Ok...This ones a little wordy... The best things in life are surprises. Now hold that thought for a moment… Rewind. Take your mind back 26 years. It was 1988. Life was simple. I was in school at Boddie Junior High. Since 3rd grade, I had been a fat kid, but I had dropped 60 pounds that year. I remember enjoying shopping for “Back to School” clothes for the first time in my life. Along with my uncovered curves, I uncovered a new feeling of self confidence—something I had never had and lost quickly as the years rolled on—and a new sense of self; rebellion and a wild side took hold of my thoughts and actions. The next year, 1989 was riddled with sadness and deaths that rocked my ‘safe’ little world I was living in. A girl I barely knew from church was killed in an awful accident on her way home from Sunday morning service, then on the way back from her funeral, I was told of a friend’s suicide. A little boy at my mom’s school was diagnosed with and lost his battles against cancer. Then my teenage neighbor died in another horrific crash. My sense of self was now off balance. My own mortality became very real. And my wild side took control. I was fearless and gonna be sure I tasted life’s wares before my chance was gone like the young people I had witnessed dying around me. I guess that was the turning point that moved my life in the direction it has taken. And although I’ve not done things as societal norms would consider proper, I have no regrets. I knew I was pregnant within days of conceiving. You might think this is impossible, but my mornings turned into rolling off the side of the bed, crawling to the toilet, and heaving for the first hour I was awake each day. My mother took me to the doctor. He diagnosed me with a stomach disorder and ordered me to eat only bland foods for a month. I had already put back on most of the weight I had lost, and I’d gone back to wearing everything baggy to hide my fat, so no one around me noticed a small baby belly forming. I played along with the doctor’s diagnosis, maybe I was in denial and in shock myself. I hadn’t had anything confirmed. I figured if the doctor hadn’t noticed, maybe I could ignore the fact myself. But, time went on and it got pretty obvious to me that I had a new secret. Now, I say secret in jest, but I took the secrecy part to heart. I took a pregnancy test at about 3 months, just to confirm things, just to be sure this was all real, not a weird, scary dream. That may have been the only test that year that I passed. LOL My mind was far from focused on school and homework. That May, I turned 16. I lived the show ‘16 and Pregnant,’ and let me assure you, it’s not as glamorous as they make it look. I spent a lot of time that summer in the bathtub, as many typical teens tend to do. I read a lot. I laid in the tub and spent time with my belly, watching my baby’s movements, feeling her kicks, enjoying my privacy where I could be pregnant, not having to hide. Outside the walls of that bathroom, however, I was a different person. I did everything anyone else did—I couldn’t act like a careful, cautious pregnant woman! I remember moving my bedroom furniture around (I had a king size black lacquer waterbed at the time) by myself, lifting all the heavy pieces on my own. I remember climbing down into our pool (we had an above the ground pool back then) to help my daddy scrub the liner before we filled it up for the summer and falling over and over, busting my butt, from the slick surface. I wore big baggy clothes and kept a shirt on over my swimsuit. I told very few people about my baby. One of my best friends laughed when I told her a few different times. She thought I was joking. I told another friend, a guy I was buddies with, and he stood in his mama’s front yard and just hugged me and let me cry. I shed tears of fear, anger, relief, did I mention fear? I listened to the pregnant ladies at church about what they were doing to be healthy. I bought pregnancy vitamins, then couldn’t take them cause they made me sicker. I even broke down and bought one baby outfit—a little baby blue boy outfit cause I just knew I was having a boy…I would name him Gregory Seth. I kept my secret from my parents. Especially from my parents. I was afraid of what they’d say. I was afraid of what they’d do. But most of all, I was afraid to hurt them. In hindsight, I know that I knew deep down that they would stand by me and help me, but I couldn’t face that fear. I don’t know that I would have ever told them if not for Terry Cliett.. Terry was our preacher at the time. I don’t know how, but he figured me out. When he told me he knew my secret, I panicked. I was ready to run, but I had nowhere to go. I was out of my mind with fear. He gave me 24 hours to tell my parents. If I didn’t, he would. I think I cried all 24 hours. I drove to his house the next afternoon, around the 23 ½ hour mark, and begged for 24 more. I was going to tell them, but I needed him to talk to me and help me figure out how to do it. The next afternoon, about an hour before my mom was to get home from work, I wrote her and my dad a letter. I spilled my guts. I begged for forgiveness. I begged them to keep loving me and to love my baby. Then, I put it on the table and went to get into the bath. I knew that I couldn’t get back up out of the bath fast enough to go tear up the letter before she got home and saw it. I sat in the tub, crying, waiting. I heard her when she