Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Getting Started

To keep from going crazy, to give me something to do while we wait, and to document our journey I have decided to start this blog.  To understand where we are you must first understand where we started so here goes an attempt to get everyone up to speed.

Martin and i have been together for a little more than three years now.  When we were first getting to know each other about 3 months into our friendship he found out that his ex-girlfriend who he had lived with was pregnant with his child.  He didn't hear this from her but from a mutual friend and was told she was about 6 months pregnant.  He didn't know what to do.  He had not talked to her since they broke up which had been about 4 months by this time.  The next day we set out to find her.  He started by trying to call her but the number had been disconnected.  He made phone calls to other people.  We drove by places he thought she might be staying to see if he could find her vehicle.  He finally talked to someone that said she might know where she was living.  We drove out together to this house and he saw her car parked outside.  He was so nervous because he didn't know what to do or what he was even going to say if he found her.  He knocked on the door and a young man opened.  He asked if she was there and the man told him no.  He asked if she was living there and the man said not anymore, she left yesterday on a plane for Honduras.  Martin was devastated.  He knew she was in the United States illegally and that her family lived in Honduras.  If she had gone back to Honduras there would be no way for her to come back to the United States, at least not before the baby was born.  This also meant that his child was going to be born in another country.  We drove back to his house in complete silence.  I felt so bad for him because although he just found out about the pregnancy i could tell the thought of having a child made him happy and now he was unsure if he was ever going to see the baby.  He tried during the next couple of months to get in touch with her.  He called every number he had for her family in Honduras and left messages but nobody would answer or call back.  Then a few days after Thanksgiving 2009 she called him.  She told him she was pregnant with his child and that it was a girl and she was due any day.  He was so thankful that she finally called but of course he had a million questions:  why did she leave? why didn't she tell him? why didn't she give him a chance to be part of his child's life?  I don't know her reasoning, I'm guessing she felt alone and wanted to be with her family.

On December 1, 2009 Martin got a phone call from her at 2:00 am saying she was going to the hospital.  The entire day he was a nervous wreck.  Waiting to hear something.  Finally around 9:00 p.m. he got a call from her brother saying that she had the baby.  He was so excited and yet sad all at the same time.   On one hand he was so excited she had been born and that she was ok but then the realization that he didn't know if he would ever see her.  He went that day and sent money for his baby girl.  This continued for months.  He would get paid and go send money.  She would call and say the baby was sick or needed something and he would go send money.  He had people telling him he was crazy that she might not even be his child but he believed in his heart that she was his and he loved her.  After a few months and many conversations about why she left without telling him she finally said that she knew it was a mistake that at the time she felt hopeless and just wanted to be with her family.  She didn't know what to do.  She knew that she should have stayed at least long enough to have the baby so she could have been born in the United States but now the baby was a Honduras citizen and couldn't just come to the United States.  Because Martin is not a United States Citizen either (he was born in Mexico but has a United States Residency/Green Card) he couldn't just bring her back here either.  She told Martin over and over that she wanted him to have the baby that she knew he could provide for her and that she could have a better life here. 

We looked into getting a visa for her but found out that it could take 4 to 5 years or longer for immigration to be available since he was not a United States Citizen.   If he was a citizen the process would only take about 4 to 5 months.  This seemed like an impossible solution so he kept up with her by phone calls.  She sent him pictures and he would show them off proudly like any normal dad.  By this time me and Martin were together.  Our friendship had developed into more and we were a couple.  Then shortly after the baby, whose name is Michell, turned a year old the phone calls stopped.  For about a year we had no contact with her.  Didn't receive pictures didn't know if she was ok.....nothing.  During this time Martin and I were starting our own lives together.  We had been through a devastating miscarriage,  the loss of my older sister, pregnancy again, the birth of our son, our marriage and then suddenly he gets a text message from her. 

This time she is ready for him to take the baby.  She said she wasn't ready before.  She couldn't imagine giving her up.  She knows the baby will have a better life in the states and it's too hard for her.  She says sometimes she doesn't have enough money to buy the baby the things she needs and she knows it is going to get harder the longer she waits.............

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