thought I didn’t need it. And it was true that I didn’t express my frustration to him when I could have. But I didn’t want to be that person. It was just a bad mixture brewing between young parents.
Once the hustle and bustle following the birth had faded, Bentley was my only company. My friends were making their ways through senior year. My parents had stepped back to let me settle into motherhood. And Ryan was always working or doing his thing. Slowly but surely, unhappy feelings began to creep in. For one thing, I was no longer quite as okay with that whole concept of being on my own. It was great when I was just a typical teenage girl with a healthy sense of independence. But now I was a teen mom in an adult life with a fiancé and a baby, and I couldn’t make it all work by myself. I needed support, communication, and company. I believed that Bentley needed a good relationship with his father. And when the reality of what was really happening snapped into place, it felt like my wheels spun out.
From that first moment in the shower when I knew I was pregnant to the moment Bentley was born, a million fears and doubts circled the edges of my mind. But I never thought I’d be raising Bentley without a father. We were engaged. We lived together. We had our families supporting us, our moms helping us, our friends excited for us. And we had this amazing child who needed us both to be there with him. It wasn’t just that our circumstances could have been worse. We didn’t even have it that bad. We actually had it pretty good. There was no reason for me to think we wouldn’t be able to make it work and be happy as a family.
***
While things between Ryan and me looked worse by the week, things between Bentley and me were great. I got lucky. Bentley was really chill. Apart from when he was being a normal newborn, needing a bottle every three hours and crying when he didn’t get what he wanted, he was never a big whiner. In fact, he showed no interest in any of the usual baby quirks that drive new parents crazy. He never had tummy aches. He liked the first formula I gave him. No allergic reactions to soaps or laundry detergents. Even his teething phase barely made an impression on my memory, because somehow it never drove him to the kind of meltdowns you’re taught to expect.
People make a big deal out of a baby’s first words. For me the big moment was when he started cooing. For a month or so, babies don’t really make any noise except for crying. So when you catch them making their first attempts at the kinds of sounds that will someday turn into words, it’s almost mind-blowing. There was something so amazing to me about watching him go through those first increments of growing and developing. I could look into his eyes and see his little brain starting to work things out. I’d talk to him, and he’d reply to me with his little sounds. It was so incredible and sweet. I could actually see him transforming from a crazy baby to a real person. That had more of an impact on me than his first words did. There was a lot of wonder involved in parenting. It was fascinating in all of these ways I hadn’t expected. I loved watching him pick up on things. It’s so interesting to watch them learn the most basic things from scratch, just through instinct and adaptation.
And yet for all the wonder and whimsy in the house, the tension between Ryan and me was still just creeping deeper and deeper. To my complete shock and confusion, I just couldn’t figure out how to share that joy and excitement with him. Bentley was like this amazing, special energy in the house that was so easy to tap into. But I just couldn’t seem to get his father to see the appeal. And each day he found a reason he couldn’t spend time at home, I started grappling with the ugly possibility that he just didn’t want to be there.
If I was honest with myself, the doubts had started to creep in during the pregnancy. I wasn’t blind.
Once the hustle and bustle following the birth had faded, Bentley was my only company. My friends were making their ways through senior year. My parents had stepped back to let me settle into motherhood. And Ryan was always working or doing his thing. Slowly but surely, unhappy feelings began to creep in. For one thing, I was no longer quite as okay with that whole concept of being on my own. It was great when I was just a typical teenage girl with a healthy sense of independence. But now I was a teen mom in an adult life with a fiancé and a baby, and I couldn’t make it all work by myself. I needed support, communication, and company. I believed that Bentley needed a good relationship with his father. And when the reality of what was really happening snapped into place, it felt like my wheels spun out.
From that first moment in the shower when I knew I was pregnant to the moment Bentley was born, a million fears and doubts circled the edges of my mind. But I never thought I’d be raising Bentley without a father. We were engaged. We lived together. We had our families supporting us, our moms helping us, our friends excited for us. And we had this amazing child who needed us both to be there with him. It wasn’t just that our circumstances could have been worse. We didn’t even have it that bad. We actually had it pretty good. There was no reason for me to think we wouldn’t be able to make it work and be happy as a family.
***
While things between Ryan and me looked worse by the week, things between Bentley and me were great. I got lucky. Bentley was really chill. Apart from when he was being a normal newborn, needing a bottle every three hours and crying when he didn’t get what he wanted, he was never a big whiner. In fact, he showed no interest in any of the usual baby quirks that drive new parents crazy. He never had tummy aches. He liked the first formula I gave him. No allergic reactions to soaps or laundry detergents. Even his teething phase barely made an impression on my memory, because somehow it never drove him to the kind of meltdowns you’re taught to expect.
People make a big deal out of a baby’s first words. For me the big moment was when he started cooing. For a month or so, babies don’t really make any noise except for crying. So when you catch them making their first attempts at the kinds of sounds that will someday turn into words, it’s almost mind-blowing. There was something so amazing to me about watching him go through those first increments of growing and developing. I could look into his eyes and see his little brain starting to work things out. I’d talk to him, and he’d reply to me with his little sounds. It was so incredible and sweet. I could actually see him transforming from a crazy baby to a real person. That had more of an impact on me than his first words did. There was a lot of wonder involved in parenting. It was fascinating in all of these ways I hadn’t expected. I loved watching him pick up on things. It’s so interesting to watch them learn the most basic things from scratch, just through instinct and adaptation.
And yet for all the wonder and whimsy in the house, the tension between Ryan and me was still just creeping deeper and deeper. To my complete shock and confusion, I just couldn’t figure out how to share that joy and excitement with him. Bentley was like this amazing, special energy in the house that was so easy to tap into. But I just couldn’t seem to get his father to see the appeal. And each day he found a reason he couldn’t spend time at home, I started grappling with the ugly possibility that he just didn’t want to be there.
If I was honest with myself, the doubts had started to creep in during the pregnancy. I wasn’t blind.
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