Well two weeks later I actually went into labor it was around 3 am put I waited until the doctor's office opened because my contractions were pretty mild and far apart.
When I finally did call the Doctor he told us to go to his office and he would meet me there. He didn't think I had dilated enough to actually go to the Hospital yet.
I was so confused I had no idea what I was supposed to be feeling. All I knew was that I didn't want to drive all the way back to Santa Monica from Beverly Hills and then back again once labor was really full blown.
I guess I was nervous because of all the complications I had experienced. I really thought that I would give birth relatively fast. Like the baby was just going to come flying out, silly me. I was fully prepared to have a natural child birth experience, no drugs, no inducing nothing.
We called Dad and he arranged for us to wait in his office at the Hyatt on Sunset. It was so much closer to Cedars where I was going to give birth.
We hung out there for several more hours and when labor started up again we checked into the hospital. Then labor stopped they wanted to send me back home. I refused.
I asked them what I had to do to get labor going and they told me to start walking.
I must have walked the halls for hours.
My father-in-law and brother in law came with dinner for Bob and they all took turns walking me up and down the halls that night. It was so surreal. I really had no idea how much time was passing. But after twenty two hours of labor a very sweet nurse asked me if I wanted something. I asked her what she had. I was so over the whole Natural Child Birth experience I can't even tell you.
The anaesthesiologist came in and suggested that he give me a spinal epidural. We agreed. The problem was, this was 1984 in Los Angeles around 5:30 am. He was totally loaded on some kind of drugs. He was telling jokes, doing magic tricks and actually did the epidural wrong. The baby went into Fetal Distress, and my blood pressure started to drop really fast. I had an emergency C Section.
Even in the Operating Room this doctor was still doing Magic. Bob was freaking out, he normally had a very bad temper but he was helpless. At any moment he was about to loose me and our son. My Doctor delivered my son less than five minutes later and he was fine. They put him on my chest so I could see him and then they knocked me out to put me back together again.
My Doctor was so apologetic he thought we would sue him and the other doctor plus the Hospital for the ordeal we had all just been through. We were just so happy our son was OK, we never did do anything to that doctor. I was hoping he would be turned in by my Doctor. He may have been but I didn't want to go through all the legal stuff. Especially with a brand new baby.
I had to stay in the Hospital for several days because of the medication I had to take for the pain. I was on a Morphine Drip. I didn't feel a thing. Bob was so concerned that I wasn't getting enough pain medication that they "Asked" him to leave the hospital that night.
So much for a natural Birth. I was high on Morphine and my husband was experiencing some sort of dry high anxiety. It is just that was it always went. We had a great life, but what could go wrong would go wrong.
He left and I got a good nights sleep. Probably one of the last I would have for many years to come. My son was and is a total night owl. He never slept. He never cried but he was always awake.
Life was getting really fun and interesting.
February 10, 2007
February 09, 2007
Preparing for The Birth
We were just like any other expextant couple. We started to prepare our baby's nursery. It was all such an exciting time. During this time we made sure to include his daughter in what we were doing. She was still wanting to come over and see us on the weekends at that time.
I never really gave it much thought, but as I look back I often wonder why no one I knew ever gave me a baby shower. I guess my life with Bob had always been quite isolated. My family was all in Wisconsin, and he only had his Dad and Brother. No one from our AA friends really cared about us much either. I guess they were all betting that it would never last. People are funny that way. There was no shared joy just curousity about when it would all fall apart.
We knew better. Bob didn't return from Hell to pick up another drink, at least not for many many years.
Two weeks before my due date my doctor had me come into his office and he removed the stitches that were securing my Uterus. He sent us directly from his office to the Hospital Maternity Waiting area. We were all convinced that our son was going to just be born that night.
I wasn't really sure what was supposed to be happening, being my first time in this situation, but nothing happened. We sat there for over two hours, just waiting. It seemed rediculous.
