I realise that stress is really fucking me up with this pregnancy.
This morning the baby’s father came to bring the last of the clothes I had at his house. As usual he was as nasty as he possibly could be. Of course, he had to mention that he was so put out by having to bring my shit for me… that he came loaded down like a camel. I wanted to say, “You’re Guyanese, you should be used to that…” but it didn’t seem like a nice thing to say, so I bit my tongue and allowed him to feel magnanimous.
I handed him his door key, and showed him the ultrasound picture of the baby.
When he had had a good look, he turned to me and said, “I need you to take good care of these for me.”
“I don’t need you to tell me that,” I said disgusted. I mean, WTF?
He says to me, “It was too good to be true…”
In my head I am going, “Only cause you fucked up you arrogant prick!”
I told him again I was hungry and needed food, and he said “Do you want to go to the grocery?” In the nastiest tone he could muster.
I said anything would help me at this point. He spits at me, “Go and get your shoes and lets go,” but then added on, “I’m not buying you cigarettes though.”
I wanted to slap the shit out of him, jump on him and rake out his eyes…. I noticed, not for the first time what an ugly man he was, and how he couldn’t look me in the eye and say that shit.
I fixed him with a steady stare, controlled my anger and said in as even a tone as I could manage, “Look, that cigarette I smoked was the last one I had smoked.
“What’s more, I decided then and there that no stress you put me under was worth smoking… and it was because of the conversation I had with my mother BEFORE I came upstairs that night, and nothing to do with anything you said or did subsequently.”
Then I left the room and shot back over my shoulder as I went up the stairs, “You haven’t seen me in a week, so you don’t know shit about what I’ve been doing, so don’t say I’m smoking.”
He changed his mind when I went upstairs to get my shoes, by the time I came downstairs, he said he couldn’t stay and shoved £10 in my hand and stormed out.
I ended up going to the grocery on my own. It was a ten, fifteen minute walk.
The first time I went through the door of Sainsbury, the smell of meat hit me in the stomach and I had to go outside, and heave. It was all dry heaves though, since I haven’t been eating much.
I knelt on the sidewalk, my head over the gutter while saliva and bile came up, and tears rolled down my face. I felt so alone, so abandoned.
When I went into the grocery, I couldn’t manage much. I bought some fruit and some juice some pre-cooked chicken, but couldn’t take much more.
I had to stop and rest three or four times all the way home. I was getting small little cramps across my lower abdomen… and I knew I was over doing it. I was warned by the doctor not to do any lifting or stretching, move too quickly or make sharp twists.
So when I reached the street I’m staying on, and I had to stop because my back and lower stomach was hurting and the nausea was getting worse.
I was leaning on the wall there, and trying to catch my breath. A couple came up to me and asked me if I was okay. I shook my head no, and whispered, “I’m pregnant… and I think I overdid it with the grocery bags.”
They gathered up the bags, and walked me back to the house where I am staying, and I had to sit down for ten minutes just to get the strength to move the bags into the kitchen.
I went upstairs and kind of just collapsed. I was so tired, and the cramps did abate.
I slept for a few hours, woke up and ate something.
When I went to the bathroom, when I took out my tampon, I was so scared when I saw more blood than I’ve seen since I started spotting almost a month ago. It’s not like dark red, and there were no clots (THANKFULLY) but still, it frightened the shit out of me.
I’ve been praying and asking Osun to protect the baby.
When I went to the doctor last Monday, she told me that they couldn’t see where the blood was coming from, but that it didn’t look as though I was in danger of miscarrying. She said some women just spot and bleed during their early pregnancy. She told me not to lift too much and try to get a lot of rest.
However, I am going to try and go to the doctor again as soon as I can. The spotting just worries me, and you know… I am still furious with this child’s father.
I really need to find a way to calm down and de-stress. I think I am just going to have to refuse any contact with him and just focus on putting as much distance between us as possible. Every encounter with him seems to lead to more bleeding, and more his awful behaviour is just draining me.
Just want the baby to be okay… for the baby to stay with me.
