You know, you grow up as a little girl thinking I'm going to get married
and I'm gonna have the baby and you know I'm going to be a little
housewife and do the child rearing and my life did not turn out that way
at all. Neither did my pregnancy. Nothing about my pregnancy was normal.
Everything was heightened and Traumatic, like it was an out of body
experience. I was with my high school sweetheart, and we were not exactly
living a desirable life. I was a methamphetamine addict, the father of my
child and I, we didn't like each other too much. There was a lot of
violence and arguments, and as I look back, I know the day that I
conceived my daughter. I did not, however, know that I was pregnant until
I was 4 months pregnant. I did have the morning sickness. I did have the
cravings. I had the exhaustion.
My drug use actually cut down because I didn't feel good and I was
sleeping a lot and 4 months later, I felt a little flutter. In my in my
tummy. And I thought Either my kidneys are falling out or I am pregnant.
So I did a pregnancy test and I was pregnant. My boyfriend, he abandoned
me. He just never came home. So my parents came and got me from my
apartment. I did not want to leave my apartment because I knew it was
gonna be painful. I knew I was gonna be by myself. I mean, I was there, I
had people around me, but I was very much alone. I remember sitting
outside. I remember smoking cigarettes. Um, I had gotten sober at that
point. It was sad. It was a very sad time in my life. It was a very
Disappointing time in my life because I had disappointed my parents. I was
an unwed mother. I was getting sober and I was scared. My baby's father
left, so I was very alone. It was one of the most um alone times of my
life. And I think that was the most alone time in my life ever. I was in
my own little cocoon, my own little world. It's like the whole world was
spinning, kept rotating, and mine didn't, mine was stopped. It wasn't a
great thing like Oterra sober, it was um. It was one of those things where
everyone pretended like didn't never happened. And the feeling was
terrifying that I was actually going to be a mother. None of my friends
had ever had a baby, so I was like the first one. This was like uncharted
territory for me. I had no idea how involved that was or that meant where
it was going to be. I wanted to find out the sex of the baby so that I
could start preparing a little bit for her, but still the reality that I
was really pregnant wasn't real. It still wasn't real. I was buying pink
clothes and little things here and there, but it was not real to me that I
was actually going to be a mother, and I wasn't showing, so it really
wasn't real to me. I would just feel a flutter here and there and that was
it, just a little flutter and I, I, I would feel her go back and forth a
little bit. I probably gained. About 1720 pounds, but you could not tell I
was pregnant at all. I was so used to being in this really tiny thin
emaciated body that I was afraid to be heavy, and I actually wanted her
out of me as soon as possible because the whole time I was pregnant, I had
this fear of being huge.
That was more real to me than anything. And I did not go to full term
pregnancy. I had my daughter 2.5 months after I found out I was pregnant.
When I realized I was having, having the baby, I didn't know I was having
the baby. I woke up at 1:30 in the morning because I felt like I had, um,
wet the bed. And I turned on the light and there was blood everywhere. So
I had what they call an abruption. It's where the um placenta tears away
from the in the uterus. So I actually very quietly, my parents were in the
bedroom across the hall. I said, Mom, get up, there's something wrong. And
I said it very quietly, and she was very everyone was very hypersensitive
to me. And so she actually woke up and bolted across the hallway. I can't
even believe she heard me. And the medics, the paramedics were in my room
and they were, they were trying to get the gurney down the hallway and
medics said, we don't have time for this. So he just wrapped a blanket
around me, picked me up. All of a sudden there's a helicopter landing in
the middle of our street because they had to air vacuum me from Mesa to
Phoenix. So they put me in the helicopter and we started taking off. You
know, they had me, the heart monitors and stuff and everything on me, and
her heart rate was perfect the entire time. I, however, was hemorrhaging
pretty much to death. So and it never really registered with me, but I
knew down deep in my heart that I was not going to die that day. I knew
that I was going to be OK. And that was probably the most OK I felt
through the entire pregnancy. We landed and they rushed me into a room.
They had elevated my feet, so I remember watching the Flintstones on TV
through my toes. My mother was very emotional, very upset. She's like, she
thought I was going to die, and I looked at her and I said, I'm not going
to die. The other part of me thought, this is going to be the hardest
thing that you've ever done in your entire life. The doctor, they called
in a specialist and he said, we are going to um have a baby. He said,
because there is a 7 minute time period where you can go from alive to
dead, where I cannot bring you back. So I was numb from my waist down and
there was a mirror on the ceiling, and they told me that I would feel some
pressure. And then all of a sudden I saw this purple, they were holding
this purple object and I said, What is that? And I said, that is your
uterus.
