My Soap Opera - Part III

[Sunni31]

So I'm dealing with trying to finish a university degree, dealing with my parents splitting up (and my mother having an affair which she seemed quite proud of, actually), and I'm pregnant with a baby that.. well, Jeremy just stopped bothering with me.  He knew I was home on the weekends, he stopped calling - he wasn't ready to be a father and it was easier for him to just forget that I, and the baby inside me, existed.  I let him do it.  I let him do it for two reasons - one, I was scared of how his family would react - like I'd ruined their son's life, or even worse, try to take the baby from me or something like that.. and 2, I'd met someone else who was, for the most part, okay with me being pregnant, and wanted to be with me.

I met Carl through my high school principal, who was also the lead singer for an oldies rock band that played alot of local gigs.   He asked me if I'd be interested in playing keyboard for one of those gigs - at a legion an hour or so from here, on Remembrance Day.  He knew I was familiar with all the old war tunes and thought it might be an asset.  Carl was playing bass, and we ended up, the three of us, playing many more bookings together.  Carl and I started spending time checking out the local competition.. then we went to a movie, then drove up to the valley to check out one of the music stores up there.  It was weird at first, because he is 24 years older than I am - but we clicked in lots of ways beyond our music.   During that weird time, I was "home" on the weekends, but I stayed with Carl.  My sister and younger  brother moved out with my mother, who was staying at a friend's place for the winter.

My Dad was really good about the whole thing.. it was certainly an awkward situation for him, I'm sure.   His daughter pregnant with his prize student's child - a guy with whom he spent hours working on that film project.. but never once mentioned the baby on the way.

 As is turned out, I ended up feeling very uneasy living in residence as my due date approached.  I'd developped "glucose intolerance," which was the next step down from having full-blown gestational diabetes.  I was tested my blood sugar 3x daily, and trying to manage my diet so my sugars would stay balanced.  I'd started at 100 lbs. and gained nearly 50 lbs - half my original weight - and I was tired and uncomfortable, so I missed alot of classes.  I was due on March 17 (ironic because I'm of irish descent, and have a history of family birthdays on holidays), and by the time February rolled around, I no longer wanted to be at university.  I basically just abandonned my year - and came back home to live with my Dad until the baby was born, at which point I would move in with my Mom so I would have help with the baby.

I was 8 days overdue by the time Liam was born, on March 25th.   I was in labour for 67 hours, start to finish, and in the delivery room for 2 hours before he came out.  I had him 100% naturally, no drugs or epidurals.. and it was a wonderful birth in the end, though I was exhausted.  I barely remember it - though I do remember them saying it was a boy.  Carl was there with me, as well as my mother.  He split as soon as Liam was born, and my mother stayed in the hospital with me.  I was exhausted.. and slept well into the morning.  She got to do his first feeding, his first diaper change.. why she didn't wake me up to let me do it.. but that's another story.  I moved in with my mom at her friend's place - it took me nearly 3 weeks to get my stamina back so in the end, it was ood I had help.  Life was weird.. but I was happy with my new son.

My mother was in complete control of making sure I was "taken care of," which in hindsight, wasn't really helpful.  She bought all the baby things I needed - from the crib, to the carseat, clothes, stroller.  I get that she was trying to be helpful, but she didn't make me part of ANY of those decisions.  I felt like I had no idea what I was doing - and I think she probably wanted me to feel like that - like I needed her.  It was fine, for a time .. though I would have been just fine had she actually let me do things myself.  She gave Liam his first bath while I was having a nap.. she took care of him at night.. all the while making me feel like I wasn't capable.

When my mom's friend came home, we moved in with my grandmother - a situation which lasted one summer before I'd had enough.  I like and NEED my own space, and living in an old cluttered, 2 bedroom house with 4 other adults, a dog, and a new baby wasn't working.   When Liam was 5 months old, I went back to work at McD's - a job I'd started when I was in high school, and maintained over the years, working odd shifts on weekends when I was home, and during the summer.  That fall I applied for low income housing and was offered a place in town almost immediately.  Great!  Except I don't drive, my mom didn't have a car, and I was working shifts that meant Liam ended up staying at my mom's most of the time.  Until she started to forget that -I- was his mother.. and she.. was not....

Over the next year, I got promoted to manager, got pregnant again (and lost the baby), and struggled to hold on to my relationship with Carl.  We weren't living together because he was not technically "allowed" to live with me, and I couldn't live with him because of an arrangement between he and his ex. over their house.  Eventually though, when my mother started having reasons why I couldn't spend time with Liam (he's napping, he hasn't eaten yet, he's not feeling well.. its just not a good time...), and then eventually started avoiding my phone calls altogether... Carl and I talked and sorted ourselves out so that we would move in together, and I would be able to stay home with Liam.  I wanted to be a mother.. and Liam -needed- a mother.  He was, at that point, showing delays that pointed to autism.. and my mother refused to believe the problems were truly serious.

