For Jared

In a previous post, Jared asked me to blog about my memoir title.

The title was "Telling Ex I Was Pregnant...Stupid"

There is a story behind this.

I'll try not to drag it out too much.

I met my ex when I was 21 in a bar in New Orleans. He was a Marine. 'Nuff said.







Oh, you want more?

We met, fell in lust, made a baby, got married, got divorced.

That's the short story.

Oh, you still want more?

We met and discovered we really, really digged each other. I actually had been hooking up with his roommate that night...well, I was really hooking up with both of them, but when it came time to give up the old phone number, I chose my ex. He kissed better.

We got to talking and fell into a relationship. I thought I loved him but in retrospect, I didn't. Not really. I did have strong feelings for him.

We weren't the most careful when it came to sex and well, you can guess what happened next. We met on Mother's Day and I discovered I was pregnant by July.

I had missed my period at least once and I am like clockwork when it comes to stuff like that.

I went to the doctor (who stupidly asked me why I needed a pregnancy test...ummm...because I'm pretty sure I'm pregnant?) who confirmed via phone (actually his nurse) a few days later, that yes, indeed, I was pregnant.

After the initial "Oh, shit" moment, I called my ex and told him over the phone. We knew it was a possibility and he was pretty cool about the whole thing.

Telling my mom was a whole different story and I don't have enough time to go into that whole debacle.

We had the big discussion on marriage vs waiting. I knew I was going to keep the baby (abortion wasn't an option, not because I'm against it, but because I wanted to keep the baby) but I wasn't sure about keeping the ex.

My parents are divorced and I wasn't 100% on board with marriage as an institution. Due to the hormonal flow and criticism from outsiders, I "fell" for his line of taking a leap of faith and trusting that marriage and kids was what he really wanted.

We got married in the courthouse when I was 5 months pregnant. I remember the day of my wedding, I wanted to back out. It took 20 minutes of convincing before I gave in...again.

We got married and about 2 months later, he drove his car into a canal while drunk. His car was totaled and he was upside down on his loan. So, he was now dependent on me to get him to work, stores, etc....

About a month after that, I discovered he was e-mailing and "talking" to his ex from high school.

About 2 months after that (the month I was due), I found out he was talking to his most recent ex who was still in HIGH SCHOOL!!!!

After I gave birth to our beautiful baby, he decided to spend his 10 days of paternity leave FIXING A F**KING COMPUTER instead of helping me with a newborn.

About 5 weeks after I gave birth, we had a discussion about our marriage and he didn't want to work on it. I was going to allow him to stay in the house until he could find a place to live. Until that weekend when he decided to spend the WHOLE night out with his EX that was still in HIGH SCHOOL!

Yeah, kicked his ass out pretty quick.

Anway, we proceeded with the divorce. He kept fighting for custody and making me pay more and more money to my attorney to respond to his "requests" while he had a free attorney provided by the military. He couldn't even bother to show up for our divorce and custody hearing. He had gotten out of the Marines about a month before the hearing and his OWN attorney couldn't even find him. His attorney was asking MY attorney where HIS client was!

My daughter has never met her father. The last time he had any contact with her was when she was 6 months old. No card, presents, phone calls, visits, etc....since then.

Not even after Hurricane Katrina. Which we went through (a WHOLE other story).

So, now you know why I named my memoir what I did.

All that heartache and trouble and money could have been saved if I would only have lied and told him that I wasn't pregnant and broken up with him shortly after.

That's it in a nutshell.

Any questions?

Later,

Mama Dawg