I’m kind of scared. I hope it will be like the old times, but maybe now, in my condition, I’ll have more in common with Jenny’s mother than with her!
That’s idiotic, stupid and pure, Annie, trying to beat up on myself even on the few occasions when it isn’t deserved!
I’m going to go, and I’m going to have fun, and I’m going to forget I’m in any way different than they are! So there!
June 6, Thursday
10:31 p.m.
I’ve been reliving the olden days, and we really were a fun bunch: happy, lighthearted and thinking we could conquer the world. What I wouldn’t give to go back there. No, no, no, no, no. Soon I’ll feel my little bitty baby squirming around in my belly, and I wouldn’t give her up for anything.
Well??????
June 7, Friday
I didn’t go to Jenny’s party because Mrs. Milton broke her wrist and asked me to, at the last minute, help with a parent function at school. I felt privileged and that it was also a “first things first” thing.
June 10, Monday
9:06 p.m.
Another rabble dabble day with the counselor. Half the kids don’t seem half as interested in learning how to care for a baby—its health needs, its food needs, its emotional needs, plus parenting and such—as they are interested in learning how they can gain their complete independence and welfare!
We “Wanna Be’s” (that’s what the others call us) really do want to be Good Girls. Okay, so we made some dumb decisions. They’re not going to control our lives forever! The counselor is helping us see that. She had a baby when she was a teenager. Now she’s a successful psychologist who donates two hours a week to the Unwed Mothers program, and we really appreciate her, at least the WB’s do. She never makes it sound easy but she shows by her example that it is possible. For a long time I wouldn’t allow myself to think it was and I was afraid I’d ruined my entire future.
June 11, Tuesday
1:32 a.m.
I’m beginning to think my pregnancy is going to last forever. The first couple of months it was the “throw-ups,” which I thought was from some stomach flu virus I’d picked up. Now my breasts are beginning to blow up like balloons, and they’re so hard and painful that sometimes when I automatically roll over on my stomach (because that was my favorite way to sleep before being P.G.), I wake up in extreme pain.
Also I’ve noticed that a lot of the kids in my old school who used to just whisper and giggle when they saw me at the mall and stuff are now obviously telling jokes.
That hurts. It hurts a lot. And sometimes adults are worse than the kids. I’ve had them pretend they didn’t see me, or whisper to each other, like I can’t sense that they’re talking about me. They should know better, but apparently they don’t, or they don’t care or…Now I’m trying to blame my two-cent personal evaluation of myself on someone else. Stupid thinking right?
“Right.”
Hey, where did you come from? I’m glad you’re back. I really missed you and I didn’t even know it till NOW! Tell me how much you think I’m worth.
“A million periwinkles and a sea shell.”
Oh thank you, thank you, thank you, dear self, friend. I’d completely forgotten that day on the sand dune when I told Mom I had the most wonderful gift in the world for her, “A MILLION PERIWINKLES AND A SEA SHELL.” I was very little then, and those things seemed far, far above the worth of anything else in the universe, or maybe in all of the galaxies combined.
“That was a nice day, wasn’t it?”
Possibly one of the nicest in my whole lifetime, and I’m soooo glad you brought it up because sometimes, no—most of the time now, I’m rude and mean and disrespectful to Mom. I really can’t understand why, except that maybe when I feel like I’m of no conceivable use to anyone on earth, and I’m treating myself with utter disregard and disrespect, I just automatically start treating her the same way. Could I possibly be trying to tear her down to my dark, gooey inner-world level?
“Possibly, but…”
BUT WHAT?
“Why don’t you try going back to the old ‘building-up’ lifestyle instead of the ’tearing-down one?”
I can do that! And I will! I’ll try to be “patient and long-suffering” like Mom.
’Night.
I gotta get some ZZZZZ’s because it’s tomorrow already.
June 14, Friday
5:50 p.m.
