How we got here (pt 4)

The line to the clinic rang twice. I hung up. I needed a plan. Like, what the hell was I going to do now. The perfect job, my plan A, to get me out of this mess was GONE. I needed a minute to process. Processing meant, smoking cigarettes, eating crappy ass cheap food and watching my DVD Box set of Sex in the City. For those short 27 min intervals, I didn't have to live in my world. I could let the glitz and glam of Carrie’s outfits and Samantha’s sexual conquest, Miranda’s boss moves at the firm and Charlotte’s money swallow me whole and live vicariously through them. I was one episode into season 4 and it hit me. Plan B! Get an abortion, pack up and store my apartment, take a one way flgiht to Thailand to help out after the tsunami and return when it felt right. A plan of escape but that also had purpose. I thought, maybe I can find myself there. Helping people makes me feel right with the world. The woman on the phone at the clinic asked if I had had my first ultrasound yet. No. She told me for the procedure their clinic does I have to be between a certain amount of weeks, so that was step #1. As we talked further she informed me that I would need to be off my feet, taking it easy for a while after the procedure and there would be no traveling, especially to a foreign country until I made a full recovery. Well that didn't work with my time frame. In my best Doofenshmirtz voice…

Back Story Time!!!! 

When I was in the darkness I was getting eviction notices in the mail and was in housing court trying to ask for more time to pay. This process went on for a couple of months because I somehow would never have the money no matter how much time they gave me. But they always tried to give me more time because up til lately I had been a great tenant who paid on time or even early for 4 years. And I was making money, but never had money. I would come home with an amount of money and when I went to deposit it in the bank in the morning it would always be $70-$150 less. I lived with no one. I counted my money before I went to sleep. I went straight to the bank when I woke up. No where else in between. Where did it go?!?!? I honestly can't tell you. I don't know. Well when I finally decided to quit the strip club and leave the darkness, I was no longer getting evicted. They asked if I wanted to come to a middle ground. Yes you read that right. They asked ME, if I wanted to come to a middle ground. They offered to give me 45 days to move out and I could take as long as I needed to pay back the money, as long as I paid small amounts every month. If you know New York, real estate and housing court your mind would be blown justs as much as mine was. That’s why the cruise ship job was so PERFECT. My start date matched the 45 day timeline. But now I needed a plan. 

 After searching to no end for a new apt or even a roommate situation, my friend MT came through with the hook up. As she always does. I would be subletting a house about 2 hours south of the city for a friend of a friend of hers from January to June. I packed up my whole apart and put it in storage and lived out of 3 suitcases. The move was complicated, last minute and dramatic, The truck was too small,  because of time I could only make 1 trip and the storage unit was way too big and expensive. But I didn’t have the time nor the funds to try to fix it, so it would have to do. The crazy part was that my ex-girlfriend helped me move because Sperm Donor couldn't. In fact, I don't even remember what his excuse was. You would think after I told him I was carrying his child, and he was so happy about that, that he wouldn’t want me lifting heavy furniture and things… But I digress. 

My new friends via MT came and got me the same day as the move, hence the time crunch. 10 mins into our car ride, they did their usual, our usual, lit a cigarette. As they reached back to hand me one, part of me wanted to say nothing and just light it. I was almost up to a pack a day and had to quit cold turkey because of this thing growing inside me that I didn't even know if I wanted to keep. I really REALLY wanted one. I could have ONE right? I mean, I wasn't even going to keep this thing anyway. Was I? FUCK! I still didn't know. Out of fear that I might kill it with second hand smoke on top of the night of non stop drinking and smoking that happened at Sperm Donors’ when Baby Mama was in town - That story will have to wait for the book though because Oh My Gawd, we were still drunk two days later and Baby Mama did some things that in hindsight we are still hi-fiving about to this day- But I declined the cigarette and asked them to refrain as well. When they asked why, I found myself blurting out almost joyously with a smile, “I’m pregnant!”

The second it came out I regretted it. They were so happy for me. But what would they think of me after I got abortion?! Well too late to think about that now dumbass!

Finally, I made it to the clinic. I was about 6 weeks pregnant. She made us (one of the few doctor visits he actually came to) watch a video about our options. I still was unclear. 

Weighing the option… If I have the baby, I guess he and I could work out, though there were serious problems in the relationship. After I found out I was pregnant I got 3 jobs. He had none. Let him tell ya, it was because “the MAN is trying to hold me down.” I’m sorry, what year are we in!?!?! 1970!?!?! People still talk like that?!?! Seriously!?!

Or, I could have an abortion, disappear into the darkness again. Just let it swallow me up, and try to get my life back on track some other time. At least this way I could go back to smoking my Parliaments. Mmmmm, that sounded nice. What to do, what to do? 

Between dealing with the idiocy of Sperm Donor and the continuous disapproval questioning of my decisions from my ex, I wish I had jumped on a one way flight to Thailand and figure it out over there. I was so angry that is was becoming about everybody else BUT me. I just wanted to do what I felt like doing and not really give a shit about anyone else’s feelings about what I did with MY body. But I didn't have the balls. So I dealt with it. The next couple of months was stressful and dramatic with short lived moments of peace. I never fully committed to a decision. I kept going back and forth. Have it? Don't have it? There were several moments when I would think about getting an abortion and going back to stripping. But some new strange body deformation would pop up; black stretch marks across my breast, zigzag brown spots across my belly. When we passed the abortion time limitations, it became a flip flop of keeping it or giving it up for adoption. At 16 weeks, I felt the first flutter of movement in my belly. It was the middle of the night, I was lying right next to him and didn't say a word. I wanted the moment for myself. I know, very selfish of me. But it made me cry, hopeful tears. And my cousin, who was a lawyer in the city, and I regard very highly, told me the long process of adoption along with some of the horror stories. She said that she felt in her heart that I didn't really want to give the baby up, she thought I would be a good mom. Coming from her that meant a lot. So I found myself 4 months pregnant, trying to get the sperm donor to be a part of things. But he had gone psychotic and was admitted to the mental ward of the veteran hospital….