I had the huge urge to start spilling my opinions about things the other day and although the urge isn’t as strong anymore I’m still going to drown this post in it.

I am pro-choice to an extent. I don’t believe that abortion should be used in place of birth control or if you simply don’t want a baby. I believe that if you get pregnant you should take responsibility for it and continue the pregnancy and either put the baby up for adoption or raise it. If I’m not mistaken newborn babies are in high demand among adoption agencies and it would be relatively easy to find someone to love and provide for your child when you could not. I’ll never understand how people theorize that it’s easier to get rid of the baby than put it up for adoption because the parent/s would get attached. I don’t have an exact time when I believe that a fetus is a human, but I do believe that at some point, BEFORE the baby is born, it is in fact a baby. Now that I have all the disclaimer/conditions to my pro-choice-ness I want to explain the other end of my opinion. I think that abortion is a viable consideration when the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest, at which point continuing the pregnancy would be emotionally traumatic for the mother. I also believe that if the mother’s health is at risk abortion should be an option. The other situation that warrants abortion as an option is if the baby has a terminal illness or the quality of life for the baby is so beyond terrible. The one example I have of this I saw while I was at the zoo on Friday. The zoo was packed with kids on field trips and there was one specific group of special needs students. There was a girl in the group in a wheelchair who had no legs and only one stub of an arm with two or three fingers that she used to manuver her electric wheelchair. She had a tube in her throat so she could breathe and her mother/chaperone was talking with another chaperone about how she needed to give the girl her pain pills when they sat down for lunch. The girl looked like she was in so much pain. The sight of her broke my heart. I imagine her life must be unbearably hard for her and her parents. I’m not making any assumptions about her mental competence but if she was completely coherent I’d imagine she’d be so resentful that the other kids can run, stand, walk, play, talk, be independent. I don’t believe anyone should live with that much pain. Getting back on topic, I think that abortions should be permitted after a doctor’s examination and reccomendation. Anyway, that’s my opinion on abortion.

Sometimes I talk to space ‘cause
I can’t seem to say it to your face
I don’t mean to hide it, deny it
It’s just that
For as long as I remember you’ve been by my side
Now you’re leaving and I don’t know what to do with my time
We have a daughter and
She’s beautiful
But you won’t see her grow
Looking at a picture is nothing
Compared to the real thing

And I cry, cry hard
I can’t get your face out of my mind
And all the things that you’ll be missing
It makes me empty inside
I know you’ll come back for us one day
Just tell me
Why do you have to be so far away
You promised always and forever
Do you really mean it

I have so much insecurity
I hope it doesn’t tear us apart
Imagining us
Reunited forever
With a big house and two cars
Our happily ever after
Makes the struggle to go on
A little less daunting

One day
We’ll be all you ever need

My life has been a downward spiral since summer. In summary my family got evicted from the house we lived in for 8 years, my parents split up and my dad moved to Las Vegas, my boyfriend of 2 and a half years is moving to California, and my mother, sister, daughter, and I have to try and squeeze into a 2 bedroom apartment that we may not be able to afford.

Individually, I could probably handle any of these events, but they just came one after another and I can barely keep my head abouve water. I’m not even able to get a job to help out my mom because of the baby. It’s just my mom by herself, with some child support from my dad. But even with that, she has to try to get two jobs to support us. My sister’s friend’s mom let us live in her townhouse while it’s still on the market. It’s one of the last things that her and her bi-polar, manic ex-husband still share. Unfortunately we can’t afford it, Dahli has to pay they lawyers, so it’s in her best interest to have the townhouse move-in ready because it will be more likely to sell. We’ve lived her 4 months and have to look for another place to live…

On top of my crappy living situation my boyfriend is moving to California because his family got evicted from their house too. His dad moved to San Diego because his job transferred him and so the family is following him. I have no idea what I’m going to do without him. He’s my only visitor since I started homeschooling. Once a month my friends get together and we go shopping, out for lunch, or watch a movie but having no outside contact until then will emotionally kill me. I have no idea how I am going to function when I lose the only stable thing in my life. Eric has always been there for me, cared for me, and held me together when I was am falling apart. When he’s gone I’ll have no one. My mom is scarcely around because she has to support us. I have no resentment because of that, it’s just lonely. My sister lives in her own world, she can’t stand to live in this one. It will be just me and Jazmine.

My dad lives in Las Vegas because that’s the closest family he has. His grandparents. My dad has no car, no house, he lives with his grandparents and has his job fly him out, he travels for work. He is no better off than we are. Economically, we cannot survive apart, but my mom thinks that the abuse that she went through with my dad isn’t worth economic stability… at least more stable than it is now. My dad has never physically abused my mom. He’s been accused of emotionally abusing my mom, by her, but I’ve never heard it when I’ve eavesdropped on their arguments before. I suppose my mom is just sensitive. My dad is a good man. He has his issues. He has a little bit of a gambling problem. Not the kind where it’s taking over his entire life, it’s his recreation of choice. He idolizes his grandparents, he’s a realist, my mom is an optimist.

