there was another

I get a repeated question from people asking how I can be so calm entering motherhood. My response is that this will not necessarily be my first go round at it. This will be my first birth, but I had a small dose of motherhood before thanks to a STRANGE situation. If you saw my post about losing my baby brother from SIDS then you saw mention of my sister who went off the deep end when I brought her to his body. Her issues stemming from that incident have lasted her lifetime. A few days before my 14th birthday she had a daughter, J. My family was also falling to crap at that time… I had a job and I moved away from them at 14 when I felt like they couldn’t care for me anymore.

In a weird turn of events, a few months later, I ended up with my niece before she was 1. I kept her until she was about 2 when I could not handle being extremely tired and hungry anymore. I had to beg my mother who found a sugar daddy at that time to take her. In reflection it was a messed up situation considering that she was not my child. However it was reality at the time and I did the best for her that I could.

That year plus was a blur. I was a high school student, I worked, and I still did sports. What I didn’t really do was eat or sleep. Money was tight, time was tighter. She should have not been my responsibility but she was. My dad worked graveyard and would bring her to where I lived at night then come back in the morning to watch her. I would go to school and work and come back to be with her. I went hungry if there was something she needed. I went without sleep because babies are a huge responsibility.

In that time though there were first steps, teething, illnesses, laughs, and a very sweet little girl that did not have much in this world besides a stumbling teen aunt and an equally tired grandfather who was reeling in shock from his failing marriage. I lost my cool once with being overwhelmed but never screamed or shook her. I felt like I came close and broke down. I cried so hard and promised her I would never harm her no matter how stressed I was.

In retrospect the situation was extremely messed up. There is no reason I should have shouldered that experience for my family at the time. There is no reason CPS should not have had me in foster care as well as her. As it is she eventually did end up in foster care years later and was lost to me for a long time. I go back and forth between feeling guilt for not keeping up with sacrifices so that she would have stayed with me and being sensible that it was not in either of our best interests. She got lucky though and eventually ended up with a kind, faith-based foster family that afforded her many opportunities.

Shortly after I got married she appeared on my radar again. That year she was a college freshman and “aged-out” of the CPS system. My husband and I took a trip out to California and scooped her and her boyfriend up to spend a quick weekend on the coast. She did not know who I was but as she put it she knew there was something about me as her aunt that she knew I was good. I did not give her all the details of the time we spent together, but enough for her to know why she may have felt a bond with me.

I think about her a lot as I get ready for my own baby. I have never taken the idea of motherhood lightly. Babies are a lot of work, she taught me that. I know I should not but in a way wonder if having my own baby will be some sort of redemption for having to give her up when I was 15? My family still sucks and are not close. Me and her are not best friends either, but she does call me when she needs a dose of nice family in her life now. I basically act as a mother figure to her now even though she has her foster mother and knows her biological mother (that she chooses not to talk to). Her and her boyfriend are very excited about our pregnancy, she checks in about school, we talk about track and field (a sport I also did in college), and now she is starting to take up yoga and go into a field I have a a lot of experience with.

She has also taught me that children are resilient no matter how much you mess up as a parent. I don’t plan to mess up a lot with my child, but it is nice to know that life will go on heaven forbid things don’t go as ideal. It is by her example and my time raising her that I can be so calm going into this leg of my motherhood journey.

FYI I love being an aunt. She is one of eight nieces, and one nephew.