I was married to my ex, will not mention his name, for close to 10 yrs, we had two sons during this marriage. The week before our youngest was born we found out there was a serious problem with him. I had to go to another hospital 2 hours away as they thought he had a diaphramatic hernia which he would need a ECMO machine and there wasn't one where we lived. Whaen I had a c-section a week later, it took 6 hours to stabalize him, then come to find out it wasn't DH at all but much worse, as no one had ever seen it before. Gary's spine was thick, came up, split between the shoulder blades and came back together, inside the split was a cyst that grew out into the right side of his chest and compressed the lung against the rib cage and the lung was only half way formed. He also had an enlarged heart with a murmur, a vertabre missing in his neck, an extra rib on his right side and scoliosis. He was obviously in in the NICU. The Drs told me not to get to attached as they didn't expect him to make it through the night. How do you not get attached to a child you have been carrying for nine months?!?!?!?!?!
Took the Dr's a week to decide how to proceed, they decided to go in and sever the cyst between spine and chest and remove from chest but leave the rest in the spine. They told me they were afraid to remove from the spine in fear of paralysis. Gary spent 3 weeks in the hospital before coming home and I had to take classes on how to manage his care before he could come home as well. The Drs was still skeptical, the didn't think he would make it six months.
I spent the next 2 yrs giving Gary several different kinds of medications, treatments and was in and out of the hospital. He had two more surgeries before he was 2 and was also on an APNEA monitor for several months. Of course I didn't work during these two yrs, his father did, I was even skeptical about leaving him with anyone else to have any time for myself, even family members. I admit I was an extremely over protective Mother during this time. Not ashamed to admit to it either as we did have a few very close calls with him. But, Gary showed us all just how strong he really is.
My marriage was failing, had been for several years, I kept trying. I will "NOT" try to say I was an angel either, I had my faults as well, but.....I will "NOT" go "there" either. I was working again, husband wasn't. Then one year the day before Gary's bday, we had a house fire. Lost approx 90% of our things. We stayed with a friend of mine and her husband while the house was being repaired which took months. Of course that didn't help marriage any as my ex didn't care for my friend or her husband one bit!
We move back in the house, marriage no better ex and I agreed we would split up. Agreed we would both move out of the house as we were renting from family member. I found a place first so I moved Jan '94. Travis wanted to stay with his father, it was against my better judgement but I agreed as it was what the he wanted. Ex and I wrote up an agreement of our own and signed it.
Then after my ex failed several attepmts to get me back, he......he seemed to turn into a totally different person. Someone I had never met before. It was almost like a Dr Jeckel/Mr Hyde type syndrome. Around work, friends & social life he was fine, but when it came to me.....it's likehe wassome kind of a monster or something. He wouldn't talk to me decently about the kids, that's all I cared about was what was in the best interest of our boys.
Things just got so nasty, no matter how hard I tried to work with my ex, it seemed he was working harder against me. He had money, I didn't, he had lawyers, I didn't so everything was always going against me no matter how hard I tried. He even had private investigators following me constantly, things just got so bad that I moved back home after more than a year n a half of this. Then, just before Christmas, I got served with papers, he had went to court, lied to the judge and got custody of my baby. Less than a week later he was here taking him from he, I thought I would die. I hadn't felt such pain since the death of my Parents.