School’s going better, Mom and I are getting along better, and life generally is more upbeat. I guess that is because you convinced me to start looking at my glass as being half full instead of almost empty, and ya know, it’s a strange thing, but since I’ve been looking for the sunshiney things, I’m seeing them everywhere. I wonder if I was just looking for the negatives whether I’d be over-or under-whelmed by them too? It’s spooky how much control we have over our own lives, isn’t it?
Mom’s yelling that dinner is ready. It’s her turn to cook, and believe me her meals are much better than mine.
June 17, Monday
7:10 p.m.
Wonderful news! Lolanita had her baby last night. A five-and-one-quarter-pound boy. Mrs. Milton said she had a pretty hard time, but that everything is all right now. She’ll start bringing him to school in a couple of weeks. That will be fun, and it will be great for all of us to sort of practice on him, so our own little kids won’t have to be guinea pigs to our dumbness.
It’s pretty nightmarish thinking of going through the birthing thing ourselves. We’ve seen films and stuff about average births, but we’ve also seen movies and heard horror stories about how bad it sometimes gets! Agh!
11:21 p.m.
I’ll be glad when my baby finally gets here. I’m tired of my feet and ankles swelling and feeling like an old lady with a backache and charley horses in my legs and, oh, yes, the kidney infections. Twice I’ve had them, and I’ve felt like I had to go to the bathroom every two minutes, then I couldn’t go, then sometimes I’d almost wet my pants before I could get there. I suspect my little guppie-goldfish baby will be just as glad to get outside as I’ll be glad to have her here.
And the “pelvic exam!” Even the idea of big old, old, old, fat Dr…. you know…it’s like…like the very worst. But I haven’t had to have them since forever!
June 18, Tuesday
3:16 a.m.
I tried my hardest not to wake up from my beautiful dream. I wanted it to go on forever, for it to be real! Oh, I’d like soooo much for it to be real. Me and Danny back together again, me skinny and shining and shimmering, and him crying and pleading at my feet until I finally believed him. I DO BELIEVE HIM! Believe that he has grown up and that he’s suffered as much about this as I have. That he wants to start over again, and never, never be mean to me again, but just kind and thoughtful and generous. Ummmmmmmm, he’s all the things now I ever wanted him to be.
Our delicious dream went on and on as he told me how he’d broken ties with all the verbally and physically abusive friends he’d had, and that now he’s ready to settle down and be the good husband and father he should be and wants to be.
The dream was so real, I know it must be some kind of an omen! But I’m still going to think on it, trying to be rational till…tomorrow? No, Thursday! Then I’ll do something about it.
4:02 a.m.
Shall I write him a note? Phone him? Send him a present? A telegram? Do it right away? Wait till after I’ve had the baby and I’ve exercised and dieted until my body is back to being even better than it was before? Maybe I’ll just let this be my dream secret till then. In the meantime, baby and I will in detail make all the decisions for our forever lovely and love-filled fairytale future.
Often in the past few months, the fear and aloneness has hurt by far worse than real pain…but that is over! Now I have dreams of each of my real and perfect tomorrows piled up one on top of the other!
Sweet dreams of all the days to come
With Danny and me, and our little one.
Lives filled wit
h joy and love and laughter
And dreams and hopes of a great hereafter.
How do I love thee?
Let me count the ways
Through the rest of my nights, and the rest of my days.
Good night
Sweet Prince.
Love like ours has never been before
Nor can there ever, ever be
A love like mine for you
A love like yours for me.
Sometimes I wish—I know—I should just forget him—but.
June 20, Thursday
9:48 p.m.
I can’t believe how immature the kids in my class are, even though most of them are older than I am. They aren’t listening to the difficult, confining, extremely expensive side of having a baby; they’re just thinking about no longer having to go to school and having another little human person as a pet kitten, someone who will be forever little and cute and cuddly, someone who will always love them and make them feel important.
They were all getting “high,” fantasizing about that pipe dream, when our counselor dropped the bombshell on them that the GOP, pushed by the Christian Coalition, is trying to pass a bill to deny cash payments to single teen mothers, thereby trying to discourage out-of-wedlock births.
