Motherhood Really Ain't For Everybody At Every Time

Understand I was into 26 weeks gestation, only thing that looks pregnant
is my nose. 

People throw their expectations and fantasies on other people so easily.

I've lost babies.

Not a baby.

Babies.

I forced myself to endure my last​ pregnancy. I forced myself to smell my own skin and take the subsequent repulsion, and hurl memories of food I tried to consume, straight into whatever was present, because I knew I could not live with myself if I had to cancel another life, because it was again taking my own. I forced myself to prepare mentally, even though inadequately, for 40+ weeks of nothing but fear and rebellion, knowing that I would do it alone, having lost everything I ever had, having lost my home, my "friends" and basically my sanity at some points. I forced myself to walk the path to motherhood. 

When you come from my size down to 60 lbs lighter including the baby, in 6-7 months and some cunt on a thread starts talking about how pregnancy was the best thing to happen to you and how grateful you should be to be able to carry a child, because "other women..." You feel the frustration build up as the incredibly ignorant, selfish individual keeps going on and on.

Annnnnddddd then they toss in the complimentary "I love my children" like if you don't fucking love yours. I mean I survived vomiting blood, going days without eating anything other than ramen and drinking the essence of the moon and this bitch, gonna look at me and act like she's the only one who loves her child. I made it through being so weak all I could do was roll over and throw up, tears streaming down my face because I can't remember when last I felt the baby kick, and I can't even muster up the strength to drag my backside down the stairs to get something to eat or even bathe, for this bitch to think she loving her children, somehow cancels out my love of my child because I refuse to have another one, or even that it cancels out another woman's right to refuse to have a child of her own. 

Trust that humanity ain't done with you yet.

Rewind further to before you decided to sacrifice your health and sanity to carry a child for the 5th gatdamn time, you're scrolling through some social media platform's time line and come across the usual ignorance about abortions and how they only ever drag out the baby with rudimentary forceps, annnnnddddd you're going to scroll on past it but you realize the nincompoop who posted it, IS A MAN.

AND HE HAS OPINIONS HE SWEARS ARE VALID.

Being the young dumb idealist you are, you engage him, full of emotion, knowing full well it will end badly, but at least you can expect the support of other women, as you know or so you were convinced up to this point, that only a woman could be able to fully grasp the physical, and psychological trauma of having a fetus removed prematurely from your body, especially under the weight of societal expectations, which bear solely on your shoulders as a woman. Men never have to hear that they murdered babies after they insist they aren't ready to be fathers, or they can't afford to have a child with you. Yet here this jackass is, adamant with the support of other women, that any woman who terminates a fetus for any reason including her failing organs and the baby's severe underdevelopment, (diagnosed by actual medical professionals), is indeed a monster for killing HER baby.

You cried yourself to sleep again, because you still get haunting dreams of a toddler pulling your toes and laughing while running out of the room, dreams of the extra weight you never got to feel on your front side, but here is this dude talking a bunch of shit about how women were built to carry babies and any woman who doesn't fulfill her purpose is a waste and should be imprisoned.

I hated him and the women who followed his dumb ass so much that the other day when I saw his face in the court section for one of the most stupid crimes ever, a small smile of karmic appreciation spread across my lips.

Fast forward to present day.

Look at us now, we're mommies. We made it. For me it was an irresponsible decision to make, but there are no regrets, I decided to suffer what I had experienced four times before, and carry on MY legacy.

I did not expect anything of her sire, as he was incapable of feats of honesty in any way, straight up until the last time we held discourse between ourselves, last Mother's Day, almost a year ago when she was still four and again I extended the olive branch of peace, to attempt to give him the chance to consider being a parent. We still here in single-parentdom.

Yet, everyday I still hear and see women, chastising other women for NOT choosing to sacrifice their minds and bodies to bare children, what baffles me is the fact that it is mostly single women doing this. Everyday I watch these inconsiderate heffas downplay the plight of women who chose not to torture themselves, who could have tried but have to face the reality that it is NOT going to be in their future, not financially, not physically, not even hopefully, to carry a child. Everyday child raring is reduced to simply stories of pretty morning sickness that everyone can look back at and laugh. 

Never mind the fact that more of us have nearly died than we care to admit, never mind the fact that we can write you volumes of our fears brought into reality, when we slipped and fell, or the car hit, or our placenta detached before it's time, or the baby stopped breathing because the cord wrapped around her neck and we're halfway through labor, or we developed diabetes and didn't even realize it and now we can't feel anything from our left hip down. We are supposed to WELCOME this madness with open arms "because women..." Right?

