Surreptitious

I’m going to tell you my biggest, darkest secret. And it’s not pretty.

I hated my baby.

To be entirely honest, Im terrified. Why am I sharing this? Well, because I think that it will help me but maybe also someone else if they ever felt the way I did. A little back story, I’ve never wanted children. At least not my own biological ones. I love kids. I have a lot of younger siblings, five to be exact, and I loved spending time with them.

But I have a mental illness, and I was terrified I would pass that on. I had convinced myself that I would be a terrible mom. It would be selfish to ever have children when I’m not okay, wouldn’t it? Half the time, I can barely get myself to shower regularly.

The beginning of my 20s were a roller coaster. I had never graduated high school, but I took the HiSet test at 17 and enrolled in community college at 18. I thought that was what I was supposed to do.

Graduate high school.

Graduate from college.

Get a career.

That’s just how it is. I didn’t really mind too much. I love learning and I decided to major in foreign language with the hopes of becoming an interpreter. It was difficult. I was struggling retaining what I was learning. I’m one of those ‘ace the test then forget everything’ kind of person. I was at the end of my second year when I decided to drop out.

I rediscovered my love for art and I really wanted to explore my options there. For a while it was great. I had a boyfriend, we were going on two years and were, at this point, engaged.

I was happy.

I was spending my days working part time and coming home to late nights full of painting, sketching, and anything else I could think of.

Then, at the end of May in 2019, I took a pregnancy test. Buying the stupid test was my first horrific experience. I had never bought a pregnancy test before and I didn’t tell anyone I was taking it. I went to a dollar store and bought a cheap one. I remember the cashier giving me a look, you had to request them because they kept them behind the counter. She even asked for my ID. I felt so ashamed and guilty in that moment.

I never tracked my cycle so I had no clue if I was late, just that something was different. I told myself that I was being paranoid. There was absolutely no way I was pregnant.

Positive.

That second line showed up so fast, so dark. The tears were instant. I was 21 years old. I had no degree, barely any income, and was reliant on anti-depressants to make it through the day.

I was crushed.

This was not what I wanted. Test in hand, I stormed into mine and my fiancé’s bedroom. I threw the test at him. I was hysterical. Crying and yelling that we messed up, bad. He tried to be understanding. Tried to reassure me. But I didn’t want to hear it. I was so disappointed in myself. I had been so good about taking my birth control, but just about a month prior my script ran out. And in the midst of my depression peaking and coming to the decision to change my entire career plan, I never got it refilled.

There was only one option in my head, we had to figure out how to support this baby.

I felt like I had a responsibility to bring this baby into the world because my careless actions and young, reckless love brought on this situation. That created an internal chaos I was not prepared for.

There was this part of myself that told me over and over I was just as bad for bringing this baby into the world knowing it could end up like me. After calling my mom and begging her not to be disappointed in me, she reassured me. She was thrilled to be a grandma.

So, the journey began. I made an appointment with my health department to confirm the pregnancy. I needed it for Medicaid because I had no health insurance. Then I could schedule my first appointment with the OBGYN. I was horrified. I hadn’t even had my first pap smear yet.

The period in between the health department and seeing my prenatal doctor was the first occasion where I started to blame my unborn child. I was in bed one night, fiancé asleep right beside me, and curled in on myself. The silent tears came and then the anger.

I pathetically hit my stomach.

I didn’t know if I was angry at myself or at the baby. But in that moment, I thought I truly hated this being inside me. I never told anyone about it until much later.

We went to our first appointment. I was estimated to be about 5 weeks with a due date of February 12th 2020. They told me they would likely induce me a week early, on the 5th. I was fine with it.

The quicker this is over with then the better, I thought.

I got enrolled in my local WIC program and also had regular appointments at the health department. I only told the people in my immediate family. My parents, my grandparents, my fiancé’s parents, and my best friend who was, coincidentally, also pregnant.

Even though I was an adult, I still felt like a child. I felt like if I admitted that I was pregnant, people would look at me like I messed up. I wasn’t married and I had no career.

The pregnancy was hard on me. I was losing weight because I couldn’t stop throwing up. I felt so gross and tired all of the time. I ended up quitting my part time job. My fiancé also lost his job. We had to move in with my grandparents. I had no clue what we were going to do. And the longer we went without work, the more of a failure I felt like.

I kept piling the blame on my unborn child.

