Walking on Eggshells: Discovering Strength and Courage Amid Chaos (14 page)

That wasn’t as easy as it sounded, however. A month or so before, Barbara had announced that she was pregnant, and our mother had totally flipped out. By this time Barbara had moved to Anchorage with her boyfriend, Travis Mimms. Anchorage was about three hundred miles and more than five hours away. To make matters worse, we had just found out that the dog Barbara had left with our mother before she moved was expecting. I remember asking my mother lots of questions about pregnancy, pretending I was
curious about the dog but really wondering what was going on in my own body.

I knew our mother would not be pleased to hear yet that another person was pregnant, so in hopes of softening her reaction I met her after school with my counselor. My counselor had convinced me that I needed medical attention and that I needed to tell my mother. Besides, I was really starting to show. I had gotten so good at hiding the pregnancy, however, even to the point of putting “used” tampons in the trash every month to try to fool Jimmy, that my mother was quite disbelieving when I spilled the news.

Because I was so underage I was afraid Brendan would get in trouble if people knew he was the father, so for weeks I told everyone I had met a guy from Anchorage at a party—a one-night stand. I’m not sure how many people believed me, but I think John and my mother did.

My counselor did not, however. She had suspected that Brendan and I were having an inappropriate relationship and had reported him multiple times to authorities—who had done nothing.

Later, John, my mother, and I agreed that it would be best if I moved in with them until the baby was born. We also decided that I would give the baby up for adoption, but I wanted the baby to have a good start, and that meant prenatal care. Two other events also figured into this decision. The first was that Brendan worked in the gold mines and was often away for up to three months at a time. He was just getting ready to leave again and would not be around as I moved closer to my due date. The other was that Jimmy was
so far behind on the rent that he was about to be evicted. I was just so happy that my mom wanted me I think I would have moved back no matter what. Despite her choices in life I loved her and had missed her.

I was just coming to terms with all of this when the school called to say that because I was pregnant, I could not come back to classes. They felt I was a bad influence on the other students, so they set me up with a Mac laptop at home, and I finished ninth grade in my mother’s living room. I didn’t know it then, but that was also the end of my formal education.

★

I
am so grateful for
the faith I have now, so grateful for God’s love. And I love raising my children by God’s word. Abbie and Mady regularly attend Sunday school and on Friday nights Abbie goes to A.W.A.N.A. club at our local church. A.W.A.N.A. is a great organization that helps churches and parents work together to develop spiritually strong children and youth. My girls and I say our prayers every night before we go to bed, and we bless all of our family members and friends. I am so happy that the love of God runs pure through my little family each day.

It used to be that I was so wrapped up in the drama of my life that I couldn’t see the forest for the trees. I had no idea how far off track I was. I should have been enjoying my high school years, but I was a long way from that. I also was a long way from my days as
a member of Pastor Jeremiah’s congregation and from the times when we’d sit as a family and listen as Dad read us Bible stories.

So where was God in my life? The real question should be where was I with God? I’m sorry to say I didn’t give Him much thought then, although I can look back and see that He was protecting me. As bad as events in my life were, if God had not been there, life could have been much worse. If He hadn’t been there, I’m not sure I would have survived the next few years. I do not know why these things have happened to me, but I do know that because I went through them—and survived them—it has given me a great deal of drive to prevent the same experiences from happening to other girls.

★

Somehow I knew that three ideal things for an expectant mom to have during her pregnancy were peace, love, and support. I didn’t have much of any of that. First was the question of the baby’s father. My mother and John asked me several times if Brendan was the dad. I still didn’t want Brendan to get in trouble, so I said no, but I think by then that everyone knew he was. When I finally told the truth, my mother got so mad that she again threw me out of the house.

By this time I was more than seven months pregnant. I had done a lot of research online about what was going on inside my body and how the baby was developing. Once I educated myself in this area I knew I could never give my baby up. In addition to
understanding on a whole new level that my baby was a real person growing inside me, I had fallen completely in love with my unborn child.

