Some Morbid History in Pregnancy Journal

Starting to feel lower pelvic pressure. It’s gettin’ real, peeps.
10 weeks yesterday, and DH’s birthday is TODAY. I didn’t get him anything =/ I kept asking what he wanted and told him if he didn’t tell me something I’m not getting him anything- lol. /sigh. I’ll prolly take him out to dinner or something.

Starting to feel like a pitiful lazabout. When I work, I’m grumpy and tired, and when I’m home, I’m pretty active with cleaning and farm work and all, but I’m taking so many breaks, and just feel like I have to sit down every 15 minutes. I just feel so weak. lol. On the upside, I get far less frustrated with projects because I spend all that time thinking about how best to tackle it with the least amount of work. haha. Probably a good thing.

I haven’t had an ultrasound yet or anything, but I caught myself thinking the other day about ‘when my daughter is born…’ and I have no idea where that idea came from. Like I somehow know I’ll have a daughter. I’ve heard stories of children telling their mom’s or another mom-to-be the gender of the fetus like it’s obvious; and usually turning out to be true. I don’t know how one can come to have that type of innate knowledge, but it does seem to exist.

We had a small birthday get-together yesterday and my grandma was talking about her family. Sadly, one of her sisters just passed the day before at age 84, and the funeral is this week. She was the middle child of 5 sisters, born to 2 very poor farmers/laborers just before the Depression. My grandmother’s mother only had girls. She also lost a lot of babies. Every other child died, according to my mom and grandma.
There was quite a lot of poverty, at that time. I guess it was not so uncommon to lose babies… but being poor and uneducated, I doubt that they had any concept of child spacing, parenting practices, or any kind of child health concerns.
Grandma also said (in front of the family and my mom) that my mom was never supposed to be born. My Gma is not a very sensitive person… to say the least. haha. This isn’t the first time we’d heard that from grandma, but it seemed to strike me as particularly hurtful, with my brother and his fiancé there and all. There is a great deal of history of my grandmother being selfish, neglectful, a homewrecker, etc, but I’ll save that story. Suffice to say.... I have no idea how my mother still loves or even cares for her.

My mom is a very principled person.... and I can’t seem to unearth the particular principle that keeps her from completely booting gma from our lives. It seems that it is the simple fact that the woman gave birth to her. I can’t understand it, though. Her sins were… unforgiveable. And she is unrepentant.

My gma also had 2 sons, before my mom. They are both utter, complete failures. And I mean that in a completely unbiased and impersonal way. The elder was abusive, smoker, drinker, and drug addict. He was the better of the 2 brothers. He was severely disabled by, and eventually died of, a brain aneurysm. He left behind 2 small children he had with a mentally unstable woman (schizophrenia), who was utterly incompetent and unable to care for them. My mom largely raised those kids.
The other brother… well. He was a born sociopath. He beat and tortured animals from a young age, according to my mom and gma. He’s still around, lived right next door to my parents’ in the old homestead; now evicted by his ex-wife who grew tired of the beatings. He isn’t allowed to own or use firearms, and he doesn’t have a driver’s license due to multiple DUI’s. His son, I know, is probably damaged beyond repair and is consistently drunk.

In a way, it is really amazing that the woman who is my mother somehow came out of that life. It’s a miracle. All logic and reason says she should have followed the path clearly lain out for her… become an alcoholic, marry an abusive husband, enable the lifestyle of her parents and entire family, etc, etc. But she didn’t.
The only mistake she’s made is that she did not completely cut them out of her life. I think I know why. Even though they are, and have done great evil to her in particular and in general, she believes that they only do it because they don’t know any better.
With that, I disagree wholeheartedly.
They know Exactly what they’re doing.
And I don’t begrudge my mom for leaving them in our lives. I think it may have taught me some valuable lessons. And for the little exposure that I’ve had to evil, I don’t think I’ve been marred by it too much.