We are young
Heartache-to-heartache we stand
No promises, no demands
Love is a Battlefield
Removing my walk-man earphones, to watch Oscar approach the field of the South Pas. High track that January evening in 1991 was a bit of a surprise. But, I was still happy to see him, even though I tried not to show it. I hated to show my feelings. I still do, showing my feelings was the equivalent of smothering my pride and without pride I had no strength.
So, while the truth was, when Oscar’s white truck pulled up, my insides flipped, a smile sprung to my lips and glee took me for a spin on the inside. On the outside I worked at looking like I had been to busy jogging to notice him pull up; and while from a distance I watched him walk toward me through the corner of my eye- wishing I could hug him but when he was up close, I kept myself busy stretching.
I’m not proud of it. My pride was bigger then I was, and probably bigger then the track field I was jogging on, because lessons had taught me early on that showing feelings equaled permission to wipe your shoes on my guts. So I didn’t welcome him with a grand “hello” like I wished I could. Instead, I barely mustered a faint recognition that he was there.
Have you started your period?” He said, in a concerned whisper.
Huh? My period?
Since those weren’t the words I had expected to hear, anticipating his usual “Hey Goon” (the nickname he had for me at that time), it took me a few beats to gather myself.
I’m still astonished that Oscar knew my period was late before I did. It’s not like I ever discussed my “time of the month” with him. I was always so private and embarrassed about my body’s metamorphosis into a horror movie once a month to have ever discussed my period, and yet there he was in the middle of the field, asking me if I was wearing Always with wings. He didn’t use those words of course… but for someone who never talked about her period (not even to her own mother) it felt like he was asking me if I prefer Always with dry weave, original Kotex or tampons.
Two days later, after my horror movie failed to premiere, I drove my off-roading Suzuki Samurai to Kaiser for my pregnancy test. I know Suzuki Samurais aren’t off-roading vehicles but let me just say, mine was! It had wheels so big on its little square frame that it looked like a mini-monster truck and was as ‘off-roading’ as a 10-speed with dirt bike wheels.
At Kaiser, I was looking for the department to take my prego-test and quickly discovered that being eightTEEN meant that I was still a teenager; which meant I was still a child; which meant that I needed to go to the pediatric section of the hospital to take my pregnancy test.
The neon arrow that pointed and blinked “YOU’RE A CHILD!” came when I ran into a high-school friend (and his mom) in the pediatric waiting room. He was there to get his latest vaccination for school and if that wasn’t evidence enough that I was a baby, having a baby, perhaps it was the fact that my mommy paid for my gasoline that day (although she had no idea where I was going).
RING….RING….RI- “Hello?”
The call from the Kaiser nurse was an interesting experience. Getting my pregnancy test done in the pediatric unit of Kaiser apparently qualified me for the obligatory “these are your options” call from the nurse, as she delivered the news.
“Honey, you’re pregnant. Would you [pause], like to have an abortion?”
“No.” [Click]I had hung up the phone as soon as I had heard those words.
Did I want an abortion? The thought hadn’t even occurred to me. Perhaps I should have been scared. Perhaps I should have been concerned. Perhaps it was the fact that I had been so surrounded by family and support, that abortion seemed absurd to me.
RING….RING….RI- “Hello?” Oscar's voice was expectant.
“Hello daddy.” I said holding my breath...
Later that day, Oscar whispered in my ear the words that would make me realize that, although I was fearless, he wasn’t.
“What will my family think?” He whispered.
I wasn’t sure how to interpret the question. I wasn’t sure at the time, why, what they thought, would have anything to do with me (I’d find out soon enough though). Those words were my first hint that perfect scenarios; perfect love; perfect romance; perfect parenting, only existed in my head.
Moments later, to lost in my own world to have given his question much thought, I experienced a flash that whisked me 16 years into the future and in that moment, I was scared out of my mind. Having just gone through the age of 16 a fews earlier I knew what hazards were heading my way, they don't call sweet 16 that for no reason... they try to sweeten the year with some sugar to prevent parents from rejecting the tart after taste that teens sneaking out of windows to visit friends in the middle of the night leaves. I was a horrible teenager- and my poor baby- not being bigger then a speck, had a mission to deliver redemption for my mother- I just knew it!
