Rich in Love: When God Rescues Messy People (4 page)

chapter 3

becoming a family

Shortly before the baby was due, my mom and sister-in-law threw me a surprise baby shower. When I entered my parents’ house and scanned the living room, it seemed as though everyone I had ever known was there. I broke down and cried. Were they all really there to support me? I had a hard time thinking that could be true. But there they were, all happy faces looking at me. Beyond them was a wall lined to the top with presents. I had never seen so many presents in one place before. I felt a joyful peace knowing our baby would have everything it would need.

The shower was kind of a coming-out party for me. All these people acknowledging I was a married woman. Up until then I was so embarrassed about being pregnant. But now I felt accepted. Everyone was so kind to me. Even my mom was no longer upset with me. She had forgiven me, she loved my husband, and I knew she would love my baby. She was clearly excited to be a grandmother. And the thing that most surprised me was my mother’s obvious pride in me.

From that point on, my relationship with my mother starting growing into something stronger and better than we’d ever had. But I never could tell her what was really going on in my marriage. I was determined I would never embarrass her again.

kicked

One Saturday evening, not long before the baby was due, Domingo and I got into another fight. I didn’t want him to go out with a friend he always seemed to get into trouble with. I knew they would most likely be drinking and maybe hanging out with girls. Only two weeks earlier I had walked into a kitchen at a party and saw Domingo making out with another girl.

“Why are you going, Mingo? You know I don’t want you to go.”

He stood in the hall bathroom, fixing his hair. He said nothing, ignoring me—which infuriated me.

“Where are you going?” I demanded. He still wouldn’t answer me. I grabbed his upper arm to get him to pay attention to me. “Why can’t you stay home? Please stay home with me.”

Our relationship had become so caustic that it took only a split second before the anger in both of us erupted into rage-filled behavior—me with my mouth, Domingo with his strength. As he swung his arm to get me away from him, I could see the look of disgust in his eyes. I lost my balance and fell to the floor. I cried, wrenching on the ground as sobs and spasms swept over me. My body blocked his way out of the bathroom. Just before he stepped over me, he kicked me in the stomach. I don’t think he intended to hurt me. He was just so disgusted and frustrated with me.

My sobs grew stronger, not because I was hurt, but because I felt like a piece of garbage, ugly and used, someone my husband didn’t want to be with. I just wanted to be loved. I felt he kicked me the way he would have kicked a piece of furniture he’d stubbed his toe against.

By Monday, when the baby still hadn’t moved, I knew I had to go to the doctor. I was nervous, not knowing what to tell him. The doctor looked at me, his eyes narrowing. “Did anything happen?”

“I fell,” I said. I figured it was sort of true. I
had
fallen.

The doctor put on his stethoscope and moved it around my belly. “Yes, there’s a heartbeat,” he said, and all the tension and worry slipped out of me.

“Sometimes the baby will get quiet and not move as much.” He set the stethoscope on the counter. “Everything is fine. But I want you to be careful.”

The way he said it made me think the doctor knew the truth. My marriage was not good.

birth

“Are you coming or not?” Domingo asked, grabbing the car keys off the counter and opening the door that led to the dark winter’s night.

“Yes, Mingo.” I sighed. “I’m coming.” I didn’t really want to go, but I didn’t want to stay home either. I didn’t feel well, but I couldn’t really describe what it was. Besides, we were only going to the house of some friends, where we’d hang out with the usual crowd.

When we got to the house, I put my donation of guacamole and tortilla chips on the kitchen table. Domingo eyed me carefully. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. I don’t feel good.” The baby wasn’t due for a few weeks, and I was told the first baby is always late, so I just thought I was getting sick. Throughout the evening I continued to squirm—too uncomfortable to sit still and too achy to stand.

Again he asked. Then again. I could tell he was getting frustrated with me for not telling him what was wrong. He didn’t say he was worried about me.

Despite how badly I felt, we stayed late, then went back to our room and crawled into bed.

In the middle of the night, something warm and wet woke me. I thought my water had broken, but when I turned on the light, all I saw was blood everywhere. When I got out of bed, I kept bleeding. Domingo called the doctor, who told him to bring me in immediately.

At the hospital they didn’t waste any time finding me a room. Domingo sat there with me, trying to encourage me. He held my hand even though I squeezed so tightly during the contractions that I left marks on his hand. He never complained, and I could tell he felt bad for me when the pains came. I wanted to scream because it hurt so badly, but I was too embarrassed. I hadn’t taken any birthing classes, and no one had taught me how to breathe or what to do to make it through the increasingly painful and difficult contractions.

Whenever the doctor came to examine me, he sent Domingo out of the room. The nurses encouraged Domingo to go home. “It’s going to be a long time before the baby comes, so you might as well go home and get some rest.” I wasn’t happy that they told him to leave, but we thought we needed to do what we were told, so Domingo reluctantly left.

Between contractions, as I lay in the labor room alone, I thought about my life. There was so much uncertainty about how life would change with a child in my arms. Would Domingo still drink and hurt me? Would he love our baby? Oh, I hoped he’d change. Maybe a child would give him the desire to stop drinking.

Another strong contraction left me breathless.

I prayed God would intervene in our marriage. “Please, God. Change my life and help me be a good mom.”

Voices in the hallway broke off my prayer. “Two babies having a baby,” I heard my nurse say.

Funny, I didn’t feel like a baby. I felt like a grown woman.

A few hours later, Domingo was back, and I was really glad to see him. Not long after, he was sent home again. Domingo left, but he assured me he would return.

After eighteen hours of hard labor—bleeding the entire time—I was exhausted and scared. But I thought my labor was hard because I had sinned and gotten pregnant. I wondered if God would ever forgive me. I had told no one about the guilt that sat so heavily in my heart.

