Recent Messages in All Groups
Messages with the most recent replies are listed first.
God's Gift
What do you say about a girl called Natasha? Thank you. Oh to see her in the nursery, what a beautiful baby. The other parents were gathered around cooing and saying what a beautiful baby. She was born with black hair, black colored eyes, and beautiful tan skin. I learned later that the tan skin was called jaundice and she would need a special light to help that condition.
Natasha eventually grew up and surprisingly has blond hair and brown eyes, with a stop you in your tracks smile. All children of course are gifts from God, but this child changed lives.
Natasha was born 10 days after her mother turned 18 years old. Her mother had not yet graduated from high school and was unwed. Her father was to turn 22 years old, 10 days after she was born. That is kind of a fun fact right there, daughter born exactly right in the middle of her parents' birthdates, making them all 3 Scorpios. Fun, but not life changing.
Back then, pregnant girls were not allowed to go to school with all of the other kids who were not pregnant. Her mother registered for 12th grade and went to pick up her high school schedule like any other unpregnant student. Upon reporting to school, Tasha's mother was quickly informed that she would have to register at the other school, for pregnant girls.
There was a loop hole. Her mother only had to make a slight stink about it, compromise a little, and take the one class left she needed for high school graduation. The compromise included attending a class at the school for teenage mothers and attending high school for the one English class still needed to graduate.
Half-way through the 1st semester of high school, the mother turned 18 years old and Natasha was born. The mother met graduation requirements after one semester and left to school to set up house with the baby's father. On graduation day, that mother had in attendance, her 6 month old baby and husband. Six months after that, the marriage disolved and the parents went thier separate ways.
So, you might say, this happens every day around the world. Young girls get pregnant. Young parents marry too early only to get divorced. No big deal.
What makes her actual birth somewhat unique is that the mother became seriously, even critically ill in the 5th month of pregnancy. The mother woke at 5 a.m. that morning vomiting. It was not bad enough to be 17 years old and pregnant, but she had to have the flu on top of that. The flu continued all day.
That night as the mother laid on the sofa, her own mother had just hung up the phone, at precisely 9:30 p.m. she sat straight up and knew that something was terribly wrong. The pain in her abdomen was unbearable. She thought she must be having a miscarriage. She walked to the bathroom to check for bleeding. There was none, but she could only crawl out of the bathroom letting her mother know something was really wrong.
Her own mother that night, very calmly and in charge placed her daughter in the back seat of the family car. The daughter could neither lay down or sit up and was left to rest her head against the back of the front seat, all the way to the hospital. Her own father had worked late that night, and it was meerly uncanny that the father saw her mother rushing to the hospital amongst all of the other traffic.
At the hospital, the girl's parents half dragged, half pulled her up to the emergency entrance. The girl could not sit up in the wheel chair and needed to be strapped in as she was also strapped onto the guerny later. After a quick check, it was determined that the girl was not miscarrying, was running a temperature, and exploratory surgery was needed.
Prior to the surgery, the girl felt the shame of an unplanned teenage pregnancy. She knew she was not ready for motherhood. She knew that a child would interfere with college plans. She definatley knew she did not want to marry the father, although he offered. The girl knew that the only option left for her was to allow the baby to be adopted.
What she found out after the surgery is that her appendix had actually burst. That is what the terrible pain that happened at precisely 9:30 p.m. was, a burst appendix. She was told that she was lucky that her mother didn't wait to drive to the hospital. She was told that she was lucky to be alive and even more miraclously the baby was as best as they could tell, unharmed.
The morning after surgery, the sun was shining, and it seemed like God had sent her a special message. The message was that if both were spared, God must have wanted the two of them together. And so it was.
The rest of the pregnancy was not easy. The labor and delivery caused pre-eclampysia and they had to be kept in the hospital for a week, but that only served as a back up message from God for those two to stay together, no matter what. That was November, 1983.
Now that is a nice story. All is well that ends well. But that is not what this story is about. All mothers face risks from pregnancy, there is always the risk of miscarriage.
The mother as a young girl had been molested. As a young woman she had been very brutally date raped. The mother was a practicing drug addict up until she found herself pregnant and then again after giving birth. She was a try-addict, everything she tried, she liked. Alcohol. Marijuana. Speed. Prescription drugs. Hallucingenics. Etc. Everything. These things seemed to cover the raw feelings that were just below the surface.
The father, who was very musically inclined was also a practicing addict. In fact, he showed up hours later outside the labor and delivery room and promptly passed out from too much pre-celebrating the birth of his child and left before his baby was actually born.
