....Where to begin? I've been meaning to do a blog for a long time. The story of my life. A new year has begun and new goals have been made. So I'm making the time to create this blog to document my story and hopefully help people along the way.
This blog is dedicated to Savannah, a beautiful, sweet angel that I gave birth to and placed into the arms of a loving couple just over 8 years ago. What a bitter sweet time in my life. It was by far the hardest but also the sweetest. I was squeezed and pressed through the pain of the refiners fire and grew by leaps and bounds. I have tasted the bitter and the sweet and I am so grateful for the "Sun Shiny Days" with which I have been blessed.

So here is my story:

Most adoption stories start with the child they placed but mine began much earlier. I was 23 years old living in Miami. I had a great job. I had my own apartment, great friends and life was good. I worked a lot but in my free time I painted and spent way too much time at the beach and in the dance clubs. I had never been in a relationship before I met.. lets call him "Dread" for more reasons than one. I had some issues in my past that caused me to keep a safe distance away from the male gender. By the time I came into my early to mid twenties I realized that I was going to live a lonely life if I didn't start broadening my horizons. When "Dread" crossed my path, it was lust at first sight. I was all about the dreadlocks and carribean accent. He had me at hello. :) We got along great.. enjoyed the same music and foods and activities. I also found out a little later that he was friends with a famous reggae singer which was extremely cool. What I didn't find out until MUCH later is that he had a whole other family and had just had a baby girl shortly before I met him. Yes, I was in denial but I had nothing to compare this relationship too and almost desperately wanted to be in one. Well, fast forward 3 1/2 years later.. I woke up with an awful stomach ache and took every kind of over the counter medicine you can get. None of them worked so I called in sick to work with what I thought was a stomach flu. I ended up calling in sick then next day too. I was a mananger at an electronics store and needed to be at work so the third day, even though I was still sick, I came in anyways. It was clearly evident that I was suffering to everyone who saw me. At some point, I was leaning against a counter grimacing with a green face. A group of friends at my job made some cracks about me being pregnant. It was the first time I considered the idea that maybe I was. I went and purchased a pregnancy test but was too afraid to take it. The next Sunday was superbowl Sunday. I was watching TV in the living room with my good friend and then roommate Cindy. I had the test in the back of my mind. At half time I went into the bathroom and took the test. It says to turn it over and wait three minutes.... YEAH RIGHT! Does ANYONE do that? I can't stand suspense, it may have been turned over on the counter for half a second and that's all it took because when I turned it over, there they were.... two very dark purplish lines. OMG!!! Immediately 10 million thoughts go through your head.... Panic, Excitement, Fright, Elation, Wonder, Compassion..... the list goes on and on. I felt like my head was going to explode. I walked out calmly and actually don't remember anything else that happened that day.
"Dread" came with me to 2 or 3 appointments but like the past three years, wasn't around a whole lot. When I finally got up the nerve to call my parents in California about two weeks later, which by the way is huge for me... I usually tell all, I was so nervous. My Dad told me to call my bishop and then call him back. Well that never happened. I suggested to "Dread" the idea of adoption but he made me feel like it was an unthinkable crime. I didn't even give it a second thought. He would never admit it but what he really wanted me to do was the actual unthinkable crime. When I went to the Dr. I found out I was 11 weeks pregnant but I told "Dread" I was 13 weeks so as to be beyond the allowable time for performing that unthinkable crime. So I was having a baby. The plan was to keep working and "Dread" would be a stay at home Dad. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. On the night of August 2nd 1997, I woke up "Dread" because I was having very painful and fast contractions. He ended up taking me to the hospital but when he found out I was actually having the baby (it was almost 6 weeks early) he left. I suppose tending to the daily needs of his other family was more imortant at that moment. He was not there when the baby was born. I'll never forget how abandoned and unloved I felt at that time. Well, I had the baby early, a little 3 lb. 10 oz. Elijah. So precious. I had no idea what I was in for. Elijah was in the NICU for over two weeks. I think "Dread" came with me twice to see Elijah there. I remember driving home from the hospital. It was just he and I in the car. I felt like I had a treasure worth a biliion dollars in the back seat and I was so worried that I would get in an accident on the way home or he would spit up and choke. I hated not being able to see him all the way back there.
It is so much work to be a parent. On the third day after coming home from the hospital I had hardly slept at all, I remember sitting up in my bed crying. I was nursing Elijah. I was physically and emotionally spent. there are no words to describe how tiring and exhausting it is to single parent. That's not to say the children aren't worth it, but those little angels deserve more. It is so hard to give and give and give without being able to replenish the stock.
I was given 6 weeks of maternity leave. It wasn't much longer after that that I realized this whole plan wasn't working out. "Dread" used my car as his own and consistently made me late to work or picked me up late from work. The first week back, I was brought into the Store Managers office because of so many tardies and my performance (can you say exausted??). Nothing was working out like I thought it would... like "Dread" said it would. One day I couldn't get a hold of him and found out he had left my little Elijah with some lady who I beleive had a problem with drugs. I didn't know her very well but I heard lots of stories. When I found out it was because he didn't want his other family to find out about Elijah I was done. My sister came out to visit from California and I vented to her all over the place. She told me I needed to leave him. Right when I heard it, I knew in a deep small spot in my heart it was right. But that deep small spot was so coated in artificial sweetners that it was hard to dig through to it. But I knew it was there and somehow I was able to recognize it and even more amazing is that somehow I found the strength to accept it. She spoke to my parents and they agreed to have me come out there to stay with them. It is virtually impossible to single parent without help... an infant anyways. I invited "Dread" to come to California with me, thinking somehow he would want to be with me and his son. I was SOOOO naive. Within 10 weeks after Elijah was born, we were both on a plane... a one way trip to California.
You may be asking yourself what any of this has to do with adoption. You will see....
It wasn't until I had separated myselft far from that situation that I began to see it for what it really was; a joke. That was no relationship, it was a fantasy filled with lies and betrayal and pain. At the time, it was the hardest thing I'd ever done.. to make the decision to leave him. He was the only man I had ever loved. The only man who as awful as he was, wanted to be with me. In time I would learn that hard things aren't necesarrily bad things and that you learn and grow beyond imagination when you endure hard trials.
Well I'm not sure if I'm givin the story or just rambling so I'm going to do this in parts. I need to tend to my kids so I'll be back to continue this story, until then... have a wonderful day! :)