Again I heard voices whispering in the hallway about me, pieces of words that didn’t make sense—but clearly something wasn’t right. Was I going to make it? Was the baby?

I didn’t want to be alone. I was in so much pain, and I wanted Domingo there. I knew he would tell me it would all be okay. Now I wondered if he would go out with his friends or if he would show up for the birth of his baby. I wanted him to be next to me. I needed to be loved and held, but I was so alone.

As another powerful contraction took hold of my body, Domingo came into the room, the nurse trailing behind him.

“Why don’t you do something to help her?” Domingo demanded.

“We’d like to,” the nurse said. “But she’s hemorrhaging so much that the doctor doesn’t want to risk doing a C-section.”

I was so exhausted, I had nothing left in me. After a few more contractions the doctor came in, examined me, and said, “If you don’t stop bleeding soon, we’ll be forced to take the baby any way we can.”

I suppose I should have been scared. Instead, I rolled to my side obediently when the nurse came in to give me an epidural. Then she popped up the metal railings on either side of the bed and began to push me toward delivery. Domingo was told to wait outside.

There was a flurry of activity as they set me up on the bed and covered me with a sheet. The doctor rolled a stool to the foot of the bed and sat on it. After a few contractions the doctor began yelling at the nurses because the baby wasn’t coming out.

I was so naive that I didn’t understand all that was going on around me. I didn’t know how serious the situation was. Nor did I really care at this point. I don’t remember how long this went on, nor what the exact problem was that kept the baby from being delivered. I was numb and felt no pain. I was so out of it that it all felt like a dream.

Then someone called out, “It’s a boy!”

I moved to look at him and will never forget the feeling that completely flooded me when I saw my boy. “He’s so tiny,” I managed to say.

At the same moment, the doctor and nurse said, “Tiny? He’s a
big
boy.”

After wiping him down, they wrapped him in a blanket and laid him next to me, where I could feel his warmth. Oh, I fell completely in love with this little baby. It was then that I understood the beauty of giving birth. It’s the hardest pain a woman will bear, and yet the minute she sees her child it’s all forgotten. In that moment nothing mattered but the instinct of wanting to hold and protect that tiny creature. It was the most amazing feeling in my life.

As they wheeled me out of delivery, Domingo was standing there, waiting, as proud as could be. I said, “Look at him, Domingo. He’s so beautiful.”

Domingo had a funny look on his face. Only later did I learn that he didn’t think our boy was beautiful. The doctor had used forceps to deliver him, so his head wasn’t shaped quite right. Domingo was worried there was something wrong with him. And yet he too fell in love with his boy the moment he saw him. It seemed like he glowed as he tenderly touched our boy’s face. I don’t know why, but at that moment I felt a sense of peace for my boy—but deep heartache for me.

after the baby

A week after Anthony was born, we were able to get our first apartment. We had to lie and say we were eighteen to get the landlord to rent to us. It was a small one-bedroom, but it was ours.

I earned extra money by babysitting and doing other odd jobs while Domingo worked all day—except for Tuesdays and Thursdays when he went to night school at the junior college. He’d drop me and Anthony off at my mom’s on the way to school and pick us up on the way back. Once we got home, I did his English and science homework, he did the math, and we shared history.

Most afternoons Domingo was able to come home for lunch, so as a good little wife I was happy to make it for him. It was enjoyable to be together then, the little married couple as new parents in their own apartment. I was good at pretending.

I knew Domingo was a unique boy. He was barely sixteen and had taken on the responsibility of father and husband. He’d gotten real medical insurance so the baby and I would have good care and we wouldn’t have to rely on the state’s welfare system to pay for us. He worked harder than any grown man I knew—often eighty hours a week.

Because his father had not been in his life much, and he’d suffered as a child, I knew he would keep the promise he’d made the day I told him I was pregnant—that he would always care for our son. And he did. He loved his boy and was a good daddy—a proud and attentive daddy. We put Anthony between us in our bed, and Domingo would hold the baby’s fingers and feet and say, “Look how perfect he is, Irene.” Those times when it was the three of us together made me happy and gave me hope—hope that didn’t last longer than the brief tender moments.

Prior to getting married, Domingo had promised my dad that I could go to cosmetology school and get my license. So when Anthony was nearly two years old, Domingo took me to sign up for school. I know he really didn’t want me to go, but he had given his word to my dad, and Domingo always honored his word.

At the same time I started school, we rented a larger apartment. I was excited to have shag rugs and beautiful hardwood floors—ones I scrubbed to a brilliant shine. I took a lot of pride in keeping my home shiny and neat.

Within a month of starting school, I discovered I was pregnant again. As crazy as it sounds, I was excited to have another child. It seemed like Domingo was meant to be a dad. And I thought maybe another child would change Domingo and he would stop drinking.

I put all my effort into school and began making big tips that helped with the greater expense of the larger apartment and gave us extra money as well. I enjoyed learning and treasured my growing independence. Mom watched Anthony while I worked. She was the perfect grandmother and loved her boy deeply.

Domingo’s shop worked on catering trucks. Since the catering trucks had to be available during the day, the only time to do maintenance and repairs was at night. Domingo came home later and later. Soon he was also working on high-performance racing engines for cars. Being part of the racing circuit meant traveling on weekends. And it meant drinking, because drinking was an expected part of life in that world.

Our second son arrived a few days after I finished cosmetology school. I was glad Domingo was allowed to be in the delivery room with me this time. The excitement and joy when they laid Vincent next to me in that warm blanket were no less than I had felt with our first boy. I looked into this little boy’s face and felt complete. I loved being a mom. And even with all the garbage between us, I knew Domingo’s best role was as a dad.