Our Story - Part II: Babies Having a Baby

Y2K, baby!!! Literally…

The year was 1999. BJ and I had found ourselves pregnant at 15 and 16 years old. We had weighed our options and knew we would be keeping the baby. We enrolled in parenting classes, lamaze, and first aid. We found out we were having a sweet little girl, and starting the journey of picking out a name together. We were two teenagers, madly in love, excited and terrifed about becoming parents together.

Then, on April 24, 2000, we went in to the doctor for our checkup. Technically, it would be our due date tomorrow, but our little pilaf was not having any of it. Our doctor completed an ultrasound to see how the baby was doing, and that's when the whirlwind of the day started.

The way the baby was laying, she looked HUGE. I, however, was 16 by this point and had been 98 pounds before getting pregnant. The doctors were very concerned that this baby got way too big, way too fast for my body, which was still a child itself. The doctor told us she didn't want to wait any longer, and sent us to the hospital to be induced, giving us fair warning that she may decided to take the baby by C-section. I did not want a C-section. I wanted to give birth naturally, so obviously, this was a terrifying turn of events. This wasn't my birth plan!!

I remember going home and getting the baby bag. I remember going to the hospital, calm and collected, not at all how I imagined I'd be showing up, and the nurses taking me back to a beautiful private room. Everyone was so kind and we were all able to chat and take our time getting me changed, monitors hooked up, and IV in place. My mom was by my side the whole time, and BJ was too. The nurses started up my Pitocin in the early evening hours, and then the wait began.

I dozed off at one point in the evening. Suddenly, at around midnight, I woke. My stomach felt off and my back was aching. "Must have slept funny," was my first thought, but then there was a wave of that feeling in my belly again, but this time stronger. It rolled through, then straight to my low back again, and this time, it wasn't an ache - it down right hurt. I woke up my mom and BJ and told them something was wrong, described what I was feeling, and that's when my mom smiled and said, "Nope, it's starting. You're in labor."

Oh, this was labor? I mean, it didn't feel particulary good, but it wasn't so bad. HAHA! I was an idiot. Within a half hour, those waves and aches I was feeling, grew into full blown contractions and I thought I was going to die. I was having intense back labor and couldn't lay down. My mom and I spent what felt like days, but was really only about four and half hours, walking the hallways, stopping every few minutes for me to grab the railing, find a focal point, and breathe just like they taught me in lamaze. Every so often I would be asked to return to my room to check my progress.

In the early hours the next morning, the nurse had me head back to my room to check my progress again. We all walked into the room and chuckled a bit because what we found was 17 year old BJ fast asleep in the chair with a rubber glove blown up wearing a diaper and a smiley face drawn on it. Ah, he must have gotten bored and decided to practice his diapering skills. While normally I would have seen the comedy in this situation and marvel at how sweet and adorably funny he was, today was not that day. Another wave of contractions hit, and it was all about, "Wake up! If I can't sleep, neither can you."

The nurse got me into bed and checked my progress. I was in so much pain and they still were thinking this was going to be a big baby, so they decided it was time to give me an epidural, just in case I had to go into for C-section. Let me tell you, that was a terrifying experience, having full blown contractions and wanting to stretch out, but having a man with a VERY large needle behind you telling you to stay curved in a ball and don't move or you could be paralyzed. Really dude? Thank you for scaring me even more!!

Once that medicine kicked in, though, I didn't care. Oh the sweet relief!!! I couldn't feel anything at all from the bottom of my ribs down, and after hours of excruiating pain, I was so happy for that. The next couple hours flew by at that point. I took a quick nap (a nap, while in labor!) and before I knew it, the nurse was there to check me again. She told me we were ready to call in the doctor, and that's when things got real again. The nurses helped get me up and comfortable in bed, set up the mirror at the end of it so I could watch and prepared the warmer and all of the supplies as we waited for the doctor to arrive.

I honestly don't remember much from the actual delivery, oddly enough. I remember having my mom on one side and BJ on the other, encouraging me. I remember looking through the mirror and seeing a whole lot of things I really didn't want to be seeing, but couldn't seem to look away. I remember pushing as hard as I could and them telling me to push again - so hard to do when you can't feel anything. And then I remember seeing that tiny little purple head crowning and her just sliding out of me, itty bitty. All 5 pounds, 15 ounces 18 3/4 inches of her entered the world at 6:30 AM on April 25, 2000. She was here and she was so small and precious. She was an absolute perfect mixture of the two of us, and had the sweetest, tiniest, little twiddle-bug like cry. I was immediately in love and knew I would die for this child. I would kill for her. This was our baby, Kylia.