Somewhere early in the pregnancy, I can’t quite remember the dates now, my prenatal doctor informed me I had to get off my anti-depressants. A pit of dread settled in my stomach. Any mental disorder is hard even with medication and now I was losing mine. They were not safe for me to take during pregnancy. My primary doctor had told me I need to taper off my medication, but my prenatal doctor told me to quit them right then.

So, I did. And I blamed it on the baby.

Another thing that was being taken from me because of the child. The small shreds of happiness I had accumulated were going to slip away. My depression began to shift into prenatal depression. Everything that was wrong with me, with my life, was the baby’s fault. That’s what my mind told me.

I realized early on that I did not love my baby.

I like to think I’m a rational and usually logical person. I thought I knew this wasn’t normal. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. You’re supposed to love your children. It should be a happy experience. A happy thing. That’s what everyone says. I never posted on social media about my child, except for one single occasion. When we found out the gender, a girl. I made one post to announce her to the world and that was it.

I tried looking online for answers because I felt like I couldn’t tell anyone. It was my dirty secret and I didn’t want to feel any more judgment than what I was giving to myself. I read everything I could, but still never felt better about myself. I never felt like it was okay for me to feel this way.

I was on auto pilot.

Going through the motions. Doing what I had to simply because I had to. My fiancé had spotty luck with work. I could still barely keep food down. My weight became concerning to the health department, who put me on a high fat diet.

With the pregnancy announcement, came congratulations and posts about how excited everyone was to be welcoming a new addition to the family.

It made me feel like a monster.

So many women, girls, struggle with having a support system and I had one the size of the country in my eyes. But it only made me feel worse. Because the pregnancy wasn’t a happy time for me. I didn’t want to be congratulated. And that felt wrong.

During the third trimester, I confided in my mom. I told her that I didn’t love the baby and I didn’t understand how I was expected to care for a stranger. Even if I was growing that stranger in my womb. I told her that all the times I said I never wanted kids, I had been dead serious. I didn’t want this and I was blaming the baby irrationally. I confessed that I was terrified I would be bad parent because if I didn’t love my baby now, how was I supposed to know if I could love her when she’s born. My mental illness had me convinced that the only outcome was a bad outcome. There was no positive or bright side.

I was miserable.

During my entire pregnancy, I let these feelings fester. I held them in, aside from the one conversation with my mom.

I let my depression paint me as the victim and my unborn child as the villain.

I let myself be okay with that, never seeking out help. And I was so, so scared that when my baby was born, I would still hate her. I wanted to love her. I wanted to love her so much, but I never had that moment of bonding while she was in my womb. I never felt connected to her even though we were, quite literally, connected. I had many, many nights filled with tears and self-inflicted verbal abuse. I was spiraling and wanted so badly for everything to just be over.

To just stop.

The time came. Midnight, February 5th of 2020, I was at the hospital ready to be induced. They tried several methods to move my labor along, but it wasn’t until they broke my water, that I really felt it.

Something about me; I have low tolerance for pain and medication. Which makes situations like child birth incredibly difficult. I knew I would want an epidural because I have tendency to pass out from high pain levels, my first tattoo for example. Because my pain was too much and my my tolerance for pain meds too low, by the time my pain was bearable I was so high on the medicine, I couldn’t see straight.

The doctors had to tell me when to push because I could barely think and I certainly couldn’t feel anything. I had no clue what was happening. The whole experience is a blur now.

The baby was here, her dad cut her cord, I held her, I gave her the first bottle, and my heart sank. I had it in my mind that, once she was in my arms, the skies would open up and shine light down on us. The heavens would align. I would have that moment of pure happiness. Of pure love. But it wasn’t there. The only thing I felt was a sense of obligation to this tiny being in my arms.

The doctors took her.

I moved rooms.

I waited for my baby to come back.

She did.

Her dad slept.

I stayed awake.

I watched her.

I watched her sleep for hours. I learned how to swaddle her. I changed her horrid first-poop diaper. I was waiting. I was waiting for that moment I was afraid wouldn’t come. I didn’t want to think about it. What was I supposed to do if it never came? I refused to let the nurses take her.

I was tired.

I was overwhelmed.

But most of all, I was disappointed in myself.

But then, late at night, she woke. I gave her a bottle and held her. I just stared at her face. Her little eyes fluttered open.

And it happened.

The moment I had been waiting for. It felt like my fractured heart mended itself back together. I had never experienced something quite like it. I could feel the tightening in my heart. Like all the pieces were pulling themself back together. Everything made sense in that moment. I’m convinced that’s what pure love feels like. I would do it all again just to experience that single moment one more time.

