March 18, 2025 • 27 mins
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Joei (00:00):
Welcome to Calm Your Grits podcast.
I'm your host joei Allen.
I'm just your average stay athome mom, homeschool mom and
wifey Who loves all thingssparkly and anything DIY from
party planning to interiordesign, Basically just a crazy
Pinterest Mom.
Oh, and I've also recently,jumped into the pageant life
(00:21):
because why not I'm a selfproclaimed expert at nothing
other than hanging on by athread.
I am living my best life, duringwhat I can only describe as my
midlife crisis.
This podcast is about nothingand everything.
So whether you're here becauseyou can relate or for some comic
relief, my hope is that you'llwalk away learning something new
(00:44):
or at least feel a little lessweird about the voices in your
head and the decisions you'vemade in your life Do you
remember back when you wereexcited to become an adult?
Only to find that adulthood isactually a trap.
Join me as I share the earlyhighs and lows of my adulting
journey in episode three (01:02):
life happens.
I moved here when I was 18.
I had no idea what to expect.
It was one of those things whereI just wanted to move here and
my mom knew better than to tryto talk me out of it.
That's the short version.
Moved here, my cousins were myroommates it was off to a crazy
(01:22):
start, or at least it seemedlike it was a crazy start.
I didn't realize that life wasabout to get even crazier, my
thought process of moving herewas I'm going to go to college.
Then I learned this the wholething about residency, you have
to live in the state for it notto cost a gazillion dollars and
I did not have a gazilliondollars just laying around.
(01:45):
So I was like, alright I'll waita year and then I'll go to
college.
My first job was a cashier atHarris Teeter that lasted about
two months.
I was like, no I do not likethis whole cashier thing, paper
plastic is just not what Ienvisioned my life to be.
I also couldn't really tell youwhat I envisioned it was going
(02:05):
to be like, but I just knew thatwasn't it.
Then I finally got my first realjob that I absolutely loved.
It was at Ross distributioncenter, for an 18 year old it
was the coolest thing ever.
I'm pretty sure the reason I gotit was because I spoke Spanish,
but hey, who was I to questionwhy they were hiring me?
(02:26):
So I got my dream job, I got anapartment in the hood.
That's all I could afford.
No shame.
I ain't afraid of no ghost.
At this new job, I met a guyfell in love, got knocked up at
18.
Definitely not how I plannedthings, but you know, want to
(02:49):
make God laugh, make a plan.
So at first I was like, Uh, no,like I, this is not how I wanted
to have a kid.
I'm not married.
I'm not gonna say a surprise.
I knew where babies came from.
I just didn't think that I wouldget knocked up for some reason,
I don't know.
So anyway at first.
(03:10):
It was very much of a no after alot of soul searching and
thinking we were just kind oflike, all right, We're doing
this, we bought a house and wetalked about getting married.
Telling my family that was hard.
That was really hard, nobody washappy about it at first, I feel
like that's kind of normal.
There are plenty of people thathave kids when they're young and
(03:32):
at first it's Oh my God, what amI going to do?
And then eventually, people comearound and all the things, but
yeah, we had decided to buy ahouse.
We were under contract about tomove, it was in November I was
six months pregnant, 24 weeksand my water broke.
We went to the hospital therewere no explanations on why my
(03:54):
water broke, but basicallybecause it was at 24 weeks and a
day, baby was viable.
The plan was for me to be thereuntil I was full term.
They started steroid shots andall the things that they could
do to intervene to make surethat if she came early, that,
she would have a better chance.
And then I don't even know thatI could actually explain why the
(04:17):
emergency C section happened Iprobably blocked a lot of it
out, but from one minute to thenext everything was fine.
And then everything wasn't itwas okay.
Something's happening.
Hey, we have to do a C section.
And then next thing I remember Iwas like yelling out in pain and
(04:38):
there was, there was this littlebutton, it was for morphine and
I was like, this button isbroken and nothing, they were
able to like, kind of calm medown, they sedated me.
Then the next morning, I had noidea what had actually happened
for some reason.
I thought I was still pregnant.
(04:58):
I didn't realize she had beenborn.
I kind of remember coming to andmy boyfriend telling me she's in
the NICU and part of me waslike, well, when, when, when did
I have her?
Then, logically I was like, allright, must've been knocked out
put under or whatever and hadher.
So, she went to the NICU and shewas in the NICU for 18 days.
(05:20):
It was a long 18 days and I'llspare you the day to day stuff,
but ultimately it was just, itwas just too much.
She was a pound four ounces,just teeny tiny.
And they were trying to regulateher heart.
She had tubes everywhere.
And Melina was like teeny tinyand yeah, it was bad.
(05:43):
So I got strength from who knowswhere and I signed a DNR her
oxygen level to her brain hadbeen lower, lower and lower.
When I signed the DNR, it hadbeen like six hours and In case
you didn't know, being withoutfull oxygen to the brain for,
(06:03):
minutes causes all kinds ofdamage.
So somehow they're able to keepher heart beating and breathing,
that's not quality of life.
