Red flags in relationships.

You might be dating a d-bag when:

Over the years, I have dated my fair share of men. I have been with the good, the bad, and the ugly, (and the hot, the possibly gay, the foreign, etc. etc.). After ending the relationship, I have had time to reflect on each one and think, "what went wrong?"  No matter who it was, they all have one thing in common; there was a firework show of red flags that I looked past.

 It is hard starting a new relationship, because we are learning about each other, and wondering if a red flag was just a mistake, or some weird incidence, maybe he was wrongly accused of stabbing someone, peeing on a playground in front of a child, or cheating on you with a stripper named Candy Cane. And as women, we are pretty forgiving, naturally...unfortunately. Most of us want to see the best in people, and hope that they are changed and want to do better and be better for us, that we will be the ones that will make them the man of our dreams, and we're so ready to settle down, we are completely looking past all of the warning signs that are indicators that this relationship might not work. I hate to say this- but people are innately who they are, they may improve slightly, but they usually revert back to past behaviors, (the past is truly the best indication of the future). After all of my research on red flags in my relationships, as well as my friend's relationships, I compiled a list of some that I think are important that we tend to overlook. Enjoy. (Guys, the same list pretty much applies to girls as well).

1. He is aggressively sexual. If a man respects you, he respects your boundaries. If he is aggressively sexual, he might be A. a freak, B. using you C. a brotha just might need to be told to chill out.

2. He is not sexual at all. This is also weird. He might be gay. Or have diabetes. He should be sexually attracted to you, but at a healthy balance of so.

3. He has a past of cheating numerous times or has cheated on you. Everyone can screw up once, but there is NO need for an explanation for this, we are smarter than that.

4. He treats people he doesn't know like they're crap. This is indicative of his character, and is a very unattractive trait that will end up with you being treated poorly.

5. He treats you like you're crap. Run. This won't change. He should be treating you like a queen in the beginning, showing you all of his best cards and trying his hardest. If he's already treating you with no effort, buzzards are going off everywhere, run Forrest, run!

6. He is lazy. If he's lazy in life, he'll sure as hell be lazy in your relationship. Also, what a turn off.

7. The only time he hangs out with you is after 10 pm. Hi. you're a booty call.

8. He doesn't want to commit. He just isn't ready (and it's been 3+ months), he's been too hurt, he doesn't want to hurt you, he is really focusing on work, his dog is really time consuming, he might be moving out of the country for work, but hey- he likes you a lot and still wants to hang out..this means, Hi. I like hanging out with you (hooking up with you) but want no commitment whatsoever. If you're cool with that, more power to ya, if not, back off.  

9. You catch him in numerous lies. Even if they're little lies, it's weird. And if he'll lie about little things, why wouldn't he lie about big things? Usually people lie because they're guilty, or because they're insecure, both will affect the relationship. 

9. He doesn't want to hang out with your friends ever. He might be selfish, or your friends just might suck. But figure that out.

10. He doesn't have friends. ....Why.

11. He does have friends, but they all suck. We choose who we surround ourselves with, so if his friends suck, he probably does too.

12. He is cocky. If he's confident, Awesome. If he's cocky, he's insecure and looking for an ego-fill. Don't be that ego-fill, it's a void he needs to figure out himself. 

13. He has not worked for ANY of his money. There is something different about a man who has money because he has worked hard for it. He knows he has to work hard for you too vs. a man who has had EVERYTHING given to him. It unfortunately usually rolls into the relationship, if not now, most likely later on.

14. He has no faith, and does not care to explore the true meaning of life. This is a problem to me because it is important that you are able to grow together, that he is open to exploring new things. Having a belief in something is critical to living a fruitful life together. 

15. He is insanely jealous or controlling. Usually guys are like this because they are either wounded and very insecure, or doing something wrong themselves. Don't ever let someone control you.

16. He does not care when a guy slaps your ass in public, and offers his friends to touch your boobs (this has ACTUALLY happened to me.) He doesn't respect you basically, and this is weird as shit, so peace out.

17. It is always on his time table when you hang out. Don't be waitin' around for his call girl, make your own plans, if he wants to see you, he will work around it.

18. He never takes you on dates. Being in college, this was kind of the norm. You'd meet up at a bar or party, and end up making out and eventually you'd date. We're in the real world now. A man should want to court you and date you to dinner, coffee, lunch, some sort of effort to show that he is interested.

