Pregnancy # 2

So after having Jessica, I settled into motherhood quite nicely for a teenage mother.  She was such a good baby, she slept 12 hours through the night at 2 1/2 weeks, she was walking by the time she was 9 months old, and talking full sentences by a year.  She was exactly text book, every doctors appointment we had, she was exactly in the 50th percentile, for height and weight, in the first year.  She very rarely ever cried and even when she woke up, she would just talk, which is funny, because 22 years later, she’s still like that…Sleep for hours and wake up talking!  🙂

Shortly after Jessica turned one, I found out that I was pregnant again.   Actually, I tried to deny for quite sometime that I was pregnant again.  I had a missed period in March, but ignored it for a bit, and then April came and went and still no period, so in May I finally went to see my doctor.  I said I think I’m pregnant, and he said we’ll do a blood test to confirm, when was your last period?  I said February, and he said, ok, so urine test it is…

I was going to be in trouble, again.  What were we going to do?  Jack had been cheating on me and still partying and pretty much leaving every weekend to stay at his parents place.  We still had some good times, but he was still so young and I took to being a parent rather well, but he didn’t so much, never changed a diaper, gave a bath, or even fed Jessica.  He would hold her, and play with her, and he loved her, he was sweet to her, but he was more of a big brother than a father.  So, we were growing a little further apart each day.

However, with the news of this pregnancy, I knew I couldn’t be a single mom with 2 kids, so I decided to make it work, we talked and he was 100% in too, we were determined to pull it together and have this second baby.

My second pregnancy was relatively normal, I didn’t have morning sickness, I felt good, but my issue was, I wasn’t gaining any weight.  (Funnily enough, this is currently not my issue, but, I’m writing to be able to let go of things to lose weight)  I was 9 months pregnant and still just wearing loose track pants and sweatshirts or large T-shirts (Clothes that I don’t fit into right now, and I’m currently not pregnant).  I believe that I actually lost weight being pregnant with Jeffery.

We decided on Jeffery’s name very early on, I didn’t gain a lot of weight, but I still had a baby belly, and Jessica called it Jeffery, she would talk to my tummy and tell her brother stories, and once we were out front a restaurant having a drink waiting for Jack, and a pregnant woman walked by and Jessica said “Look, Mommy, that lady has a Jeffery too!”  I laughed so hard, I had to tell her that her baby was probably not a Jeffery, but ours was.

So, while I was pregnant with Jeffery, Jack and I moved in with his Uncle because our landlord was moving his daughter back in so he was kicking us out, and we didn’t have anywhere else to go.  His uncle was a good man, he has since passed away, but Jessica just adored him, and I miss him a lot.  The house however, was a very drafty, one story no basement, we had two connecting rooms in the back of the house, Jessica had one with her crib and we had a pull out couch in the other.  We shared the kitchen and bathroom.

At this time, Jack’s other uncle was starting to build a cottage out close to Algonquin, so Jack was going out – essentially drinking and partying all weekend long at the trailer, and I stayed at the house with Jack’s uncle.  This was most of the summer and into the fall.  On the weekend that Jeffery was due, Jack wanted to go with his cousin and uncle to help (help drink his beer) and I said no, that isn’t a good idea because I’m due very soon.  He fought with me about it, and how it usually went was like this:

Jack:  Yelling – Fine, if you want me to stay, I’ll stay

Me:  Yelling – If you’re going to be like that, just go

Jack: Leaves slamming something

Me:  Not seeing Jack the rest of the weekend

It was his M.O.  this way, he could do what he wanted.  So on this particular day, it went like this instead:

Jack:  Yelling – Fine, if you want me to stay, I’ll stay.

Me: Not Yelling – actually being very sweet – Thank You

He didn’t slam anything, and on Friday night he waved goodbye to the boys as his uncle left for the weekend.  But he was mad at me, he didn’t talk to me much, he did stay in the same room, but I knew he was fuming because I made him stay.

So Saturday morning, I feel something, I tell Jack, Jack says no you don’t.  We drive out to his friends shop out in the country, and every now and then I feel a twinge, and he basically tells me I’m lying.  After lunch we take Jessica to the lake to feed the birds, and every now and then, I’m still feeling something, but at this point he has Jessica at the lake feeding the birds and I was a little ways back, so I didn’t complain, and I figure he doesn’t believe me anyway, he thinks I’m just saying it because I made him stay.

So that night, Jack is watching Pulp Fiction, and I say, ok, I think we need to go to the hospital, and he says wait till the movie is over, the worst part is we had a black box, remember them?  They would play the latest movies – maybe 5 of them, over and over again, so he had already seen Pulp Fiction several times.  Then a couple of our other friends come in to the house and ask if we want to go to the bar, I say no, I’m having a baby and friend says, you don’t have to drink…I’m now getting frustrated, and my contractions are getting much closer together.

I finally get Jessica ready to go to his Aunt’s house who lives in the same town as Jack’s parents, and Jack finally decides to drive me, the drive to the town is 20 minutes, and then back to the hospital another 20-25 minutes, so we get to Jack’s aunts place and I have a big contraction and she is so excited and says how far apart are your contractions.  I say 5 minutes, and double over in 2 minutes with another one.  Then Jack says lets stop at my mom and dad’s and I’m like really??  So we stop in and I have contraction, (also had many in the car) and Jack’s Mom says, how far apart are your contractions and I double over have another one and say 5 minutes – I have to believe it is 5 minutes, because this baby is coming now, if I don’t!