Like I'm not going to do that toher.
So lost her devastated.
It was a blur, but I do rememberhaving to pretend like I was
(06:27):
okay because everyone was soheartbroken around me, had to
keep acting like.
I'm okay.
I'm okay.
They try to give me medicationand at that point medication was
just not something I wascomfortable with or really
understood because.
As a young, now was 19, she wasborn November 12th, which is
(06:49):
exactly a month after mybirthday.
And at that point, I just, Idon't know, I'm from Ecuador.
We don't do, we didn't do mentalhealth over there, especially
not medications.
So I refused them and I justtried to move on and try to deal
with grief on my own, notknowing what grief was.
(07:11):
Naturally, two kids who had anunplanned pregnancy, then tried
to completely shift our lives tobe parents.
And then the rug gets pulled outfrom underneath you.
Um, grief pretty much turned usagainst each other and There was
(07:31):
also like this part of me.
I, again, in the moment I didnot realize, that felt like I
failed because my body was theone that couldn't keep our baby
safe and grow her to term.
We just broke up.
Now in hindsight we were bothprobably.
Thinking if we're out of therelationship, then we can
(07:52):
pretend like all of that neverhappened and that was our way of
grieving.
Nobody teaches you how togrieve.
We broke up and five minuteslater I jumped into another
relationship I'm assuming I wascraving stability I was just
craving someone that loved meand so many things going through
(08:16):
my head, so many feelings,whatever.
So jumped into anotherrelationship.
Fast, I want to say we dated forthree months and then we were
engaged and I could sit here andtry and explain why I did the
things that I did, why I jumpedinto another relationship.
It was probably a mix of mydefense mechanism, just putting
(08:38):
walls up and not allowing myselfto be loved and very, very
immature.
I mean, I was 19.
And then all of a sudden thisnew relationship comes along
with what at the time seemedlike someone who absolutely
adored me and was, I think sevenyears older than me, which at
(09:02):
that age is a big difference.
I felt super loved.
I felt safe and I craved thatsecurity.
I craved being able to almostprove to everyone else that I'm
okay and so in, in my mind, Iwas like, okay, we're going to
get married and then I can havesome stability and everyone will
(09:24):
just get off my back and quitworrying about me.
Crazy way of thinking, we don'tsay crazy.
So actually, the day that my exproposed, I called my dad to
give him the news.
He didn't pick up.
I left him, a message on ananswering machine.
If you don't know what ananswering machine is, Google it.
(09:48):
And then I went to work the nextday, had a meeting early and I
got pulled out of the meetingand I was told that my dad had
passed away.
So here I am, like, this guythat I was like so in love with
had just proposed and I wasgoing to get my fairytale
(10:09):
wedding and all the things.
And then my dad passes away sameday.
Yeah.
So.
Devastating news.
I went to Ecuador for hisfuneral.
I was there for about a week,came back, and I feel like I was
(10:30):
almost trying to do that thingagain, where if you just pretend
like it didn't happen, and youdon't deal with it, then it and
it didn't happen, right?
So that was my way of dealingwith grief.
I was no expert But I wasn'teven over the grief that I had
just dealt with and now here Iam I lost my dad and I was super
(10:51):
focused on planning the weddingfrom when we got engaged to when
we got married.
It was six months.
So I planned that wedding prettyfast I can't remember why it was
so rushed, but here was thatlike the illusion of stability.
My family came for the wedding,everyone loved him.
(11:13):
It was that stability that I waslooking for.
Then things settled down and sofinally, I was like, all right,
I'm gonna go do this therapything that everyone's been
telling me to do.
Here I was thinking I was goingto therapy to deal with losing
my dad, could you guys picturehow that first, session went?
(11:38):
You call, you make anappointment and the reason
behind it is my dad just passedaway.
And then after 30 minutes, I'veunloaded everything else, from
moving here by myself to,unplanned pregnancy all of that.
And this poor guy probablythought he was just going to,
(12:01):
help me deal with grief andyeah, whole bunch of crap,
surfaced but I kept going and ithelped.
I got to a point where I feltokay.
But I couldn't be married.
while I was in therapy and I wasactually getting to know the
(12:26):
person that I I realized that wejust weren't, our, our values
and our principles didn't alignand we were just different
people.
Even if I could say that he'sthe one that rushed, he's the
one that did all that at thesame time.
I also said, yes, and I alsowent along with it and there was
(12:48):
just a day that I remember beinglike I can't, I'm not saying
that I was ready to get adivorce, but I knew I needed to
deal with all the feelings andeverything.
So I remember Telling him how Ifelt like it was just one day
like word vomit I felt like onceI got it all out there, and we
(13:09):
had been having issues I mean itwasn't like oh everything was
great, and then one day.
I like hey by the way No, I meanit was it, it was clear, it was
just It's a matter of time and amatter of who was going to say
it first, so yeah, we legallyseparated per the law and You
have to wait a year before youcan file for divorce While I was
(13:33):
going to, Therapy and separatingand all of that.