19. You don't sleep with him, and he becomes disinterested. He definitely is not wanting to date you, and he's a sleaze. And you should light dog poop on fire and leave it on his front door step.

20. Every ex he has dated is a "bitch" or "crazy" or a "crazy bitch." Either he has terrible luck, or there's a reason that each relationship ends so poorly, and there's only one thing in common: him.

21. You catch him checking out women in front of you all of the time. On occasion, it's normal. Guys like a nice booty do. But if it's on the reg and he's obvious about it, this should make you concerned. A wandering eye can lead to bad places.

22. He treats his mom like a pig. Look at your future, because that is it.

Okay my little lovers, note these red flags and fly away into dating land. Remember to always love people first, and with that comes trust, but perk your little ears up a bit more, be a tad more cautious about jumping into a relationship, get to know someone! If you see any of the above warning signs, plus your own list, really think about what it could mean for the future and for your happiness. We don't ever need to settle or compromise, because as tough as dating can be, there are plenty of good people out there that have similar "non-negotiables" as ours. 

XX,

Kathryn Lane

For more of Kathryn Lane's writing, go to www.babehair.blogspot.com

An Untold Story- Part II

First of all, I want to thank everyone for the enormous amount of support and kind words for my sister, Kristen's story. It took a lot of courage for her to share the heartbreak of it, and brought up a lot of emotions, but the positive feedback was well worth it. As promised, here is part II of Kristen's birth story published on Momquery. This is the perfect example that there is light at the end of every dark tunnel.

If you haven’t read Part 1 of my story, read it HERE

The day after our son, Jack Henry, passed away, I lived in a zombie like state. All I did those initial few days post Jack Henry’s death was replay the previous two and a half weeks in my head. Over and over. Over and over. Not to mention my milk was coming in and I was experiencing the release of hormones that I would have had he been born alive. And yet I had no baby as the prize during an already difficult process

Everything was dark. Bleak. And yet, if you would have asked me if I needed to talk to someone I would have told you no.

After a few weeks, Mike let me know that he couldn’t let me go on living the way I was. He was worried about me. I was so mad at him at the time as it seemed to me like he had processed Jack Henry’s death with ease and moved on. But I loved my husband and my marriage and so I set up an appointment with a recommended psychologist.

My initial visit with Paula, my psychologist, was a time for me to basically verbally vomit my experience to someone who actually wanted to listen. I met with her twice every week followed by group therapy once per month with a small group of women who had gone through fetal loss as well. After a few months (frustrating months for her, I’m sure) I decided that I could probably benefit from some medicine; at least a little something to help with my anxiety and the panic attacks I’d started having. In May, six months after Jack Henry’s death, I decided to consider an anti-depressant .

All of my depression and the anxiety that Jack Henry’s death had caused was too much for me to handle. and yet my pride made me feel as though taking medicine was admitting to defeat. It was not until September, almost a full year later, that I began taking medicine regularly to try and help with my depression and anxiety.

As far as my therapy went, Paula was a God-send. Group therapy was rough, but completely necessary. There were about 3-4 of us each session, all there for various reasons that our babies had died. We always started each session giving a little outline of our story to the new members and then opening the floor to questions. There was a sweet girl in our group who had lost TWO babies. I had such a hard time wrapping my head around that— that this could happen again.

These ladies and this time were so precious to me. As time passed, I wasn’t a newbie anymore, I was the veteran. I was determined to continue therapy through the year anniversary of Jack Henry’s death. On that date, a woman, B., was led in by her sister. She couldn’t speak. She sat there crying. With her permission, her sister told us all about how B.’s son had died in utero a few days before he was to be born. I remember sitting back and wishing I could run up and grab B. and hug her and tell her that she WOULD get through this. That was how I knew that I was starting to heal and get better.

One day after school I walked into our house to find Mike sitting in the office with a strange look on his face. I was so confused as to what could have happened. He was studying for law school finals or the Bar— surely this would not make him so rattled.

He explained to me that he had taken a break from studying to watch SportsCenter when ESPN did a feature on a coach who had lost their child very similarly to how Mike and I had. He was so shaken by this and then it hit me.

What I had taken as Mike brushing off our son’s death with ease had actually been the embodiment of selflessness. He was so worried about me that he put his grieving to the side to help me through it all. Day after day of him walking into our bedroom, seeing me crumpled up in a ball, crying; finding me in the bathtub with a picture of our son’s sonogram, crying; coaxing me to come inside from my car so that he could give me a hug and help me calm down. This was all him trying to take care of me. And now that he could see that I was getting better— it was his time to grieve. It was one of the most special and precious moments of my life to see how much my husband loved me. I am so thankful that this terrible event, so early on in our marriage, strengthened our bond and love for each other.