The decision to keep my baby was the first “adult” decision I ever made. It seemed as if all of the adults in my life had already decided that I was going to give up the baby, but this decision was one I could control. I rationalized it this way: I sometimes explain that an accident is something bad that you don’t want, but a surprise is something wonderful you didn’t know you wanted until you got it. My unborn child was my wonderful surprise.

Could an adoptive family have given my child more than I could as a teen mom? Probably. But I vowed then and there that from this point on I would devote my life to making the best life I could for my baby. I knew no one could love this child more than I could. I also knew that I didn’t have many good role models in the mothering department, but I took the best of what I had from my mother, Tawny, the nannies, and Beth, and built my parenting foundation from there. I also knew from the many instances of negative parenting what I didn’t want to do as a mother.

One thing I knew from watching all the television I had at my dad’s house was how much the women on TV loved their children. I remember in particular a movie called
For Keeps
that had a teen mom as the main character. I also remember several Lifetime movies, episodes of
Cold Case Files,
and other shows that dealt with women and their children. I learned a lot of my parenting skills from those TV moms.

There would be many times that I slipped or made mistakes and the challenges were often overwhelming, but keeping my child was by far the best decision I have ever made. I also want to state that my decision was the best for
my
baby and
me,
and not necessarily the best decision for someone else.

The night my mother threw me out I stayed with my friend Danika, who was back in Anderson. The next day I saw John in his Suburban in the parking lot. As I walked closer I saw that he was crying. “Your mother and I want to talk to you,” he said through his tears.

When we got to our trailer, it turned out that my mother was drunk. She and John sobbed about what a huge disappointment and embarrassment I was to them. What were they going to do with me? How would they deal with this problem I had caused? As you have seen, my mother and I had a rocky and complicated relationship, as many teen girls do with their moms—but the addition of drugs, alcohol, and sex made the combination of the relationship and the situation into a mess bigger than either of us knew how to handle. Or so I thought. It turned out that John and my mother had a plan.

Their plan was that I would move to Alabama and marry Brendan. My mother had gotten on our trusty computer to find that I was of legal age to marry in that state. Then she drew a map that showed me how to find my way there. She also handed me a letter she had written that gave her consent to the marriage, just in case I needed it. The last part of the plan was that while I could return to Alaska when I was sixteen, I had to leave right then.

I felt so bad. While I may have been a huge disappointment to my mother, it didn’t help that she actively let me know what an embarrassment I was to her and that she wanted me to go so far away. I was ashamed enough without her pointing out all my many mistakes—many of which she had a part in. I mean, what kind of mother gives her daughter illegal drugs? This also was a time when positive reinforcement about making the best of a really bad situation would have helped. A “let’s find the best solution for you and the baby” plan rather than an “out of sight, out of mind” plan.

There were obviously lots of problems with my mother’s idea to move me to Alabama, but the first was that Brendan was working in the gold mines and I didn’t know how to reach him. He was due back in several weeks, so until that time I stayed with Danika. When Brendan returned he happily agreed to the plan and to the marriage, so we headed south. I was so in love. I held Brendan’s hand the entire way as I imagined the farm we would live on in Alabama.

The next glitch in the plan, however, put a stop to it entirely. When Brendan and I reached the Canadian border Brendan got out of the car to deal with border officials while I stayed put. A few minutes later he returned and said, “We’re not getting through here. I knew this wasn’t going to work.” It turned out that we needed a passport and I didn’t have one.

When I called my mother she said I wasn’t her problem anymore and to have a nice life. Again, words can be so hurtful, and I became so distraught by these words in particular. With nowhere to go I
went back to stay with Danika, who was nineteen and living on her own. She seemed happy to let me stay with her and even gave some baby clothes to me as a gift. I liked staying there; life with Danika was peaceful.