I loved my job.
It was my focus.
It was what I cared about themost at the time I think again
probably jumping in headfirst tostay focused on something and
right around the time when Imoved out they sat me next to
(13:55):
the most annoying, loud.
New Yorker, loud, annoying.
Did I say loud?
For those of you who know me,you know who I'm talking about.
For those of you who don't knowme, I'm talking about my
husband, Lucas.
So call it perfect timing butthey sat us next to each other
(14:19):
right around the time we wereboth going through separations I
don't know, God works inmysterious ways.
I was at a point where I haddealt with a lot of grief done
the therapy done the things so Itruly believe had I met him a
year before I was a completelydifferent person and so was he
again, perfect timing he was soeasy to talk to he talks a lot,
(14:43):
too and We became friends And Iwas so out of his league.
I still can't believe he had theballs to ask me out, but he did
and I was like, okay and that'sall it took! Yeah, I think it
was like by the end of our firstdate, or maybe second date, it
(15:04):
didn't take long.
We had both laid everything outon the table and we were really
into each other, but we didn'twant to rush and be crazy and
repeat cycles that we had donein the past.
We both never really got toexperience the, the grown up
(15:27):
party life.
Like he went to college, he didhis six year plan, but then, he
was all work, work, work, and hefelt like he had never gotten to
party, which is BS.
I actually never got to be akid.
I moved here when I was 18.
(15:47):
Got knocked up, uh, married anddivorced.
So anyway, we agreed that wewere going to move in together,
move uptown, after the seconddate, it wasn't like we were
like, oh, let's move intogether.
I can't remember what point inour relationship.
I think we had been dating atleast a few months.
At least it was more than fiveminutes, which was big for me.
(16:08):
Our plan was let's move uptown,let's have fun.
We weren't trying to go and,live the uptown single life.
we were past that.
We knew we wanted to be witheach other, but what's the point
of rushing, let's take our time,let's not be crazy.
October of 2009, he proposed.
It's a really cute story.
I'll save that for anotherepisode just to not go too far
(16:32):
off track.
So engaged and then a yearlater, we got married.
By the time we got married, wehad 2 years, side note, we
really wanted to have a funwedding.
It's not often that a guy islike, Oh, I've always wanted to
get married at Center City oruptown and have this kind of
(16:58):
thing.
I always joke that he'sgroomzilla someone that me that
loves planning parties and lovesplanning everything and is very
much into that kind of stuff, Iwas very surprised at how much
of a groomzilla he was.
He wanted to have an opinionabout the color of the dresses.
(17:20):
I was like, you know what, he'sactually saying that he's always
dreamt of having some kind ofwedding.
Why am I going to argue withhim, we wanted to have that open
bar.
I remember he got a part timejob to cover extra hours because
we both knew what kind ofwedding we wanted to have.
So we set a goal and it was agreat wedding, but two weeks
(17:42):
before the wedding, find out I'mpregnant.
At this point it had been yearssince I had had Melina.
Keep in mind that there was noreason why my water broke and
why any of that happened.
They were like, it's one in amillion chances that it would
ever happen again.
So when we found out, I waspregnant two weeks before the
wedding, we were so excited, wewere ready for that.
(18:05):
I remember all our family wascoming for the wedding and, we
planned like how we were goingto tell them, cause again, we
were, we were really, reallyexcited about it.
We got these little pictureframes and it was like, I love
my grandma, I love my uncle,all, all the things.
We got brought them all over toour condo and We were like, Oh,
(18:27):
we have gifts for you guys.
All right.
Everyone opened them at the sametime It was literally like a
bunch of dum dums opening giftsat the same time.
They're looking at it andthey're kind of looking at each
other and like, no one got itand then finally, my mom, she
like looks up and she's like,typical for my mom she starts
(18:51):
bawling and then everyone elsecaught on it was really funny.
I really wish I would havefilmed that.
Anyway, irrelevant.
So we told everyone, happy a bigbummer was that whole, amazing
wedding we had planned with theopen bar and all the things.
I did not get to partake in theopen bar, which I was fine with,
I'll take a kid over that andgot married.
(19:13):
It was amazing.
We went on our honeymoon.
It was great.
Life was amazing.
We got married in September.
Fast forward to December, mywater broke and I was five
months pregnant at this point.
You have to be six months forthe baby to be considered viable
and for doctors to evenintervene to try to do anything.
(19:35):
So yeah, uh, here we go again,Her name was Abigail Josephine.
I tried again to keep the Joegoing because it comes from like
my great grandfather's Jose, andthen we have Joseph and my
Grandmother is Josefina, mymom's Josephine, Joei, I wanted
(19:58):
to keep the Joe going.
So Melina, Melina Joy andAbigail Josephine, Abby-Jo,
which is, yes, it's verySouthern, but we thought that
was funny with us beingbasically the complete opposite
of Southerners.
He's a loud Italian, New Yorker,and I'm a Latin British girl
(20:23):
from Florida.
Abby Jo just sounded reallycute.