He lived the life of a beach boy during the summers and drummer during the winter. Drinking all the time and smoking marijuana. His parents were wealthy and coddled him all the way to skid row. His daughter's birth did not change that. Rumor is that he may have gotten sober in an unknown state last year.
The mother went to college, but did not earn a degree. She moved from place to place, city to city. She went from job to job. She went from one bad relationship to the next. Her drug use escalated to intravenious drug use. But she always kept that baby girl with her.
At one point, the two of them were living in a city 3 hours south of her parents. The mother worked a regular 8-5 kind of job plus another job waitressing at the local bowling alley at night and weekends in order to keep off of welfare. She eventually moved back to her home town.
Although the mother was a functioning addict, she was still an addict. Everybody knows what happens to alcoholics and addicts. Thier worlds eventually collapse. It is inevitable. When the young girl's world collapsed, she was suicidal, full of shame, and full of guilt for being less of the mother for that little girl than she had invisioned. She was less than what the little girl deserved.
The young mother had planned her own suicide and was in the processing of dropping her little girl off with her parents. They would take care of her. Fortunately for the young woman, her mother again made another fateful drive to the hospital. The very same hospital the girl had given birth only a few years before this trip.
Because the city the mother lived in was not yet accustomed to seeing i.v. drug users they were reluctant to admit someone who was not an alcoholic, pot head, or occasional cocaine user. It was a Friday. They sent the girl to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and told her to come back on Monday.
The girl went to a meeting. She went again on Saturday and Sunday too. The hospital finally allowed the girl to be admitted to thier 30 day treatment center on that Monday. The girl was worn out and beaten down. She did not want to be there.
What she did want though was to be a good mother. Although she was still suicidal and still wanted to use, she agreed to stay in the treatment center for 30 days in order to get her sweet little Natasha back from her parents. That was March, 1989.
Immediately after that she was sent to another long term treatment center just for women. Luckily for the woman and her daughter it was close enough to allow weekly visits with her daughter.
At that treatment center, the young woman worked through the sexual abuse and self-esteem issues that drove the addiction. She continued to go to meetings. Things were getting better. Natasha was back at home. But the young woman did not stay clean.
After one especially hard night of old habits, she ended up at her house. The drug use was worse than what it was before treatment. Her friends came to the house, placed a mattress in the middle of the floor and made sure she didn't die from that night's drug use or from the withdrawel for the next three days.
The young woman prayed. She prayed that if she made it through that first night and the withdrawel, she would be the mother that Natasha deserved. The young woman survived. That was September 22, 1989.
Natasha will turn 25 in less than a month. She went on to graduate from high school, enlisted in the Marines and is now a successful business owner. She has turned out to be a remarkable young woman. If she were to be asked she would tell you that although her early years were hard, she had a great childhoold. On her website, she lists her mother as her hero.
Her mother went on to graduate from college. She has worked the last 15 years in a field that directly helps children, a child support agency. She has since remarried and had another child, Devon sent from Heaven. He is 14 years younger than his sister. And thank God the young woman remained clean and sober all of this time because he is autistic and needs extra love and attention.
I just celebrated 19 years in recovery. I credit my Higher Power. I credit His gift. Although we are supposed to be here for our children, which I am definately now, we are all each changed when children enter our lives. I thank God for the love of a child. I thank him for Natasha everyday. And now I thank him for Devon too.
Natasha eventually grew up and surprisingly has blond hair and brown eyes, with a stop you in your tracks smile. All children of course are gifts from God, but this child changed lives.
Natasha was born 10 days after her mother turned 18 years old. Her mother had not yet graduated from high school and was unwed. Her father was to turn 22 years old, 10 days after she was born. That is kind of a fun fact right there, daughter born exactly right in the middle of her parents' birthdates, making them all 3 Scorpios. Fun, but not life changing.
Back then, pregnant girls were not allowed to go to school with all of the other kids who were not pregnant. Her mother registered for 12th grade and went to pick up her high school schedule like any other unpregnant student. Upon reporting to school, Tasha's mother was quickly informed that she would have to register at the other school, for pregnant girls.
There was a loop hole. Her mother only had to make a slight stink about it, compromise a little, and take the one class left she needed for high school graduation. The compromise included attending a class at the school for teenage mothers and attending high school for the one English class still needed to graduate.
Half-way through the 1st semester of high school, the mother turned 18 years old and Natasha was born. The mother met graduation requirements after one semester and left to school to set up house with the baby's father. On graduation day, that mother had in attendance, her 6 month old baby and husband. Six months after that, the marriage disolved and the parents went thier separate ways.
