Not surprisingly, the drinking and smoking weed continued. And, in fact, he was also doing cocaine, something I wouldn’t find out until after we divorced. Every time he got drunk he would hit me, throw stuff at me, or shove me. Then he’d say sorry and I would forgive him. One big circle of dysfunction.

And then I had my first beautiful baby boy. I was enamored! The birth was easy, peasy, lemon squeezy. He came into the world less than 5 pounds with his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. They got it off and hit him with the oxygen twice and he pinked right up. My first amazing baby boy was here and I couldn’t be happier.

During the time in the hospital, he was still smoking weed and drinking. He wasn’t much help at all but I didn’t care. As a first-time mom I wanted to do all the things.

When Kavin and I came home, he was going through 40 ounce beers like crazy and smoking a ridiculous amount of weed. I ignored it all and put all my attention on my new baby boy, which he didn’t like very much.

I couldn’t get the hang of breastfeeding with Kavin so we bottle fed him. That took a lot of stress off me because anyone could feed him which would help me get a little time to do the things I needed to do like shower and such.

So “Dad”, and I use this term VERY loosely, would sometimes feed Kavin at night. That should be great, right? But unfortunately it wasn’t. I would wake up to Kavin crying, and I would go to the bassinet to get him, but he wouldn’t be there. He was definitely in the room, but “Dad” was nowhere to be seen. Many times I would find Kavin on the floor on “Dad’s” side of the bed or in the rocking chair in our room. To say the least, it scared the crap out of me.

Then a couple of months later, I found out I was pregnant again. The night I told him, he pinned me under our queen mattress because he got mad at something. What a great way to celebrate such a joyous occassion.

There was another time when I was pregnant that he was giving Kavin a bath in the bathroom at the top of the stairs. He had walked away from the bath tub, turning his back on it and I said something to him about not doing that. He got angry and the look in his eyes told me that he was thinking about pushing me down the stairs. Thank goodness he didn’t. At the time I was 6 months pregnant.

But, exactly one year and fifteen days later, after Kavin was born, another little boy stole a piece of my heart. In the midst of the abuse, I gave birth to my second son, Logan. His birth was not as easy as Kavin’s, but my second little bundle of joy came into the world again, weighing less than 5 pounds. We’re talking teenie tiny babies, that even preemie clothes swallowed up. I breastfed for awhile making me the only one that could feed him. Therefore I knew he was safe at night, because I was the one taking him out of the bassinet and putting him in it.

But the beatings still continued.

It was shortly after Logan was born that he began to complain that I wasn’t working and contributing to our family. Not like taking care of two kids under the age of two was not a job in itself. But alas, I looked around and they were looking for a bartender at the bar we frequented, which was right around the corner from the house. I applied and got the job.

Stay tuned for Part 3 next week!