Anyway, once again, I was in thehospital for like a week and
because of the way Melina wasdelivered through an emergency C
section, my body could not gointo labor because for an
emergency C section, I'm nottrying to get graphic here, but
(20:44):
on the outside it's like this,but once they get inside, they
have to cut your uterus and, andstuff up and down so they can
get to the baby faster.
You cut the uterus that way,, itheals, but there's a very high
chance that if contractionshappen that your uterus can tear
(21:08):
and that's bad in case, in caseyou didn't figure that out.
That's bad.
So, when my water broke withAbby Jo they gave me all the
medicine and all the things tostop me from going into labor.
The catch 22 was they stopped mefrom going into labor.
(21:29):
We knew they couldn't justdeliver her normally because of
the risk we were basically at apoint where we had to get a D&
E.
Oh, but wait, my doctor didn'tbelieve in doing D& Es, which
is, essentially, it's anabortion in the second
trimester.
I'm not even going to go there.
(21:49):
We had to accept the decisionand drive up to UNC two days
before Christmas and had to do aD&E, uh, dilate and I'll look it
up, doesn't matter.
Two days before Christmas, thatreally sucked.
Also, the day my water broke wasDecember 5th and December 5th
(22:14):
had been the date of my originalbaby shower that was planned for
Melina, my first daughter, whichactually ended up being the day
of her funeral.
So December 5th, yeah, realshitty day.
So with Abby Jo, that's the daymy water broke.
So yeah, so here we go.
Guess what?
(22:35):
Grief, grief, grief, grief andat this point, I feel like I
could get, I could have mymaster's in grief, but no, you
can't just turn a switch on anddeal with stuff.
You act a certain way, you thinka certain way, you feel a
certain way.
People can tell you till thecows come home that it's grief,
but good luck believing it.
(22:56):
When I went back to work,during, my pregnancy and all
that, like I loved the job thatI had and I came back to the
same company, but everyone Iguess knew what was better for
me, so put me in this, in a rolethat I absolutely hated.
So it's not like I could havework to distract myself and get
(23:18):
my mind off of how mucheverything sucked at the time.
Then to top it off, uh, March.
My cousin that was like a bigbrother to me, that had just
been at our wedding thateveryone met, commits suicide.
(23:41):
I'm barely hanging on afterlosing Abby-Jo, and then more
devastation, more grief.
So, as you can imagine thingsweren't great in our
relationship because it was justthe way that I dealt with stuff.
I've just shut down it was mybody that had failed again,
(24:06):
We'll call it you know wallswent up Defense mechanisms
pushing away, how could thisperson possibly love me?
I can't do anything right.
I hated my job.
It was a lot.
So, our marriage was beingtested a hundred percent.
And I remember the lowest pointwe had gone out for, and we, and
(24:31):
we never missed the bar crawlwhen we lived uptown.
Remember how I said that we haddecided to move uptown for a
year that ended up being threeyears because when we got
engaged, we're like, well, whyare we going to move to the
suburbs now?
Let's continue to enjoy thistime during our engagement so we
(24:52):
renewed our lease, and then whenwe lost Abby, we renewed our
lease again, anyway, we liveduptown, we went to every single
bar crawl out there.
We did everything we were livingthe uptown life.
It was fabulous.
The partying life, not life ingeneral.
(25:13):
Life kind of sucked.
So drinking was a greatalternative and a great way to
cope.
I remember one of our lowestpoints was, St.
Patrick's Day.
St.
Patrick's Day is my husband'sfavorite holiday.
My New Yorker, Italian husband,who is Irish who knows?
(25:35):
It's his favorite.
Part of me was kind of like, Iprobably shouldn't really drink
because I have so much stuffinside that.
I don't want to wake the beast,sure enough.
I was like, oh no, but it's hisfavorite holiday and I was
trying to think about him andhow, this affected him too,
(25:56):
everything that we had gonethrough.
And so my dumb ass went out andgot drunk and I remember
throwing plates, but itescalated over a couple hours,
but when we got back home, I wasjust a complete crazy drunk mess
and yeah, we had no idea likewhat was What the answer was
(26:21):
what we were going to do oranything like that.
He went for a walk the next dayit was a Sunday Stumbled upon
Elevation Church, if you're notlocal to the area it was uptown,
so he went in there I guess, heheard some sermon that really
spoke to him.
I remember he came back and hewas like, Hey, I don't know what
(26:43):
the answer is, but want to go tochurch.
My relationship with God hadbeen, very rocky because I never
understood, like what kind ofGod would let me go through all
the things that I had gonethrough.
So it wasn't like I didn'tbelieve in God, but I was like,
(27:04):
the best way to put it is I wasa little mad.
But at this point, I'm like, whynot let's go to church.
And that brings me to the end ofthe episode, backstory is going
to be a two parter I've alreadyseen that I've gone way off of
what I wanted to say and justgone off on my regular Joei
(27:25):
rants, which I fully expect themto happen a lot.
So I will continue with part twoof Backstory in the next
episode, until next time, thanksfor listening.
