I am about to to have a birthday in the end of July.....
Wow! I never thought that I would ever be thirty or have three boys and be married!
But it all started when I had my son Andre, he changed my life. Before Andre came along it was crazy for me, I was the teen that gave you all the challenges, from running away, to smoking pot to moving out of my house at seventeen. I thought I knew it all and because of my choices of hanging out and partying I became estranged for a while from my family, they just did not know what to do with me and honestly I didn't either!
I was lost for a while feeling depressed and abandoned by many and choose to deal with my feelings with partying. Through out my crazy time from seventeen to about twenty, I moved around, stayed in residental homes and living with different friends, I moved to one place that I soon never left.
In 1998 I moved to Hinsdale NH, I was living in a independent home with other young adults, and all though I needed help I felt that I was far more better off than any of these other adults in the house and I choose because I was 18 to move out and live with a friend.
I was still up to hanging out and having fun, I worked to have my party money and thats about it. It was just about summer time when I moved, one day at a friends house I met my husband, he had just graduated high school and was off to college, we had a connection but it was brief..about almost the whole year passed and Anthony had come back to live, thats when we made it offical!! Not long after that we were in for a lifetime ride!
We found out we were pregnant with Andre! We were just kids then, I felt that I had learned so much and I thought that I was a adult, I was in for it.
I had Andre M. Bingham on March 9 2000 by cesarean, we were changed forever, well sort of, I was still young, all of our friends were still partying and having a good time, we had to work to pay bills and take care of a child, I soon found out that I had nothing in common with my friends and felt very lonely, Anthony and I would fight who did more, he was off working at the resturant and I was home with the baby, when he wasn't working he was off with his friends hanging out, it was such a hard time for us and me, I was so use to gong where I wanted, having all the time in the world for me, to sleep, talk on the phone and to hang out, and now life had become much different..... I felt like I had no choice to be grown up and be a mom, it became Andre and me all the time, hanging out with each other and bonding, I still remember him being a toddler and sitting in the back seat of my clunky car, going to the river and just spending time together.
Years passed, my husband and I were up and down... but we stayed together, when I had Andre I had a c-section, it left me with many questions of why, after that I wanted to learn all I could about birth so maybe the next time it would be different for me or I could help others.
I decided to take a class in midwifery, a course that was once a month, and this course opened my eyes to a whole new world of birthing...I knew I wanted to do things differently for my next child, Andre was about six when we found out that I was pregnant with Isaac, I thought here is my chance to do the things I did not do for Andre, because of lack of people guiding me and helping me breastfeed, or to even think I would want to have a baby naturally.
So we saw a midwife and I tried to eat well and Anthony and I still were up and down, all though we grew in age, we really had not grown in maturity, we still fought a lot, we still got married but things were rocky..for me I had let so many people down that I thought there is something that I am gonna get right.
During these years I struggled with a lot of things, being a good wife, and mother and who was I, I sometimes felt trapped when Andre was young, I had tried to keep up with friends that were still partying but I couldn't keep going like them, plus I was a mother now.
So again when I found out I was pregnant I was determine to do things different, we started to see on midwife but changed care at the very end and started to see another midwife that my friend anji had started to apprentice with ( I had meet her through my midwifery class) and I was determined to have a VBAC all natural!! So I went in to labor with I saac on November 10th and labored for 18 hours, no meds in the water at the birthing center around family and friends, that was one of my biggest acheivments having a all natural birth!!! I again transformed into someone that I thought I never would be.... I was determinded to breastfeed Isaac as long as I could, I breastfed him until he was three! During that time I worked at a all natural parenting store in Brattleboro VT and I switched over to cloth diapers and found myself wanting to live a whole different way of life!
We had Dante' shortly after Isaac and again I felt myself grow, I had to now learn how to be a attentive mother and had to incorporate patient parenting everyday, which was not easy, both my husband and I were trying to parent in new way which we were not fimiliar with, he had a hard and abusive life and I grew up always being at odds with my mother.
It took a lot of work for me, to really learn to be a calm and patient parent, I had to learn to surrender to the chaos and learn roll with things, because with three boys there is always something happening.
During these past months and especially this year for me I have felt change within myself, becoming a person that when I was first pregnant with Andre I never would of thought I would of wanted to be, it seems that the light has been becoming brighter and brighter. I have comes to terms letting that younger version of myself go and being happy in my skin, being more sure of myself and finding joy in everyday.
We always tell Andre that he saved us, I was going down a road to no where, a lot of my friends now that I knew then are still partying nothing has changed except that they have had children, I find joy and welcome challenges now and I am always looking to learn new lessons. I am surprised who I have grown into, but am proud looking back to see how I have grown and what I accomplish everyday. I thank God everyday for my babies for they have been my true teachers and what gave me reasons to live!
Julie Bingham