So we get to the hospital, at about midnight, and I have the nurse from hell again, mind you, this was probably me this time, after being checked and coming out of the bathroom, the nurse says your husband has gone down the hall to admit you, and me being the idiot I am says, he’s not my husband, so then the nurse got snippy, well whoever you came with then, and then I said I want an epidural, and she says how do you know you need that, and I say because I don’t want it to hurt like last time, she lightened up when she found out it was my second.  By 12:45 I call my dad and let him know I am here, and at 1:03am I gave birth to a healthy baby boy, 6 lbs 12 oz.  Jeffery is here!

Pregnant Life

When I left home, I told my dad that I wouldn’t move back home if my mother was there even if I didn’t have two pennies to rub together.  So, when she left and went to Israel to look for God, it was kind of a good time to tell my dad that he was going to be a grandfather.

Man, was he mad…Like really mad, he wanted me to have an abortion, then he said to put the baby up for adoption, and then there was the very long time where he didn’t even look at me, and he would only speak to me if it was necessary.  So, I was home now, my doctor told me to quit my job pumping gas at the gas station, because the fumes weren’t good, but I didn’t quit till I couldn’t fit into my uniform any more.  My dad sold the house, and supplied my mother with her share to stay in Israel longer, and he bought a house in Ajax.  He lived there for a month before I moved in.

I called my mother to tell her that I was pregnant, this was mostly just to piss her off, and the joke was on me, she was so very happy for me.  She said that I would make a great mother, and she was happy to be a grandmother.  Damn…That really sucked for me.  I was really looking to piss her off!

Jacks’s mother found out through her work, if you recall, it was a small town, it was a little upsetting for her especially to find out at work – Jack called her to check in and this is how it went:

Jack’s Mom:  I heard the stupidest thing at work, one of girls says that Jenn is pregnant

Jack:  She is

Jack’s Mom:  What??  (Hangs up)

They accepted it way faster than my dad did, but they were disappointed too.

In the first 3 months, I had morning sickness, well, more like all day sickness, I couldn’t keep anything down, including crackers, but after the first 3 months, things were fine, I had a very normal pregnancy without a lot of issues.

Jack and I had a pretty good summer, we spent time together at bon fires, camping, and just being outside.  He still drank and partied, and I watched, but it got tedious after a while, I couldn’t drink and imbibe and had to be careful, and well, that part of the teenage pregnancy sucked…I was still young, and couldn’t conceive anything else but the present.

I couldn’t do much so I started going back to school in September, took one semester of high school, and things were ok.  I turned 19 during my pregnancy and that was the legal drinking age, so no partying for me.  Jack and I started to fight more around this time, because of course, he was out drinking and partying every weekend, and I couldn’t, I sat in my dads house doing homework, and was pretty much alone.

I was doing well in school this time, I had taken Grade 11 Advanced Math, which was not a mandatory course, and I got 98% overall, turns out if I applied myself, I was a smart cookie.

So my mother calls one day and says she was talking to God and he said that I was going to have a baby girl, and I was going to call her Jessica.

So, I didn’t know at the time I was having a girl, and if it was a girl, I was going to be naming her Jaime.  Until of course, I didn’t like the name any more, I had loved it for many years, since I was a little kid, then all of a sudden, hated it.  We did want to stay with a “J” name because both of Jack’s brothers had “J” names and his dad and all 7 of his siblings had “J” names, it was convenient that I had a “J” name so we really wanted to stick with that.  I eventually had an ultrasound that said that I was having a girl, and Jack decided he really liked the name Jessica.

At this time, I kind of thought that my mother was a little psychic, so I called and asked her if she would speak with God and find out how much this baby will weigh, my mother says she will check and get back to me, she called me back and said she will weigh just a little over seven pounds, so I figure, that is average baby weight, so she is full of it, but whatever.

On Christmas Eve, I was alone with my dad, no tree, no dinner, no nothing, he was still  not talking to me even though, I was due in about 3 weeks.  I asked him if he was mad at me.  He said no, he said that he was disappointed, and that when this baby comes out he would love it no matter what.

Christmas with Jack’s family was nice, I went there on Christmas Day, and there were a few gifts for the baby too, they were always very thoughtful.

On January 12th at 11:50pm, I felt “something” it didn’t really hurt, but it wasn’t normal, I had been studying for my science exam, they assigned teachers to come to my house on exam days because I was so close to my due date.  I decided it was time to go to bed, and at midnight, I felt another little “something”.  I decided that I should better sleep because of the exam.  I woke up at 2:00am and went to the bathroom, and I had dropped my mucus plug.  My dad was asleep, and I really didn’t want to wake him with this, and it was 2am so I thought I better not call Jack’s house to wake everyone up in case it was nothing.  I did however, decide that this would be a good time to pack for the hospital.  At 4:00am, I couldn’t do it any more, I couldn’t wait till later in the morning, I was sure I was having contractions and they were not very far apart. I had to wake everyone up now, so I called Jack’s house, and his dad answered and his exact words were “Is she on her way?”  I smiled and said yes, he said he would wake Jack and meet us at the hospital.

Then I woke my dad up, I knew he would be panicky, so I put my coat and boots on had my bag and then woke him up, he basically put his boots on and was pulling his pants up on the front porch.

I got to the hospital and got admitted and Jack showed up a little while later, and we had this nurse that was just horrible, she lectured me about being a pregnant teenager, and that I don’t know what I’m doing and what was I thinking, and well, if you ask me, it was a little late for the lecture, but things turned around at 6:00am we got a new nurse, and she was amazing, she had a student nurse shadowing her who was equally amazing, and things started moving along.  I had an epidural, and don’t regret it at all!

At 9:37am, with Jack by my side, I gave birth to Jessica, a beautiful baby girl, who weighed, 7lbs .04oz, the doctor’s exact words were you have a healthy baby girl, who weighs just little over 7 pounds.