Time went on. Mike graduated law school and landed a position at a great firm here in Dallas. We bought a puppy. And then a house. And in April 2013, I was feeling a little off. Before I decided to call the doctor, I decided that I might want to take a pregnancy test to make sure I wasn’t pregnant. As we weren’t exactly trying to have another baby yet, I was sure that it would be negative.

7:00 AM. Positive. Pregnant. Two lines. Pink. I swallowed and wanted to squeal in delight and throw up at the same time. We were pregnant. I was shocked.

I rushed to get Mike out of bed and tell him the news. After his initial surprise and lawyer’s mind processing that this pregnancy was happening a little earlier than we’d planned, we were both elated.

Because of our first pregnancy, this pregnancy and any subsequent pregnancy that I have will be labeled high risk. For the first twenty weeks through the anatomy scan, I would alternate weeks of appointments with my OBGYN and my High Risk Specialist to look for any signs of neural tube defects or other abnormalities like our son had.

For most people, sonograms are moments of pure joy. For me, they are not joyful. I white knuckled my way through them, tense, anxiety ridden that they would find SOMETHING. And while you can tell a lot in those initial weeks, our first big scans wouldn’t come until after the first trimester.

At about twelve weeks, we went to the high risk specialist for our first anatomy scan and to have all of our genetic screening done. From an hour meeting with a genetic specialist to discuss every disease ever known to be had by any member of both sides of our family, to giving LOTS of blood (even Mike, whose grandmother was Ashkenazi Jewish, had to go through special blood tests!), to high resolution sonograms where they invite medical students in to study you and learn from your old case and how your new case is different, that first anatomy scan was a whirl! Dr. Magee did a great job at assuring me from the get go that our baby looked to be A+ and that it was growing perfectly.

Despite this good news, I went home and broke down. Of course, I was elated. But here I was, living in such a happy time with another child on the way who appeared to be healthy— was I forgetting Jack Henry and what he meant to me? And besides, we were nowhere near out of the woods yet as there is only so much that can be seen at 12 weeks, was this little baby really going to be okay? I was extremely stressed.

We continued to alternate appointments, and had another big scan scheduled for 18 weeks. This would be the dreaded BIG anatomy scan; we’d go back to look at the heart more closely when it was fully developed at 20 weeks.

As I waited in Dr. Magee’s office with Mike, I started shaking like a leaf. I was terrified. Four years ago, this moment had rocked my world and thrown my life into a tailspin. It had been and still was the worst moment of my life. Dr. Magee came in and noticed my distress. Mike took one of my hands and his nurse took my other. Dr. Magee immediately did his absolute best to assure me through my tears that every single part of our baby looked absolutely perfect.

After making it through such a difficult appointment, I scheduled the heart scan which was supposed to be no big deal. We were almost in the clear.

Mike was working crazy hours as a young attorney and so two weeks later my mom came to Dallas to take me to the appointment.

The Fetal Cardiologist was pleased with everything she saw, but there was a little catch in her voice that I recognized from our sono tech’s voice four years earlier. I knew something was wrong.

I started to panic.

“Legally, I have to tell you this. But it probably isn’t anything.” Unfortunately for her, saying that “it probably isn’t anything” doesn’t register with me. I’d already lived the lightning strike.

“Your daughter has a bright spot on her heart which can be a soft marker for Down Syndrome. She probably does not have Down Syndrome, but we do have additional testing you can have done if you’d like to know for sure.”

I burst into tears. I had been so anxious my entire pregnancy and now to get all the way to the end of my testing and to have this news. Not that we wouldn’t love a baby with Down Syndrome more than anything in the world, but this was not the news we had expected.

I gave a vile of blood and all too familiarly was notified that we would have the results within fourteen business days.

I received the call during class and stepped outside my room of 8th graders to take it. The results were negative. Our little girl did not have down syndrome. After 22 weeks of anxiety over waiting for blood test results and sonograms to detect genetic abnormalities, open neural tube defects, closed neural tube defects, heart defects, brain scans, etc. we were in the clear. Our daughter really, truly was perfectly healthy.

