Narrative essay:A moment that changed my view of the world

06/25/07

Many times, life in an undeveloped country is difficult and complicated. It creates in you many conflicts and discourages the desire to succeed. I am from Ecuador , a country known for its resources' diversity, which are wasted or used unproductively. The lack of honest politicians has led to negligent governments that have used their power for their own benefit. My family and i were shaken by a strong economic crisis in 2001 where my mother had to migrate to Italy to support our expenses. I was left with my father and my two sisters, Tania and Ericka,who were fourteen and twelve respectively at the time. My mother was , like most Hispanic mothers,the one who held my family in balance.

Six months later, I left my house because of the intense discussions with my father about money and how he was disrespecting my mother. My concept of life and family were built in that house. This event marked the beginning of what I call my awaking time. Like a little chick breaks the shell, I broke that shell where I had been living for all those years. With no money, no high school diploma, and no idea of how real life was, I left that house to look for peace and love.

After this event, I went to live with my grandfather, and then with couple of aunts, and finally by myself . I started becoming more solitary emotionally and empty as a person. Before this, I was a disinterested, innocent, spontaneous person without any sense of egoism. I had to learn how to survive in the streets, where anybody does anything for free. I met hunger, desperation, and loneliness. This loneliness was not because I did not have people around me . It was because my emotions were blocked and i did not feel affection for all of those people who I met in the streets using drugs, drinking alcohol, having sex and destroying our lives. I did not feel a real emotional attachment for anybody. To care and to look out for people were erased from my mind during this time.

The need for my mother was subconsciously building in me the desire to form my own family. Looking the real facts, i was far too young to form a family. Two years after I left home, I finished high school and neither my father nor my mother were there, my mother, because she was in Italy, and my father, I just do not know. I started medical school and i felt amoral because I did not want my mother working as a dishwasher in a restaurant to pay for my university tuition. I did not want her to invest in me. I could not understand why she was mistreating herself to do something for me, even though she was my mother because I would not do this for anybody. . I would not do something so altruistic like that. Before I dropped out of school, i had the opportunity to come to the United States through an English as a Second Language program discount (ESL). I told my mother about this trip a week before my departure. She almost had a heart attack but later she understood that I needed a change. I needed this change to look for the meaning of my life, which I could not find in Ecuador.

I arrived to Los Angeles, California the morning of the twenty-eighth of January, 2005. I had my "extensive" three word vocabulary in English. I went to school for three months, where i learned a lot more English. For many circumstances, I went back to Ecuador the fourth of March. My former girlfriend was waiting for me and she got pregnant a few months later. I had the selfish desire for her to get an abortion at the beginning but we could not even talk about it. We decided to have the baby, even though i was already coming back to New York, where any hope for this relationship to survive died. Diego,my son, was born the first of February of 2006. He was a beautiful, healthy eight-pound baby whom I have not met yet. This is the most selfish thing that a father can do to a son; I left him in the middle of the pregnancy to pursue a personal dream. He will have a life without the physical presence of a father. Even though I have always blamed myself for that decision, I stayed to pursue my dream of studying in the United States.

When i returned from Ecuador, I moved to New York and I went to look for a job. Brazil Brazil was one of the restaurants where I went to ask for a server position. The first person who I saw after I opened the door was a beautiful, radiant blond girl, who with her petite body and friendly smile, welcomed me in Spanish to the bar. She was Sarah, who I later would fall in love with . I felt that we had that strong bond that hooks people together forever. We went out for several months, I met her parents, she met my family, and we decided to move in together. We rented a small apartment in Brooklyn, New York and she got pregnant. After many conflicts between us, we decided to have the baby.

During the pregnancy, I was in a kind of limbo. I was committed to her and willing to formalize something but as a person I did not understand how serious it was to have a baby. I kept drinking, smoking, and spending money unnecessarily. My fiancée at the point,Sarah, was freaking out and complaining about almost everything. I was annoyed by our fighting about money, my absences in school, and many other important reasons. I just thought of how she already had a difficult personality; it was just the result of the hormonal changes typical of the pregnancy. My lack of affection produced by my life circumstances, was making it difficult for me to seriously understand how important a baby was. Later I would realize that Sarah acted like that because she was worrying about the future of our baby.

The morning of the first of March, after more than a week passed her due day, Sarah was losing her patience and her conviction to have a completely natural birth. We went to check her amniotic fluid. Everything was normal and the baby was not at risk. The doctors could not do anything to induce labor because our baby was still healthy and secure. We went back home where Susan, Sarah's mom, was waiting anxiously for some good news but everything was the same as we left, no baby! Hours later, she told me about some secretion coming out but she said that it was not important. I told her to mention this to her mother but her mother thought that we should call the doctor's office to ask if we should worry about that. They told us to go to the hospital to do a check up and they would decide to induce labor or not.

Once in the hospital, they assigned Sarah a temporary room where they put a contraction monitor and a heart monitor for her. Our first contact with the baby was through the fetal heart monitor that was reading a 100 to 160 heartbeat per minute. I was out of place, like a monkey in a cage full of chickens. My whole life was passing through my head like flashes in a night club. Even though I already had a child, I had not felt all of the psychological , and emotional changes that this moment causes. For me, it was more than just that, it was my affection coming back to life. My hope and reason for living was getting set in a direction. After a couple of exams, they decided to induce her with Pitocin, a drug derived from hormones. We were going to sleep trough the night in the hospital and see how the cervix developed the next morning. It was like camping on Christmas Eve to see what Santa Claus would give us. I was amazed by the desire of Sarah to give birth because many women feel scared of the pain.

At six-thirty in the morning, I heard Sarah calling me. She told me that she could not sleep all night because the contractions were more frequent and stronger. The hours passed and the contractions were becoming stronger and stronger. I saw Sarah getting into a trance where she went away, trying to bear the intensity of the pain. I could not do or say anything; it was her moment to feel the greatness of being a mother. By eleven-thirty, she had four out of ten centimeters of dilation that she needed to start pushing the baby out. The nurse said that in order to do that she needed six or seven hours minimum. By one-fifty, the nurse came to check her cervix before going to lunch, but little Zoe(name that we picked for her) would not let her have lunch that early. Sarah had ten centimeters of dilation and she was ready to give birth. The preparations started and many people were running around for this unexpected event. The nurses started the labor without the doctor. Sarah started breathing and pushing as directed by her mom and one nurse. I was holding her hand and trying to be as calm as i could be. Finally, a little bald head was showing up. Sarah started crying and they let her touch the little head while she was still inside. The doctor finally came and with three more pushes her arms, chest and torso came out. She was completely out. She was alive, breathing, and ready to go through life, making everybody happy in her way, as she has done until now.

When i cut her umbilical cord, it was like cutting the cord that I had with my past of disillusions and problems. I understood that what I was looking was not specifically a family to form. I was looking for a family to live for. I could not understand why I had to wait until she was born in front of my eyes to know this. This little angel gives me the strength and reason to live. I could understand why my mother would work as a dishwasher to give me a education. I could understand my fiancée going crazy about money and my irresponsibility in the school. I would do anything to make my daughter happy and safe. To be a father made me understand that the change that i was looking for was not the feeling of being in a family. It was the feeling of being able to give my life for somebody,my daughter.