This isn’t a post I wanted to make. I still don’t. But it needs to come out, so I’ll be making it as short as possible.
My great little man had his 15 birthday yesterday. I am very proud of my son, despite all the shit he’s had to deal with for being an Aspie, he’s taking it into stride, and he isn’t giving up. He is growing up to be a kind, generous and rather optimistic man, and I am and will always be there to support him and help him and guide him and protect him to the best of my ability and for as long as I live, and he knows this, because I tell him often enough.
So, I should be happy, right?
Right.
I am happy for my son, but…
Well, the fact of the matter is, for fifteen years, each October 30th I start reliving major trauma that ends when Halloween ends.
My pregnancy was in itself fine, but I spent it isolated, without friends or family, with the sole company of a man who had only pity, disregard and disgust for me (as I came to find out later) and who was also cheating on me with a minor (that also surfaced later). When asked later why did he lie to me when I had asked him if he wanted the baby, his reply was “Because I wanted to have a nine month shagathon (for the non-brits out there shag=fuck)”.
I also spent the majority of it, from the middle of 3rd month to the 8th, in a construction site, because my partner thought this was the best of timing to remodel the entire bungalow. In essence, I spent more time with the builders and roofers and tilers than I did with my partner during my pregnancy, and they weren’t kind people either, they always saw me as the fucking foreign cunt who tricked the pure Englishman (let’s laugh, his ancestors were pikeys) into having a child with her, and they didn’t stop short of showing that contempt daily. The house was a mess, it was always full of dust, I couldn’t eat anywhere clean, I couldn’t go to the toilet without having to clean and bleach it every time, and towards the 7th month this started becoming increasingly difficult. There was this one Geordie roofer who would go to take his morning shit at ours, and he always took explosive and very smelly shits. The entire lavatory was full of tiny specs of shit, every morning, that I had to clean out. Yes, I did complain, yes, everyone, including my partner laughed and dismissed me.
In any case, fast forward to when I’m due. It gets to a being a week late. My mother had flown in by that time, so at least I had her, but eventually, when I needed her most, nobody told her anything, and when she found out, she wasn’t allowed to come in.
I gave birth in Harrogate District Hospital, Harrogate, North Yorkshire, 28 hours after the pains started, 28 hours writhing in agony, puking my guts out, with my partner, Edd, by my side who hated me and the entire process more than anything and wanted to leave. If he could, he would have, but he wasn’t about to give my mother the satisfaction of being there for me. They tried everything, and after 28 hours of pushing, they brought a doctor in, who, told me to push some more, while he decided to cut something down there. Sadly, though, because of all the pushing the arteries and veins down there were distended, and as he cut me open, he cut into an artery and that was a proper Halloween scene. Blood gushing all over the doctor, the nurses, the back wall, me losing my senses slowly, they took the baby out and threw him at me like a baseball, and I remember telling my partner that I didn’t want to die. And then I lost track. Turns out I almost lost all viable blood as well, half a liter more and my son would be an orphan today, so they stitched me up in a hurry and got me on tubes with intravenous everything: blood, glucose, water, the whole jazz. I had two IVs, one on each hand, two tubes coming out of each. I needed personal attendance, but as my partner was a cheapskate and didn’t want to pay for a private room, I was left in the common room where nobody could come to see me, or help me, with all these tubes on me, stitches in my bleeding private parts and, the best of it all, a baby crib too far away from the bed.
You forgot about the baby eh? So did they. They cleaned him, wrapped him up, and placed him face up in a plastic crib that was out of reach to me. The nurses weren’t very comforting, as a matter of fact they were rather hostile, it seems me inconveniently bleeding all over the birthing room had cramped their moods something wicked, so I was left all alone for that first night.
I take pride into my being a very strong woman, and I’ve been though a lot. Rape, neglect, abuse, bullying, the works. I’ve survived and cut through the lot. But that night I failed. My strength left me, just like my partner who was nowhere to be found (later on I found out he was sexting the minor). I asked the nurses if they could please tell me mother to come in, they flat out and very rudely refused saying this was a common ward and they couldn’t have people in there. I told them maybe they could make an exception seeing the condition I was in, they didn’t care. Rules are rules, I could die in a ditch for all they cared. So, there I was, in pain, intubated, bleeding, unable to sleep from the shock and fear, with a baby I couldn’t reach, who…
… started choking. As he was laying there, I started hearing a gurgling that didn’t seem very natural to me. I heaved myself to sitting position and I saw the baby choking on the amniotic fluid from his lungs sipping down his cheeks. I couldn’t reach the crib, I was desperate that my baby would die, so, I did the only thing I could think of, I got up. I felt my stitches tear, and I took a step and reached the crib, and pushed the baby onto his side. He immediately puked out all the amniotic fluid out, and with a very audible intake of air he started breathing again, so much so that it drenched the entire bed-sheet he was lying on and the nurse that came in later had to grudgingly change it, stupid baby how dare he choke on her watch.
Anyway, we survived.
And despite all the rest that came after, him fucking his minor girlfriend in the living room while I was bleeding from labor in the bedroom, the lies and deceit, and how for a few years thereafter, the both of them had this habit of sending me black-ribboned funeral cards to wish him a happy deathdate, and despite the ridicule and humiliation and the nightmares I had for years, these were lesser things, to that main event.
That main event that is supposed to be the happiest day of my son’s life, to be celebrated, and everyone should be happy for it. And all it does is remind me how I almost died, how I almost lost my baby, and I can’t cry, I can’t be sad, I can’t acknowledge my stress and fear each year to anyone, because what kind of a mother would I be, to make this all about me, right? So, for fifteen years, I have had to hide in bathrooms weeping in a towel so as not to be heard, and put on a brave happy face, and not look people in the eyes for fear they’ll see the sheer panic in mine.
It does soften with time, but it’s never gone away. Each year, I fear for my son’s life, as if I were back there, back then, that very night. As he leaves for school, for coaching school, for whatever, I fear for his life on that day most of all. And I fear for mine. And the helplessness all comes rushing back in, as if I was still there tied and intubated and powerless.
I am happy for my son. Honest, I am. And on Saturday he’ll have his friends over and I’ll bake him a birthday cake, and cook stuff for the kids to eat, and put up Halloween birthday decorations, and this year, I chose to do all those things one week later, so that these two horrible days would be gone. And maybe, this year, I get to feel properly happy for once. Who knows.
He truly is a proper Halloween child. He came in through death and terror. But I am the one who needs to conquer them to move on…
There, it’s out now. You can all go ahead and judge me now, tell me to put my big girl pants on and not be selfish and make this all about myself, and all that jazz. Honestly, I don’t care. Might even be better if someone said it, so I have someone to yell at, at full speed. So, by all means, go ahead. Judge me. Gods know I have, for so long.
The Eighth Gate 
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