I called the Doctor and asked him if I could just go home. All those months of thinking I would lose the baby didn't happen. And he sure wasn't ready to be born tonight. Not a single contraction happened.
We went home.
By this time I was so big. Not being able to do much more than sit and eat had taken a toll on my body. I went from 118 to 180 something. I was fat and uncomfortable.
I never really gave it much thought, but as I look back I often wonder why no one I knew ever gave me a baby shower. I guess my life with Bob had always been quite isolated. My family was all in Wisconsin, and he only had his Dad and Brother. No one from our AA friends really cared about us much either. I guess they were all betting that it would never last. People are funny that way. There was no shared joy just curousity about when it would all fall apart.
We knew better. Bob didn't return from Hell to pick up another drink, at least not for many many years.
Two weeks before my due date my doctor had me come into his office and he removed the stitches that were securing my Uterus. He sent us directly from his office to the Hospital Maternity Waiting area. We were all convinced that our son was going to just be born that night.
I wasn't really sure what was supposed to be happening, being my first time in this situation, but nothing happened. We sat there for over two hours, just waiting. It seemed rediculous.
I called the Doctor and asked him if I could just go home. All those months of thinking I would lose the baby didn't happen. And he sure wasn't ready to be born tonight. Not a single contraction happened.
We went home.
By this time I was so big. Not being able to do much more than sit and eat had taken a toll on my body. I went from 118 to 180 something. I was fat and uncomfortable.
February 05, 2007
We were Living a Normal Life
Our life had become so normal it was eerie. How does a person go from high drama and insanity to more than normal in less than a year.
Well I'm living proof that it can happen. The miracles are just around the corner if a person just doesn't pick up that first drink. Sounds so easy, doesn't it?
Well there were days that were living hell for Bob. He really didn't want to drink, it's just that the same old compulsion to drink never really left him.
At this time in our life I really did not understand how a DRY DRUNK could alter his personality so completely, but it could.
As happy as we were about the birth of our child the pressure was starting to build up in side of him. A combination of Bob's old pattern had reemerged. Bob had always experienced in his earlier attempts of sobriety that horrible grey area where he wasn't drinking, but he wanted to really bad and his behaviour was almost like he was drinking.
I had been told that I would probably never have children and don't forget, I had been with Bob for five years before I married him so this was definitely not something he was prepared for.The pressure of having me fairly out of commission and his trying to launch an acting career had begun to stress him out.
I was ordered to have an almost total bed rest pregnancy. All the things I used to do were not put on his shoulders. I couldn't lift anything, couldn't do the marketing really couldn't do much of anything.
Bob was used to me always looking after him. He was in strange waters when I needed him to take care of me. He now had to do almost everything, but clean the house and do the laundry. I could see the mood swings start to happen all over again for no reason.
It started out very subtlety, We were walking down the street in Beverly Hills one afternoon, and he started telling me I was fat. I was simply too stunned to argue with him. I started to cry. I couldn't believe he just told me I was fat. Of course I was fat, I was caring our child. Instead of realizing he had hurt my feelings, he started to get really mad at me for "Making a Scene" by crying. Of course this only made things worse. I think most women are more sensitive when they are pregnant, but I always heard these stories about women feeling so beautiful when they were pregnant, and how great they felt.
I was not having one of those experiences at all, I was never heavy in my entire life and I didn't see that one coming. The tension just kept building that day for some reason.
I still remember what I was wearing, that's how traumatic that day was for me. I had black stretch pants on and an over sized white men's style shirt. Simple but classic.
Things just went from bad to worse. I don't remember what we were doing in Beverly Hills that day, but we just went back to our condo in Santa Monica.
Bob was literally acting like a caged tiger. Nothing I said or did made him happy that day and I needed to be consoled for how mean he was to me. I think I may have asked him to apologize or something and before I knew it, he hit me in the stomach.
