Читать книгу God's Broken Lil' Baby - E. Jay Ford - Страница 9

Chapter 19

19 My Firstborn

Chocolate Doll

Skin tone’s a deep dark brown;

don’t be shame you are the cutest thing around,

chocolate doll.

You’re the reason I give my all.

Brown and silky fine as wine,

shining just as bright from noon till nine.

Chocolate girl,

more precious than any pearl,

they always say the darker skin is skin so pure.

In our case, that is so true.

You are my baby girl, and I’ll give you my all

because you will forever and always be my chocolate doll.

I went into labor at 7:00 a.m., January 14, 1992. I didn’t go right to the hospital because the pain wasn’t that bad at first. I also wanted to eat. I was told I wouldn’t be able to eat until I was done. I was nineteen years old, married, and didn’t have a fuckin’ clue as to what I was doing or how my life was truly about to change. My husband was in the army and was stationed in Germany at the time, so I was living at home with my mommy who was a full-blown crack addict at this time and my four sisters and brothers. I was supposed to be in Germany, but by the time they found housing, I was too far along for the plane ride out of the country.

When I went into labor, my mommy wasn’t there. My sisters and brothers were there taking care of me. She was off on another one of her smoke sessions that lasted days at a time. There is no telling where she was. It was dead of winter and cold as fuck, and there was no tellin’ which crack shack in East St. Louis she was in, but my sister went looking for her for me. I love my siblings to life. They mean the world to me. They have always taken care of me like that. My brother went to get me donuts. I had a little money that I had hid in case of emergencies, and this was definitely an emergency. That left me at home with my youngest brother and sister. They would get me water and hold my hand. I had called my aunt who lived in Centerville to let her know that I was in labor. She had warned me to call the ambulance because it was going to get worse and I didn’t want to be at home when shit got real. I was talking big shit. I told her I had this and, if this was labor, I could have five more kids. She simply said okay and said, “Yo ass gone learn today,” and hung up.

By 7:00 p.m., I was in the most ridiculous fuckin’ pain I could have ever imagined. I thought she was trying to bust out of my whole body. I wanted to die. I didn’t know if I wanted to stand up or sit down. I didn’t know if my back or my stomach was hurting. The pain was everywhere, and I had no control. I was crying and screaming as I rolled from side to side on the floor. It was horrible. All four of my siblings were rubbing my back, belly, and head telling me it was going to be okay when my mommy finally burst through the door. One of the crack shacks my sister had knocked at early had told my mommy that she had come by and I was about to have the baby. There was one thing about my mommy. I don’t care how much she smoked; her ass would jump into mommy mode in a heartbeat. I believe that is why it was so hard for me to believe she was as bad as people had told me. She had made some fucked up decisions on that shit and did some fucked up things, but she was on her shit when she did show up. On top of that, she never allowed the state to take us no matter how bad shit got.

There I was, at 1263 Kansas, on my hands and knees feeling like this baby was kicking the shit out my insides trying to get out. The hospital was on Scott Air Force Base in Belleville a cool thirty minutes away. Favorite Uncle had showed up to take me to the hospital. You have to remember, there were no beepers or cell phones back then, so all communication was delayed. I literally was not on my way to the hospital until almost 9:30 p.m. No one should have to endure that kind of pain for that long. Favorite Uncle was more excited than any of us. We piled into his little Mazda 626 and hit it. My uncle was driving like a bat out of hell, and he loved it. He drove like an idiot when there was no emergency, so he was really having a ball this time. Once we got to the military base, the soldier at the gatehouse wouldn’t immediately let us in. My uncle was pissed. The soldier was asking a million questions as I screamed in the back of the car. My uncle couldn’t take it anymore. He, threw the car in reverse, then threw it in drive and slammed the gas pedal down as far as it would go. They immediately raised the gate arm when they realized he was going to ram right through that bitch. He got me to the emergency room door where to military police were waiting on us. It was hilarious.

They finally pulled me to the back to check my cervix, and I hadn’t dilated enough to get any pain medication or to have this kid. You have got to be fucking kidding me. I was already in pain in what I felt like was forever and being completely dramatic. I was always dramatic, and my mommy hated it. She had threatened to slap me like ten times since we had been there. I never thought my mommy liked me anyway, but that’s a story for later. I knew she meant that shit so as much pain as I was in, I toned it down a notch or two because my mommy didn’t play no games. I was practicing that breathing shit they had taught me at the appointments. That shit did not work. It prevented you from pushing but barely. It finally came time for the epidural and not a moment too soon. That shit was a shot of kindness to my soul. I figured that meant it was time for me to finally get this baby out of me. I would be wrong. I laid there for another five hours to eventually dilate to ten only for her to get stuck on her way out. Somebody fuckin’ kill me right now. My cervix wouldn’t expand enough to get her out. This was some bullshit. Here they come with these huge ass clamps to grab her by the head and pull her out. With a whole lot of effort, 7:21 a.m., January 15, 1992, I became a mother. Her head was long as fuck, but she was so damn cute. I cried but not for the reason you may think. I was disturbed that due to them having to pull her out with clamps, my daughter looked like a Chinese cone head right off the show Saturday Night Live. I just knew they had fucked her up for life. One of the nurses told me not to worry. Her head was soft and could be easily shaped with light rubbing. I rubbed the shit out of my baby’s head.

