Jackson

I’m ashamed to admit that despite all the warning signs, I trusted Jackson.  So when he told me that the medications that he took for his various disorders made him sterile and that not being able to have a baby with his ex-wife had been the whole reason for their breakup, I stupidly believed him.  We used no birth control even when I’d told him that I had herpes, he didn’t want to use condoms.

So the day that I got the positive pregnancy test, I nearly had a nervous breakdown.  Don’t ask me why I had continued to have sex with this man, despite the fact that I hated him.  I was trying to keep the drama at a tolerable level.  My therapist said that’s a known technique for manipulators – to take people to the very edge of what they can handle.

I had lost my job at the high school because I was up for tenure.  They had a new superintendent that year, and he didn’t want to tenure anyone.  So I was unemployed and pregnant by a man I now refer to as Satan.

I decided I was going to have an abortion.  I never thought I’d consider that option, but I was at a point where I felt like my life depended on it.   I looked in the phone book and found that the closest place that offered them was in Sacramento.  I was hoping I’d caught it early enough that they could do a non-invasive abortion.  But because I lived more than 10 minutes from the clinic, they told me that wasn’t an option.

I had to go in for some tests of some kind, I don’t remember exactly what.  Jackson took me to the clinic for the testing, and he began to beg me to not have an abortion.  I let him say what he wanted to say, but I was determined.  I didn’t answer him.  By the time we got to the clinic for the tests, he’d worked himself into a lather.  He let me out of the car, then rolled down the window and told me that he was going to call my mom and tell her what I was doing and then he was going to get a lawyer to stop me.

I went in and took my tests, then came out and walked a couple of miles to a pay phone.  I told my mom the whole story, crying the whole time.  I felt like I was a huge disappointment to her, and that was just about the worst possible thing to me.

My mother picked me up and took me back to her house.  On the drive there, she held my hand and told me that she thought Jackson was abusive, and that she wished I didn’t have to make this choice, but that she understood why I felt I had to.

Jackson called my mom’s house looking for me.  He said he’d gone to talk to a friend of his and the friend told him he was being an asshole.  He apologized and came to pick me up and take me back to the apartment.

The night before my appointment, I was laying in bed.  Jackson put his head on my belly and began talking to my belly.   Jackson was a drama queen, so this wasn’t surprising to me, but it did make me sick.  “I’m sorry,” he whispered loudly.  “This doesn’t mean that I didn’t love you.  I wish it could be different, my child.  Goodbye.” Despite my best efforts, I started to cry.  I never wanted to be in a position like this.

On the day of my appointment, I had $400 in my pocket and sat in the waiting room filling out paperwork.  Jackson had chattered all the way to Sacramento, telling me that it wasn’t too late to change my mind and that we could make this work.  He continued to whisper these things as I filled out my paperwork in the waiting room.

My mind began to wander.  I realized that I was searching in my mind for ways that I could raise a baby on my own and still do all the things that I enjoy.  The thought of being connected to Jackson for the rest of my life felt like a death sentence, but I suddenly realized that I couldn’t go through with the abortion.  I burst into tears and returned my paperwork.  “I can’t do this, ” I said.  The receptionist took the clipboard and assured me that everything would be fine.

Jackson acted like he’d just won the lottery.   I tried to act excited, but I was mostly just scared.  I made him stop at a drug store on the way home, so I could buy a blank journal.  I thought that if I kept a journal, I could work through my scared feelings.  So I started writing that night.

I wrote the journal as letters to my baby.  I knew it would be a girl, and I had chosen the name Erin as well as my middle name, because it’s also my mother’s name.  I explained how scared I was and how this wasn’t what I had planned, but I was already in love with her.

I made an appointment with my doctor, and I was very emotional.  He asked me if we had been using protection.  I told him that Jackson had told me that he was sterile because of the medication he was on.  My doctor asked what medication he was on, and I told him Paxil.  He told me he’d never heard of that as a side effect of Paxil.

When I got home, Jackson was taking a nap on the sofa.  I woke him and told him, “My doctor said he’s never heard that sterilization was a side effect of Paxil.”

Jackson said, sleepily, “I wasn’t on Paxil when I had the sperm count done.”  Then he made this exaggerated shocked gesture that was so phony, I could have smashed him in the face, but I didn’t.  I went into the bedroom to take a nap.  He followed me and swore that he hadn’t lied.  He’d just forgotten.

16 days after I found out I was pregnant, I began bleeding and experiencing the worst cramping ever in my life.  Jackson took me to the emergency room, and they told me I was having a miscarriage.  They asked me who I wanted with me, my mom or Jackson.  It was no question that I wanted my mother, but I was still afraid of the drama, so I wouldn’t choose.  I honestly thank God for the nurse who was there.  She had seemed kind of abrasive, but when I wouldn’t choose, she said, “This is when a girl needs her mama,” and she ushered Jackson out of the room.

The following Monday, I started a new job at a high school in Sacramento.  I was exhausted, but I was excited to be starting a new job so I powered through the next few days.

Eight days after the miscarriage, I got up to get ready for work and passed out in the bathroom.  Jackson found me and roused me.  I was dazed.  He went to call 911.  I passed out again.  The paramedics got there and told me that it was probably the steam from the shower.  Then they took my blood pressure.  53/29.  They rushed me to the hospital.

At the hospital, they began giving me blood transfusions while they tried to figure out what was going on.  I was beginning to hurt and have trouble breathing.  The more blood they gave me, the more I hurt.  I hurt so badly, I’d start trembling and gasping and they thought I was having a seizure.

It took a while, but they figured out that I had had an ectopic pregnancy and it had ruptured.  They were going to have to do surgery immediately.  I kissed and hugged on my family who had all arrived by then.

When I came around, the doctor told me they’d had to remove the fallopian tube on my right side.   I knew then that I’d never have children, despite the doctor’s assurances.

That was the end of the relationship with Jackson, but it would take some time to get him out of my apartment.