She didn't like it much when I told her that I'd be leaving work.  I planned to move in with my father again for a few months, so I could pay off some bills I owed without worrying about rent and heat etc. in my apartment.  Plus, I was a mere 5 minute walk from my Mom's.  She told me that I was crazy for leaving work, and then proceeded to tell me all about how she thought I should go take some sort of administrative assistant course at the local community college,  because I'd be perfect for some job that had just opened up.  She'd planned my life all out in her mind.  I was very upset that she, of all people, who had stayed home to raise her own children, wasn't being supportive of my desire to do the same thing.

I stopped working in June 2000.  My mother wouldn't answer her phone. They had caller ID, neither her or my sister were working.. and I was getting frustrated that I wasn't able to spend time with  my own son.  I walked  over one evening with the intention of taking Liam out for a walk - my mother tried to give me 100 reasons why it wouldn't work, and when I realized she wasn't going to agree, I told her I'd come back the next day instead.  I got up to leave, and she cut me off, and attacked me in the middle of her livingroom.  My sister's boyfriend had to pull her off me.. and I ran the entire way home in tears.  For the next 3 weeks they didn't answer their phone and I had no contact with Liam at all.  Eventually, Carl went to talk to her.  He spent 3 hours sitting and listening to all of her plans for Liam, as though SHE was indeed his mother and I didn't matter.  He negociated it so that we would gradually spend more time with Liam, until he was with us full time.  And this worked, for a few months.  Until she felt like she was no longer in control of the situation .. and got really foolish acting one day when we went to pick Liam up, going on about how this wasn't working anymore.. etc.  Carl and I talked and we decided we wouldn't be taking Liam back over there as planned.  We were scared she wouldn't give him back.

I guess I should mention that I was also pregnant!  About 2 weeks after I left work, I got pregnant for the 3rd time.  My sister was ALSO pregnant, and dealing with her own future plans. She was due 2 months before me, and was living with my mother.  I didn't speak a word to my mother during that time.  I had no desire to have her attack me a 2nd time - especially knowing that I was pregnant, and that I'd lost the baby the previous time.  It was a very stressful time - and was only going to get worse.

We kept Liam for the weekend instead of taking him back on Saturday.  Carl planned to go and talk to Mom within a couple days, but he didn't get the opportunity.  Instead, we got a letter from the court saying that we had denied her access to her grandson, and that she was suing us for visitation rights.  A lie.  We hadn't denied her access at all - she was upset because she no longer had control over me, or Liam.  We spent the next 18 months battling her ridiculous claims in court.  She tried to say that I wasn't stable enough to be a good parent, she tried to say that I didn't know Liam well enough to properly care for him, oh.. the list was never-ending and absurd.  They had to allot an entire day in court for our case to be heard.  The date was set for the first week of April - and I was due to have baby #2 on March 18.  He was 8 days late, so my lawyer petitioned the court to have the date changed, and of course the judge agreed.  My mother tried to fight that too. 

In the middle of all THIS, I was also finally able to address Liam's delays.  We had his hearing checked, we had him referred to the local pediatrican who got us involved with the early intervention program, got us into speech therapy, into occupational therapy, and gave us a referral to an autism team in the city to have him officially assessed.  We had a whole team of professionals helping us get Liam on track. 

My mother kept insisting on having a home study done.  We refused, and the judge agreed with us, saying that it wasn't appropriate as there were no allegations of abuse, and that it wasn't a custody hearing.  In the end, however, we agreed to it because it meant the person doing the study would interview all the people involved in Liam's care instead of having to subpoena them to court.  It was the best thing we could have ever done.  

18 months and 2k in lawyer bills later, the man doing the home study wrote a report that said I was a very capable and confident person, that I was doing for Liam exactly what he needed, and that my mother needed to accept the fact that she was Liam's grandmother, and butt out unless I needed or asked for her help.  Faced with a decision that meant she would potentially never see Liam again, my mother backed down and dropped the whole thing in hopes that I would forgive her, I suppose.  And life slowly returned to normal for a time...

[mommyof_3]

Feb. 1, 2007 at 7:15 PM My goodness girl that was a lot of drama I don't know how you did it! 

[myrrh]

Feb. 1, 2007 at 7:54 PM

Wow! I've seen that happen before - where the grandmother takes over. I'm glad you fought for what is rightfully yours.

Last April I had to sell my house to avoid foreclosure (long story for another time); afterwards, I stayed with my daughter Mary. Mary has a little girl (Jordan) and Jordan really loved having Grandma (me) around every day. She started coming to me for everything. And of course, Mary and her husband liked the help. But, over time, Jordan began to turn to me for everything and Mary seemed to become more distant and detached from Jordan. After living with my daughter for several months, I ended up moving out (only to live with another daughter and grandchild). Now, even though I'm in the same kind of situation, I try to keep some distance. I don't want to interfere with my daughter's relationship with her child. It's easy to do, from a grandmother's perspective because I'm the one with experience and I see my daughters making mistakes. STILL - I force myself to back off.

Thank you for sharing your "soap opera" (and who DOESN'T have their own drama). You sound like a very strong woman - no doubt because of your experiences.

By the way, how did you know your son was autistic? What symptoms did he have, initially?