Single women, who have sired bastards, and complain BITTERLY about the lack of support they get from the fathers of their wards, are the ones who complain about other women, refusing to walk or possibly hobble the red mile. Every day they try to convince the women who are busting ass to be better career women, better educated women, better aunts, better children, that to be whole women, they must be mothers.

28 years old, 65 lbs underweight, uncomfortable,
self conscious and eating everything in sight. 

And all of me is confused as fuck, because I am a mother, and the only thing I am better at than those unshackled women, is hiding how much duct tape I'm using to hold my life together most days. 

#TellItToTheJudge so we #ARMAllWomen and see #NoWomanLeftBehind

At the end of the week before International Women's Week, I got tired of seeing people still not understanding what is available to them in terms of combating the harassment we face as women, I posted an excerpt from the Barbados Minor Offences Act to my Facebook wall followed up with an interview with my current favorite online news publication (yes, yes, I am biased, I'm allowed, they have so far shown a habit of keeping up with the right things, while maintaining their ethical standpoint instead of the usual habits of sensationalism and the infernal click-bait moments)

We as a country (B A R B A D O S) have a lot to do, a lot of unpacking, sorting, throwing out and repacking to do. 

We have the laws in effect as I showed in my facebook post that prompted Loop to interview me, but few people seem to have an understanding, well to be honest, a functioning knowledge of the laws. 

I grew up in this country, in this climate, where I feel more like meat being parading past packs of starving hyenas most days, than a living breathing woman. I know what it's like to be too petrified to react to harassment or assault. 

It still happens to me. 

Down to Valentine's Day, it happened to me, in plain view of one of my closest friends and I froze. 

See the vendor we were dealing with, trying to buy gatdam' CUCUMBERS and tumeric from, thought I was sexy. I know because he told me this three flipping times since I had passed him twice before my friend stopped to buy the infernal cat scaring phallus shaped veggies, and then to seal the deal, once more by GRABBING MY BLASTED HAND, TO WHISPER IN MY EAR LIKE THE DIRTY OLD MEN OF ALL AGES, THAT HE THINKS I'M SEXY AND WOULD LIKE TO BE MY 'FRIEND'. I for all my tough exterior appearance froze, for many reasons. 

I was not alone, I was with a friend, we were supposed to be going home to her husband and daughter, they were expecting us. He was a fruit vendor, they always have knives on their trays, if I reacted too badly, he might have drawn for it, and swung, what if he caught my friend? I was tired, I had had bad experiences with about seven different men BEFORE him, five of them in the space of Broad Street, two of them along the stretch of George Street, what if I was overreacting? 

Or... Nah. 

All of that thought process right there took a split second before I got enraged, and went to throw my drink on him, but, my built in safety protocols warned me against it, and I cussed his ass right out! The rage built up in me, and I found myself trying to get as far away from him as I could and ended up stepping off the curb into the oncoming traffic that was filled with drivers NOT impressed with the angry, gigantic woman in the middle of their lanes when she had no right to be. 

I nearly got myself killed because of a STUPID man who did not understand boundaries. Okay, that's an exaggeration because I would have been to blame for it, as it is solely my responsibility to make sure my big and tall, grown up ass adheres to the rules of crossing the road. I rescind that comment, it was my fault and I shoulda just threw the drink on him to get it out of my system. 

Right, back on track with my train of thought, the Minor Offences Act. 

My new favorite law!  

In Subsection 2, of Section 2 of this act you find out the definition of harassment BY THE LAW ITSELF: 

(2) For the purposes of this section ''harass" means to

(a) use words, gestures and actions that annoy, alarm or abuse a person;

(b) insult, taunt or challenge a person in a manner likely to offend;

(c) use obscene and profane language to intimidate a person; or

(d) disturb or irritate especially by continued and repeated acts.

                                                   —————

Yuh see da piece ah legislature right dey so? 

MEMORIZE IT. 

There are officers in the force right now, who did NOT know this. It is not their fault, we have HUNDREDS of laws, and that is in Chapter 137, if they never had to address it, they wouldn't even know it's enforceable. I know because I asked. I was told they MAY not be intentionally being dismissive, but it's now time for them to familiarize themselves with these laws.

Here's the —> interview <— in case you missed it!