who was spreading stuff about me? I didn't have a record, but I did know people wanted me to have one. I also wondered what the FBI had written up about me, that was accessible by police "from Oregon to Washington". If an officer had just admitted police all over KNEW me, this set up the evidence that I was not imagining things when I said I was being profiled.

And it was wrong and unjust.

I had already told Christa and the Abbey knew I was pregnant. The next thing I knew, I was going to jail on false charges, and told I was going to lose my baby and have it taken from me if I didn't plead guilty to a crime I did not commit, for which I had evidence to prove it couldn't be true, which my PD in Wenatchee didn't care about obtaining.