So, you might say, this happens every day around the world. Young girls get pregnant. Young parents marry too early only to get divorced. No big deal.
What makes her actual birth somewhat unique is that the mother became seriously, even critically ill in the 5th month of pregnancy. The mother woke at 5 a.m. that morning vomiting. It was not bad enough to be 17 years old and pregnant, but she had to have the flu on top of that. The flu continued all day.
That night as the mother laid on the sofa, her own mother had just hung up the phone, at precisely 9:30 p.m. she sat straight up and knew that something was terribly wrong. The pain in her abdomen was unbearable. She thought she must be having a miscarriage. She walked to the bathroom to check for bleeding. There was none, but she could only crawl out of the bathroom letting her mother know something was really wrong.
Her own mother that night, very calmly and in charge placed her daughter in the back seat of the family car. The daughter could neither lay down or sit up and was left to rest her head against the back of the front seat, all the way to the hospital. Her own father had worked late that night, and it was meerly uncanny that the father saw her mother rushing to the hospital amongst all of the other traffic.
At the hospital, the girl's parents half dragged, half pulled her up to the emergency entrance. The girl could not sit up in the wheel chair and needed to be strapped in as she was also strapped onto the guerny later. After a quick check, it was determined that the girl was not miscarrying, was running a temperature, and exploratory surgery was needed.
Prior to the surgery, the girl felt the shame of an unplanned teenage pregnancy. She knew she was not ready for motherhood. She knew that a child would interfere with college plans. She definatley knew she did not want to marry the father, although he offered. The girl knew that the only option left for her was to allow the baby to be adopted.
What she found out after the surgery is that her appendix had actually burst. That is what the terrible pain that happened at precisely 9:30 p.m. was, a burst appendix. She was told that she was lucky that her mother didn't wait to drive to the hospital. She was told that she was lucky to be alive and even more miraclously the baby was as best as they could tell, unharmed.
The morning after surgery, the sun was shining, and it seemed like God had sent her a special message. The message was that if both were spared, God must have wanted the two of them together. And so it was.
The rest of the pregnancy was not easy. The labor and delivery caused pre-eclampysia and they had to be kept in the hospital for a week, but that only served as a back up message from God for those two to stay together, no matter what. That was November, 1983.
Now that is a nice story. All is well that ends well. But that is not what this story is about. All mothers face risks from pregnancy, there is always the risk of miscarriage.
The mother as a young girl had been molested. As a young woman she had been very brutally date raped. The mother was a practicing drug addict up until she found herself pregnant and then again after giving birth. She was a try-addict, everything she tried, she liked. Alcohol. Marijuana. Speed. Prescription drugs. Hallucingenics. Etc. Everything. These things seemed to cover the raw feelings that were just below the surface.
The father, who was very musically inclined was also a practicing addict. In fact, he showed up hours later outside the labor and delivery room and promptly passed out from too much pre-celebrating the birth of his child and left before his baby was actually born.
He lived the life of a beach boy during the summers and drummer during the winter. Drinking all the time and smoking marijuana. His parents were wealthy and coddled him all the way to skid row. His daughter's birth did not change that. Rumor is that he may have gotten sober in an unknown state last year.
The mother went to college, but did not earn a degree. She moved from place to place, city to city. She went from job to job. She went from one bad relationship to the next. Her drug use escalated to intravenious drug use. But she always kept that baby girl with her.
At one point, the two of them were living in a city 3 hours south of her parents. The mother worked a regular 8-5 kind of job plus another job waitressing at the local bowling alley at night and weekends in order to keep off of welfare. She eventually moved back to her home town.
Although the mother was a functioning addict, she was still an addict. Everybody knows what happens to alcoholics and addicts. Thier worlds eventually collapse. It is inevitable. When the young girl's world collapsed, she was suicidal, full of shame, and full of guilt for being less of the mother for that little girl than she had invisioned. She was less than what the little girl deserved.
The young mother had planned her own suicide and was in the processing of dropping her little girl off with her parents. They would take care of her. Fortunately for the young woman, her mother again made another fateful drive to the hospital. The very same hospital the girl had given birth only a few years before this trip.
Because the city the mother lived in was not yet accustomed to seeing i.v. drug users they were reluctant to admit someone who was not an alcoholic, pot head, or occasional cocaine user. It was a Friday. They sent the girl to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and told her to come back on Monday.
The girl went to a meeting. She went again on Saturday and Sunday too. The hospital finally allowed the girl to be admitted to thier 30 day treatment center on that Monday. The girl was worn out and beaten down. She did not want to be there.