Obviously, it wasn't an all out punch, but there was the taboo that was broken. YOU DON"T EVER TOUCH A PREGNANT WOMAN NO MATTER WHAT. There was no turning back from that moment on. I was hysterical, not from pain, but from sheer terror. If he could do that, what else could he do? I had seen the bad side before, I never dreamed I'd be looking at it again, in my condition especially.
I really don't know how Bob didn't drink through that day.He promised God he would stay sane and sober if he would only give him a second chance at another family and a son. It was all just moments away from shattering our dreams.I can't imagine the instant panic and guilt he felt.
The Other Bob had stepped out into the open that day, and he couldn't seem to control it. I saw the panic in his eyes. We were at a serious cross roads in our life. The very foundation of this marriage was at risk here. I told him if he ever picked up another drink, the marriage was over. He saw his hopes and dreams die in his mind, if he listened to the demon inside his head. He did the only thing he could do to save me,the baby and the marriage from the inevitable pending disaster.
It was a very scary place for the both of us to be in. I couldn't defend myself if I wanted to, I have never felt so helpless and vulnerable in my life. I was literally at his mercy. The next thing he did was an amazing act of love.
He called his dad's house, spoke to the house keeper, and drove me over to have Gladys take care of me.He knew that if we spent any more time together especially with his frame of mind at the moment, anything could and would happen. He just couldn't handle his emotions. So in order to protect me, he did the smartest thing he could have done, he got me to a safe location where I would be taken care of and he would not be able to do anything else to me.
Gladys was so kind to me. She put me into bed to rest because I was so upset and stunned that he would do that to me.I think she was afraid I would miscarry. That's how afraid we all were. She stayed with me and told me to stay calm, because no matter what happened I needed to take care of myself for our baby. She also told me that, the child I was carrying was mine. There wasn't anything that could ever separate me from my child. She just had a gift for calming people down. I totally relaxed and was grateful for our couple of days together.
During those few days, Gladys told me so many stories about how much Bob's mother loved and understood him. He was always plagued with some sort of anger issues, even at a young age, she told me. His mother would always forgive him and tell Gladys that there was something not quite right with him. She forgave him everything always.
It finally dawned on me, why Bob loved me so deeply, but could be so cruel to me at times. That was how he treated the one woman he adored more than anything, His Mother. I too, always forgave him everything he had ever done. I was his rock, I of course did forgive him. Gladys nursed my fragile nerves and me back to health and then Bob came and took me back home a few days later. He was feeling better emotionally. He was back to his normal sweet self. Back in those days I could actually just forget and forgive. We did not dwell on it and we moved on. We had too much to be excited about. The fact that Bob didn't go out and drink was all I needed to know because that night and the next few nights following I really thought that he would go out and get drunk, but he didn't. I'm sure he wanted to but he didn't.
The time alone gave us both a chance to calm down. We never really fought about anything big. It was always the little things that got to us. A pattern that followed us our entire time together.
The rest of the pregnancy went along as most peoples. Except for one thing. Bob was now really so much kinder and really didn't mind that I needed his help. I think I made him feel better by needing him after what we had just gone through. He was cooking me breakfast every morning now to make sure that I was going to have a healthy baby. He made me the only thing he knew how to cook. Scrambled Eggs, every morning, scrambled eggs.
I have to tell you that till this day I have such an aversion to scrambled eggs, but I didn't tell him that at the time. I needed to show him that I forgave him and I knew it would never happen again and it didn't.
Of course we were normal and would have the occasional stressful days, the great times and the bad days. We were just like anyone else we knew only we were happier. We felt we were witnessing and living a miracle. Not just living a normal life.
We felt we were blessed but we also knew that if something could go wrong it would.
I started to break out with little red "rings" on my legs. The doctors did all sorts of tests on me, but they had no Idea what it was. So on to the next specialist it was. Then came the bomb shell. The Doctor said I had "Lupus".
We had never heard of it. We wanted to know what to do next and he told us that it was an incurable disease which could be fatal.