We spent the next half of our pregnancy actually enjoying it; getting her nursery together, arguing over her name, attending baby showers, child birth classes, and finally, waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

My mom came up to Dallas on January 26th. We got our nails done, went shopping, and waited. I also watched that Budweiser horse and puppy super bowl commercial set to horribly sad music about twenty five times and cried that my relationship with Frank, our dog, was going to change.

I was over being pregnant. And so ready to meet our little girl. I scheduled my induction for the 30th.

The morning of the 30th came and we went to the hospital at 5:00 AM. My first nurse (who was only there for two hours because she worked the night shift) was truly an angel. I didn’t realize how emotional I would get as memories of my first delivery with Jack Henry flooded back to me. She rubbed my back and let me know that today was going to be a totally different experience.

She was right.

Pitocin was started at 7:00. I was fully dilated at 2:30. Dr. Haddock let me labor down and I began pushing around 4:00.

At about 4:30, Dr. Haddock came into the room to deliver my daughter.

Hadley Wilder Nelson was born at 4:49 PM, weighing 8 pounds, 1 ounce and 20 inches long. She was and is perfect.

They immediately set her on my chest and I noticed she had brown goo leaking out of her mouth. She had terminal meconium (swallowed her first bowel movement; yes, disgusting) and was not spitting up the meconium like they needed her to.

They took her from me and began to, what seemed like at least, beat on her back, trying to get her to spit it up. They informed me that they were calling two NICU specialists down to work on her but that if they couldn’t stabilize her breathing she would have to spend the night in the NICU.

While Dr. Haddock was tending to me, she tried to assure me that our baby would be fine.

They decided to try one last thing to stabilize her— kangaroo care— where they put her naked body on my naked chest to try and get her to calm down. It worked almost immediately and soon thereafter our family was invited in to meet our little girl.

So far, Hadley’s six months have been filled with joy and bliss (and of course some anxiety and tears.) She is a sassy little girl with such a big personality. But the best compliment that I get about Hadley is that she is such a happy baby. She really, truly is, and it has been the greatest honor of my life to be her mommy.

At the same time, I must admit that I still think about Jack Henry every day. There are moments that I find myself sad that he didn’t get to squeal at Frank while playing in the exercauser. Or a bit angry that Hadley will grow up not knowing her older brother. Or frustration that I can’t fully explain to every stranger who asks that Hadley is not technically my first born. So I settle for yes, nod my head and smile, all the while in the back of my mind and in my heart remembering my Jack Henry.

At the end of such a dark period of my life, it is so wonderful to hold my little girl, kiss her perfect face and know that she is truly my rainbow- a fulfilled promise of peace after forging through a terrible storm.

http://momquery.com/stillbirth-healing-journey/

An untold story

I wanted to share a piece of writing that my sister, Kristen, wrote. She was just brought on as one of the writers for a new website called Momquery. It's a website that new moms, moms-to-be, or moms in general, can find useful information on the trials and triumphs on being a mother. Kristen's first piece was her birth story, her first birth story, a stillbirth in 2009. It was a devastating time in all of our lives and if you read my blogs, you have probably seen my writing on it, and it still chokes me up when I read her story. I wanted to share this because she has received a surplus of positive feedback from women who may have gone through a similar situation and related so much to this. Something so tragic such as this kind of becomes a hidden pain, a secret that is never really talked about, but it should. Below is part 1 of Kristen's birth story.




"My first pregnancy came as a surprise to my husband, Mike, and I. While we were fairly young (26 and 24) and not prepared, we quickly grew excited about our first pregnancy. Aside from an aversion to all things that even looked similar to chicken, my pregnancy was very easy. Approaching the twenty week point, we could not wait to find out whether we would be parents to a son or a daughter.

November 2, 2009. 10:00 AM. Our gender sonogram and anatomy scan. This date will haunt me forever.

My husband wanted a son SO badly. I remember being pretty nervous because I wouldn’t call 50% odds to be in your favor. The sono tech rubbed the gel on my stomach and began her business of moving her wand around, not saying much, taking pictures and measurements. After a couple of silent minutes that felt odd to me, I asked her if she could tell what we were having. She seemed caught off guard.

“Oh, yes. We can definitely tell. It’s a boy! Do you have a name picked out?” As she typed, “Jack Henry’s first picture” across the screen, I looked over at my husband and beamed.

“YES!” He was grinning ear to ear.

I could tell, however, that something wasn’t right. Our sonogram tech was normally the definition of cheerful. And yet she was intently studying the screen with a somber look on her face.