What she did want though was to be a good mother. Although she was still suicidal and still wanted to use, she agreed to stay in the treatment center for 30 days in order to get her sweet little Natasha back from her parents. That was March, 1989.
Immediately after that she was sent to another long term treatment center just for women. Luckily for the woman and her daughter it was close enough to allow weekly visits with her daughter.
At that treatment center, the young woman worked through the sexual abuse and self-esteem issues that drove the addiction. She continued to go to meetings. Things were getting better. Natasha was back at home. But the young woman did not stay clean.
After one especially hard night of old habits, she ended up at her house. The drug use was worse than what it was before treatment. Her friends came to the house, placed a mattress in the middle of the floor and made sure she didn't die from that night's drug use or from the withdrawel for the next three days.
The young woman prayed. She prayed that if she made it through that first night and the withdrawel, she would be the mother that Natasha deserved. The young woman survived. That was September 22, 1989.
Natasha will turn 25 in less than a month. She went on to graduate from high school, enlisted in the Marines and is now a successful business owner. She has turned out to be a remarkable young woman. If she were to be asked she would tell you that although her early years were hard, she had a great childhoold. On her website, she lists her mother as her hero.
Her mother went on to graduate from college. She has worked the last 15 years in a field that directly helps children, a child support agency. She has since remarried and had another child, Devon sent from Heaven. He is 14 years younger than his sister. And thank God the young woman remained clean and sober all of this time because he is autistic and needs extra love and attention.
I just celebrated 19 years in recovery. I credit my Higher Power. I credit His gift. Although we are supposed to be here for our children, which I am definately now, we are all each changed when children enter our lives. I thank God for the love of a child. I thank him for Natasha everyday. And now I thank him for Devon too.
Economy busted; time to legalize
Marijuana?
Right now, we're spending billions in the failed drug wars. Remember prohibition? Remember how it didn't work and brought us the mob and mafia?
Legalizing marijuana would take the profits from the criminals and put into the Treasury.
Or, is it just about furthering the prison industrial complex?
Oh, and hemp ... the harmless fiber our constitution writers grew?
What say you??
Right now, we're spending billions in the failed drug wars. Remember prohibition? Remember how it didn't work and brought us the mob and mafia?
Legalizing marijuana would take the profits from the criminals and put into the Treasury.
Or, is it just about furthering the prison industrial complex?
Oh, and hemp ... the harmless fiber our constitution writers grew?
What say you??
This will drive you nuts!
Eye/hand coordination test -- Can you get 50% in the pail?
Let's go, it's Apple pickin' time!
CLICK HERE view link
Let's go, it's Apple pickin' time!
CLICK HERE view link
Yes I Slept In
No, I won't tell what time I dragged this body out of bed, just suffice it to say I don't have time to read and reply to all the messages. If I do, it will be lunch time. But I did look at all the names on the posts, so I'm smiling and and saying HI to all and I will see you later. And DO NOT ask if I still have my PJ's on and if I even combed my hair.
LOL
LOL
Some of our favorites......
Romantic movies, songs from movies.....maybe a scene that reminded you of a past love. Please share what has stirred your soul romantically.
So, then, WHERE do the forces that drive
people like Charles Manson, etc., come from? Is it pure evil? Or insanity? What? Is there a fix for it?
Obama Offers New Proposal..Thanks Mr. J.
Now this plan makes sense!
TOLEDO, Ohio - Democrat Barack Obama is calling for a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures and a two-year tax break for businesses that create jobs as part of a plan to heal the nation's ailing economy.
The presidential candidate says banks that participate in the federal bailout should temporarily postpone foreclosures for families making good-faith efforts to pay their mortgage.
He also called for a $3,000 tax credit for each additional full-time job a business creates. The tax break would end after 2010.
Obama also is proposing letting people withdraw up to $10,000 from their retirement accounts without any penalty this year and next.
The Obama campaign emphasizes that these ideas can be done quickly, either through executive order or legislation.
TOLEDO, Ohio - Democrat Barack Obama is calling for a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures and a two-year tax break for businesses that create jobs as part of a plan to heal the nation's ailing economy.
The presidential candidate says banks that participate in the federal bailout should temporarily postpone foreclosures for families making good-faith efforts to pay their mortgage.
He also called for a $3,000 tax credit for each additional full-time job a business creates. The tax break would end after 2010.
Obama also is proposing letting people withdraw up to $10,000 from their retirement accounts without any penalty this year and next.
The Obama campaign emphasizes that these ideas can be done quickly, either through executive order or legislation.
