Tag Archives: child birth

Be Better Not Bitter

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“I can’t believe this is happening to me.”   Have you ever had a WTF moment?  You know one of those “WHAT THE FRUIT!”…. What? What did you think I meant?  Anyways-just one of those moments when you’re looking around at your situation and you don’t know how you got there or the purpose of it all.  I have those often.  I know I’m not the only one that has WTF moments daily, shoot, sometimes several times a day.

My biggest WTF moment happened almost 11 years ago.  It was January 31, 2003.  I had just given birth to a beautiful baby boy.  He was two months early but we were prepared for his early arrival since it was predetermined that he would probably make his appearance before his due date.  My boyfriend and I were told earlier in my pregnancy that our baby suffered from a birth defect called, Gastroschisis.  In simple terms, his abdomen did not form properly in the early stages of fetal development and this caused his intestines to protrude from his belly.  We were told that this would require surgery as soon as he was born to have this corrected.  No big deal, “cosmetic.”  I don’t know how being born with your insides hanging out is “cosmetic” but, okay.

I went with what the doctors were telling us.  I prepared for his birth the best I could.  You see at the time, I was 22 years old.  My boyfriend and I (now my husband) were not on the best of terms.  We were young and playing house without any rules.  We did not know what the heck we were doing at the time.  We already had a 1-year-old baby boy that we were struggling to take care of.  I did not need another baby, right?  That was my thought when I found out I was expecting my second child.  “Oh no, how did this happen?”  A stupid question to ask ones self when I knew good and darn well how it had happened, I just did not want to accept the irresponsibility on my end.

 

In spite of my first feelings of despair and hopelessness, I decided to use my sons impending birth as motivation to get on my grind.  You see what I meant earlier when I said we were playing house was just that, we wanted to be grown but were living in my mamas house. So to me we were playing house because we wanted all of the privileges with none of the responsibilities.  Needless to say, it was not working out in our favor.  I was so down and out because the picture of what my life was did not reflect the picture I painted as a little girl.  I had big dreams of becoming the next Oprah honey.  You could not tell my little brown self that Oprah was not my long lost aunt.  I made my siblings and friends play, “Talk Show” with me all the time.  I just knew I was the next big thing popping.

So how did I end up as 22 year old, unwed mother with 1.5 babies, no job, and a bleak future? Decisions. Sitting on my mothers couch one day watching another episode of, “Maury I’m 1 million percent sure he my baby daddy,” A commercial came on. You know, one of those commercials where there is a girl that looks like you (not really but one you can relate to her story).  She talks about how she was a single mother and she got the bright idea one day to go back to college to take some quick training to get a better job and then everything was flowers blooming and birds chirping.  So I decided to call the school that was being advertised.  Two days later I was enrolled into a 10-month paralegal program with hopes of working in field of law.  Not my original plan but I figured I could sacrifice my dreams to feed my babies.  I was starting to feel like I had some direction.  I was making progress towards being a grown woman.

A week after that, I got a part-time job, flipping burgers for a nearby burger shack.  At this point I’m like, “Yea, I got this.”  I begin to attend school by day and work by night.  My belly is getting bigger and my outlook brighter.  My boyfriend and I begin to see a turn in our situation.  We were able to get our own apartment and we were no longer playing house, we were real adults, or so we thought.  My boyfriend had picked up a second job at a sandwich spot right across from my burger joint.   Things were looking up. We had family and friends give us baby items, we even had enough to make a small nursery area for the baby.  We had clothes, diapers, and milk.  We were ready.  Then things started to take a different turn.

I lost my job.  A few days later I begin to have premature labor pains, which I brushed off as Braxton Hicks (false labor pains).  But then they became more consistent and very aggressive.  When I arrived at the hospital on January 30, 2003, I was told that I was in labor.  They tried for a day to stop the labor but my son was ready for his debut.  They prepared me for delivery and gave me shots of steroids to try to strengthen his lungs before birth.  On January 31, 2003 my beautiful baby boy was born.  He had a head full of hair and very powerful lungs.  I delivered him via cesarean section to prevent any unnecessary stress on his birth defect.   I did not get to hold my son because he was whisked away to surgery as soon as they got him cleaned up.  I got a brief glimpse of him before they took him away.

A week later he was in NICU but he was doing great.  The surgery had not been as simple as they expected because the amount of intestines formed outside of the abdomen was more then they expected.  We were told on February 10th that he had only one more surgery to go to have the remaining portion of his intestines put in place in his abdomen and then we would be preparing our little man for his recovery and his release from the hospital.  On February 13th after fighting for two days, my beautiful angel made his way back to heaven to be with our God.

Now you may be asking yourself, why did she have to tell that long and sad story?  What’s the purpose?  You see for many years I wondered why did God take my son from me?  Why me?  I was bitter.  I would not step inside of a church and I was holding on to anger that I had no place for.  That anger and that bitterness were starting to eat my soul.  I was not happy with my life. I was not able to live up to my full potential as a mother or even as a woman.  Even though I have accomplished so many great things since I lost my son:  I married my boyfriend.  I graduated from the paralegal program and even went on to obtain a Bachelors and Masters degree.  I have been blessed with two additional birth children and one bonus son that I have the pleasure of parenting with my husband.  In spite of all of those great things, I was harboring ill feelings towards God.  I felt like he shortchanged me.  He took something from me.

It was not until I realized the purpose of that moment in my life that I was able to accept it and heal.   You see, that young girl that I was at that time, I was not capable of being the mom that I am now.  I was young and overwhelmed.  I did not appreciate the blessing of life that was given to me.  I was worried about what people would think when they saw me with two young kids.  I was worried about being a statistic.  What God did is he gave me something awesome and then he took it away so that I could appreciate all of his blessings in all forms.  And even though I was angry at his decision to take my son, I understand the lesson in the trial.  Because he did that, I was able to accept and appreciate the blessing of being able to give life to two additional beautiful baby boys.  I did not care what people would think of me.  I did not care about being judged because I was a young mom.  None of that mattered.  God took my bitterness and used it to make me better.  I am a better mom today because God took my son.

I said all of that to say this, don’t let your past make you bitter.  I don’t care what your backstory is.  Don’t let what you been through determine where you go in life.  Let go of the negative, let go of your bitterness and let your purpose shine through.  Don’t be bitter be better.

Be bold, be brave and be EMPOWERED.

BGE Co-founder

Kendra

 

If you know a little girl between the ages of 10-17 in or around the Nashville, TN area that could use some positive role models, contact us and tell us all about her.

 

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