That pretty much sums it up. Tonight, I cannot flipping breath. I am three days before my son's 2nd birthday and tonight i thought I would (foolishly) try to hold to my old tradition of making a tribute to him (where you put together old pictures to a song) as I have done for my girls' each year. I pulled up the birth video which i've only watched once before (before i found out the truth about my ex) and i just watched it. The first was a video of me exactly 2 years ago today. Sitting on the couch, out to there pregnant, bigger than i'd been with my previous three pregnancies and watching my belly move as my sweet baby flipped and moved and gave me the utmost discomfort of being seven days overdue. And then I heard his voice, saying sweet things to me, saying how amazing and beautiful i was and asking to see my toes and then the video goes to my toes which at the time I thought were horrendously swollen when in reality they really weren't that bad, and him teasing me about them and me saying, "I'm not a freak show!".
And then the next clip was of my son's birth. All the rawness, fear, and reality is captured in that video. And I can look at it 2 years later for what it really was. It was the first moments of my life that I started to accept a life away from my husband. My husband barely helped me in that birth. It was short and quick and painless all of 3 hours, i didn't need much help and I didn't reach out for him. In fact, from my body language you can clearly see how I didn't trust him nor really want him right there. And I look at my face on the video and the sadness in my face and realize, it was over before my sweet, amazing, perfect son ever even entered into this world.
As I was about to push our son into this world my ex leaned into me, whispering things into my ears. Things I can neither remember nor hear on the video, for that I am thankful knowing that they were lies or in all reality they were the things a person says to someone else to get them to do what they want. And I watch my face, and I see myself shut with in myself. It's shocking to watch myself give birth, after all that we have been through the last 2 years because so much makes sense now. I watch as he rubs my back and I clearly clam up, he whispers in my ear something we cannot hear and I turn away from him. My midwives tell me to push because unbeknownst to me my son is turning blue because the meconium is blocking his airway and i have stalled with his head barely out of my body, but I froze in that moment. I think i even uttered, "I can't" And my midwife in the most stern of voices (which is shocking if you knew her because she is anything but stern" states, "J, you have to push him out NOW!!!" And then you watch my legs curl and my feet arch as I put everything into that last push, to push his 9 lbs body into this world because the woman in me recognized that frequency with which my midwife was speaking to me.
I could no longer avoid the inevitable. I could no longer wait and push off the reality that I had let myself become unwillingly impregnated by this man I called my husband. I could no longer deny that within 6 months, he would be gone and cheating again. Those were the emotions I was feeling during his birth. I knew all of them and felt them, as the undercurrent of that day. But my midwives, bless their souls, brought me back to ME and who I am and that innocent and unasking soul who needed to be born before he drowned on the meconium. I think for a split second I actually thought, "What if i dont? What if i just sit here and refuse to birth? Will me and this unborn child be saved?" Not something I like to admit to, but i think it was there, that fear of me knowing what was coming next because I KNEW my husband.
And then you watch as he is pushed out and caught and then put on my chest. The saddest part of his birth is that I had wanted to birth him completely myself, but in the end my midwives, knowing my desire asked if they could support my body so that I could catch him and I said no. I was too physically and emotionally exhausted. At the time i thought it was physical, but in reality it was me knowing that I didn't trust myself and wanted my child to be caught by firm, loving, sound hands and I did not want him caught by his father,. I put my hand on his head as he crowned and remember that feeling to this day, his soft, warm hair in my hands. That first moment of mom to child contact, that is something no one will EVER be able to take away from me. I was the first to connect with his soul, and I felt it as he crowned. But then I said no, because i wanted my child to be caught by FIRM hands, STRONG hands, faithful hands, hands not scarred by infidelity or pain or lies or abuse. And he was. My midwives urged me and pushed me, and i brought him into this world into the most trusted hands I knew at that time in my life, my amazing, loving and supportive midwife who had been there all the months my ex had been gone and supported me when I came to her after the most harrowing and painful of birthrapes. And he was born and quickly placed into my arms . . . and then i watch myself on that video and what I see, I simply do not like.
Tonight we watched it, my girls and my son. And my son smiled as I said, "Look it's baby R" and he pointed at himself and then kept saying, "Daddy, daddy" and then i realized. That is probably the first time in his memory that he can remember mom and dad being together. And yet I look at that video and I see a shadow of who I am. I should have been ecstatic like i was after my first two births, but i was sad and it's written clear as day on the video. Ironic that this is the first birth i've actually been able to capture on video. But it's there. I look pained, i look sad, I look LOST. Because I was. Giving birth to my son, meant that I finally had to open wide up and accept the reality that was my life and who I really knew my husband to be.
Almost 2 years later, I am waiting for him to come to that acceptance. I know that he loved me, but not in the sense of loving a wife. But that is truly his story to tell and most likely, he will never feel safe or comfortable enough to share it. So, instead I am left to look over the memories, the time capsule and come to terms. I knew all along. I see it written on my face clear as day on the most amazing of all days of my life. My son's birth was my painless childbirth, i accomplished what i had wanted for years. But in reality, i think what i wanted was to just be what he needed.
Tonight a friend posted a song on his page and it truly fits how i feel right now: http://www.vevo.com/watch/coldplay/princess-of-china/GB0401200028
He hurt me. But the thing that i'm realizing 11 years later, is that he NEVER meant to. And i'm starting to pity him. And I know I have the best out of all of this. I have three amazing beautiful children who I wouldnt trade for a do over or a million million dollars. This is MY life. He may have forced me into it, but I OWN it and I LOVE it. Because i get to make it my own. <3
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