Welcome to Calm Your Grits podcast.
I'm your host joei Allen.
I'm just your average stay athome mom, homeschool mom and
wifey Who loves all thingssparkly and anything DIY from
party planning to interiordesign, Basically just a crazy
Pinterest Mom.
Oh, and I've also recently,jumped into the pageant life
(00:21):
because why not I'm a selfproclaimed expert at nothing
other than hanging on by athread.
I am living my best life, duringwhat I can only describe as my
midlife crisis.
This podcast is about nothingand everything.
So whether you're here becauseyou can relate or for some comic
relief, my hope is that you'llwalk away learning something new
(00:44):
or at least feel a little lessweird about the voices in your
head and the decisions you'vemade in your life Do you
remember back when you wereexcited to become an adult?
Only to find that adulthood isactually a trap.
Join me as I share the earlyhighs and lows of my adulting
journey in episode three (01:02):
life happens.
I moved here when I was 18.
I had no idea what to expect.
It was one of those things whereI just wanted to move here and
my mom knew better than to tryto talk me out of it.
That's the short version.
Moved here, my cousins were myroommates it was off to a crazy
(01:22):
start, or at least it seemedlike it was a crazy start.
I didn't realize that life wasabout to get even crazier, my
thought process of moving herewas I'm going to go to college.
Then I learned this the wholething about residency, you have
to live in the state for it notto cost a gazillion dollars and
I did not have a gazilliondollars just laying around.
(01:45):
So I was like, alright I'll waita year and then I'll go to
college.
My first job was a cashier atHarris Teeter that lasted about
two months.
I was like, no I do not likethis whole cashier thing, paper
plastic is just not what Ienvisioned my life to be.
I also couldn't really tell youwhat I envisioned it was going
(02:05):
to be like, but I just knew thatwasn't it.
Then I finally got my first realjob that I absolutely loved.
It was at Ross distributioncenter, for an 18 year old it
was the coolest thing ever.
I'm pretty sure the reason I gotit was because I spoke Spanish,
but hey, who was I to questionwhy they were hiring me?
(02:26):
So I got my dream job, I got anapartment in the hood.
That's all I could afford.
No shame.
I ain't afraid of no ghost.
At this new job, I met a guyfell in love, got knocked up at
18.
Definitely not how I plannedthings, but you know, want to
(02:49):
make God laugh, make a plan.
So at first I was like, Uh, no,like I, this is not how I wanted
to have a kid.
I'm not married.
I'm not gonna say a surprise.
I knew where babies came from.
I just didn't think that I wouldget knocked up for some reason,
I don't know.
So anyway at first.
(03:10):
It was very much of a no after alot of soul searching and
thinking we were just kind oflike, all right, We're doing
this, we bought a house and wetalked about getting married.
Telling my family that was hard.
That was really hard, nobody washappy about it at first, I feel
like that's kind of normal.
There are plenty of people thathave kids when they're young and
(03:32):
at first it's Oh my God, what amI going to do?
And then eventually, people comearound and all the things, but
yeah, we had decided to buy ahouse.
We were under contract about tomove, it was in November I was
six months pregnant, 24 weeksand my water broke.
We went to the hospital therewere no explanations on why my
(03:54):
water broke, but basicallybecause it was at 24 weeks and a
day, baby was viable.
The plan was for me to be thereuntil I was full term.
They started steroid shots andall the things that they could
do to intervene to make surethat if she came early, that,
she would have a better chance.
And then I don't even know thatI could actually explain why the
(04:17):
emergency C section happened Iprobably blocked a lot of it
out, but from one minute to thenext everything was fine.
And then everything wasn't itwas okay.
Something's happening.
Hey, we have to do a C section.
And then next thing I remember Iwas like yelling out in pain and
(04:38):
there was, there was this littlebutton, it was for morphine and
I was like, this button isbroken and nothing, they were
able to like, kind of calm medown, they sedated me.
Then the next morning, I had noidea what had actually happened
for some reason.
I thought I was still pregnant.
(04:58):
I didn't realize she had beenborn.
I kind of remember coming to andmy boyfriend telling me she's in
the NICU and part of me waslike, well, when, when, when did
I have her?
Then, logically I was like, allright, must've been knocked out
put under or whatever and hadher.
So, she went to the NICU and shewas in the NICU for 18 days.
(05:20):
It was a long 18 days and I'llspare you the day to day stuff,
but ultimately it was just, itwas just too much.
She was a pound four ounces,just teeny tiny.
And they were trying to regulateher heart.
She had tubes everywhere.
And Melina was like teeny tinyand yeah, it was bad.
(05:43):
So I got strength from who knowswhere and I signed a DNR her
oxygen level to her brain hadbeen lower, lower and lower.
When I signed the DNR, it hadbeen like six hours and In case
you didn't know, being withoutfull oxygen to the brain for,
(06:03):
minutes causes all kinds ofdamage.
So somehow they're able to keepher heart beating and breathing,
that's not quality of life.
