Pregnant at 16 (Part 3)

When I left off in my story, I had set my husband free to go after the beautiful girl he had never gotten over and he was having trouble being cut loose.  He wanted to talk to me about why being “set free” by me didn’t feel as good as he thought it would, but when he called my mom to tell her that he wanted to pick me up from the bus station, what he heard from my mom was that there was another man in my life and he was bringing me home and it really upset him.

 

That was a turning point in our relationship.  He decided that I was the one he wanted and we started looking for priest (the other one had disappeared) that would marry us in the Catholic Church without me having to sign anything that meant my kids would be raised Catholic.  I was still going to church every Sunday morning at this point.  We were married by a priest a few months later with our Choir teacher standing up for us.  She had spoken to her priest and he had agreed to conduct the service.  It was just me, my husband, the Choir teacher, his dad and his brother in this huge church but it felt sweet to me and like I had the world by a string.  What I didn’t know at the time was that I was pregnant…again.  At least I had turned 18 and would be 19 when this baby was born.

 

We moved into a little apartment, our first place together.  I remember finding out that I was pregnant again and he was very upset.  I think it made him feel like going to a University instead of a Junior College, had just been pushed further into “fantasy land”.  Secretly in my heart, I wanted this baby.  I felt like I had matured (Ha) so much and I was eager to have a child as an adult.  I knew I was an adult because I got on a bus every morning and traveled into the city to work at a bank.  That’s adult…right?

 

I worked until about 4 days before the baby came and that bus driver would look at me with a skeptical eye and ask me every day when I was going to stop getting on his bus in that condition.  I would just laugh and hope I didn’t go into labor.  I had to earn as much money as I could before I went on pregnancy leave.

 

I remember it was the end of November and my husband was studying for a big test when I went into labor.  I didn’t even know I was in labor until my mom told me.  I thought I just had a really bad back ache but my mom wanted me to go get checked.  I did and they told me that even though I was barely dilated, the baby was definitely on the way.  I didn’t want my husband to get a bad grade on the test so I told him that I was going to stay at my parents house so that he could study as late as he wanted without bothering me.  He fell for it and I had my mom drop me off at the hospital.

 

My mom hated to leave me there alone but I told her I was just going to go to sleep and that I would call her later.  I never was one to want my mom with me when I had my kids.  She dropped me off at about 10:00 PM and I guess it caused a bit of a stir with the nurses because they didn’t like to see someone as young as I was, having a baby alone.  I explained why my husband wasn’t there and that he had no idea the baby was coming and that it would be just fine.  They told me how brave they thought I was and I remember thinking that bravery had nothing to do with it but I was glad they thought so.

 

He was born at 9:00 AM the next morning and when I woke up at about noon, they brought him in for me to hold. I remember when I looked down at him, he was looking at me with very big eyes that looked just like mine.  I said to him “You and I have been together before” and I knew we had.  My husband didn’t find out he had arrived until he got home from school and I know he was so glad to have been spared the labor room ordeal that had been no fun the first time and I was happy to have been able to give him this gift.

 

A few moments later there was a big stir out in the hallway and the other ladies in the 4 person room wanted to know what was going on.  One of the nurses came in and said “Never mind…it isn’t something that you need to know right now in your condition.  Well we all had a fit and said that we wanted to know what was going on so they told us that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas.  She turned on the TV for us so we could watch.

 

I went home that night and when I got up in the morning, I immediately had such a splitting headache that I couldn’t stand up.  It was a reaction to the Coddle they had given me in my spine and it caused me to not be able to raise my head for the next 4 days.  The only thing I could do was lay and watch TV and the only thing on was the news about the assassination and then of course Jack Ruby shooting Oswald on National Television.  What a time that was for all of us in this country.

 

I really thought I was done with having kids because it was hard to try to raise a family and go to school (on my husbands part) and work to keep it all together.  My husband at times had three part time jobs while carrying a full load at the Junior College.  He was determined to go there for two years only and then transfer to Cal Berkeley.  He was successful at this plan and graduated from the University with a degree in Electrical Engineering.    But before he was able to graduate, I had this funny feeling I was pregnant… again.

 

By this time, I was 23 and felt almost like an older woman.  After all I had a 7 year old son and one that was 5.  I knew that I had never missed one birth control pill but I just couldn’t shake the feeling that I was pregnant.  I went to see my doctor (that same one that had seen me through the first pregnancy when I was 16) and he said “Don’t I have you on birth control pills?”  When I said yes, he told me that I couldn’t be pregnant.  But then he said “Wait a minute…what kind do I have you on?”  I told him and he said “O, well you could be because those are only 90% effective).  Only 2% of women given a Caudle get that awful headache after birth so I guess I am one of those people that are in the minority in more ways than one.

 

So I was going to get to have a baby as an adult.  I was elated.  When I told my husband though, he couldn’t handle it.  He was so close to his dream of getting a degree from the University and he felt that this would just be the end.  He wanted me to get an abortion.  

 

Back in those days things had progressed from when I had first gotten pregnant at 16.  Now, if you felt that being pregnant was going to cause you to have a nervous breakdown or something, you could get permission to have an abortion.  But first I had to go to a County Psychiatrist and convince him of my “unstable mind”, which I did…then go to a specialist and get confirmation that I was pregnant.  

 

My doctor gave me a referral to a specialist and when I went, the specialist was very rude to me and I was confused about why he was being so mean.  His wife was his nurse and she apologized after he left the room.  She said he was so against abortion and he knew that I was there for that reason.  I told her I didn’t want an abortion either and she said “Then why in the world are you doing this?”  I told her it was because it was what my husband wanted.  I remember how her face changed at that revelation, and it cause the wheels to start turning around and around in my head.

 

As I was driving home, I had to pull over to the side of the road because I was crying so hard.  When I finally cried myself calm, I had made up my mind. My husband was waiting at home to hear when the abortion could take place.   As soon as  I walked in I said “I’m having this baby no matter what and not only that, it’s going to be your favorite child”.  He looked stunned but he didn’t argue with me, he just accepted it.  I think he didn’t like the idea of abortion either but just felt overwhelmed and didn’t know what else to do.  

 

Looking back now, I think that was the beginning of the end of our marriage because up until that point, I had always let him do the thinking for me.  I thought that is what a wife was supposed to do, obey their husbands.  But my mother had a term for what I was experiencing.  She always said “When the worm turns…watch out”. Julie arrived and my husband just went nuts over her.  She became his little “Pork Chop” and to this day they have one of the closest relationships I have ever seen between a father and daughter.

 

I have once again exceeded the amount of text that is acceptable for a blog post but I wanted to finish this tale of being a young mom.  I didn’t want to do “Part 4″.  I may write more about my relationship with my first husband later, but for now I want to say that for someone who got married the summer before his Senior year in high school and had three kids before he was 25 and still graduated with a degree from the University of California by the time he was 26…well that’s just incredible to me.   I think he’s an amazing human being and a great dad to his kids.  We both made mistakes with our children like every parent does unless they’re Saints, but they are all three great people who have given us wonderful grandchildren and I wouldn’t change a thing.

 

Thanks for listening.

Sharon