The second I brought the girls in the apartment, Jake began catering to my every need. Cuddled me. Smiled and told me he loved me… This was not true. Not 10 minutes ago he told me we had no love and we were splitting up. As we watched a family movie to avoid the weird silence and discussions we were not ready to have yet, I found myself getting angry… Why the hell was he putting on such a show. We could have easily made Melody believe we were just as dysfunctional as normal and not put on a show of love. When the girls were asleep and in their beds I sat on the couch to let off some steam with some stupid show I can't remember. He sat next to me and he leaned on my shoulder and snuggled in close…
With the most monotone yet anger filled tone I said “ What are you doing? Is this a game to you? It’s certainly not funny to me. You just crushed me with this big decision then are nicer to me than you have been in years… This is some twisted game and I’m not playing Jake. I’m just not. Get off of me please.”
“I’m not playing a game… I just realized when you left, what a mistake that was… I was mad that you were making me talk about it, I was drunk and I said what I needed to hurt you and stop the event. Don’t listen to Drunk Jake, that guy is a liar.”
You know what made me even more mad…. That his kind eyes and humor made me smile… here he was… being the man I married. Being the man I fell in love with… but two seconds ago he had crushed my soul. What was I supposed to do now?
“Jake, I think drunk Jake is the honest one and sober Jake knows how to spin a web of fantasy. So… I think you meant what you said, but the reality of you having to break our daughter's heart is too much and you are panicking…” wait, what? That’s what I thought?? Dang, Gina! THAT was GOLD! I’m pretty smart when I am mad…
“Baby, I totally understand why you think that… But Alli, I really want to fix this. I love you and I always have. You love me, God only knows why, but you do. I need you. I love you. No one else will have me anyway….”
“Oh so you are staying with me because no one else would put up with this shit?”
“No that’s not what I meant at all! I just meant that I am lucky to have you and I know that. You have stuck by me through my worst.”
Where was this coming from? These are things I had begged in my prayers and mind for him to say… I hadn’t written these things down….No way for him to know I wanted to hear these things. What do I do?
Here come the eye rolls and groans of disbelief…..
“Okay… but I need to see some real effort to change. If you continue to treat me like this or get so bad we get kicked out of our next place, we are done. Like for good.”
“Yes, absolutely… I will make the effort and I will change. I don’t want to lose you. I want to be a family. I want to be a good husband and good provider. I want to be someone you can be proud of!”
I have no idea where this came from…. I know some of you are thinking “OH MY GOSH YOU ARE AN IDIOT!!!! WHY DID YOU TAKE HIM AT HIS WORD? WHY DID YOU TRUST HIM!?”
Here is why… I had begged and pleaded with him, with my higher power and with the universe, for this change to occur. For him to make an effort… This is what I had been begging for! Maybe this was his rock bottom and he was coming out of it. Maybe THIS time… it was gonna happen. (anyone else hear a theatre tune when they read that line? I sure sang it while I wrote it….gotta love some Liza Minelli and “Maybe This Time” from Cabaret.) Show tunes are my jam, ya’ll. I used to belt my heart out on the roof tops of cars, stages and in me bedroom. Any way- off topic! Let’s bring it back…So I decided to give him a chance to change my mind… To prove I was worth it. I needed that too. Plus, I had my parents as a back up.
We began hunting for a place to live and found one a mile away from Jake’s job just over the American Fork/Lehi border. It was an odd place, but fit our expense needs, was within walking distance of Jake’s job and was a step up from our tiny basement apartment… Not to mention it was a duplex of sorts, so no people above or below… we shared two walls and that was it. It had it’s issues, like no air conditioning (window units), and no yard. But there were a lot of parks close by, and a good amount of room.. The kitchen was bizarre with gorgeous slate tile that was not evenly placed and there were different tiles on the counter and island…. The Island was angled weird and that made the kitchen hard to maneuver… the Laundry was between the kitchen and dining room… Also a little weird… but it had a gas fireplace, a bonus room, storage room and plenty of room for our family of four.
We moved in and things were better. They weren’t great, but they were better. Jake still didn’t
seem happy, and he was still drinking but not black out drunk drinking. He wasn’t nearly as mean and he was making an effort. We had a few fights, but nothing MAJOR. I was feeling pretty good about it all… Our sex life had improved and the respect and trust was building between us. As I snuggled my now 9 month old Sai, I started to feel ill. I didn’t have a fever but I felt a flu coming on.. I loved how my sweet baby girl sensed my unhappy sick feelings and gently snuggled me on the floor. I puked once and hoped it would dissipate but I still felt wretched.. The next morning I was fine… Just a weird 18 hour bug. I worried everyone else would get sick so I monitored them all.
i checked in with Jake to make sure he was feeling well and expressed how thankful I was no one else caught it… He responded with “Maybe you are pregnant. Ha, wouldn’t that be crazy!” Well that wasn’t funny. “UH, yeah that would be insane…!!!”
“But seriously, how long has it been since you had your period?”
“I don’t know, a while. But I’m nursing, so it’s not consistent.”
“okay… If you say so.”
and that was that… I woke up to a pregnancy test in the bathroom the next morning with a note that said “just in case?”
I rolled my eyes and took the dang test to ease his mind. Now he could chill out and get off my back….. Or…. NOT! WHAT?!!?!?! NO FREAKING WAY! I couldn’t be pregnant! I had a 9 month old! What the crap! Well… he showed me… It had always been hard for me to determine when I was pregnant… I got sick ONE day and sometimes not even a whole day… I had no lead up or CLEAR signs/symptoms of pregnancy. Blessed I guess. My poor sister and sister in laws all got super sick! My mom got super sick with pregnancy. But I barely knew or had symptoms.
I got into the Doctor as soon as I could… We went in for an ultrasound at our first appointment and I was anxious to see that alien jelly bean on the monitor.. But what I saw was a full fledged baby… This baby was far enough along to LOOK like a baby! I believe I was 12-14 weeks when we found out.. We had passed our full first trimester! We were able to tell people immediately and shortly able to find out we were having a bouncing baby boy. I was exhilarated and scared all at the same time. It seemed that God blessed us with a baby when we had stuff to work through… But in the case of our miscarriage, we wouldn’t have survived that one… Jake was still angry at me and accusing me of infidelity. That baby would have destroyed us, Sai never would have existed.
We were healing from our near crumble, God decided to throw a baby in the mix. I already had a baby… How was I going to parent 3 kids and one would be just over a year old when the new one arrived… I wasn’t sure what to do with a boy… Would I be a good boy mom? Would I be a good mom at all? I don’t know. My insecurities were raging. Especially when Versailles quit nursing out of the blue, I felt like a failure already.. But I learned later, hormones can change the taste of milk. My pregnancy was mostly uneventful until closer to the end, but that is story for another day.
Life throws us curveballs we cant understand and don’t know their purpose…. God has plans for all of us… I didn’t know how things would pan out, but for now, things seemed to be on the up and up, and I wasn’t going to fight it! I needed things to keep going this way. Take the good, however big or small it is, and rise from your negative past experience. Why? Because, Mama, YOU are worth it! Until next week, be kind and help one another.
