Calling out a bitch.

I haven't posted in a very long time because, frankly, I haven't quite had the drive nor the time.  But today?  I'm pissed.  Stella left me a note on her Facebook page over the weekend.  The note might not say it's for me, but believe me...it's for me.

Wow, I must be a horrible, insensitive bitch, right?  How dare I minimize her, and the kids' pain.

Well, I didn't.  And I'm mostly mad about this cheap dig because my words were twisted.  And I HATE it when people do that.

Here's the backstory.  Stella and Guy had Marsha out of wedlock, barely a year and a half after they had started dating.  They were 6 months into their relationship when Stella "miraculously" got pregnant.  ("OMG!  It's a miracle!" Except...when you're a crazy person who feigns being on birth control, that's usually how babies happen).  A couple of years later, Guy still hadn't proposed to Stella and OMG!  It's a miracle again!  She's miraculously pregnant!  (Stupid, stupid Guy.  He didn't exactly make sure that wasn't going to happen.)  So Stella's dad sat Guy down, and said, "Ok, your wedding is in 3 months because Stella doesn't want to look pregnant at the wedding."  Guy wanted to do the right thing, so he went along with it.

Very, very sadly (all joking aside), 6 months in, Stella felt the baby stop moving.  Thought nothing of it, went to her next regular appointment 2 weeks later, and found out that the baby had an issue with the development of its kidneys, and that those were developing outside of his body.  That also meant that the baby was not expected to survive birth, or live much afterward if it did.  And she also found out that the deadline for a late-term abortion was two weeks prior...  She was forced to carry the baby to term, knowing it wouldn't survive.

I cannot imaging how utterly earth-shattering that news, or that situation, must have been.  The heartbreaking loss.  Having to still carry around a baby who she knew wouldn't survive.  Throw in there that that was the ONLY reason she was able to be married, and the only reason Guy agreed to it as well, and that became a very dark time for both Stella and Guy.  Both turned to drinking....Guy ended up coming out of it sooner than Stella did.  And that set the downward spiral for their marriage.  Only 8 months after the loss of the baby, miracle of miracles!  ("OMG!  It's a miracle!")  Stella was pregnant with Johnny.  And a year and a half after Johnny was born, Stella and Guy separated (that's typically what happens when a wife cheats on her husband and he finds out), and soon after, divorced (but since she filed the final papers, she likes to take credit for leaving HIM).  The baby's death was the beginning of the end of their marriage.  And from what Guy has told me over the years we've been together, both of them knew it.

Marsha was barely 3 when all of this happened.  Barely old enough to physically form any long-term memories.  But if you ask the child what happened, she repeats the words I've seen her mother write about it, almost ver batim.  Johnny, who wasn't around for this AT ALL, has also had crying fits in the past because he's "so sorry that the baby died!!"  And Marsha has also occasioned to let Johnny know, during fights, "If <baby brother> were here, he'd be on MY SIDE AND NOT LIKE YOU!"  Yeah...

What we're dealing with here is implanted memories.  And projection by Stella onto Marsha and Johnny of feelings of guilt, remorse, and loss.  She only does it when she's feeling emotional, or when she feels like the kids aren't as close to her as she wants them to be.  Since I spend more time with the kids than Guy does usually (only because of work schedules) I've been the one who's had to deal with emotional breakdowns after long visits with Stella, where the kids were clearly brainwashed into believing they should feel the same sadness as their mother when it comes to mourning the loss of the brother who never really lived.  The kids have talked about this with a couple of counselors, and both counselors have said that the kids didn't really seem affected, in general, by the loss because Marsha was too young and Johnny wasn't alive....but that still doesn't stop both kids from occasionally bringing it up, acting out and using that as an excuse, or from having breakdowns.

I would love nothing more than to rip Stella a new asshole for the emotional battery and manipulation she has forced on the children she DOES have.  But I can't.  Because my rebuttal would fall on deaf ears.  So, using my blog as my personal soap box, here's what I actually have imparted on the children:

Their mother's sadness should not be their sadness.  Her feelings should be hers, and they don't have to feel like they need to be sad just because she is sad.  I believe it is wrong to talk about a baby who passed-on as if he's still alive as far as the kids perspectives are concerned, because they end up feeling guilty and depressed that they lived, and the baby didn't.  I believe that long-term grief (and this pregnancy happened over 11 years ago by this point) should be a private thing, and not something pushed on anyone else.  Especially not pressed on children.  I told the kids they don't have to feel guilty.  They don't have to feel sad.  And in Marsha's case, HOW DARE SHE PRETEND THAT HER DEAD BABY BROTHER WOULD TAKE SIDES.  She has no right to bring up reference to him in that context at all, especially because she never knew him, he never shared any experiences with her, and how DARE she assume that she's always in the right (and yes, that stems from other selfish, self-righteous teenage perspectives).

I have talked with some girlfriends about loss of a child so I could try and understand that pain.  I'm so grateful I've never felt it.  Miscarriages and infant loss in general leave an un-mendable hole in a mother's heart.  I can understand that.  Those mothers still sometimes carry around sonogram pictures, or in the cases of one who lost her baby in a situation similar to Stella's, a lock of hair.  But they NEVER cry about that loss to the children they had before or after.  They NEVER use that sadness to drum up weepy "what if" situations in an effort to emotionally batter the children who lived into a shared mother-child bond over loss of the baby.  NEVER.

Yet that's what Stella does.  She likes to share pictures of the baby's death, in the hospital, with the kids when they're visiting.  Especially Marsha.  Which I think is absolutely sick.  That's what I have issue with.  And it's never a healthy, "Yup, this is what he looked like," situation either.  The kids describe Stella drinking too much, and getting weepy in the evenings (especially either at the beginning or the end of a visit) and then blathering on about the lost baby, and how she loves all three of her kids equally, and how she wishes the baby were still there.

THAT is what I take issue with.  THAT is what I told the kids isn't ok, and that's also what Guy has said to them, too.  THAT GUILT is not something the kids should feel like they have to feel.  I did not disregard the sadness when it was genuine.  But since I know "my" kids by now, I can also tell when it is NOT genuine.  In the case of Marsha where I knew she was manipulating a situation, I told her to knock it off and that reciting incidents she had no physical way of remembering was inappropriate.  She wants to feel sad?  That's fine.  But that doesn't give her any right to act out however she wants, use that sadness as any excuse for any of the horrible actions she's committed (and Marsha has had some downright shitty periods where she's displayed herself to have the capacity to be a horrible person in the last year), and it DOES NOT give her the right to push her feelings on anyone else.  For Johnny, on the couple of occasions where he's driven himself into crying fits because of the guilt, I have told him he has no need to be sad.  No reason.  His other brother is in Heaven, and who knows...if the other brother were still here, Johnny might not be, so I'm going to celebrate who IS, and not wish for what WAS NOT, and I hope he does the same.

But of course...in her mind...I'm the horrible one.  Because I encourage the kids not to make up memories of things they didn't live, or couldn't have remembered, and because I'm the one who's telling the kids that everyone is responsible for their own feelings, and no one should be forcing others to feel the same way they do.