Anyway, back in 1991 I tried to regain my composure after my time travel. When I was able to breath again, I realized that Oscar had decided that we should walk to Thrifty for an ice cream cone so we could process and plan out how we were going to tell my mom that her 18 year old baby, was having a baby, by a 23 year old man.
There was only one obstacle for a constructive walk… I wasn’t sure how to get from point A (my apartment) to point B (Thrifty’s) as a pregnant person.
How was a newly pregnant girl supposed to act; should I be reserved and demure; perhaps, majestic and motherly; pensive and wise? I walked along going through the catalog of traits I thought a mother was supposed to encompass and wanted, at will, to be the mom in the Brady Bunch, Cosby Show- or even the mom from One Day At A Time. Instead I was behaving more like Laverne and Shirly; off beat, quirky and swimming in my oddity.
“What’s the matter with you?” asked Oscar, confused and frustrated by my weird behavior as I tried on my mother characters for the best fit.
He had walked the equivalent of a mile with someone who kept readjusting her persona to try to fit the scene.
[Said scene]: Young mother, demure and wise, confronting a world that wouldn’t understand that she had instantly become a marvelous adult during the conception of her unborn child. She is now creating a miracle of life which….
“I said, what’s the matter? You’re acting weird!” Oscar was staring into my face, looking more frustrated then the first time he’d asked.
“Oh nothing.” I said, a little irritated that he had interrupted my motherly character cultivation.
Oscar was looking to have a conversation with the girl he had known, not the oxy-moron he found himself with: demure and…. knocked up?!
So, I did what any girl would do in surrender; I licked my chocolate chip ice cream cone before it dripped on my blouse and went back to the business of being boring me, pregnant with not a clue about how I should act.
A lot of stuff happened between the walk to Thrifty’s that day and the 8 and a half month pregnant state that I found myself in when I was sitting on the toilet crying that September. But this story isn’t about everything that happened when we broke the news to our families; or about how I moved in with Oscar without invitation; or about getting my engagement ring at a super market; or getting married at a radio station by a talk show personality; or my pizza wedding reception or even the “temporary” move we had just made into my mother-in-laws house that week. Those are all tales for another day- this story is about Sam’s birthday.
…Back to me crying on the toilet. Ah yes. I was crying, like I said, staring at the inflated balloon that was my mommy belly and the tears wouldn’t stop. The longer I stared at the enormity of my belly, the harder I cried.
“How is it going to come out? It’s HUGE!” I kept whimpering as the tears continued to flow. Naked on the toilet the truth hit me like a pregnant lady about to pop- the hard way. It’s going to come out the hard way, it said matter-of-factly. The truth… the truth is, that the truth is mean, and has no mercy, not even on a scared kid about to become a mom.
October 5th left Oscar on a plank he didn’t know he was walking. For two nights I had stared at him sleeping; peacefully snoring; as I plotted which way to wake him up the rudest. I wanted him to experience how brutal the past two nights had been for me. Sitting straight up in the dark; 1 week overdue; too big to lie down (without feeling like I was suffocating); and getting increasingly pissed with each peaceful breath he took… and just when I wanted to scream, “Wake up and get it out!” I’d remember that mothers in sitcoms didn’t scream at their husbands to yank their unborn babies out of their belly- so I didn't either.
I learned later that day that the progression of labor looks like this: frustration; discomfort; restlessness; aching; cramping; throbbing; pulsating; mood shift-a-la-Freddy Krugar; don’t talk to me unless you can cure my pain rage; shoot me status; I hate everybody status and Dear God, just take me status.
I’m guessing you can tell that I didn’t find labor pleasant. But add to it someone who watched too many movies with screaming women in labor and a young girl who imagines what she should be experiencing and then multiplies it with exaggeration that she can’t help, and that sums up my next 24 hours.
I took 5 baths that day, not because I wanted to be super fresh, but because a bath with SUPER HOT water numbed my pain. I don't know why nobody told me that I could boil my baby (Boiling my baby seems logical to me now, although I still don’t know if it’s a legitimate possibility). I’m pretty sure that super hot water that turns the skin red isn’t exactly the best idea for a “baking” baby [stupid pun I know- but it was a stupid pain].
In between going to the hospital 3 times and being sent home because I wasn’t “ready”; going to my grandmother’s house and abusing her tub; kneeling naked in my grandmother’s hallway on all fours with nothing but a towel on, then going to my aunt’s house and doing the same; I was insanely excited that it would all be over soon.
1 a.m., on October 6th, I was finally admitted in the hospital.
