Sunday, August 5, 2012

20 Weeks, Super Happy, but Disappointment rears it's ugly head.

It's been 9 weeks since I posted my last post. 
I am now 20 weeks pregnant, and I feel great.  My blood pressure has stayed normal, my weight gain hasn't been an issue yet, and my baby is perfect.  We found out we are having another girl.  Most of the people who know us know that we wanted a boy, but I am thankful that we are having another child at all.  Over the last few years, our family has felt incomplete.  I was even told that I was unable to conceive due to an ovarian condition, so I had pretty much given up all hope of it being complete.  Until April that is.  In April I received a positive test.   Many times over the last year I had bought tests and taken them, not really hoping for a positive result, but just out of hope that maybe something would change.  By the beginning of April, I had missed a period and felt pregnant, so that test was intentional.  Fast forward approximately 16 weeks and here we are, having another girl.  I am so blessed and thankful that I have been granted my one humble prayer.  But having another girl is not where the disappointment has come from.


Over the years, I have been greatly disillusioned with my family.  I have tried hard to forget the horror of my childhood, and I may have succeeded if I had been smart and cut all ties with my family after I got married.  But then again, I had tried to make my family into the ideal that it should have been.  I invited all of my family to my wedding.  No one came.  I was alone at my own wedding, I knew only 3 other people there in addition to my husband, I had never met the other in-law family until the day before the wedding.  I felt horrible, and for some unbelievable reason I forgave them and continued speaking with them over the next few years.  A little less than a year after my wedding, my first child was born.  I kept having these day dreams of my father and step-mother coming down to where we lived to meet the baby and celebrate with us.  Upon coming home, there were dozens of people at my house celebrating the birth of our first daughter, but again my family was nowhere in sight.  I only spot to them on the phone because I called, not the other way around.


Fast forward 2 years, and the birth of my second child.  We were living close to my family so it should have been an easy task for them to spend time with us.  In the almost 2 years we lived in that area, they came to my house maybe twice.  I spent a lot of time out at their place, but that was the only time there was any familial visitation, if I drove the 45 minutes out to their place.  When I was 7 months pregnant, we were in a bad car accident.  Instead of sticking around for the birth of my child and helping us get back on our feet, my family left the state.  My father was not even there for her birth, nor was he much interested in her.  Lots of things have happened since then, but the whole point of this point is my current disappointment with my family.


When I announced my pregnancy to the families, my in-laws were thrilled.  I could hear the screams and happiness through the phone as my husband told them.  My family, however but not surprisingly, was as non-chalant as they have ever been.  They treated it as if I had screwed up again, as if I was a 15 year old child telling them I got knocked up by some random street bum, not like the woman who has been happily married to the same man for 9 years and is living her life honestly, honorably, and industriously.  My father didn't answer the phone, so I left him a message and when he returned my call, he told me that he was laughing about it when he heard the message.  He was mocking us for having another daughter when we so badly wanted a son.  It was like the polar opposite of the happiness and well-wishes we had received from my husband's family and our friends.  Even worse, when he saw the name we were going to give our daughter, he said "That's what you're calling her?  Ooooooookay" as if mocking our choice.  So far, only one other person has expressed that they didn't really like the name, but they had said it was up to us and they were happy no matter what.  Could my family get any worse?  Talking with them is like an antidote to happiness, an instantaneous burst of depression.


I should be really happy, I have had so much support and well-wishes from my dearest friends and my in-laws.  Yet here I sit, dwelling too much on the pain that my family has caused me over the years.  So I resolve to put an end to it, but the end of the year.  They obviously aren't excited for us about the birth of our beautiful and blessed child, so I won't involve them (burden them) with any news.  Not even the birth of my child will be announced to them.  And while I am recovering from childbirth and bonding with my little angel, I will also be struggling to maintain my distance.  Why am I so weak when it comes to this?  I shouldn't allow them to continue to hurt me and treat me as if I am something so unimportant.  Over the years I have kept the ties, which is more than I can say for my other siblings.  Is that why?  Am I an easy target for their 'woe-is-me' attitude?  Well I'm done.