To be honest with you, the only thing I could do was to just block that out. I did not focus on what he said and quite frankly, I just didn't believe it. I had no desire to be sick, especially with a fatal disease.
I got better, and the spots never came back.
Is it mind over matter? I think it was. I would not engage that thought. Nothing in the world was going to stop me from having this baby and being healthy to take care of him for the rest of my life. I never did forget those words Gladys had told me. In my soul I felt that the life of my child was going to be my responsibility. Bob would be there, but there might be a time when he couldn't be and I prepared myself emotionally from then on. Me and my son against the world. Oh how prophetic that thought would turn out to be.
There is no logical explanation to why it just went away. Either the Doctor was wrong or I willed it gone. Whatever. Here I am twenty two years later. No signs of whatever. Bottom line, man becomes what he thinks about. I thought myself healthy. I always have.
Well I'm living proof that it can happen. The miracles are just around the corner if a person just doesn't pick up that first drink. Sounds so easy, doesn't it?
Well there were days that were living hell for Bob. He really didn't want to drink, it's just that the same old compulsion to drink never really left him.
At this time in our life I really did not understand how a DRY DRUNK could alter his personality so completely, but it could.
As happy as we were about the birth of our child the pressure was starting to build up in side of him. A combination of Bob's old pattern had reemerged. Bob had always experienced in his earlier attempts of sobriety that horrible grey area where he wasn't drinking, but he wanted to really bad and his behaviour was almost like he was drinking.
I had been told that I would probably never have children and don't forget, I had been with Bob for five years before I married him so this was definitely not something he was prepared for.The pressure of having me fairly out of commission and his trying to launch an acting career had begun to stress him out.
I was ordered to have an almost total bed rest pregnancy. All the things I used to do were not put on his shoulders. I couldn't lift anything, couldn't do the marketing really couldn't do much of anything.
Bob was used to me always looking after him. He was in strange waters when I needed him to take care of me. He now had to do almost everything, but clean the house and do the laundry. I could see the mood swings start to happen all over again for no reason.
It started out very subtlety, We were walking down the street in Beverly Hills one afternoon, and he started telling me I was fat. I was simply too stunned to argue with him. I started to cry. I couldn't believe he just told me I was fat. Of course I was fat, I was caring our child. Instead of realizing he had hurt my feelings, he started to get really mad at me for "Making a Scene" by crying. Of course this only made things worse. I think most women are more sensitive when they are pregnant, but I always heard these stories about women feeling so beautiful when they were pregnant, and how great they felt.
I was not having one of those experiences at all, I was never heavy in my entire life and I didn't see that one coming. The tension just kept building that day for some reason.
I still remember what I was wearing, that's how traumatic that day was for me. I had black stretch pants on and an over sized white men's style shirt. Simple but classic.
Things just went from bad to worse. I don't remember what we were doing in Beverly Hills that day, but we just went back to our condo in Santa Monica.
Bob was literally acting like a caged tiger. Nothing I said or did made him happy that day and I needed to be consoled for how mean he was to me. I think I may have asked him to apologize or something and before I knew it, he hit me in the stomach.
Obviously, it wasn't an all out punch, but there was the taboo that was broken. YOU DON"T EVER TOUCH A PREGNANT WOMAN NO MATTER WHAT. There was no turning back from that moment on. I was hysterical, not from pain, but from sheer terror. If he could do that, what else could he do? I had seen the bad side before, I never dreamed I'd be looking at it again, in my condition especially.
I really don't know how Bob didn't drink through that day.He promised God he would stay sane and sober if he would only give him a second chance at another family and a son. It was all just moments away from shattering our dreams.I can't imagine the instant panic and guilt he felt.
The Other Bob had stepped out into the open that day, and he couldn't seem to control it. I saw the panic in his eyes. We were at a serious cross roads in our life. The very foundation of this marriage was at risk here. I told him if he ever picked up another drink, the marriage was over. He saw his hopes and dreams die in his mind, if he listened to the demon inside his head. He did the only thing he could do to save me,the baby and the marriage from the inevitable pending disaster.