I love my dad. We’re so much alike, he understands me more than my mom. But he has always favored Nani. Nani is his girl. I feel so left out sometimes… It’s because my sister has a likeness to my mom, looks and personailty. I am my dad. He sees me as his ally, Nani is his daughter. I’m brought in when my dad tries to prove his point. But Nani is the reason they’re fighting. I feel like I’m nothing.

My parents are basically getting a divorce. My dad is trying to divide holidays, figure out when he can see us. He’s alternating between me and my sister for holidays. He wants to take Nani for Christmas. My mom says we both have to stay here. That it’s important. My dad… is heartbroken. He has to spend Christmas alone. His grandparents are atheists, they don’t celebrate Christmas. I would go, to be with my dad and make him happy, but Eric is leaving at the end of December. This is our last Christmas together.

When Eric leaves, I will constantly be on a plane. To go see my dad, to come home, to go see Eric. My life is a whirlwind.

I miss you and you’re not even gone yet.

Eric is leaving in December. I don’t know how we’ll manage to keep our relationship. There are so many things that’ll be destroyed because of this. Our relationship for one. My mom said she thinks we have a strong relationship. But it’s only strong because we are able to see each other regularly. If he moves 1000 miles away, I don’t know how we’ll survive. We said before that if he had to move we would mutually break up, a long distance relationship would be too painful for both of us. We have to try to endure the heartache now, for the sake of our family. It kills me to raise my daughter in a broken family—- I never wanted her to live in the environment I lived in. And it may just break me down completely until we’re together again. Aside from our broken family, as a couple we’ll miss so much…
Since freshman year I wanted to win cutest couple senior year. We had a real chance at winning too. We’re ineligible now, just a part of my high school experience crushed in front of me. We’ll never be able to go to prom as a couple or graduate together. We won’t have any more dances together, no more holding hands down the hall, or lunches together. No more kisses goodbye as I get on the bus or skipping school to go to the mall. We won’t be able to nap together or go on dates. I’ll be all alone. My friends don’t understand this situation. They live in this perfect little world. Their parents are together, they have functional family units, loving relationships… They just don’t know how much I long for that. For everything to be okay.
But it’s not okay. Eric won’t be able to watch his baby grow. He’ll miss when she’ll be able to play, sit up, crawl, talk, stand and walk. That kills me. Maybe more than it kills me.
I just can’t stop crying about it.

After giving birth to my baby girl I was in a haze (I didn’t even realize when I was in said haze until I watched the video my mom took after delivery, there were parts in it I could swear never happened) but once the epidural wore off I was okay.
My boyfriend’s sister had made friends with a guy down the hall who was also going to be a dad. He was 16 too. Well this guy comes into my room like 2 hours after Jazmine’s birth and started asking for his sister, Margo. No one in the room has any idea who he is and I’m kinda pissed that he just walked in without asking, but I let it go because I’m hoping if I tell him Margo is in the waiting room he’ll leave and eventually he does. Only to come back the next day, several times… Without knocking, again. The few times he came in uninvited my boyfriend and I were spending family time with our baby, I was breastfeeding, and I was passed out in bed half naked. Honestly -__-
Then later that day my aunt and cousin come to visit. To put the following story into context, my aunt is a very intense woman. She is strong, opinionated and can sometimes come off a bit offensive if you don’t know her. Anyway, she is holding the baby, going between making all over the baby and borderline interrogating my boyfriend (does he have a job, is he graduating early, does he have his license etc more or less to figure out his intentions and commitment to helping out with the baby and how ambitious he is). The random guy down the hall is in the room too and is mimicking a baby saying no everytime my aunt asks the baby a rhetorical question (“you want to come to aunty’s house don’t you?”) to the point my aunt is so pissed off she has to leave to avoid knocking the guy out. And the second she leaves the room he goes off about how my aunt is an ass and racist. He had the fucking audacity to say that to my face but I was so out of it that I wasn’t even able to defend her. It still eats at me that I wasn’t able to tell him how rude and disrespectful and completely clueless he was. He had no idea everyone held him in such contempt because we were trying to be polite. He had so many other things that irked me but they didn’t hit me as close to home as how he disrespected my aunt and talked shit about her to my face.
Overall my stay at the hospital was great, I just wish they had locks.

Seems I haven’t updated my blog in a while about my life or the baby so I’m going to have to backtrack 2 weeks…
I went into labor in the morning of September 13th. I was admitted around 9am after an hour or so of examination. The rooms at this hospital are meant for you to stay in during the time you’re at the hospital, labor, delivery and post partum. They also have jacuzzi tubs which is amazing when you’re in labor, the water is so calming and I brought bubble bath for the occasion c:
One of the first things I learned about being at the hospital in labor, you have no privacy whatsoever. The nurse would come in while I was taking a bath and check my vitals, thank god there were so many bubbles. I would have locked the door if there was a lock but unfortunately there was none. After the bath I got my epidural. It was the best part of that entire labor. It felt like from my belly button down was asleep without the pins and needles feeling. I was surprised I could move my toes, I was expecting to feel paralyzed but that wasn’t the case. After 12 hours of labor Jazmine Aolani Rodriguez was born at 9:13pm. Her daddy cried when he first saw her, she was just so surreal. I wasn’t in too much pain afterward didn’t need more than some ibuprofen. The baby just woke up so I’m going to continue this at a later date…