came in. I heard her chair scrape as she sat down at the table. I heard the envelope rip open. I heard her breathing as she read the words. It was surreal like a horror movie. I think I even heard the ticking of the clock stall as time stood still. She walked to the bathroom and opened the door. Now those of you who know my Mama know that she ain’t no fool. She had had some strong suspicions throughout the months, and had even asked me straight out at one point if I was pregnant, but I denied it (this was before I had made myself believe the truth). Still, when faced with the news, she was in shock. She said all the things any mother who had raised her child not to do the things I had done would say. She yelled a little. She cried a little. She fussed at me. But, she never once stopped loving me. We were both concerned about how my Daddy and my Grandma would take the news. I don’t know how the conversation she had breaking the news to my Grandma went, but she told my Daddy when he got home later that evening. I had already gone to bed. I was an emotional wreck and had had a pretty rough day. I wasn’t asleep, though. I was waiting for my Daddy to come talk to me, and I was dreading it. I was my Daddy’s little girl, and now I had a very grown up problem. I knew, regardless of what he said, I couldn’t face him with hurt in his eyes. He walked in, creeping quietly in case I was asleep. He sat down on my bed, knowing that I was faking slumber. He gently rubbed my head and asked me, “So when do I get to be a Granddaddy?” The tears of a lifetime began to flow. I knew I could face this challenge and the world would continue to revolve because my Daddy still loved me. All of this sounds like a pretty common story in this day and age of all the pregnant teen reality shows, but my story had an even greater twist: I told my parents about my baby’s arrival on August 4th. She was born on August 15th. I had kept my secret for almost 9 months. I have to admit, I was an emotional basket case. Life became a whirlwind of preparation, doctor’s visits (I hadn’t been the entire pregnancy and only one doctor in a hundred miles of Milledgeville was willing to see a teen with no prenatal care because of the high risks, Thank God for Dr. Okehi—I love you, my African friend!), happy moments, sad moments, guilty moments, and anxiety took hold of me. I was afraid and the fact that the world now knew my secret made it 1000% more real. I began having panic attacks and having to sleep with my mama, holding her hand all night, to be able to get any rest. Our church family surrounded my family with love. The men of the church came to our house and tore down a wall between my bedroom and the small bedroom beside it to make room for my baby’s crib and all the other things you have to have around with a newborn. The ladies of the church planned me a quick shower (but my timing was a little off, so a three week old Hannah got to attend it with me). School was another issue. I was about to enter the 11th grade and needed a plan—I couldn’t miss the first six weeks of the school year and expect to still graduate on time. One administrator told my Mama to just let me quit and get my GED, there was “no place at BHS for a teenage mother!” However, I was one of over a dozen that year. Jimmy Wright was a school counselor at BHS at the time. He worked some magic and went against the administrator to get me into the right classes and have me work from home until I could officially enroll. Thanks to him, I graduated with my class, on time. Two weeks after telling my parents, on August 14th, I entered the Medical Center of Central Georgia to have my labor induced. My friend, Kim Murphy Brown, came to the hospital to stay with me. My mom stayed too. I remember getting some good drug for pain at one point and seeing flowers popping out of the newscaster’s eyes on TV. I was holding my Jello (they let me eat that night when it was obvious that my labor wasn’t progressing enough for a birth that first night on Pitocin), eating it, and accusing Kim of taking it from me. Later that next night, I remember biting my mother’s hand as one sharp labor pain hit me. Then, as my body’s birthing mechanisms took over and that uncontrollable desire to push hit me, I remember becoming a motor mouth, telling everyone about how I was just gonna go home now, I’d changed my mind about giving birth, I was not ready, etc. Dr. Okehi looked me right in my face and told me to shut up and push! I was shocked and angered in the moment, but I did what he said. 36 ½ hours after they started the process of induction, at 11:39PM on August 15th, 1990, my precious DAUGHTER (I had found out at my ultrasound a week before that my BOY was NOT, LOL), Hannah Michelle Crooms, took her first breath, and took my breath away. I had never seen such a precious, beautiful, cheesy, bloody, wrinkled, smelly, writhing, screaming thing in my life. Hannah and I grew up together. I won’t ever claim that I’ve been the best mother, but I’ve fought for my daughter every moment of her existence, sometimes fighting by hiding, sometimes with all claws out and screaming like a nut job. I don’t always like her choices and actions, but my love for her never waivers, never dims. She will always by my baby. As I said, the best things in life are surprises. I have living proof.
Posted on: Sat, 16 Aug 2014 01:27:40 +0000
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