My First Love

God sends children to enlarge our hearts, and make us unselfish and full of kindly sympathies and affections. -- Mary Howit

I would like to start off my “thankful” entries by telling you about the first man who ever stole my heart, my first born son, Jacob.  

Many of you already know the story of his birth, but let me tell it again, just for background.  When I was 5 months pregnant, my (soon to be ex) husband decided to move to Florida to pursue a better paying job.  I disagreed with his decision, and refused to go.  Despite my refusal to accompany him and my pleading for him to stay here, he left.  I firmly believe that he thought I would change my mind and follow him.  That goes to show how little he knew me.  I dug in my heels, and took off my wedding rings the day he left.  In retrospect, it was all for the good.  We were not meant to spend our lives together.  We make better friends than spouses.  Peyton is consistent in  his interactions with Jake, and always reasonable with me.  That’s a heck of a lot more than I can say for many divorced couples.  I suppose I should actually add having a good divorce to my list of things I am grateful for! 

That’s how I feel now, 8 years later, but’s certainly not how I felt at the time it was happening.  I was almost 5 months pregnant and left living alone during one of the worst winters in 15 years.  I knew that I could not support myself, and that I would have to move home with my parents.  I worked until June, when I delivered Jake, to keep my health insurance.  During those remaining 5 months, I systematically packed up my life as I knew it and moved it into a storage unit in Hollidaysburg.  All of the dreams I had for this life inside me were crushed.  There would be no happy little nuclear family, no decorating of the nursery, none of the normalcy that comes with bringing home a new baby.  On top of that, I had truly grown to love my life in Pittsburgh.  I had a great job that didn’t pay well, but was so much fun and so rewarding.  I had great friends from work and from college who lived all around me.  It was the perfect place for us, but that was about to come to an end.  

I started to feel Jacob moving around the same time that Peyton left.  As he (and I) grew, I would often sit alone in the evenings, watching TV, just feeling him flip flop around inside of me, taking comfort in this little miracle I was carrying.  It was just me and the cats, amidst dwindling belongings, whittling away the evenings, talking to my unborn baby.  There were times when I felt incredibly lonely, but often times I felt OK.  Jacob was my motivation to stay strong and move forward.  Even when I wanted to give up, I couldn't.  I had a little one counting on me to make things right. 

Around 30 weeks, at a routine doctor appointment, the OB told me that he thought Jacob was breech.  Most babies have already turned at 30 weeks, but some wait until later.  As the weeks passed, the chances of him turning became less and less likely, and soon we decided to schedule a C-Section because of his positioning.  Honestly, I was quite relieved to be having a C-Section.  I know many women worry about the surgery and the recovery, but I was more worried about going into labor all alone, getting myself to the hospital and having to call family who lived 2 hours away.  Jacob’s refusal to turn was a huge blessing for me.  I was able to schedule his birth, schedule my family to be present, and to forget about the worries of going through labor and delivery by myself.  Jake was due on June 10, but I decided to schedule his birth for June 5^th, so that he could have the same birthday as my dad. 

While I was pregnant I read anything and everything I could on pregnancy.  One article I came across was a Native American tale about breech babies.  It said that a breech baby stays breech when the mother is troubled, so that it can keep its head next to the mother’s heart to comfort her.  I don’t know that I believe the tale, but the story hit home for me.  Jacob's position did indeed give me comfort.  My life, in many ways, was crumbling around me.  I had hope for better days, but I had no way knowing what I was in store for.  Uncertainty is the Achilles heel for someone who needs order to thrive. I felt weak and unsure about pretty much everything, but Jacob's positioning gave me just the right amount of leverage to keep me sane.  I was able to plan and keep an order at least in regards to his birth, something that even the best planners have no control over.  And that plan got me through the last few weeks of pregnancy.

Peyton knew about the surgery and came home on June 4^th for Jake’s birth.  Even though we were about to go through a divorce, I still wanted him to have the opportunity to see his son be born. His arrival was also a blessing, because even though I was scheduled to go into surgery at 6 a.m. on June 5^th, I went into labor around midnight on June 4^th.  My perfect plan didn't go through quite like I foresaw it, but it worked out fine nonetheless.  My parents and my sister were spending the night in Cranberry and made it to the hospital in plenty of time.  Jake was born via emergency C-section, about 3 hours ahead of time at 3:04 a.m. on June 5, 2003.  He weighed 7 pounds 1 ounce and was 19.25 inches long.  He was screaming as he entered the world, and he’s been screaming ever since!  There in our arms was the most perfect little being we had ever seen.  

When people tell you that you can never understand the love of a mother for a child until you have your own, they really aren’t kidding.  What amazes me even more, however, is how much that love grows over the years.  I loved Jacob when I was pregnant.  I loved him more the moment I first saw him, but I love him even more now than I did that day 8 ½ years ago.  I know that as the years go on, I will continue to love him more and more. The human heart's capacity for love is a true wonder.  It never reaches capacity; it just continues to expand. 

