When I was a child I was a very submissive child, I was the child to be seen and not heard. I was the child who never disagreed with her parents. I never even looked like I wanted to disagree or I would get slapped or spanked.  I had very strict parents.  I stayed a very quiet and agreeable girl.  I tried desperately to please them to get their love.  I strived to be the best in everything, to make the grades, to be the best daughter.  This attitude continued through my courtship, I was the good girlfriend, I was the proper girlfriend, I was a virgin when I married.  Then when I married I was the proper wife, the obedient wife, the good executive wife.  Breakfast on the table before he went to work, dinner on the table when he got home, the house clean, the children clean.  I made all our clothing and his shirts and ties and even his suit jackets.  I kept the finances that I knew of.  I didn’t question him.  I accepted his excuses for a long time, I was ready on the spot when we had to entertain without notice.  I tried everything to keep the spice in our marriage.  I took belly dancing lessons, I danced for him.  I learned electronics so we would have hobbies in common. I got him interested in Ham Radio.  I tried kidnapping him for a romantic getaway.  Nothing worked.  But in all, I was a very reserved and submissive wife.

I still am an introvert, basically shy among strangers, but that period after the divorce, those months of unemployment and indecisiveness in my future and feeling of betrayal and unworthiness took its toll on my personality.  The pendulum from submissive, shy, sexually inexperienced began to swing to the other extreme.  I began to trade sex for comfort, for attention, were hoping for just the holding involved — the human touch.  I know it probably wasn’t very smart of me, but I was lost and climbing my way back out of hell. I needed someone to love me. I deluded myself sometimes that they cared, now that I look back on it.  I only took a lover when my children had visitation with their father.  I tried carefully not to let my “love life ” come into contact with my young children who were already coping enough with a new young step-mother.

It was during this time, that the doctors told me I was pregnant. I was horrified!  I couldn’t be, I had been having regular periods, but I was in miserable pain, so I went to the doctor. He didn’t do a blood test, just a palpitation. The doctor did say however, I was in the process of a miscarriage.  My emotions ran wild. My pain was tremendous, my depression was increasing.  Fortunately it was during this time, my girls were with their father in Kansas visiting their grandparents and my parents.  I was alone for two weeks, to panic in private.  I wanted to die.  I prayed for death, I wanted to never wake up, I was too chicken to consider suicide.

I had wanted a third child but the ex had said no. A new baby, my heart clenched at the thought and at the thought I was losing it too. If by any chance I didn’t lose it would I lose my girls and then losing it just killed me.  There was no good outcome.

I had been studying for my GRE in psychology and scheduled to take my exams. During the exams I started feeling very ill, starting hemorrhaging, a migraine suddenly erupted during the second half of the exam. I had to go home. I “miscarried”.  You might wonder why now I have the word miscarry in italics. You see that experience was enough to bring me to religion.  Yes, the pendulum began to swing in that direction.  I got religion, I went celibate.

A year later, the doctors say I’m pregnant again. Not on your life! They say I’m four months pregnant. Not unless it is an immaculate conception, doc!  Come to find out I have a tumor the size of a four month fetus.  Again, I’m in extreme pain and bleeding. Again, my children are in Kansas on vacation with their father.

This time, I go to the hospital alone, I have no one, no family, no friends to support me. The doctors say they will try to save my uterus, I am only 34 years old after all, I still want to marry again and have more children.  I lie there in the hospital room and I wake to the doctor telling me, “I’m sorry, we could not save the uterus, we had to take it.  The tumor was embedded.”

I go home the next day, barely moving to an empty house with an empty heart only full of tears. I now know I really probably wasn’t pregnant before, it was the tumor then. Now I will never have another child.