“My relationship with my daughter is going to affect her relationship with men for the rest of her life. Every man in here has dated a woman with some ‘Daddy Issues”. That shit ain’t fun, ok? She givin' you a hard time over some shit her daddy did in 1969. That shit ain’t never fun!” - Chris Rock.
I am no exception to this 'rule'. I've barely spoken to my father since I fell pregnant with Lilly. Sure that may only be 18months ago but for a woman who was always 'Daddy's little girl' it's a long time. When I first told him in '05 that I was moving to Queensland his one piece of advice was "don't get pregnant Flic!". Well, I did. My whole family was somewhat shocked when I told them the news which is understandable, I was only 19 at the time and really hadn't planned to become a mother so early. But I've learnt that plans rarely turn out the way you expected and I've grown to become a lot more understanding and forgiving when things don't work out the way I'd hoped.
Just before Lilly was conceived my dad had decided he was going to move out of his house in Melbourne and had offered it to Mr. W & myself. At that time we were living in a house in Qld which he had kindly bought and we were paying rent at. So, we put the house we were living in on the market, only for my father to change his mind about leaving his Melbourne home. Then I fell pregnant. I worked my butt off cleaning & preparing the house for inspections while suffering all-day-sickness beyond belief only to have the real estate agent complain to my dad about how "unclean" the house was. My father decided to confront me about this which turned into a huge drama in itself. I'm sure I turned it into more then I should have but I was so sick & I'm sure he could have approached it in a less confrontational way. Anyway, shortly after my mum found us a house in Melbourne & we packed and moved.
My parents, although divorced for almost five years, still run a business together. They drive each other crazy. They offered Mr. W a full time job working for them, helping my two uncles who they also employ. The money was good but Mr. W really struggled and, i believe, because of my dad's frustration about my pregnancy, gave Mr. W a much harder time then he deserved. Dad and I had a few minor altercations about things he said about Mr. W ("He'll just stay around for a while & then when the baby's born he'll leave".) and other issues that I had, alot so minor I really can't remember them. Now, what not many people know is that I have three older brothers, one who passed away when I was a baby and two others both born sometime during the 70's. All of these boys have different mothers, my father never kept contact with any of them. He began a relationship with Justin, the deceased one, a few years before his death. The other two both sought him out and wrote him letters, he only replied to one. Why? Because he didn't like the other man's mother. He never had any further correspondence with either of them & has no idea where they are. So, these comments he made about Mr. W are hypocritical beyond belief which is why I felt the need to take them up with him. As far as I was concerned, being my father it was my responsibility to discuss these issues with him, rather then having Mr. W do it.
Our conversations during my pregnancy got shorter and shorter and less frequent. One afternoon while Mr. W was at work he came over to our home. I was about three or so months pregnant at this time and hugely emotional, as you can understand. During the convertation he pointed at my ever growing stomach and said "So, how is that?". We got into a pretty heated arguement in my kitchen over who knows what, he stood in my house yelling at me as if I was seven years old, I felt like I was seven years old. I eventually told him he needed to leave and spoke to him probably only four or so times between then and Lilly's birth. I did see him at my Grandfathers funeral in November where he decided to come right over and give me a big hug and whispered in my ear to "be nice", I honestly did feel he did that to make a good impression on the rest of the family although he still denies it to this day.
I must say though, that my father was my favorite person while I was growing up and I loved him to pieces. I still have the photo that I used to put next to my bed when he went away on business trips. Some of these trips I later found out were not for business at all and had been spent with other women, he had apparently returned at one time with crabs of all things and passed them onto my mum. He later claimed he had caught them from the bed sheets in a hotel. This is neither here not there though, his relationship or lack of with my mum is none of my business, all I care about is the relationship he was supposed to have with me. It seriously deteriorated when he moved from the family home before the divorce. He stopped calling often pretty soon after, mum invited him over for dinner once a week in the hopes he would spend time with myself and my younger brother but after we'd eaten he would shut the lounge room door and sit in the kitchen alone with mum, trying to have some sort of meaningful conversation with her.
Lilly's due date was the 9th of March, during the week leading up I was bombarded with phone calls from almost every family member and friend apart from my dad. Mind you, because of the previous turmoil I didnt expect a phone call from him and honestly didn't really think about it much, as you can imagine I was hugely excited about our impending arrival. Around lunch time on the 9th (a Friday) I started having strange aches and pains in my lower abdomen, being a first time mum I had no idea what I was experiencing and so tried to call Mr. W at work. My father answered the phone and so I asked him to send Mr. W home as I thought the baby was on her way. Mr. W came home but we had an uneventful night and Lilly decided to stay put. My father never called me. About midnight on the Saturday night I began having contractions. All day Sunday & Monday I stayed at home as the contractions would get down to five minutes apart and then go back up to twenty. We didnt leave to go to the hospital until almost 8pm on Monday. Over the weekend my father never called or even asked my Mum what was happening. During the drive to the hospital, I sent a text message to a few of Mr. W's family members including his Mum & Step-Dad. That message was then passed on from his Step-Dad's phone to every other number he had, this just happened to include my father.
Shortly after arriving at the hospital, Mr.W, my Mum & myself were taken to the delivery suite. I was of course in a lot of pain at this point and because Lilly was prosteriour my back was so incredibly sore I couldn't sit down so I went into the bathroom to take a shower. Emerging from the bathroom half-naked, I expected to see only my Mum & Mr.W however my father was sitting in the delivery room! Now, after almost 48 hours of contractions and very little sleep I was in no state to form coherent sentances, let alone intelligent thoughts and so for reasons I still can't comprehend, I said nothing except "I need to push, can I have some drugs". At this point i hadn't even been checked by a midwife to see how dilated I was. My father stayed in the room while I was checked, he also stayed in the room for the forty minutes that it took to delivery my daughter and the following thirty it took to repair my poor body afterwards. My mum, in all her grace sat at the end of the bed in order to attempt to block his view of his twenty year old daughter with her legs in stirrups with a doctor sewing her up. It was humilliating, not so much as the time because even with no drugs I felt zoned out and not myself, but afterwards I couldn't look him in the eye. He didnt seem to notice.
He came to visit a couple of times at our house after that, but he'd turn up with no notice and often we'd be asleep or I'd be feeding and didn't really want company. More then one time though I did choose not to open the door when I knew it was him, I hadn't had much of a relationship with him throughout my pregnancy, he seemed uninterested and disappointed that I was having a baby and yet when she was here he felt he had a right to be involved? It doesn't work like that.
He then stopped speaking to me.
When Mr.W had some more issues with comments being made by my father I decided to call him. That was probably not the best course of action but it is the one I took. The 'conversation' ended with him saying "Hey Flic, fuck you, you little bitch". I haven't spoken to him since, he has sent me text messages but I chose not to reply.
Now, I do take some responsibilty in the situation as I do believe I acted immaturly at some points however the one thing I'm finding hard to forgive is the humiliation I felt because of Lilly's birth. This should have been a totally happy memory for me but because of his presence it isn't and that's what I find hard to deal with. I'm sure at some stage I'll reconcile with him and we'll pick up where we left off, I know, life is too short. I just hope Lilly has better luck with her Dad then I seem to have had.
This is her crawling around, the three of us were all laying on the floor together playing and she decided she wanted the camera, of course.
And, this is what happens when you allow your 8month old to "feed" herself things like wheetbix. Yeah, I put her outside, do you want to clean that up off the carpet?
