Our Fuck In The Shed...

I'm not proud of it but I drank and smoked my way through both my pregnancies. I had heard all the risks and knew that it was bad for my babies- but I did it anyway, so when I think about it I was pretty lucky that they were both born healthy.

My first Son was conceived in a garage on a single foam mattress on the floor just a few months after I turned eighteen- and was born a few months after his father turned twenty. I guess you might say that I was all in love by myself- that my feelings weren't exactly reciprocated by the boy who one day turned into my Hubby- for we weren't in an actual relationship as such- we just sort of had sex every now and then when I could convince him to go to bed with me. Sorry Son, there was no childhood romance, even if we were still children ourselves.

I remember telling him that I was pregnant about six weeks after our fuck in the shed. I had gone to the Family Planning clinic and done a test that morning, and I suppose I sort of lied to the clinic nurse about my relationship status. I think I led her to believe that my 'boyfriend' and I, though shocked, would handle having a baby. Yes, there would be financial concerns but our love would get us through. Hehe. Fuck-was I in denial.

He wasn't. He didn't love me and this baby hadn't changed anything. He suggested that the baby might not even be his and made a mock punch to my stomach to show his displeasure at this apparent outcome of his pleasure. Then he went into denial as well.

I saw him once when I was four months pregnant and again when I was eight months, and both times I was drunk and made a fool out of myself by throwing myself, again, desperately at him. I would keep trying to touch him or kiss him again and again, even when he would push me away over and over. And then there were those two times that he left me in Town in the middle of the night after I had tracked him down like a blood-hound- I called his house because I felt we had to talk about the whole baby thing and he would hang up and I would ring back. Etcetera. But I guess I must have worn him down eventually...

Nine years later, when I found myself pregnant again with our second Son, it seemed his enthusiam was much the same. Maybe it was just me being hormonal and pregnant, but it felt to me as if he had as much interest in this pregnancy as he did in the first- and that he blamed me because both times I didn't choose for the problems to go away. I suppose the reasons for considering a termination the second time around were much the same; we were still as poor as before, mostly due to my inability to look for work, and we could hardly afford to look after ourselves and the son we already had, let alone conceive of having another child to care for, financially as well as emotionally- and by all accounts there should be enough money for us to be relatively comfortable, but our smoking and drinking habits siphon away much of the limited income we do have.

He had a hard time even touching my swelling stomach, as though it were repugnant to him in some foul way. I would lean up close to him at night, with my belly plumb against his back, so that he might feel the baby kicking him through me, so that he could experience some part of it that was pleasurable too, and not only be worried about the negative aspects of having more children than we could cope with, but he would pull away- saying he couldn't sleep when It kicked him. And that hurt my feelings- that the time I needed him to care for me the most he was barely able to be there for me at all.

One of the worst toothaches of my Life happened almost four years ago, when I was seven months pregnant. It was at my eldest Son's ninth birthday party, and he had invited about ten of his school friends and his cousins to a ten-pin bowling alley party room. I could barely lift my head from my lap for the pounding in my jaw, but I managed to get through the party without any help from my Hubby, who had decided to go to the pub with his mates rather than to his Son's birthday party to give his poor pregnant wife a hand when she was seriously ill from a killer toothache. I mean, people in the Olden Days used to die from poisoned teeth if they didn't get any medical attention, didn't they?

I think you are pretty sick when you are vomiting from the sheer nausea caused by a migraine from the twisted roots spurring through your jaw like hot tendrils, and you are shaking all over alternatively hot and cold, like when you are in deep labour and every movement is an effort of will over an unwilling body. I self-medicate as best as I can when it happens but I suffer through it, let me assure you.

Afterwards, that time, I did go to the dentist to have that tooth pulled out, but they couldn't be certain which way the roots were growing without an xray, which of course I wasn't allowed to have while I was still pregnant. Piss and Ciggies yes. Xrays- no way. Far too dangerous for the baby.So I endured the pain of that particular tooth rotting almost completley out, and after that, I reckon I can go through just about anything.

It's also when I began smoking marijuana regularly, for the pain relief initially, but it soon became for fun as well, as I quickly discovered the effect it had on my thoughts.