She was both the cause and the cure for my prenatal depression.

I cried.

Finally.

I cried with real emotions. I held her close. I told her how sorry I was that it took me so long. I kissed her tiny squished face. She was everything in that moment. The only thing that mattered, was her.

I got my old job back two months after the baby was born. My fiancé got his old job back shortly before she had been born. In May of 2020, we moved into our own apartment.

Those first two months, before I went back to work, are my happiest memories to date. The late nights, the snuggles, the milestones, none of it was bad in my eyes. It didn’t matter if I was running on two hours of sleep, because I spent the time with her. And she made everything better. It was crazy. I couldn’t believe how quickly it all changed, but I was thankful for it.

Im almost 24 years old now and my daughter is almost two. She is the brightest spot in my life. My depression never went away, but with her, it’s easier.

She makes me happy.

There are times when I look at her that I feel so much guilt for not being who she needed me to be before we truly met. It solidifies my resolve to be the parent I couldn’t be before she was born. Looking back on it all now, I can’t believe the person I was.

I guess that’s the thing that makes mental illnesses so scary. You never know what you’re capable of until you do.

Sometimes, I still feel like my life has been drastically changed. Im back in college. The October that I was pregnant I went back. I told my self I had to because we had to have better income to support a child. I don’t regret it, but part of me wonders if I could have lived out my dreams of doing something with my art had I never gotten pregnant.

Those thoughts still haunt me on occasion, but I don’t feel rage like I did before. It’s almost like a sense of loss. In all truthfulness, becoming a mother changed not only my body but my being. And loving my daughter killed off any parts that didn’t. But those parts were still a part of who I was and I feel that loss in the strangest of ways.

I’m not proud of my actions during that time period. I feel ashamed most times, guilty the majority of times, and sad that it ever happened. You really only hear about the happy occasions of pregnancy and parenthood. I think, especially for mothers, there is this innate sense that we are supposed to undoubtedly love our unborn child. But love doesn’t always work that way. Love isn’t always instantaneous, even for moms. I never confessed this to anyone. I kept this secret for almost three years, until now.

It’s crazy to think an entire nine month period contains my darkest secret. Truthfully, it wasn’t the pregnancy itself. That was just a catalyst to what I learned about myself.

I was so incredibly negative, which wasn’t out of sorts for me, but I bounce back quickly from things most of the time. I couldn’t during this time period though.

It forced me to confront the darkest parts of myself.

The parts I want to shove into a locked closet and never speak about.

I think a lot of us still feel it’s a little taboo to talk about those parts. We get fixated on perfection. On how things are supposed to be. We cast away, ignore, or belittle those we think are imperfect or wrong.

We tell ourselves its for their own betterment.

We justify being bad in the name of being good.

That’s what I allowed myself to do to myself.

I felt like it was expected of me to go from a struggling, clueless 21 year old to a well put together mother with a career and a stable income, overnight. And when I couldn’t live up to those expectations, I blamed the only thing I thought I could.

My baby.

Who was, at the time, an extension of myself. During this time, I realized how much of my identity I contributed to my accomplishments. My entire life, I did what I was supposed to. When things went wrong, I did what I was supposed to in order to fix it.

I don’t think I ever once asked myself what I wanted to do.

I thought that if I didn’t do what society said I should be doing, then I was a failure.

The world is cruel and as much as we want to believe we’re above the pressure, most of us aren’t. It wasn’t until after my baby was born, when I felt that pure love, that I truly understood myself.

I struggle a lot.

I blame myself a lot.

I’m pessimistic.

I equate my self-worth to material things.

I can be volatile.

But confronting those dark parts, admitting them to myself, has allowed me to be the truest version of myself. As dark and as hurtful as that time was, it made me admit that I’m human. I’m not perfect and I’ve done things I’m not proud of. I still make mistakes. I will continue to make mistakes because perfection in the eyes of others is impossible. But, with continuous growth, I can be perfect for myself.

And I guess, writing this, putting this out there for anyone and everyone to read, is my most truthful moment in life. This is my moment of being my whole self, the bad and the good. I’d be lying if I said I’m not still terrified about what people will think of me when they read this. Wondering if they will misunderstand, but I don’t want to hide myself. I don’t want to feel ashamed of the moments that caused me exponential growth. I want to accept myself in all of my entirety. Even if that means admitting that I’m not perfect, or even close to it.