★

Several weeks later Barbara called. She had been living with Dad and Beth, who had moved to Hawai’i, but had recently had another fight with them and wanted to come back to Alaska. Our friends and I bought her a ticket, and Brendan and I picked her up in Anchorage.

I had not told Barbara that I was pregnant because my mother did not want Dad to know. My mother figured Dad would never find out if I gave the baby up for adoption. But Barbara had discovered what was going on when she called the school looking for me and they told her I was not in school because I was expecting. Barbara then called our mother and yelled that she tried to tell her multiple times that Brendan and I were having a relationship.

Barbara also was expecting and was due in May, while my due date was June 18. I was really looking forward to going through the birth and parenting experiences with Barbara. Our closeness of recent years had continued to grow, and she had once again become the big sister I looked to for advice.

When Barbara came back to Alaska, she moved in with our mother and Nick. John had taken a job ninety miles away, in Fairbanks, and was rarely there. One day I went to visit Barbara
and was surprised to see how happy our mother was about the prospect of being a grandmother to both of our babies. This was a huge turn of events and a development I had a hard time getting my head around. The end result was that I moved back in with my mother, and life for the next few weeks was good.

Even though Barbara was not due until May, in April she lost her mucus plug and her doctor felt she needed to be close to a hospital until the baby arrived. In Anderson we were nearly two hours away. Hospital staff made arrangements for Barbara and me to stay at a hotel near the hospital, and we made ourselves comfortable while we waited for the baby to come. That happened a lot quicker than anyone expected.

At the end of April 2002, Barbara went into labor prematurely and gave birth to her son, Travis Drake-Lee Chapman, on the twenty-seventh. I was honored to be in the delivery room with Barbara and am so blessed to have gone through the birth with her and Travis. While Barbara recovered in the hospital, Mom, John, Nick, and I stayed in the hotel room until she and Travis were ready to go home. Medicaid paid all the costs for the room; otherwise we could not have afforded to stay there.

I had been in touch with Brendan all this time and had told him where we were staying. I had even found ways to see him occasionally, even though every adult I knew had forbidden contact between us. One evening John was in the bar next door getting some food and cash for Barbara and me. When he saw Brendan’s truck go by he got drunk and then called the police—
although they never showed up. In the eyes of John and my mother, Brendan had taken advantage of my youth, repeatedly raped me, and needed to be arrested.

At this point I had been with Brendan for about two years and I still loved him with all my heart. From the beginning of my pregnancy he encouraged me to tell the truth. I was the one who had not wanted to name my baby’s father because I wanted to protect him. I knew in some way that a relationship with a young teen and a grown man was improper, but Brendan was a bright, kind light in my world of dysfunction. Was our relationship wrong? Absolutely, totally, completely. But I still loved him.

After Travis was born we all went back to our mother’s house in Anderson, but our mother stayed only a week or so before she decided to move in with John in Fairbanks. It was too bad, especially because Barbara at twenty was so not ready to be a mother. Young babies need love and care from their parents twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. There is no time for anything else, and when there is no dad in the picture, it all falls to the mom. Barbara could not handle the pressure, and when Travis was three weeks old she took some hallucinogenic mushrooms, which meant she could no longer breast-feed. From that day on, I was the one who was responsible for Travis’s care. I was still just fourteen.

The day of Travis’s six-week checkup was June 10, my fifteenth birthday. I really wanted to have my baby on my birthday, so when we got to Fairbanks for Travis’s appointment Barbara went to the store and got some castor oil. We had heard that if I drank enough
of this it would hurry the baby along, and maybe it did. Halfway home I went into labor and we turned the car around.

I was definitely not prepared for the birth experience. The pain was excruciating, and my mother was nowhere to be found. At the hospital we learned that their one anesthesiologist was at the scene of an accident, so no one was available to give me an epidural. I also had not taken any Lamaze classes. None was offered, and I didn’t know enough to seek them out. In fact, I never realized that any kind of childbirth class existed. By this time I was screaming so loudly that Barbara dropped to her knees and began to pray.