I couldn’t believe the anger that flared up. It was like most of the lazy, selfish girls expected the government, or the state or SOMEBODY, ANYBODY, to take care of them! No feelings of responsibility at all for taking care of themselves or the little innocent babies that they were carrying around in their bellies.
Tammy and Marie and I went out by the fence afterwards, in disgust. We wanted to go to school and get an education so we could support ourselves and our children. We didn’t want charity. Even Tammy, who had been on welfare all her life, felt sick to her stomach. Reading was teaching her to become independent, and she was willing to fiercely fight for it. I was so proud of her, I felt like her mother!
In a way we feel sorry for the kids who don’t understand the excitement and self-worth that independence brings. But? What if my mom wasn’t willing, or couldn’t help me? Maybe I’d have to be on welfare too! Ugg—scary thought, go away!
June 23, Sunday
11:09 p.m.
Tammy’s mom just called to tell me she’d had a baby girl, six pounds, two ounces. She said everything had gone pretty well and that Tammy would be coming home in a few hours.
I’d heard somewhere that the county hospital didn’t keep welfare cases very long, and I’m worried as anything about Tammy. We went to her house a few times to pick her up when she stayed over or Mom took us places, and…well, her house is dingy and dinky and…dirty, just plain dirty and unsanitary. Not the place for a brand-new baby!
I wonder if Mom would let Tammy and her baby come stay here? I guess that wouldn’t be a good idea, and I’m sure Tammy’s mom would be insulted. Oh dear, I really hope everything turns out all right for her, for them both!
June 26, Wednesday
8:45 p.m.
Mom took me over to see Tammy, and her baby isn’t pink and sweet and everything I thought it would be at all. It’s…little and boiled-lobster red and shrunken and wrinkled like an ugly, pickled little mutant something, and it had pooped in its diaper, and the mustard-looking stuff that smelled like a mixture of everything awful I’d ever smelled before in my life dripped out from around the sides of its diaper and onto its blanket and everything else. I wanted to turn and run, but Mom squeezed my hand and reminded me to give Tammy the basket of things we had brought her and her…Oh, dear God in Heaven, I pray my baby won’t be so pathetic.
And I wish this dumb school didn’t last all summer—but it does!!
June 29, Saturday
7:24 p.m.
Mom took me over to see Tammy again, and I’m amazed at how much better her baby looks. She’s still not pretty in any sense of the word, but she’s…a little more human-looking.
Mom stayed in the car because she had some papers to check, and Tammy’s two little sisters, who share her bedroom, were out somewhere, so we could talk. Tammy told me that the doctor had had to pull the baby out of her with a huge pair of plier-type things called forceps, but that she’d had gas or something, so it didn’t hurt that much at the time. The rest I didn’t want to hear, but she told me anyway, and I’m trying to block it out because I don’t want anything like that to happen to me, and if it does, I’m certainly not going to tell any of the other girls if I have a baby before they do.
I wish the whole birthing thing was over. It’s sooooooo somehow unnatural…or something, but then again, I guess it isn’t.
Anyway, Tammy’s looking forward to coming back to school as soon as she can, and she promised she’s going to read the whole pile of books I brought to her from the library, and she’s going to write a very short outline about the plot of every book. I wish all of the girls in our school were like Tammy; in fact, I wish all of the girls in the world were sweet as she is. I hope we’ll continue to be best friends for life! She and her homely little baby and me with my beautiful one.
That was a horrible thing to even think. I’d erase it except tonight I’ve been writing with a pen, so I’ll scribble it out.
Oh, Lolanita never did come back to school. She just dropped out of everything after her baby came; even Dr. Milshaw doesn’t know what happened to her. But that won’t happen to Tammy. Not in a million-zillion years.
July 5, Friday
10:21 p.m.
Tammy and her baby came to school today for the first time. It’s exciting and wonderful, and baby Janie Dee has become a precious, beautiful, fragile little doll! We’re all fighting to hold her and rock her…but not to change her diapers, especially the stinkies.