Real life begins...

So here we were, two teenagers and a baby. BJ and I were still in high school, our sophmore year, but had both decided with our parents to go on Independent Study to give us the ability to work and finish school. BJ got a job at a local video store in town, and I got a seasonal job at a local department store. It was a lot of work, working full time, going to school full time and trying to parent a newborn from two different houses. When I had to work, I would either drive to BJ's house and drop her off to him, or my grandmother would watch her for us. If BJ had to work, he would do the same. We studied together every day. The more time went on, the harder it got and the more we felt the pressure of it all.

Suddenly, when Kylia was almost a year old, we found ourselves in a position we did not expect, nor like. Due to unforseen circumstances, BJ found himself homeless just before his 18th birthday. With no where to go, he was forced to move back with his other parent...in Florida. We were both completely devistated, but instead of handling it the right way, I panicked and let myself feel like he was abandoning us, instead of what it really was, him being forced to leave his daughter and girlfriend against his will. So I did what any stupid 16 year old would and I broke up with him, thinking there was absolutely no way for us to make it work between us across the country. Stupid, stupid girl...

It would be six and a half years before we saw each other again. Six and a half years without hearing each other's voices and feeling the other's arms wrapped around each other. Six and a half years without having our little family together.

During that time, I was with a man that was not kind to me. I made many stupid mistakes, partied too much, then turned myself around again. My parents helped me and Kylia many times over. BJ, on the other hand, grew up and was incredibly responsible. He met a woman and fell in love and got married. They had a son, Kayden, together. He started an amazing career path for himself. He did everything right.

But after six years, fate swung in our favor again. I finally got smart and broke up with my ex-boyfriend. I stopped partying and got a job at the city a couple towns over starting my career path. At the same time, BJ's marriage was on the rocks and they had separated, and were on their way to divorce. One day by chance, I was on MySpace (LOL), and a curiosity hit me. Was BJ on MySpace?

I searched and searched and didn't find a damn thing. Then I thought outside the box and searched his sister's name. Ding ding ding!! Found her.....and there he was on her friends list. Seeing his face brought that old 80's song right back into my head. As I stalked - I mean, read - through his page and looked at his photos, my heart sank as I realized he was married and had had another child. I almost shut the computer down at that point and never looked back, but something stopped me. No - I had a right to reach out if I wanted, married or not. He was, after all, my child's father too and I had never asked for or spoken to him in 6 years. Maybe he wanted to know how she was?

I was too nervous to reach out to him directly. I didn't want to start anything with him and his wife, but I also wanted to see how he and his sister were and give him a chance to get updates and see how Kylia was doing as well. So I decided to reach out to his sister instead. She messaged me back by the end of the day, ecstatic to hear from me, and assuring me that BJ would be even more excited. The next day, I was receiving a message from him. When I read that message, my heart skipped a bit. He told me he was in fact married, but they were in the process of getting a divorce. He told me he had thought about Kylia and I every day since he left. He told me he never stopped loving me. OMG - me too.

And that was the day our constant conversation started. For the next six months, we were either messaging, texting or on the phone with each other every moment we could and it was like no time had ever passed between us. Over the summer, my family and I went to Yellowstone. I remember standing on the top of the travel trailer talking on the phone because that was the only place I could get reception and I refused to even go a week without hearing his voice again. We started talking about how we could be together again. Would Kylia and I move there, or would he move back out here?

In the end, we decided he would move here, so as not to interupt Kylia's schooling. On August 22, 2017, I was standing in the San Francisco airport's lobby waiting for him to arrive. And then, time slowed again as he appeared at the top of the escaltor and smiled. Holy shoulders, Batman. Those were not like that when he left. This was not the boy I remembered. This was a man. Daaaaammmmnnnnn. He reached the bottom and we ran to each other, embracing and kissing each other for a long time. I was like coming home, feeling his arms around me again. We finally left each other's embrace, walked hand in hand to get his things, and took the ride home together.

Read Part III here...