I'd like to say that it was all bright sunshine and happiness from that point on, but that's not how things turned out.  During the first year of his life, I was in a very dark place.  I’m sure hormones played a role in the depression, but I think even more significant were the facts that I had to leave my home, my job, my friends.  I lost my independence and gained a world of stress – sleepless nights, going back to school, commuting close to 600 miles a week, starting a new job.  I was completely wrapped up in simply coping.  It was raining so hard for me that I just couldn’t see the silver lining in the clouds.  I couldn’t enjoy anything.  I did the best I could do to make it look like I was holding it together.  I never missed work or school.  I got great grades.  I ate nothing and exercised like mad.  These were the things I could control.  


But inside I was a mess.  I took care of Jacob.  He never missed doctor appointments, was always well fed and clean, but really, my parents took better care of him than I did.  They were the ones who took sick days and stayed home with him. They watched him during the long hours that I was gone at school or work. I got up in the middle of the night with Jake, but my mom got up with him more and my mom got up with patience and kindness.  When I got up in the middle of the night, I was agitated and task oriented.  When I couldn’t console him, my mom took him.  I was a good enough mother, but not a good mother.  In fact, during that first year, I didn't really feel like his mother.  I felt like an aunt or a cousin, or maybe just someone who lived in the house with him.  I loved him intensely.  When I wasn't with him, I was thinking about him, but I felt like a true failure as a mother.  He deserved so much better than what I gave.  He deserved a real mother, not the whack job that I had become.  These thoughts ate and ate and ate at me until I came up with a plan for resolution.  I fully intended to commit suicide as soon as my will was in order and plans were laid out for Jacob.  I felt that he would be better off with my parents as his parents than to carry me around as a dysfunctional embarrassment all his life. 

God had other plans.  I wasn’t the lawyer’s priority.  He didn’t get my will in order in a timely manner, and I refused to leave Jacob without legal documents.  So I hung on for Jacob, and by the time the will was in order, nearly a year later, the cloud had begun to lift.  I was feeling better.  I kept my plan tucked away in the back of my mind, just in case, but somehow it didn’t feel so pressing any more.  Amazingly, I made it through the storm relatively unscathed.  That little 20 pound butterball saved my life.  He gave me a purpose, and he didn’t have to do a darn thing besides just simply exist.  

I still joke that I feel like Jacob's aunt, because he spends so much time with my parents.  In reality, though, I know I am his mother, and I am grateful not only for Jacob, but also for both of my parents, for their love and support of me through some seriously hard times, and for their continued support through the good times.  I am glad that they are so involved in our lives, and I’m eternally grateful for the intense bond that they have with Jake. 

As for Jake, he continues to be fuel for my life, even now when life is good and filled with contentment.  He has so much of me in him that I find it truly frightening at times.  He’s stubborn as a mule, short tempered, and hates anything that causes him even the slightest amount of undue effort.  Conversely, he’s smart as a whip, has a memory like an elephant and can rival Michael Winslow for sound effects! When he wants to be, he can be a wonderful role model and play mate for his little brother, and he can be a very loving and thoughtful little man, especially when it comes to my mother and our kitten! He wakes up talking and continues talking until he goes to bed!  Sometimes my head spins just from the words he uses.  When I look at him, his bright blue eyes sparkling, I am nothing short of amazed at the little man he has become.  

Despite the pain we went through that first year, I wouldn’t change a moment of it.  Who knows how things would have been had Peyton stayed and we had raised Jake in Pittsburgh?  I can guarantee that none of us would be the same person that we are today.  It was probably one of the most influential times in my life. I had been through darkness before, but nothing quite that bad.  I now know what I am capable of.  If I made it through that year, I can make it through anything. When I feel down, when things are stressful, I remind myself of the guts it took for me not to pull the trigger, for me to reach out and ask for help, to just keep going forward, sometimes taking it not day by day, but rather minute by minute.  It wasn’t a motivation that came from within. Inside I had already given up.  The motivation came from motherhood.  It came from that little boy with the bright blue eyes and beautiful blond curls.  It came from Jacob, my first true love.  And for that, I must say thank you.  

 Nap time.  My favorite!

 Peek-a-boo!

 Jake's first Christmas.  My dad made him laugh and laugh while I took these photos for Christmas cards.

 The most serious dinosaur on the block.

 First hair cut - age 3 1/2

 He loves satin.  What other 4 year old gets satin sheets for Christmas?

 Baby?  What baby?  I thought this was a toy rack!

 Hold on, Andrew!  She's got the camera out again!

Jake and Tony...such big kids now!