God truly dislikes when people slander others as if they’re perfect, so I am not writing this to tarnish anyone’s name. I write this only to share my story of hope. If I can help at least one person, then I have accomplished my goal.
Healing comes through the sharing of testimony. If you saw me then, and you see me now, you know God has brought me through. He has kept and preserved me.
If someone reads this and wants to gossip about me, that’s fine. In this blog, I share very personal and intimate details of my life. I have always been an open book. If God delivers you from something and you keep it to yourself, you have just done His people a disservice. You are wrong to keep that light hidden.
The Bible says we are the salt of the earth.
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Actually I was trying to go through labor alone. I woke my sister and asked her to drive me to the hospital. We were almost successful at leaving the house unnoticed, but the stupid automatic garage door awoke everyone in the house. My dad was so excited that he called my family members and told them I was in labor.
My cousin Lisa and my mother arrived. I was so grateful for them coming. I felt bad about not telling Nick Sr. (the baby’s dad). The baby was soon to come, so at the last minute I called him.
A few hours later and three pushes later the baby arrived. I had a really easy and great delivery. My baby was so beautiful and healthy. I loved his little hands and toes and he had a full head of hair.
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| Pictures taken by Keisha McCall few hours after delivery. |
For three days I tried unsuccessfully to breast feed my baby but he wouldn’t latch on. We just couldn’t get the hang of breastfeeding. My baby was so hungry that he cried the entire hospital stay. I kept asking the nurses for formula, yet refused and demanded me to keep trying to breastfeed. They made me feel like if I gave my child formula, I would be considered a bad parent.
In three days my baby lost so much weight that I ended up having to buy him clothes for premature babies. They finally gave me formula.
I was just so confident that Nick Sr. would be an expert with the baby because this was his second child. He unfortunately had no clue about the nature of parenting. He couldn’t make bottles. He didn’t understand why I got upset when he went two days without properly cleaning the bottles. It seemed like the only thing he could do was change a diaper, and even then, he’d act like he deserved a reward for what’s expected.
The baby woke up every two hours. After 9 weeks of getting no sleep and slaving around a six bedroom house that I was expected to clean alone, I was terribly overwhelmed. My baby required to be held all day. Whenever he went to sleep, I cleaned up. I was so exhausted and I got help from no one. The only person who was really a help to me was Bryana Davis. At first I felt like Nick Sr. wasn’t obligated to take care of his child because he was working. Nick works at a real job, and I work at home.
I soon realized that way of thinking was not balanced at all. Nicks Job ended at 3:00 Pm. When did mine end?
I couldn’t even trust anyone with my baby because everyone appeared to be so incompetent. I left my baby with a loved one for four hours and when I came home he had been in the same diaper. This person left my baby in a soiled diaper for about three hours. After reacting in rage, they told me they were too afraid to change the baby’s diaper. Just stupid.
My family members would hear the baby crying for hours at a time and never once offered to help me or get the baby for even an hour. One night the baby cried for six hours. I rocked him. I fed him. I changed him. I rocked him some more. Nothing helped. Finally I cut up my music to try to drown out the sound of my babies crying.
My dad told me I was getting exactly what I deserved.
On top of Everything Nick Sr. complained because we never had sex. When we did do it, it was painful and I didn’t enjoy and I felt like Nick was disgusting for even wanting to do that with me two weeks after having a baby.
I was stressed out. I bought very expensive Dr. Brown Bottles because I heard they reduced colic. I got my baby gripe water. I tried all the remedies. One day out of nowhere I went and bought a swing that cost about $200.00. At first my baby really liked the swing. It gave me a break and I wasn’t required to hold him so often. Nick Sr. yelled at me for getting the swing. He said I should have waited on him before doing it myself. He was so very mean and unsupportive.
It was finally time for me to return back to work. I was so tired, twice I fell asleep while driving. I was scheduled to be to work at 9:00. I had to get up at 6:00 to dress the baby, dress myself, feed him, make his bottles, pack his bag, and drop him off at a relative’s house, and then sit in traffic for an hour.
I got to work a 9:01. “You’re late!” my boss said. “That counts as a point against you. You’re only allowed to have 12 points.”
I had the worse job in the world.
We were expected to meet this stupid sales quota. It was my job to sale ATT UVerse, over priced cable, expensive internet with slow speeds (they charge 30.00 for 3 megabytes of speed), and outrageous fees. Every five minutes someone would ask me “Did you sale something yet?”
It was also my job to do customer service. Our employees were so eager to sell something, that they would lie to get sales. They told them the bill would be $50.00 a month when in reality, it was $90.00 a month. Some people even promised their monthly bill would be 14.99 when it was way higher than that. They also did tell new customers about the $130.00 activation fee. People were expecting bills for 14.99, but they instead got a first bill for $200.00.
They would call in, angrily demaning to know why the bill was so astonomical. Then, the customers would get surveys to rate us on how satisfied they were. The surveys scaled from 1-10. If you got anything lower than a 9, you got written up.
Friday November 9, I finally had enough. My friend Bryanna told my mom that I didn’t look good. She explained that my eyes were hollow. I was so stressed out that I broke down and cried at work. No one asked me a thing about sales for the first time. I clocked out of work early and called my gynecologist. I let her know I hated being a mom and I was so depressed. She told me I had Postpartum Depression and wrote me a prescription over the phone.
That night I begged Nick to watch the baby. At 10:00 at night he got the baby. At 7:00 Am he was texting my phone telling me to come get the baby. Bryanna didn’t even want to show me the messages.
I saved some of the texts
Me: Nick please keep the baby I am so tired.
Nick: Lazy
Me: Please I just really want to get some rest today.
Nick: If you are at work I’ll watch him. If not then you need to come and get him.
We got into a huge argument. He called me every degrading name a man could call the mother of his newborn child. Then he broke up with me. I cried so hard while Bryanna watched the baby for me. I called three churches requesting for prayer. I was sure I was having a nervous breakdown. All three churches had automated robots instructing me to press 3 or for directions to the church or 6 for the fax number. I called the church during a time of need and couldn’t even get in contact with a human. Ever since then, I haven’t really cared for churches, especially churches with too many members and too few personal relationship between the pastor and his members.
Finally I called Pastor Heratio. I was crying to hard he couldn’t understand a word I was saying, but he knew I was in distress. He told me he was at work and he would have his wife call me. Within five minutes his wife called me back and prayed for me over the phone. Then she hung up.
She called me right back saying that the Holy Spirit told her she needed to see me in person. Within two hours, I found myself at Baptist hospital.
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