It was a very scary place for the both of us to be in. I couldn't defend myself if I wanted to, I have never felt so helpless and vulnerable in my life. I was literally at his mercy. The next thing he did was an amazing act of love.
He called his dad's house, spoke to the house keeper, and drove me over to have Gladys take care of me.He knew that if we spent any more time together especially with his frame of mind at the moment, anything could and would happen. He just couldn't handle his emotions. So in order to protect me, he did the smartest thing he could have done, he got me to a safe location where I would be taken care of and he would not be able to do anything else to me.
Gladys was so kind to me. She put me into bed to rest because I was so upset and stunned that he would do that to me.I think she was afraid I would miscarry. That's how afraid we all were. She stayed with me and told me to stay calm, because no matter what happened I needed to take care of myself for our baby. She also told me that, the child I was carrying was mine. There wasn't anything that could ever separate me from my child. She just had a gift for calming people down. I totally relaxed and was grateful for our couple of days together.
During those few days, Gladys told me so many stories about how much Bob's mother loved and understood him. He was always plagued with some sort of anger issues, even at a young age, she told me. His mother would always forgive him and tell Gladys that there was something not quite right with him. She forgave him everything always.
It finally dawned on me, why Bob loved me so deeply, but could be so cruel to me at times. That was how he treated the one woman he adored more than anything, His Mother. I too, always forgave him everything he had ever done. I was his rock, I of course did forgive him. Gladys nursed my fragile nerves and me back to health and then Bob came and took me back home a few days later. He was feeling better emotionally. He was back to his normal sweet self. Back in those days I could actually just forget and forgive. We did not dwell on it and we moved on. We had too much to be excited about. The fact that Bob didn't go out and drink was all I needed to know because that night and the next few nights following I really thought that he would go out and get drunk, but he didn't. I'm sure he wanted to but he didn't.
The time alone gave us both a chance to calm down. We never really fought about anything big. It was always the little things that got to us. A pattern that followed us our entire time together.
The rest of the pregnancy went along as most peoples. Except for one thing. Bob was now really so much kinder and really didn't mind that I needed his help. I think I made him feel better by needing him after what we had just gone through. He was cooking me breakfast every morning now to make sure that I was going to have a healthy baby. He made me the only thing he knew how to cook. Scrambled Eggs, every morning, scrambled eggs.
I have to tell you that till this day I have such an aversion to scrambled eggs, but I didn't tell him that at the time. I needed to show him that I forgave him and I knew it would never happen again and it didn't.
Of course we were normal and would have the occasional stressful days, the great times and the bad days. We were just like anyone else we knew only we were happier. We felt we were witnessing and living a miracle. Not just living a normal life.
We felt we were blessed but we also knew that if something could go wrong it would.
I started to break out with little red "rings" on my legs. The doctors did all sorts of tests on me, but they had no Idea what it was. So on to the next specialist it was. Then came the bomb shell. The Doctor said I had "Lupus".
We had never heard of it. We wanted to know what to do next and he told us that it was an incurable disease which could be fatal.
To be honest with you, the only thing I could do was to just block that out. I did not focus on what he said and quite frankly, I just didn't believe it. I had no desire to be sick, especially with a fatal disease.
I got better, and the spots never came back.
Is it mind over matter? I think it was. I would not engage that thought. Nothing in the world was going to stop me from having this baby and being healthy to take care of him for the rest of my life. I never did forget those words Gladys had told me. In my soul I felt that the life of my child was going to be my responsibility. Bob would be there, but there might be a time when he couldn't be and I prepared myself emotionally from then on. Me and my son against the world. Oh how prophetic that thought would turn out to be.
There is no logical explanation to why it just went away. Either the Doctor was wrong or I willed it gone. Whatever. Here I am twenty two years later. No signs of whatever. Bottom line, man becomes what he thinks about. I thought myself healthy. I always have.
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