I was now a mom. I was allowed to stay in the hospital for three days and then they sent me home. I was alone with this thing. What the fuck had I done? Why in the fuck did it keep looking at me like that? My boobies hurt so damn bad I could hardly take it. This thing cried every time I looked at it. Oh my God, I’m sick of this shit already. It’s about five million rules to the shit. I’m not going to remember all this shit. Every time I did something, my mommy kept yelling at me like I’m supposed to automatically know. I couldn’t do shit right in her eyes anyway, but this was ridiculous. She still left on her smoke binges, so I was at home with this situation a lot. I hated when she left, but I also hated it when she was there. I’ve been home a couple of days, and it finally fell asleep. I can go to sleep now. Thank you, God!

Holy shit! It’s 2:00 a.m. and this thing is screaming to all high hell. I’m rocking it, patting the back, and changed the diaper, and still for forty-five minutes, it’s just screaming. I can’t take it anymore. I had to call my mommy at my uncle’s house. I’m in full-blown tears at this point. My titties were leaking. I stink. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. My mommy got on the phone, and I begged her to come to get this thing. She immediately started cussing me out as usual. She’s cussing so loud and hard, I didn’t know what the hell she was saying. All I heard at the end was that she was on her way.

She got to the house and grabbed me by the collar and demanded to know the last time I fed her grandbaby. I told her at 8:00 p.m. I fed it at 8:00 p.m. I knew I said something wrong because the expression on her face put fear in my heart that immediately stopped my tears. All of a sudden, I couldn’t breathe. She had her grandbaby in one hand and my throat in the other. She growled, “You dumb mothafucka, she needs to eat every two hours. She’s screaming because she starving! Yo dumb ass should not be having sex if yo ass don’t know what the fuck to do afterwards! And say her fucking name! Call her it, thing, that, or anything that doesn’t reflect her name or gender, Imma beat yo’ ass bloody!” She then threw me to the bed, handed me my baby, and stood there as I pulled out my boob to feed her. She didn’t move until I was done. From that moment forward, she watched me like a hawk with Baby Girl. I couldn’t make a move with the baby without my mommy being two steps on my heels.

I now got a whole baby. This some straight bullshit. It’s been three months, and I’m tired as fuck. I love her, but this job called mother was more than I ever imagined it would be. This shit is nonstop. I can’t fucking breathe. I cry more than I laugh. She’s beautiful. Those eyes and that smile are amazing. Her daddy will be home next week, but I hate his ass right now. I don’t know who he thinks he has become, but he has become extremely cocky. He sent money from Germany. He’s in the army, but you would think he was in prison. He kept complaining because I didn’t save any money. Fuck him. Between my mommy stealing my money for crack and the cost of this baby, I’m dead in the water. The way he was bitchin’, you would think he was sending thousands. He wasn’t.

I’m twenty years old and already married with a baby, and I don’t know what the fuck to do with either one of them. I walked knee-deep into this shit and fucked myself. I’m a fighter, though, so I’m going to have to make this shit work if it kills me. He finally came home from Germany, but we both lived with our parents. This ain’t shit like he promised it would be when he asked to marry me. He said we were going to be like the Huxtables. I can’t believe I fell for that shit. He’s only home for a month, and then he’s off to California to report for duty. I don’t know what’s next for this fucked up family dynamic. How in the fuck do you handle a “nuclear” family when you’ve never been taught to be in a “nuclear” family? I have clearly bitten off more than I can chew. Let’s see how this shit turns out in the end.

You do the best you can when you become a mother. I don’t know if I was suffering from postpartum depression or if I was just an angry resentful little girl that had just given birth to the most beautiful child God could ever have blessed me. I just knew I had to do better than what I was doing. I see all these new mothers boast about motherhood. I must have missed that class because that shit ain’t always that great and even worse when you are living paycheck to paycheck or even less than paycheck to paycheck. I see these parents talk about how spoiled their children are. Your child is not spoiled unless all that money you are spending to give them all this expensive shit is extra money. If all your bills are not paid in full and the child does not have a legacy or a sizeable income at their disposable to fall back on then your child is not spoiled. Yo ass broke and going bankrupt trying to give that child shit they don’t need. You are selling them an illusion of being spoiled. When they get grown, they are going to be the same broke ass that you are spending money they don’t have. The struggle is real.