Hearing women scream on both sides of me would have been validating if it hadn’t been for nurse Night-in-glare-you, who stared at me and said, “Do you hear those women screaming? I’m not giving them medication to numb their pain, no matter how much they beg, so what makes you think you’re getting it? And look at this (she was touching my stomach) you have a 6 pound baby in there and the rest is all fat… you gained too much weight!”
She scared me. Like anyone with a bitch quota to meet daily she was desperate and determined to hit her goal, so I stayed quiet to make her work for it.
3:30 a.m., and I was being wheeled into the delivery room. I had made it. It would all be over soon.
“Hello sweetheart.” I opened my eyes to see the skies parting and a light shining down from heaven. What I saw in front of me was the nicest nurse I had ever seen in a labor and delivery room (and in case you’re counting, that would be nurse #2).
“I’m going to ask you to push sweetheart, and when I do, you’re going to push for 3 seconds; and then you’ll rest; and we’ll do it again- until you’re baby is here. Ok?”
She had given me all I needed, calm reassurance that my baby was nearly here.
“Push. 1… 2… 3.”
And that’s all it took…
“It’s a girl!”
She was here. She was 9 lbs, 10 oz. as round as a basketball and more beautiful then I could have imagined. “She looks like Ara,” (Oscar’s sister) were my first words after seeing her.
“What are you going to name her?” asked the nurse from heaven.
“Samantha.” I had practiced this name for nine months. It was a toss up between Alexis or Samantha (my girl choices), and since Samantha rolled off my pen more beautifully when I filled up the pads of endless paper practicing her future signature, it was the winner.
“Sami, with an I. That would be such a beautiful way to spell her nickname,” said heavenly nurse, and I agreed. For years Sami- with an I- is how I spelled her name, after all, a messenger from heaven had chosen it. How could I go wrong?
Her middle name had been picked a little less thoughtfully. Hope. Hope, like the character from Days of Our Lives, who was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I had spent years wishing I was her, and now my daughter was going to be named after her. Samantha Hope Favela
“Esperanza?!” My mother-in-law questioned with a look of disappointment months before.
No. Not Esperanza. Hope. I thought when she had suggested that everyone would call her after the Spanish translation of that name. But as it turned out, I needn't worry about it. Sam had been born on my mother-in-laws birthday. So when Oscar suggested we name her after his mom, after I sat staring at her beautiful basketball shaped body, I decided it didn’t matter what her name was. She was my Sami, so she could be his Carmen and with that she was officially Samantha Carmen Favela, the first grand-child and great grand-child on either side of the family and I was ecstatic.
I’m not sure if anyone in the hospital noticed that I clung to Sami like…like… like only a paranoid mother would.
I had seen one to many Sunday night movies and episodes of 20/20 detailing stories about babies that were switched at birth, to come out of those experiences with a healthy fear level. Which is why I followed the nurse when she wheeled Sami out on her little bed to get her blood drawn. With an exposed back-side, I got out of bed and snuck behind other mother's curtains and fancy hospital equipment, to make sure that my baby came back to me as the same person; and not someone who would feel out of place, with her webbed feet and knobby knees, because no one else in the family looked like her, all easily explained by the fact that she was switched at birth and biologically related to the family next door.
I was determined that my baby was going to fit and be normal just like her mother who saw the extremes in everything.
So on this week of her birthday, as I sit and think of the moments when I would jiggle my pregnant stomach quickly from a laying on my side position to laying on my back- just to make sure that baby inside me was still alive.... and speed past that thought to when she was six months old and I would sleep with her on my chest just to make sure that I could feel her breath... only to erase that thought with the recent years when I made sure to wake her up each morning before I left to work just to make sure that she would open her eyes in the morning... and zoom to last week when I sent her about 20 text messages asking if she was okay because I hadn't heard from her that day... I land on my conclusion that I may have to reevaluate my level of "normal".
Many things have changed since the day the Kaiser nurse called me with the test results, and yet again, not much has changed. Everyday I try to figure motherhood out, some days I do the right thing, some days I'll walk butt exposed down flourescent lighted hallways to make sure she is okay, and then some days I might be very near boiling my baby- but every day I try.
Happy Birthday Sami. May your everyday bring you someone who loves you as much as I did the moment I saw you and may you always be reminded that you are strong, talented, brave, resilient and loved by your mom always.
