The Story of Shane Part One
First a little back story. During my senior year of high school, I decided quite suddenly not to go to Saint Mary's College and go to UNLV. My parents said that if I was going to stay in town, I was still going to have a true "college experience" and said that I would have to live in the dorms. Shortly after school started, I broke up with my boyfriend of a year and starting to enjoy college. After a while, I started drinking way too much, smoking way to much and no longer going to class, basically having way too much fun.
During Christmas break, while at mass one evening, I ran into Steven, a guy I went to high school and junior high with. Now how to explain Steven... He was one of those guys in high school that tried way, way too hard and no one could stand. He even tried to get me to kiss him(unsuccessfully) my junior year while doing campaign work for John Ensign by try to convince me that my current boyfriend(whom he did not know) was probably cheating on me. Basically, the guy was a douche. Anyways, when I ran in to Steve, he had buffed up, gotten fashion sense and was suddenly very cute. After about three months of a few phone calls here and there, we decided to hang out. Being a typical college girl with low self esteem, I fell head over heels for him because he made me feel like he was crazy about me. During this short time he revealed to me that he had had a massive drug(speed) problem in high school.
We started dating and we're inseparable. I meet his family, his brother and sister-in-law where expecting their first child together. I actually knew his sister-in-law, my sister, Holly, and I used to work with her at the Merica agency. He meet my family, and my parents seemed to like him. Things seemed to be going well until one night when we were going down to the Strip to hang out with a bunch of my friends. He was not acting like himself and was being very rude. We ended up getting into a huge fight and he left my dorm. (Now, the night before, he told me that he had to go help his stepdad set up the bonfire for the Easter Vigil and then he would be back. Well, he didn't get back to my dorm until almost one in the morning and when I woke up around four he was just sitting there staring at the wall.) I come back up to my dorm to hear him hanging up from leaving me a message. I play the message and after only a month of dating, the prick was breaking up with me... on my answering machine. When I tried to call him and talk to him, he refused to talk to me. This was a few days before him birthday.
Well I was so upset a few days later, that I bought a bottle of vanilla vodka and coke a decide I would drown my sorrows away. At this point, I was truly an alcoholic, could drink most of the guys on my floor under the table and it took quite a bit to get me drunk. Well, after about three drinks, I was drunk of my ass. I mean, couldn't even stand up drunk, which was very odd for me. A few hours later, I knew the alcohol was coming back up. Now anytime I have been drunk and get sick, I usually throw up once or twice and am perfectly fine. That was not the case this time. I slept on the bathroom floor that night, throwing up about every thirty minutes. The next day is when the red flags started to go off.
After talking to my old roommate and a massive freak out, we decide it was time to walk across the street to Vons and pick up a pregnancy test. Now, I didn't really think I was pregnant. How could I be? Steve and I only and sex with out a condom once. Kelly and I picked up a pregnancy test called Answers(ha!) that came with two test. So began the longest walk of my life. I took the first test and waited for a painfully long five minutes. I looked down at the test and couldn't believe what I saw...two half lines...Wait, two half lines? What the hell does that mean? Okay, well it came with two, so I'll just take the next one... Five long minutes later and the results are...one and a half lines? Does that mean I am kind of pregnant?! So Kelly and I decided it is time to shell out the big bucks and go by an EPT. (Now in the back of my head, it was pretty obvious what one and a half lines meant, but being 19 years old, I refused to accept it until it was clear.) So EPT, your results are...PREGNANT. Commence sobbing uncontrollably. Well the first thing to do, call Steve. Wow, he actually picked up! I asked him how he was doing? He told me shitty, I was his birthday and he totaled his car earlier that day. He asked why I was calling. Well Steve, I just found out, I'm pregnant, HAPPY BIRTHDAY! "Are you sure?" Three pregnancy test sure. "FUCK!" No crap, I don't know what to do. "No Katie, the night we didn't use a condom, I started doing tweak again." Excuse me? Are you kidding me? Well that explains a lot. Okay, let's not panic about that until we find out more. Right now we just have to talk to our families okay?
A few days later, I set out to tell my family. Now I am not going to go into that because that is not an important part of this. I will tell you though, that it was not easy. This is not a normal thing in my family. I coming from a very Catholic family and a family that has it's crap together for the most part. It cause a lot of stress, heartache and anger though to say the least.
The next day I call Steve and ask him if he told his parents. "No yet, I'll tell them tomorrow" So this continued for a few days and the finally, did you tell your parents? "Yeah..." How did they take it? "I don't know..." Okay, well can we get together so that we can talk about this? "I'll see what I can do..." A few days later when he still would not meet up with me to talk but said that we could talk over the phone. He asked if I would get an abortion, which was never even an option to me. I told him that I thought about adoption for about an hour, but that I didn't think I could do it. He was not being supportive and really just wouldn't answer anything I would ask him, especially when it came to his family.
Well this went on for weeks. At this point, I had moved back in with my parents and my brother-in-law got me a job at Trader Joe's so that I could have health insurance in three months. My plan was to live with my parents for a few months and then get an apartment after I saved up some money.(I actually ended up moving into an apartment a few weeks later after my mom found an incredible apartment for me and helped by cosigning the lease). So after talking to Holly and figuring out a few things on my own, we decided that Steve didn't tell his parents. So Holly came up with a plan. Amber(Steve's sister-in-law) had just had her baby and Holly would call to congratulate her and then just mention how crazy it is that they are going to be part of each others families now. Well at this, Amber ask what she is talking about. "I'm talking about Katie being pregnant of course and Steve won't even talk to her." What?!? Steve's brother gets on the phone and starts freaking out. He is apologizing to Holly over and over say that Steve was raised better than that and he will talk to his parents right away.