Like I'm not going to do that toher.
So lost her devastated.
It was a blur, but I do rememberhaving to pretend like I was
(06:27):
okay because everyone was soheartbroken around me, had to
keep acting like.
I'm okay.
I'm okay.
They try to give me medicationand at that point medication was
just not something I wascomfortable with or really
understood because.
As a young, now was 19, she wasborn November 12th, which is
(06:49):
exactly a month after mybirthday.
And at that point, I just, Idon't know, I'm from Ecuador.
We don't do, we didn't do mentalhealth over there, especially
not medications.
So I refused them and I justtried to move on and try to deal
with grief on my own, notknowing what grief was.
(07:11):
Naturally, two kids who had anunplanned pregnancy, then tried
to completely shift our lives tobe parents.
And then the rug gets pulled outfrom underneath you.
Um, grief pretty much turned usagainst each other and There was
(07:31):
also like this part of me.
I, again, in the moment I didnot realize, that felt like I
failed because my body was theone that couldn't keep our baby
safe and grow her to term.
We just broke up.
Now in hindsight we were bothprobably.
Thinking if we're out of therelationship, then we can
(07:52):
pretend like all of that neverhappened and that was our way of
grieving.
Nobody teaches you how togrieve.
We broke up and five minuteslater I jumped into another
relationship I'm assuming I wascraving stability I was just
craving someone that loved meand so many things going through
(08:16):
my head, so many feelings,whatever.
So jumped into anotherrelationship.
Fast, I want to say we dated forthree months and then we were
engaged and I could sit here andtry and explain why I did the
things that I did, why I jumpedinto another relationship.
It was probably a mix of mydefense mechanism, just putting
(08:38):
walls up and not allowing myselfto be loved and very, very
immature.
I mean, I was 19.
And then all of a sudden thisnew relationship comes along
with what at the time seemedlike someone who absolutely
adored me and was, I think sevenyears older than me, which at
(09:02):
that age is a big difference.
I felt super loved.
I felt safe and I craved thatsecurity.
I craved being able to almostprove to everyone else that I'm
okay and so in, in my mind, Iwas like, okay, we're going to
get married and then I can havesome stability and everyone will
(09:24):
just get off my back and quitworrying about me.
Crazy way of thinking, we don'tsay crazy.
So actually, the day that my exproposed, I called my dad to
give him the news.
He didn't pick up.
I left him, a message on ananswering machine.
If you don't know what ananswering machine is, Google it.
(09:48):
And then I went to work the nextday, had a meeting early and I
got pulled out of the meetingand I was told that my dad had
passed away.
So here I am, like, this guythat I was like so in love with
had just proposed and I wasgoing to get my fairytale
(10:09):
wedding and all the things.
And then my dad passes away sameday.
Yeah.
So.
Devastating news.
I went to Ecuador for hisfuneral.
I was there for about a week,came back, and I feel like I was
(10:30):
almost trying to do that thingagain, where if you just pretend
like it didn't happen, and youdon't deal with it, then it and
it didn't happen, right?
So that was my way of dealingwith grief.
I was no expert But I wasn'teven over the grief that I had
just dealt with and now here Iam I lost my dad and I was super
(10:51):
focused on planning the weddingfrom when we got engaged to when
we got married.
It was six months.
So I planned that wedding prettyfast I can't remember why it was
so rushed, but here was thatlike the illusion of stability.
My family came for the wedding,everyone loved him.
(11:13):
It was that stability that I waslooking for.
Then things settled down and sofinally, I was like, all right,
I'm gonna go do this therapything that everyone's been
telling me to do.
Here I was thinking I was goingto therapy to deal with losing
my dad, could you guys picturehow that first, session went?
(11:38):
You call, you make anappointment and the reason
behind it is my dad just passedaway.
And then after 30 minutes, I'veunloaded everything else, from
moving here by myself to,unplanned pregnancy all of that.
And this poor guy probablythought he was just going to,
(12:01):
help me deal with grief andyeah, whole bunch of crap,
surfaced but I kept going and ithelped.
I got to a point where I feltokay.
But I couldn't be married.
while I was in therapy and I wasactually getting to know the
(12:26):
person that I I realized that wejust weren't, our, our values
and our principles didn't alignand we were just different
people.
Even if I could say that he'sthe one that rushed, he's the
one that did all that at thesame time.
I also said, yes, and I alsowent along with it and there was
(12:48):
just a day that I remember beinglike I can't, I'm not saying
that I was ready to get adivorce, but I knew I needed to
deal with all the feelings andeverything.
So I remember Telling him how Ifelt like it was just one day
like word vomit I felt like onceI got it all out there, and we
(13:09):
had been having issues I mean itwasn't like oh everything was
great, and then one day.
I like hey by the way No, I meanit was it, it was clear, it was
just It's a matter of time and amatter of who was going to say
it first, so yeah, we legallyseparated per the law and You
have to wait a year before youcan file for divorce While I was
(13:33):
going to, Therapy and separatingand all of that.
I loved my job.
