Tarbaby

We've been sort of surround-ING rather than surrounded last weekend.  There's a girl from my work from Morocco (she's been one of our garage booth attendants) who got dumped by a boyfriend two weeks before she was having his baby.  Needless to say we're going to go after HIS wages.... 

She had her little daughter early Saturday morning.  Nadine.

So I went to the hospital twice to visit.  She's kind of in shock, rather than being in the happy mom mode.  It's really a strange situation... She has no family here yet, her mom is coming in a couple weeks.  She has no money left  hardly at all (thank god she had insurance from her job) since she paid it out to co-payments for specialists in prenatal care (she developed diabetes during the pregnancy --which they say recedes afterwards somewhat) and she's going to have to move to some other place (probably Section 8 housing) since she'll no longer have rent money coming in anymore, within like, a month.  It's insane. I've never met anyone in this much of a trap.

A bunch of us gave her money and baby things, but oy vey she's going to need so much more, and she just doesn't seem to realize how much this will actually change her life.   She had found out she was pregnant at about 2 months 3 weeks and had asked if he wanted it, if they were really going to do this, should she have an abortion?  She would if he didn't want it.  He had said yes, they would have it and he kept saying yes.... until the 2 weeks before.  Coward I guess.  We'll deal with him later.

Weird thing is, I've seen her with the baby and she's having trouble adjusting.  She will adjust, but .... she's not the mom type.  
Anyway after seeing her in the hospital, I needed a rest.  So we cleaned the entire house, ironed 15 pounds of laundry, and bought 200 bucks worth of groceries.  

I sacked out. 
I think I feel particularly weird because everyone on the planet who is NOT supposed to be having babies is having them, and I'm...... not. 

But then I think how sacked out I really am and I think, Maybe I really COULDN'T.  Maybe I would have dropped of psychological exhaustion, physical lack of stamina, who knows.  Maybe I would have been out of control with frustration.  I don't know.  And I think that's the problem, is that I DON'T know.  If I just KNEW that I was no good I could leave it alone.   

A few days later.

I went to see her at her run down old 70s apartment she currently has (where she can't fit her mother if she comes -- she needs to move) and found exactly this:
One double bed with good bedding
one nightstand
one table lamp
one chest of drawers
one loveseat
and one yellow cushioned chair serving as a bookshelf.
There were the baby bassinet we got her and the car seat/pram thing, and the coffeetable that belongs to the roommate that lives in the bedroom, while she lives in the living room with cross traffic.  (When someone at the babyshower had asked if she had painted the baby's room, I cringed. I had guessed it would be more like this.)

The apartment was like.... I mean... college students would at least have bought posters.  There was NOTHING.  

She went to a Dr.'s appointment for the baby in a few days, but instead of being proactive (which Moslem girls have little clue of how to do) and figuring out how to get a pram onto the bus, she just took the baby in her arms in a blanket.

 About two hours later waiting for the bus home, she began to worry she might actually drop her out of muscle fatigue.
So  I found and bought her a sling carrier the next day and made her pay the 20 bucks for it, fearing my help would become expected. I'd already given her a large bunch of money for her shower gift.

I'm almost afraid to get too close to her.  Next I'll be taking her to get groceries.  Oh man.  I really don't want to get started. 

Every application we told her get for government help gets handed over to this Dad-type friend of the family guy (he's Egyptian) who's been bailing her out and giving her money which ostensibly she'll pay back one day.  Since his wife died last year we're wondering if this is some perverse attempt at an early courtship or something....

He's also said he hopes to find a cheap but functional car for her.  I think maybe I'm more afraid of her after she gets a car than before.  This girl can't figure out when a guy she's slept with is lying -- are we sure we want to trust her with gauging intentions of other drivers?  on a freeway?  And then there's the car itself..... she hasn't even demonstrated an interest in deciphering a convertible carseat/pram thingy. 

Maybe all the suffering is not from our being so bad, so evil, so premeditatedly calculatingly human. But rather that we're just fundamentally out of sync with clarity, reason and sanctity. We're just really messy, thoughtless bumblers through this foggy misty race. And a promise of love in an insecure position after a couple years in a foreign country? Oh come on. You'd sell out completely for that. Anyone would.

Welcome to the world little Nadine. You are going to bring your new mother the most love she's had in a while. Make sure she knows it.