So after this happens Steve won't even talk to me. His mom would come to my doctor appointments with me, but Steve wouldn't even return my calls. (My mom would come to a few, Brenda however would come to all of them. I realized later that this was part of her attempt to control everything). When I was about 16 weeks pregnant and supposed to go in for my ultra sound to find out the sex. Well Steve's mom showed up and she had a surprise, STEVE! He looked like crap, he had lost a ton of weight and looked like he hadn't slept in days. He wouldn't look at me and wouldn't talk to me. They bring me back into the room to do my ultrasound and after a minute I look over and Steve is asleep. (Let me point out that before I got pregnant I had never even been to a gyno before. And I got pregnant during the whole insurance crisis and it took me about a month to find a doctor taking patients. And the only one I could find was a mean, grouchy, old Jewish man who should have stopped practicing medicine about ten years earlier.) They start the ultra sound and Steve wakes up. She says that she can't see the sex of the baby because of how it is sitting up she wants the doctor to look at something. So the doctor comes in and the poke and prod me for about five minutes and then inform me that I have a "vascular placenta". Okay...what does that mean? They have no idea really. They have never seen anything like it, but I have way too much fluid in my placenta and they want me to go to a specialist.
Now at this point, I still don't have insurance( I wouldn't until I was about six months pregnant) and was pay everything by cash. Not cheap. Steve and I had started talking at this point. He was in NA and wanted to try to work things out. He was sorry and realized that he had totally screwed up, but wanted to be there for me and the baby. Well, with being terrified with being a single mother, I decided to give him another chance.
The next week, I had my appointment with the specialist. Steve couldn't come because he had to work(we was trying to become an electrician) and neither could Brenda(darn). But my mom and best friend Crystal came with me. So they bring me back and start their massive exam. I do have to much fluid and he has never seen anything like it, he doesn't know what could cause it. But the baby looks find and it is a boy. Which took awhile to find out because Shane had his hand between his legs, holding himself(I knew right there that it was going to be a boy). I also had a blood vessel at the top of my cervix, which wasn't bad for the baby, but if my water broke, it could be very serious, if not deadly for me. I would have to come back once a month right now and the as I got farther along every two weeks so that they could monitor myself and the baby to make sure everything was going smoothly.
That night Steve came over to my apartment and I told him it was a boy. He was excited and decided to inform me that because of his job, he was moving to California for a few months and wanted me to come with him. This turned into a huge fight and I was furious that after everything, he would just expect me to pick up and move. Well, with this, he pulls out a very tiny ring and ask me to marry him. Now fifty million things ran through my mind at this time. I ended up saying yes, because I thought that it might make things better with my family if we got married(boy was I wrong, they were PISSED!) but I wouldn't move to California. About a week later, Steve left for California.
My doctor appointments were going well, Shane was growing fine. But Steve and I, not so well. When he was in California, he wouldn't answer my calls and wouldn't return them. He didn't even call me on my birthday. The one time he came down to visit, he spent the whole time with his cousin instead of me. I knew at this point that it was over and I wanted nothing to do with him, but I just didn't want to deal with it yet. My mom was even my coach at my birthing classes with me.
I was due December 11th and Steve was going to come back right before Thanksgiving and stay for a few weeks. That way he could be here for the delivery. Well when I was about 34 weeks(6 more weeks to go), I was at work on a register and started having these sharp pains. Laura was across from me and asked if I was okay. I don't think so, I think I am in labor. So I go into the office, sobbing because I am scared out of my mind and decide, wow, I need to go to the hospital. I decide I can drive myself, it is only five minutes away. I call Steve while I am on my way and he actually picks up! I just wanted to tell you that I am in labor and on my way to the hospital. "Alright, I'll call you back later.*Click*" Okay...Thought I would get more of an reaction. I get to the hospital and can't get a hold of my mom, so my dad met me there. Well, I am in early labor and they have to stop it because it is way to early for him to come. So they gave me the first shot of terbutaline and it didn't help. So they had to give me two more shots and that stopped the labor. But I would have to be on bed rest for the next week and have to take it easy at work. While I was at the hospital Brenda called because Steve called her. I let her know what was going on and she said she would tell Steve. Okay... thought I would, but oh well....
Thanksgiving comes and Steve arrives. Things are not so great, but I don't want to ruin the holidays. I knew at this point that this baby was coming early and was freaked out it would happen while we where up at Mount Charelston for Thanksgiving. My aunt and uncle are good friends with the fire chief up there and they ensured me that if that happened, they could get me down. I had realized by now that Steve also had a massive drink problem and I asked him not to drink that night in case I went into labor. Well by the time dinner rolled around, Steve was trashed. I didn't go into labor that night, but I had to drive us down the mountain, which I hate that drive!
Steve was staying at my apartment with me and I had made it pretty clear that I was not happy, so he was sleeping on my couch. On the night of December 2nd, I started to have contractions again and we drove to the hospital. I was barely dilated and my contractions were far apart. They told me to go home and come back when my contractions where about five minutes apart. So we got home at about 6 am and started the waiting game. My contractions got about seven minutes apart but wouldn't get closer. So we had super spicy food for dinner(no help) and Steve's mom called to suggest that we have sex(EW and Yeah right!). My contractions where getting stronger but still not closer. At around midnight I started throwing up with each contraction as well, which was fun. At about two in the morning, I decide I had enough and we need to get to the hospital now! So I went to wake up Steve(yes he got to sleep through all of this) and told him it was time to go....
(To be continued tomorrow)