Pride Over Pity (5 page)

Chapter 6

The Dreaded “D”

My life falls a tad bit short of a fairy tale, even though some days it does feel like there’s as much drama as the movies. Like Lindsay Lohan in the Parent Trap, I had questions. What kind of job did my father have? Did he have other children? Most importantly, who was he? The dreaded “D” word was either avoided or pulverized like a piece of meat by my mother. I don’t remember her ever having a single positive thing to say about him.

My dad disappeared from my life when I was six months old and to this day I have no idea what really happened between my parents. All I ever had was my mother’s story, but judging from my own experience, my mother isn’t exactly the easiest person to get along with. I knew there would be no magical explanation as to why my dad wasn’t around, but I still felt like I needed answers.

My first few months on earth weren’t normal by any stretch. From what I’ve been told, I was a very sick baby, run down by pneumonia. Instead of taking me to the doctor as was planned, my mother says that my dad whisked me away from Pennsylvania to Texas to raise me on his own. He did take me to the hospital once we arrived, but my mother came after him with detectives and lawyers and eventually got me back. Although my mom claimed that it was his controlling nature that led him to that plan of action, knowing that he had at least attempted to raise me on his own made me believe that my father was more than just a deadbeat dad. I wasn’t satisfied with the story I was told because none of it explained why he wasn’t involved in my life now.

I needed to know why.

What bothered me the most was that it just seemed like, to my dad, losing the custody battle had been grounds for giving up on me altogether. There was no restraining order keeping him from visiting me or at least sending a cheesy Hallmark card on my birthdays, yet from that moment on he had disappeared from my life. He didn’t seem to care if I was doing okay. He didn’t seem to care that I needed him in my life. The wounds were wide, open, and raw.

Then one random day, as I logged onto my Facebook page, I was unexpectedly given the opportunity to find the answers I had been looking for my whole life. There was a message from an unfamiliar name and no picture to help identify whom it could be. I read the message over and over. “You don’t have to respond . . .” The words didn’t seem desperate for my attention, but apparently my father’s sister, Beth, had been searching for me on MySpace and other social networking sites for years. I felt inclined to know more about her and where she had been my whole life, so I responded. As soon as I learned who she was and that she was connected to my mysterious father, I began fantasizing how my life would change for the better because I had always secretly hoped that one day he would come back to rescue me from my miserable life.

Me and my Aunt Beth

The only problem with that fantasy was that I was now three months pregnant. Although I had always felt let down by my father for never being around, now I worried that I was the one who would be a disappointment to
him
. If he found out I was pregnant, would he still want to know me? Why would anyone want to enter my life at such a hectic, crazy time?

Turned out I didn’t have to worry. Facebook messages turned into hours of phone conversations with my aunt and father, all of which were positive. My aunt invited me to visit her and her daughters in Texas. My father lived in Waco, a town outside Dallas, and since I would be in the immediate area already, I knew I wanted to include meeting him in this trip. It was a hundred percent my decision and my plan. I packed for a few days, minus the single precaution I received from my mom—hold no expectations. I thought I knew better than to trust her words of wisdom.

Granted, it was my Aunt Beth who had originally reached out to me and invited me to visit, but I wanted to believe my father was just as enthusiastic and if she hadn’t invited me first, he would have eventually. Plus, after waiting so long, what harm could meeting him do? I didn’t believe there was any way he could damage me any more than I had already been damaged. I thought my mother was just being negative, so I left her advice in Pennsylvania where I felt it belonged, and boarded a plane to Dallas, Texas. I was finally going to meet my father—Raymond.

We were in the thick of filming for
16 and Pregnant
and MTV wanted to capture this momentous moment in my life, so I agreed to let the cameras come along. It was actually very reassuring to have the MTV crew with me because it felt like they were a protective backup team, ready to swat my dad away if things went awry. Sifting through the crowd at the airport, I had an image in my head of a strong, tall man who would appear nervous and uneasy but still confident and strong. Instead, the man who greeted me had a mullet, missing teeth, and was at least a foot shorter than I thought he would be. Only the Texan twang proved to be intact.

Daddy. Dad. The old man. My father.

I wasn’t expecting my dad to be sporting a cape and saving the world during his free time, but I had thought he’d seem a little more put together. Nothing about the man I was meeting now seemed consistent with what he had told me about himself. Really, he seemed to me like a mess of contradictions. Supposedly, he held two associate’s degrees, yet I don’t know if he had a job. He used to be a marine and a bull rider, but he was absolutely out of shape with no trace of his former military self. It seemed to me that he had let himself go to the point of no return. I was supposed to be proud to call this man, Dad?

He had told me he lived in a cozy two bedroom house, but the home he brought me to turned out to be a little shack. When he had described the quaintness of his place, I had pictured a cozy, little ranch. I was disappointed because I had expected to see my dad living comfortably. It felt like he was just coasting by, not living to the fullest. It seemed like he didn’t care to make himself or any part of his life better. He was just settling.

I went to sleep that night, hoping that I would see things in a more positive light in the morning. Unfortunately, things went downhill from there. The next morning’s Dunkin Donuts run should have been a decently cheap breakfast that he could treat me to, but when my dad asked me to borrow a twenty, I realized I was buying. Bumming money off of me, his pregnant teenage daughter, was the last straw in the haystack for me. Sure, he paid me back but it was yet another reminder that he was not the man I thought he would be.

