Welcome-Get to know me, quick!

My name is Sarah and I am a single mother. I am so grateful for the love and support my family and friends have provided me and my infant daughter in order to make parenting a positive experience. The purpose of this "blog" is to share my experience, struggles, and victories as a single mother. I am working on creating an actual location where people with similar experiences can gather to share their common stories and helpful resources.

Please read the blog entries in chronological order.

I arrived in Venezuela on January 20th, 2006 and hardly spoke a word of Spanish. My host family kept saying "pero" and I got really excited. I knew "perro" meant "dog" and there seemed to be an excessive amount of random dogs running around in the street, so I just assumed that everyone was taking about their fascination with dogs.

Great, I thought, I have a dog too! "Tengo perro!" I would say as I smiled triumphantly. Just one day in a foreign land, and I was already getting along with the natives. That is how great I thought I was.

Turns out, the spanish word "pero" simply means "but" or "although" and I just made an ass out of myself.

By the beginning of March of 2006, my self-driven ego had already purchased a Chinese motorcycle; a 200cc Bera BRX,  gotten into one terrifying accident with a Land Rover (and many police confrontations), started a money laundering business which kept my finances stable, and turned the heads of the entire pueblo. I had things made, so I guess that a man was the next thing on my to-do list.

I met a young man in March, after a little over a month in Venezuela. I took him all around the countryside on my motorcycle, and he helped translate and explain my surroundings (turns out, the signs that said "CURVAS PELIGRAS" on the mountain roads I frequented meant "DANGEROUS CURVES"). It was very a convenient relationship.

We decided to go to the beach, so after a ten hour bus ride, we transfered to another bus which brought us up and down a mountain in about an hour through Henri Pittier National Park.

Side note: Have you ever had a feeling of panic that stopped your heart but nobody else seemed to notice? Once when I was a teenager, I was riding as a passenger while the driver drove through a red light in a busy intersection. I was terrified, but she never knew our near death experience ever happened.

Once on an airplane it appeared that there was another airplane hovering next to my window. Surely, the flight staff was not notifying the passengers to avoid panic. I thought I should tell another passenger, so we could share our last moments of life together. Turned out, I was fatigued from hours of flying and not seeing nor comprehending anything. It was simply a strange reflection in my window.

The bus ride through Henri Pittier National Park is like that but the danger is real. The road up the mountain is a little wider than one lane for both directions of traffic and all turns, none of them greater than 90 degrees, are taken without a reduction in velocity. Busses usually have to stop halfway through to replace faulty mechanical parts, or to allow passengers to vomit out windows and nobody is ever sure if there is a fallen tree or landslide around the next curva peligrosa. People die. Seriously.

So finally this young man and I made it to Choroni Beach. We settled into our hotel room and I took a deep breath and thanked God for listening to every one of my prayers to keep me and the other  bus passengers alive. We had a couple of hard lemonades, some delicious pizza, and went to the beach. It was beautiful and so romantic. We conceived my daughter that evening.

I knew something was not right with me immediately. My skin (which is usually that of a 17-year old with subsiding acne) became that of a greasy hormonal 13-year old. My breasts (which have always been those of a 13-year olds') began to hurt.

I went to the doctor, the spanish speaking gynecologist and she said some things to me, and what I understood was that I had a false pregnancy because it is difficult for an individual with type 1 diabetes to conceive. I remember her laughing at my situation and saying "Las gringas siempre piensen que ellas son embarazadas" which means "Crazy americans always think they are pregnant."

Well doctora, laugh it up. I was right. I was pregnant.

Abortion is not something I could do. End of story. I was 26 years old, in a third world country where abortion was not permitted and without typical medical treatment. I drank herbal teas known by the natives to end weak pregnancies yet not cause problems if the pregnancy came to term. I treated my body poorly. My diabetes was acting up as well. Turns out, having a baby living inside your stomach makes insulin dependance more difficult to control. I figured it out though.

I was concerned about myself first. Where would I live when I returned to the US? What kind of story would I tell? How did I get pregnant? How did all of this happen? I had quit my job and had another semester of school to finish before I graduated. I had lost my apartment as well. Technically, I was homeless.

My family's reaction to the news really frightened me. What would they think? I was especially petrified of what my father's reaction would be. In addition, it was May and my sister was getting married in September. As the Maid of Honor, I did not want my unplanned pregnancy to divert attention from my beautiful sister's wedding day!

My third realm of concern was that of the Venezuelan family that I had just inherited by default. Would I keep the baby's father in my life? Could we really work as a healthy and functioning family with language barriers and cultural differences? I decided to try in the interest of my unborn child.

Sometimes I would worry about the little fetus growing in my belly, but honestly, it was the least of my concerns. Overall, I have always been a pretty healthy woman with a good diet and an acceptable amount of physical activity and exercise. I have always been a little neurotic at times, but who isn't?

I told my mother first. I called her from a phone booth while I was in Venezuela. She took the news well. I voiced my concerns about my school, money, and living situations. "We've been through worse," she said.

I came home to live with my parents in August of 2008 and I was still not looking very pregnant but my scale told me otherwise. I spent a lot of time finishing up my school. I did some work building and tearing down stages for acts like Aerosmith and Brittney which afforded me a couple of luxuries once in a while. I also had student loans that helped me out financially. My baby's father and I spoke in Skype daily.

My grandfather had not been well for a long time, and died while my mother and I were in his company. My sister got married two days later at a beautiful wedding, and somehow between these two overwhelming family events I managed to disclose that I was pregnant to each of my three siblings and other close family members. The magnitude of the events taking place around us really helped me realize that life is not only about me and the baby living in my stomach. Grandpa always said things happen in threes: a death, a wedding, and news of a birth!