That was when real reality really started setting in. I was like, wow,
that is my body part. And then they slice that open and they started
pulling out a baby. Here comes some little feet, here's some little legs,
here comes a little bottom, cutest little bottom I've ever seen in my life
, really. And they were twisting her around like she was stuck in there
and I'm like, I actually at one point said, I'm afraid you're gonna pop
her little head off. And the doctor said something to the effect of, we're
just hoping she has lungs.
And at that point, I, I didn't even think about my body because all I knew
it was purged. I wasn't going to be heavy. And I that was a relief to me.
I wasn't gonna get fat. Out of everything that had happened, I wasn't
gonna get fat.
Ironic. She came out, they pulled her out and she was screaming and crying.
Everyone was so excited. She had lungs, she had a full head of hair. She
was absolutely perfectly pink, beautiful, healthy 3 pound baby. As soon as
I could feel my, my legs after the saddle block wore off, I was up in the
um ICU looking at her where the preemie babies were. I was just Stunned I
thought she's the cutest thing I've ever seen in my life, but I was
terrified of her, absolutely terrified.
They were sending me home after 3 days and she would have to stay there.
So I had to travel from Mesa to Phoenix to visit her and At first, I
visited her, and then after a while, I stopped. I couldn't, I couldn't
handle it. I was scared of her. I didn't know what to do. She was a very
Complicated baby. She had to eat every 2 hours because she was a preemie.
Um, my mother would actually go visit her more than I did. So therefore,
my mother bonded with my daughter and I did not. I had all the emotions
other than pure joy and bliss and what uh what you're supposed to, you
know, what they say that you're supposed to feel, oh motherhood is so
beautiful and so, you know, such a content feeling and so they felt
complete and you know, some women say that and I'm like. I did not feel
that. I made a decision when my daughter was 8 months old to give her up
for adoption.
My parents are actually the ones that adopted her. It was, it was a very
strained relationship because I didn't want to give her up because I felt
like I like I was failing again. This was the biggest fail. This is, this
was the biggest failure in my life. Um, to this day, I still feel like I
failed my daughter. Um, I failed her and, but I did. I did the right thing
for her, but it took me 8 long months to. To finally make the decision and
say out loud, I can't do this, and I don't want to do this. I don't have
that motherly instinct, I guess. We went through the whole court thing.
And that was the hardest thing I've ever had to say out loud in my entire
life. I don't, I, I can't do this. I don't, I don't, I don't want to do
this. Take her.
So, and then, um, from 8 months old till she was 2, I did not see her. And
it probably was better that I wasn't around because I was using drugs
again. And I eventually got sober when she was 2 years old. But no one
ever told her. She knew though she knew and she told my mom when she was 6
, she said, I know Tara was my mama, but she knew, and I remember she
would look at me when they would drive away. She would, they would come
visit me. She would, I remember her little eyes would be peeking up over
the passenger seat. She'd be in the back seat in her little car seat, and
her little eyes would be looking at me and she would look at me and and I
knew, I knew she knew something. The way she looked at me, she would just
look at me different. And today we have a wonderful relationship. However
, the bond that my mother and my daughter have is much stronger than mine
and my daughter's. I love her more than anything in this world, but I'm
more maternal with my my cats than I was with my daughter. So something.
Happened or something didn't happen when I was pregnant. Something that
happens to other women or doesn't happen to other women. I don't know. And
I believe me, I've thought about it for years and years and years, you
know, here and there. What element is it that I don't have? And what
element is it that some women do have?
But no one knows.
There are a lot of of women that have children that should not have
children. I mean, you can see when parents shouldn't be parents, you know.
But I can see it in women, and it's, I can see how hard it is to say out
loud. I know how hard it is to say out loud. I can't do this. I can't find
it in me to want to do this. I can't, and I struggled with that for eight
months. I mean, I literally sat up night after night after night.
Trying to find it in me somewhere to raise this beautiful little baby girl
, and I couldn't, I couldn't find it. I couldn't find the will to do it.
And I felt so guilty and I felt so bad. But at the same time, it's the
best thing that I could ever do for her. I still go through. All these
maternal feelings.
And but but I don't, but I don't. So it was success and failure at the
same time, because the world, everyone thinks that it's like women have to
become mothers. Some of us just aren't meant to be mothers, and I did not
want to ruin her. That's the beginning and the end of it all. I did not
want to ruin her, and I knew if I kept her I was going to resent her. I
was going to damage her. I could just see it and I did not want to have
that for her. I want her to have a beautiful life and she did. She has a
very beautiful life.
I, I still almost can't make sense of it in a way.