It was really fun to help bathe baby J. D., but I had no idea how slippery and hard to hold she would be naked. It was like her unhinged little body was covered on the outside with slime, and her inside with strong little springs that shot out when you least expected it. I am soooo grateful I’m having this experience before I have my baby.
I can’t believe how small Tammy is. She’s just skin and bones. Mom said I could give her some of my B.B. (before baby) clothes, but they would look like tents on her. Not that I’m big—rather I wasn’t B.B.—but she’s hardly there at all.
Just between you and me, Daisy. I’m dying to know where all the stretched-out skin went after Tammy had the baby, but I don’t dare ask her to let me see; wish I did! And those forceps things still spook me something terrible. Maybe I’ll ask Dr. Milshaw about them and the episiotomy—ugg—ick…
July 7, Sunday
11:33 p.m.
I haven’t been feeling really great the last few days. My back aches, and I feel like I’ve got a horrible, stuffed-up head cold, only it’s all over my complete body. I’m trying not to be too bitchy about it because I’ve been putting pressure on Mom for too long as it is. I hope this is normal, if it’s normal for normal to be this miserable.
July 8, Monday
8:21 p.m.
School is becoming very difficult. Tammy’s baby cries all the time. I’m nervous and upset and about to blow my cool any second. I hope if I do, it won’t be on Tammy or little innocent baby J. D. Yesterday I wanted to scream at her to SHUT UP, and that’s not like me at all, but lately I’m not like me. I don’t even know who I am. I’m cross and demanding and snappy, and I don’t know how Mom or any of the others can stand me. I can’t even stand myself.
Ohhhhh, for a good night’s sleep, where I don’t have to get up every ten minutes to go to the bathroom, and my back doesn’t ache, and my boobs don’t throb, and I don’t get cramps in my legs, and I can get over my constant constipation. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it.
And I hate me!
I’ll never be the same again! There is no way I ever could be!
“Perhaps…”
And you SHUT YOUR PAPER MOUTH and stay out of my life too, Daisy stick-your-nose-into-everything bitch.
July 9, Tuesday
<
br /> 1:22 a.m.
Dear Daisy, I’ve been crying for two hours and beating up on myself thinking I was not worth forgiving but you’ve got to forgive me and help me get myself back together. I can’t have Mom dragging me off to the loony bin to get rid of the little creature that’s taken over my life and so completely changed it that I…wish…she…
“Don’t say it, Annie.”
I won’t, Daisy! I promise I never, ever will!
“You’re a sweet, good girl, Annie.”
I’m not! I’m a slut like people say behind my back. I’m a fourteen-year-old pregnant nothing, nobody slut, who would be better off if I’d never been born.
“NO, NO, NO, Annie.”
Yes, yes, yes. And my back is aching so bad, it’s like I’m being stretched on the racks in some ancient costume movie. I don’t know how much more I can handle. I stand up, sit down, lie on the floor, nothing helps! Owww, I need my mama, like when I was little. She could kiss it better, make me well again. Ohhhhh, ouchhhhhhhh, I really can’t stand it any more!!!!!!!!! I think I’m inches away from death.
I must have passed out with the pain or some thing because it’s morning, at least it’s daytime and the sun is streaming in through my window. Maybe I just had a horrible nightmare.
9:20 p.m.
I’m feeling too punk to go to school, and tomorrow is my birthday. I don’t even care. Birthdays aren’t fun when you’re not a little kid anymore, and I’m in no way a little kid anymore. I’m a big fat cow, and I’m only seven months pregnant. Oh yeah, I’m going to the doctor for another exam tomorrow. It’s not exactly the birthday present of my dreams. Having him poke and prod and listen and feel, but at least it’s just on the outside of me now!
July 12, Friday
1:31 p.m.
I’m soooooo glad I tucked you way, way under my mattress before Mom took me to the hospital, but I was lonely as anything there without you!
The whole production was scary and blurry with me in the backseat of the car moaning and groaning, sometimes screaming and cursing at Danny, while Mom drove so fast, there were cars honking on all sides of us.