It was my focus.
It was what I cared about themost at the time I think again
probably jumping in headfirst tostay focused on something and
right around the time when Imoved out they sat me next to
(13:55):
the most annoying, loud.
New Yorker, loud, annoying.
Did I say loud?
For those of you who know me,you know who I'm talking about.
For those of you who don't knowme, I'm talking about my
husband, Lucas.
So call it perfect timing butthey sat us next to each other
(14:19):
right around the time we wereboth going through separations I
don't know, God works inmysterious ways.
I was at a point where I haddealt with a lot of grief done
the therapy done the things so Itruly believe had I met him a
year before I was a completelydifferent person and so was he
again, perfect timing he was soeasy to talk to he talks a lot,
(14:43):
too and We became friends And Iwas so out of his league.
I still can't believe he had theballs to ask me out, but he did
and I was like, okay and that'sall it took! Yeah, I think it
was like by the end of our firstdate, or maybe second date, it
(15:04):
didn't take long.
We had both laid everything outon the table and we were really
into each other, but we didn'twant to rush and be crazy and
repeat cycles that we had donein the past.
We both never really got toexperience the, the grown up
(15:27):
party life.
Like he went to college, he didhis six year plan, but then, he
was all work, work, work, and hefelt like he had never gotten to
party, which is BS.
I actually never got to be akid.
I moved here when I was 18.
(15:47):
Got knocked up, uh, married anddivorced.
So anyway, we agreed that wewere going to move in together,
move uptown, after the seconddate, it wasn't like we were
like, oh, let's move intogether.
I can't remember what point inour relationship.
I think we had been dating atleast a few months.
At least it was more than fiveminutes, which was big for me.
(16:08):
Our plan was let's move uptown,let's have fun.
We weren't trying to go and,live the uptown single life.
we were past that.
We knew we wanted to be witheach other, but what's the point
of rushing, let's take our time,let's not be crazy.
October of 2009, he proposed.
It's a really cute story.
I'll save that for anotherepisode just to not go too far
(16:32):
off track.
So engaged and then a yearlater, we got married.
By the time we got married, wehad 2 years, side note, we
really wanted to have a funwedding.
It's not often that a guy islike, Oh, I've always wanted to
get married at Center City oruptown and have this kind of
(16:58):
thing.
I always joke that he'sgroomzilla someone that me that
loves planning parties and lovesplanning everything and is very
much into that kind of stuff, Iwas very surprised at how much
of a groomzilla he was.
He wanted to have an opinionabout the color of the dresses.
(17:20):
I was like, you know what, he'sactually saying that he's always
dreamt of having some kind ofwedding.
Why am I going to argue withhim, we wanted to have that open
bar.
I remember he got a part timejob to cover extra hours because
we both knew what kind ofwedding we wanted to have.
So we set a goal and it was agreat wedding, but two weeks
(17:42):
before the wedding, find out I'mpregnant.
At this point it had been yearssince I had had Melina.
Keep in mind that there was noreason why my water broke and
why any of that happened.
They were like, it's one in amillion chances that it would
ever happen again.
So when we found out, I waspregnant two weeks before the
wedding, we were so excited, wewere ready for that.
(18:05):
I remember all our family wascoming for the wedding and, we
planned like how we were goingto tell them, cause again, we
were, we were really, reallyexcited about it.
We got these little pictureframes and it was like, I love
my grandma, I love my uncle,all, all the things.
We got brought them all over toour condo and We were like, Oh,
(18:27):
we have gifts for you guys.
All right.
Everyone opened them at the sametime It was literally like a
bunch of dum dums opening giftsat the same time.
They're looking at it andthey're kind of looking at each
other and like, no one got itand then finally, my mom, she
like looks up and she's like,typical for my mom she starts
(18:51):
bawling and then everyone elsecaught on it was really funny.
I really wish I would havefilmed that.
Anyway, irrelevant.
So we told everyone, happy a bigbummer was that whole, amazing
wedding we had planned with theopen bar and all the things.
I did not get to partake in theopen bar, which I was fine with,
I'll take a kid over that andgot married.
(19:13):
It was amazing.
We went on our honeymoon.
It was great.
Life was amazing.
We got married in September.
Fast forward to December, mywater broke and I was five
months pregnant at this point.
You have to be six months forthe baby to be considered viable
and for doctors to evenintervene to try to do anything.
(19:35):
So yeah, uh, here we go again,Her name was Abigail Josephine.
I tried again to keep the Joegoing because it comes from like
my great grandfather's Jose, andthen we have Joseph and my
Grandmother is Josefina, mymom's Josephine, Joei, I wanted
(19:58):
to keep the Joe going.
So Melina, Melina Joy andAbigail Josephine, Abby-Jo,
which is, yes, it's verySouthern, but we thought that
was funny with us beingbasically the complete opposite
of Southerners.
He's a loud Italian, New Yorker,and I'm a Latin British girl
(20:23):
from Florida.
Abby Jo just sounded reallycute.