My father seemed to live completely in the past. His spirit was a ghost, while the shell in front of me recounted war stories galore. I appreciate his service to our country, but the way he lost himself in his stories made me feel like any ear would have done. The conversation continued its slow downward spiral as he began commenting on my pregnancy. He was adamant that if he had been around, I wouldn’t be pregnant. I understood his sentiment toward my circumstances, but I felt he had no right to judge. Raymond hadn’t been around for my childhood. He wasn’t there for me as I messed up my teenage years.

There was no way to make a comeback from the painful stabbing feeling his comments induced. I just wanted to be back home, living the nightmare I was already in, rather than this whole new one I had created for myself in Texas. I desperately wanted to run away. I wanted to ask my Aunt Beth to come get me that first night, but I chose to suck it up and stick it out at my dad’s

I stayed at my father’s for three days, instead of running away like I felt he had when I was a baby. The whole time I was there, it felt like he didn’t make a single feeble attempt to connect with me or even show me his town. The majority of the time I was there I watched TV, my only source of southern comfort. I had hoped he would take me to see a few sites or maybe hit up a cheap diner to try the local food. But, no. Nothing. Sadly, the visit was not the exploration of self or family history that I had hoped it would be. My dad closed himself off emotionally, so I physically shut myself in his room where I spent most of my time.

The visit dragged into Thanksgiving. I had never wished to be home more than when I found myself sadly pushing boxed mashed potatoes around my plate. I imagined my family in Pennsylvania sitting around the table as I reached for a glass of water to swallow the dry turkey in front of me. For the first time in my life, I fully appreciated the always-enjoyable homemade food we always had for the holiday. Did I really miss home? I never imagined I would feel that way.

The whole experience couldn’t have been more different than what I had imagined it would be like. I had started looking for my dad years earlier. Once I had even gone on one of those people finder sites to locate him and asked my mom to pay the twenty-five dollars to obtain locked information. The information I got was about a man who earned a six-figure salary, who had no family in the surrounding area. The great power of the Internet only feeds you so much, if you don’t have much information to begin with. The identity and background of the man it gave me, was not my father, but I had wanted so badly to believe it was that I built the rest of my fantasy around that illusion.

Despite all the negativity, I decided it was time to forget about the bad and concentrate on the good. The one bright spot of the trip was that I learned I had another blood relative. My half-sister, Mikaila Rae. Instead of wallowing in the past, I would focus on the future. I had a baby on the way and a boyfriend with whom I wanted to start building a future. Also, I now had a sister, someone untainted by the drama of our unconventional family. Maybe together we could rise above all this dysfunction and be a family.

Chapter 7

Fat or Pregnant?

16 and Pregnant
showed only a small part of my story. There are so many little details from that period of my life that I wish could have been shown. Like the fact that I was the only pregnant girl in a very small high school, which made my stomach stick out a bit—both figuratively and literally. Or that the desks at school were too small for my big belly to fit comfortably into, which felt like a big joke at my expense. Or all the ignorant babble and gossip about me. The only thing worse than being stuck in one of those desks, was having to put up with the all the stares and whispers.

“Is she just fat or is she pregnant?”

My classmates actually had the audacity to approach my friends with that question. Wasn’t my round belly obvious enough? But the ignorance of my peers was the least of my problems. I could handle shocking or disappointing them, but there was one person I didn’t want to let down. He was my favorite teacher and the only mentor I ever had.

Mr. Koser was one of the few adults I trusted. I had been in his web design class for two years and during that time we had grown close. For the first time in my life I had been able to open up to someone. He knew about my issues with my mother, but never spoke ill of her. He helped me to understand that she had her own demons shadowing her and reminded me that it was not my fault. He taught me to put my best foot forward, even if that meant letting go of the person dragging me down. He was the one person I felt wouldn’t judge me, but despite that (or maybe because of it) Mr. Koser was the last person I wanted to find out that I was pregnant.

For months I avoided his hallway, hoping if he didn’t see me he wouldn’t find out the truth. I even begged friends who were in his class not to whisper a word about my pregnancy around him. Although part of me knew he would find out eventually, especially when all you had to do was look at me to see I was pregnant, I did everything I could to put that moment off as long as possible. Failure had never been a worry of mine because I had nobody in my life to let down. Now for the first time, I knew the heaviness of disappointing someone I looked up to. I imagined him shaking his head at me and saying something like, “You’re better than this,” or, “You had such a bright future. How are you going to make it now?”

By the time I had dug up enough courage to tell him, I was close to leaving school for the year. I was only a month away from giving birth so I didn’t have to say much to explain my situation. Rumors had reached his ears, despite my best attempts at keeping things hushed up. To my relief, Mr. Koser didn’t utter a negative word. He was one of the few people who still believed in me. I feared his disappointment more than my own mother’s, but I was wrong to worry. Mr. Koser reassured me I would get through every hurdle and obstacle in my way. To this day, he’s still in my life.

***

With that behind me, I was able to move forward with my life. I had met with a school counselor and figured out a graduation plan. Since my last high school had required more credits, it turned out I had enough to finish the year early. I would graduate in January and walk with my class in May, after the baby was born. With high school now a part of the past and the extra stress of schoolwork and gossip behind me, I was able to focus on getting ready for the baby.

The crazy, hyperactive days that followed weren’t enough to stop my mind from being consumed by doubt. I was still trying to convince myself that I was doing the right thing by raising a child at such a young age and sharing all of my struggles. Everyone in my life had strong opinions about what I should or shouldn’t be doing. The one person who made absolutely no sense to me then, but who I later realized actually had it right the whole time, was my grandmother. She just said, “You know, babies are born!” In her weird way she was pointing out that having a child is a just part of life and now that it was a fact in mine I just had to keep moving forward.