Melody

Let’s start at the end. Her name is Melody. I met her on November 10th, 2016. Big blue eyes and a smile to die for. When I first saw her I fell in love. I had never felt that kind of intense love for someone I didn’t even know. And to think she was completely naked and covered in blood and goo. Unconditional love really does mean unconditional. Melody Annabell. My beautiful little poop machine. I never thought I would be a mother at 24. I honestly didn’t think I would be a mother period. There were circumstances in my life that led me to believe I was unable to have children. She was most definitely an “uh oh” baby. No less loved, just unexpected. That’s what a latex allergy, a bottle of wine, and an attractive guy will do to you. I went for my usual weekly checkup with my OBG-YN and Melody wouldn’t cooperate when he tried to track her movements with that handy dandy wand thing that they use on you. So he sent me over to the main hospital so they can use their SUPER fancy handy dandy wand thingy. While there they checked my blood pressure, and heart rate and found out I had preeclampsia. They didn’t understand how it wasn’t caught beforehand, but they did end up inducing me a few hours later. So I went through my entire pregnancy having a high-risk one without even knowing. I worked about 50-60 hours a week at a dry cleaning plant which essentially was a sweatshop that got up to about 120 degrees on average. I also worked up until I was induced. No maternity leave for this girl! I also had an insane amount of IVs, magnesium, saline, and a few other things that I honestly can’t remember. Thank God I had an epidural though. I knew going in that I would have needed one. But I didn’t get just one, I got two. The second one because the needle slipped out of my spine. Never thought I would have ever said that in my life but here we are. They also gave me fentanil when they first administered the epidural, which gave me a lot of concern. But that’s for a later chapter. I always think that maybe it was a mistake. I know it’s a horrible thing to say coming from a mother but this is about sharing my truth. The unapologetic truth. There will always be a small part of me that goes through those what-ifs. What if I didn’t have Melody? Where would I be in my life? Would I still be on the path that I currently am on? What if I didn’t decide to keep her, would things have been different between her father and me? Would I have relapsed? I rack my brain trying to think of all these what-ifs. But at the end of the day, what does it matter? Melody is here. She is a person. She has needs and wants. She feeds me coffee from my spoon and asks to take a ride on her rocking giraffe. My life might have been completely different yes. I might have more free time. More money in my pocket. Her father and I might even still be together. But the way I see it, I wouldn’t know this kind of love. This overwhelming desire to protect. I want to better my own life for the sake of someone else. I wouldn’t have tapped into my inner child and played with building blocks and feel blankets before I buy them to make sure the fuzziness is up to snuff for a 1-year-old. I wouldn’t feel the weight of my own child sleeping on my chest. I wouldn’t know almost every unintelligible word to Minions. (Which I'm not proud of, and struggle with every day) My daughter is my everything. I’m sure if you’re a parent you feel the same way. She is my sun and stars. My will. Everything. Sometimes it’s scary. Sometimes I want to run away and start a new life somewhere far away. Sometimes I want to run away WITH Melody and start a new life. There are times I want to pick up a bag, with some tin and a straw and just be warm and happy for a few hours. There are other times I want to chop her father’s head off Ned Stark style. But no matter how I feel, how overwhelmed I get, how scared I am, how much I want to just scream. I look down at my little girl standing between my feet while I’m washing dishes because she just wants to be right next to me, and I just couldn’t imagine my life any other way. Things didn’t work out the exact way I always thought they were going to work out. Life isn’t static. If you have a set path in front of you that you cannot veer off of then you’re in for a whole lot of disappointment. Because life doesn’t give a flying fuck what plans you have. I wouldn’t change a damn thing. Ok, that’s a lie. I would change a few things. Like knowing what to say during an argument a couple of years ago so I can just shut him right up. Or maybe tell my old self a lotto number or two. But I would always come back to having my little Melody between my feet while I’m washing dishes. I have so many hopes for my little boo bear. I hope that I can successfully teach her the life lessons I learned without her having to go through the pain of learning them. I hope I can teach her to make the world bow down and hear her voice. I hope to teach her that other women aren’t competition and that we need to stick with each other and build each other up to make it through this world. I hope I can raise her to be respectful and open to those who are different than her. I hope to instill a love of cooking and food, as my grandmother did with me. I hope I'll be able to always be honest with her about my life and the choices that I made. I hope she will learn to question everything. Even me. I hope her morals are strong. I hope she sides with the nerdy-er things in life and strives for information and learning like me. I hope her taste in music lines up with mine because there’s no way in hell I’m going to be able to sit through her generation’s version of Justin Beiber and One Direction. I hope I don’t fail her. I hope she’s proud of me. I hope that the cycle of abuse stops with me.