Anyway, once again, I was in thehospital for like a week and
because of the way Melina wasdelivered through an emergency C
section, my body could not gointo labor because for an
emergency C section, I'm nottrying to get graphic here, but
(20:44):
on the outside it's like this,but once they get inside, they
have to cut your uterus and, andstuff up and down so they can
get to the baby faster.
You cut the uterus that way,, itheals, but there's a very high
chance that if contractionshappen that your uterus can tear
(21:08):
and that's bad in case, in caseyou didn't figure that out.
That's bad.
So, when my water broke withAbby Jo they gave me all the
medicine and all the things tostop me from going into labor.
The catch 22 was they stopped mefrom going into labor.
(21:29):
We knew they couldn't justdeliver her normally because of
the risk we were basically at apoint where we had to get a D&
E.
Oh, but wait, my doctor didn'tbelieve in doing D& Es, which
is, essentially, it's anabortion in the second
trimester.
I'm not even going to go there.
(21:49):
We had to accept the decisionand drive up to UNC two days
before Christmas and had to do aD&E, uh, dilate and I'll look it
up, doesn't matter.
Two days before Christmas, thatreally sucked.
Also, the day my water broke wasDecember 5th and December 5th
(22:14):
had been the date of my originalbaby shower that was planned for
Melina, my first daughter, whichactually ended up being the day
of her funeral.
So December 5th, yeah, realshitty day.
So with Abby Jo, that's the daymy water broke.
So yeah, so here we go.
Guess what?
(22:35):
Grief, grief, grief, grief andat this point, I feel like I
could get, I could have mymaster's in grief, but no, you
can't just turn a switch on anddeal with stuff.
You act a certain way, you thinka certain way, you feel a
certain way.
People can tell you till thecows come home that it's grief,
but good luck believing it.
(22:56):
When I went back to work,during, my pregnancy and all
that, like I loved the job thatI had and I came back to the
same company, but everyone Iguess knew what was better for
me, so put me in this, in a rolethat I absolutely hated.
So it's not like I could havework to distract myself and get
(23:18):
my mind off of how mucheverything sucked at the time.
Then to top it off, uh, March.
My cousin that was like a bigbrother to me, that had just
been at our wedding thateveryone met, commits suicide.
(23:41):
I'm barely hanging on afterlosing Abby-Jo, and then more
devastation, more grief.
So, as you can imagine thingsweren't great in our
relationship because it was justthe way that I dealt with stuff.
I've just shut down it was mybody that had failed again,
(24:06):
We'll call it you know wallswent up Defense mechanisms
pushing away, how could thisperson possibly love me?
I can't do anything right.
I hated my job.
It was a lot.
So, our marriage was beingtested a hundred percent.
And I remember the lowest pointwe had gone out for, and we, and
(24:31):
we never missed the bar crawlwhen we lived uptown.
Remember how I said that we haddecided to move uptown for a
year that ended up being threeyears because when we got
engaged, we're like, well, whyare we going to move to the
suburbs now?
Let's continue to enjoy thistime during our engagement so we
(24:52):
renewed our lease, and then whenwe lost Abby, we renewed our
lease again, anyway, we liveduptown, we went to every single
bar crawl out there.
We did everything we were livingthe uptown life.
It was fabulous.
The partying life, not life ingeneral.
(25:13):
Life kind of sucked.
So drinking was a greatalternative and a great way to
cope.
I remember one of our lowestpoints was, St.
Patrick's Day.
St.
Patrick's Day is my husband'sfavorite holiday.
My New Yorker, Italian husband,who is Irish who knows?
(25:35):
It's his favorite.
Part of me was kind of like, Iprobably shouldn't really drink
because I have so much stuffinside that.
I don't want to wake the beast,sure enough.
I was like, oh no, but it's hisfavorite holiday and I was
trying to think about him andhow, this affected him too,
(25:56):
everything that we had gonethrough.
And so my dumb ass went out andgot drunk and I remember
throwing plates, but itescalated over a couple hours,
but when we got back home, I wasjust a complete crazy drunk mess
and yeah, we had no idea likewhat was What the answer was
(26:21):
what we were going to do oranything like that.
He went for a walk the next dayit was a Sunday Stumbled upon
Elevation Church, if you're notlocal to the area it was uptown,
so he went in there I guess, heheard some sermon that really
spoke to him.
I remember he came back and hewas like, Hey, I don't know what
(26:43):
the answer is, but want to go tochurch.
My relationship with God hadbeen, very rocky because I never
understood, like what kind ofGod would let me go through all
the things that I had gonethrough.
So it wasn't like I didn'tbelieve in God, but I was like,
(27:04):
the best way to put it is I wasa little mad.
But at this point, I'm like, whynot let's go to church.
And that brings me to the end ofthe episode, backstory is going
to be a two parter I've alreadyseen that I've gone way off of
what I wanted to say and justgone off on my regular Joei
(27:25):
rants, which I fully expect themto happen a lot.
So I will continue with part twoof Backstory in the next
episode, until next time, thanksfor listening.
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