Misti

In my past blog about my history, I told about how I got pregnant at the age of eighteen. Well, I'm going to tell you more about that part of my story. Many months before I got pregnant, I was living the party life. I was at clubs on the weekends...spending time with lots of guys, including my future baby's daddy. Eventually, I became so tired of this lifestyle and started asking the big inevitable question for new adults, "What do I want to do with my life?". Of course, I was feeling very guilty at this point b/c I felt like I had turned my back on my religion totally...and when someone is as devout as I was, it's only a matter of time before that someone feels the need for change. So, I did what any little southern baptist chicky would do and went straight to christian counselors. I called a hotline and talked with someone. I told the person that I wanted to travel and bring glory to God. The counselor said, " Why not mission work?". So, I approached the missions minister at my church and he signed me up for a trip to Guatemala. At this point Omar, my daughter's father, had disappeared (as he did on many occasions)for quite a while. So, my little addiction to him could be put on the back burner. So, of course I became quite popular in the college ministry amongst my peers b/c I was doing the Lord's work. I went to Guatemala, came back, gave my testimony to my peers. A few weeks later, I was driving to the grocery store and lo and behold who do I see on a bicycle? It was Omar, the test I knew that God was throwing before me. I was determined to "witness" to him this time...but, well you know what happened next...I failed God's test with flying colors and I got pregnant. Not only had I immersed myself in mission work...signing up for another trip to Guatemala, I was also teaching Sunday school to middleschool students. lol. I was also in college. Well, next came the big confession. I told my church leaders, and my peers about my "sin" and they all were super supportive in their own way. As a matter of fact, they told me that I should start attending the Unwed Mothers Sunday school class (which by the way took place in the basement of the church)hmmm. Well, it was there I met many different pregnant girls...pregnant thirteen year olds, Florence Crittenton girls, ex-druggies, girls who had already given a couple of children up for adoption and pregnant again, and little girls from suburbia (like me)that just plain got knocked up. It was there that I met a girl named Misti. She was several years older than me. She had been horribly abused all her life and she was a druggy who had stopped b/c she was pregnant. She was also an ex-prostitute and an ex-stripper. I thought she was super nice and very funny. When she talks, all you hear is color in her speech...whimsy even. She wore do-rags and had a tatoo of Taz....to go along with her tongue ring. She was from Massachusetts and came to NC where she had lived long ago. She was impregnated by a guy in prison and was living at Florence Crittenton. She would go back and forth between Massachusetts and NC...and she was due to have her baby about a month later than mine. She came back not long after I had my daughter, in preparation to have her kid. The doctors found out that I contracted a disease that could hurt my daughter so they took me by C-section in order to prevent her getting it...but told me to be on lookout for symptoms anyway. Well, my daughter began to run a fever and the doctors took immediate action. At the time I had no one really to support me b/c my parents were in the middle of separating and I was staying with a friend who was about to go out of town. My Sunday school teacher called Misti (I didn't know it) to tell her that my daughter was being taken to the hospital immediately and that I needed someone to be there for me. Even thoough Misti didn't know me well, she came to the hospital and was waiting in the hospital room before I even got there. I was in tears and so ashamed at myself, but there Misti was to comfort me. Well, my daughter stayed in the hospital for days but she was ok in the end. Well, Misti had her baby and I was there at the hospital for her. After that, we hung out together a lot and I even kept her son for her while she worked. When I went into a program to help single mothers, it was her place that I took b/c she got kicked out for not following the program...sometimes I think that I took the future that God had planned for her. I told her that many years later and she smiled at the thought. Well, after she got kicked out of the program, she returned to Massachusetts and met a man who wanted her to be his playdoll. He wanted her to change her name, change her look and he did not want her kid. Misti will claim that she didn't abandon her son for this man but I know she did. She took her son to her mother and ran away with this guy. I kept up with her through phone, and begged her to get her son back. She didn't like this so we stopped talking for years. Her mother died, and so Misti took her son to her brother in Florida. After several years, he was tired of taking care of Misti's son and told her she needed to pick him up. Well, after she picked him up, she came to NC and stayed with me for a few days. Her son is just a beautiful boy full of goodness and I am scared of what will happen to him. Misti told me how she'd been prostituting again with her boyfriend's blessing, b/c he stayed home while she worked. She had gotten lapband surgery b/c her boyfriend didn't like fat girls. She vomited every few minutes while she was staying with me. Well, I told her that if she was in trouble and decided that she couldn't be a mother, that she should bring her son to me. She was thankful.
Well, in the past few weeks, she finally broke up with the big loser only to take another one in and she is very obsessed with him (she's a relationship addict). She told me that she leaves her 9 yr. old son home alone (home is a motel by the way) in the bad part of town in Las Vegas to have "private" time with her new boyfriend that she met at a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. I flipped out on her and basically told her that she's nuts for doing this and begged her not to do it again. She told me I had a right to my opinion but she felt like there was nothing wrong with what she's doing. I was in tears thinking about how often her son is home alone and thinking about the mess he will surely be b/c of living with Misti. She told me that even though I'm home with my kids that anybody could just break in to my house and kill us on the spot and I'd have no control over this. She said she would have no control over anything happening to her son, so there's no point in her worrying about it. This is how she justifies leaving her child alone at home. Well, I told another friend about this and she told her husband. Now my friend's husband is criticizing me for not calling any authorities. Well, I don't know her address and I'm pretty sure she'd run if she got any tip on this. It's not against the law in Nevada to leave a child that age alone at home but it is "frowned upon", so chances are that she might not get in trouble anyway. So, I feel like the only option I have is to keep the lines of communication open with her, and hopefully be a voice of reason to her. Am I doing the wrong thing? I just do not know what to do. I truly care for her and her child and am afraid of what the future holds for the both of them if Misti keeps going in the wrong direction.