“How does everything else look? Is everything else okay?” I stammered.

“Well, ” she started, “I do see a little something here with his head. It seems like there are some issues with his spinal cord and his head. I’m going to let you go talk to Dr. Haddock about it.”

A pit sank in my stomach. I started to cry. Growing up as a kid with a father who is a doctor, I knew that when the head, brain, and spine were involved, things were typically pretty serious.

My husband, the lawyer-to-be, immediately began asking question after question. Our sono tech assured him that our doctor would answer our questions and talk to us about what it all meant and next steps.

We met Dr. Haddock in another room. She immediately began with, “I am so so sorry.”

I remember thinking, “Sorry about what? What is going on with my baby?”

She explained that our son’s skull/brain were not fused to his spinal cord properly. He had what was called a neural tube defect, possibly caused by something called Trisomy 13. Neural Tube Defects are rare; we had probably heard of the most common one called Spina Bifida. Ours was unfortunately more serious. She had never seen this happen in all of her years of practice and she wanted us to go see the high risk specialist, Dr. Magee, one building over, immediately.

I took out my phone to call my parents who were eagerly awaiting our phone call to find out whether they’d be purchasing a Texas Longhorns footbal l or cheerleading uniform.

I remember that I didn’t even tell them what his gender was. I sobbed through my words, and said, “Mom. Something is wrong with the baby. Something is wrong with his brain. I need you and Daddy up here. I can’t do this without you.”

As my parents packed up to travel from San Antonio to Dallas in record time, my husband and I left Dr. Haddock’s office to head over to the High Risk Specialist.

We were immediately ushered back to a room, cutting in front of about fifteen others waiting to be seen, and I again got the feeling that this was very, very serious.

Dr. Magee came in to greet us and take a closer look at our son with his ultra high res sonogram machine. He confirmed what our sono tech and Dr. Haddock had seen. He described that we were possibly looking at Trisomy 13 (a genetic disorder where a baby is missing chromosomes and cannot survive outside the womb) and kept emphasizing that what we were looking at was so rare that it was a “lightening strike” possibility of happening to anyone. He began discussing next steps with us. He said that if in fact this were as serious as he initially believed, his recommendation would be to terminate the pregnancy because our son was incompatible with life. He would not survive.

I had never seen my husband cry up until this moment. I heard a sob escape from his mouth as his head sank into his hands.

I looked at Dr. Magee and said, “Dr. Magee, I don’t believe in terminating pregnancies.” He looked at me and with the pity of a father, rather than my doctor, explained that in rare cases like this, where the baby had zero chances of survival, we had to thank God for giving us the science to stop the terrible suffering that our child would endure before dying, IF he was even born alive. At best, we’d maybe have a few minutes with him while he suffered in agonizing pain because he would be unable to regulate his body temperature, his bowels, his breathing, anything. Our child was going to die. No ifs, ands or buts about it. There was nothing that could be done.

Before we could make any decisions, Dr. Magee wanted us to go through a few more tests. He wanted the Fetal Cardiologist to take a look at Jack Henry’s heart. He wanted us to go down and have an MRI on his brain. And he wanted us back the following day for an amnio so that we could determine whether or not this was caused by Trisomy, genetics, or other factors.

The rest of the day is a blur. I remember the Fetal Cardiologist confirming that our son did have serious heart defects as well. I remember crying in the Radiology office as I saw a little boy walking around with a cast while driving his mother crazy, thinking that my little boy would never walk around with a cast or drive me crazy.

My parents arrived during the middle of my MRI. After a sleepless night, I went in for the amnio the next morning with my husband and parents by my side. To tell you what fabulous doctors I have, my OBGYN, Dr. Haddock, cleared her morning schedule to come to the appointment with me and hold my hand during the procedure. I thought that having an eight inch needle inserted into my stomach was going to be excruciatingly painful. It was not a picnic, but it really wasn’t that bad. Both Dr. Haddock and Dr. Magee gave me their personal phone numbers to call with any questions and I left praying for miracles.

The waiting game began. Was this trisomy? Could this possibly be anything less severe? Could there be some kind of miracle that our son’s brain was actually perfect and having surgery could fuse everything together to work properly?

Call it mother’s intuition, but I knew that this was going to end in tragedy.

After two horrible weeks, we received all of our answers. No, our son did not have trisomy. No, this was not genetic.

But things were even worse than initially thought. Our son had anencephaly, which is fancy terminology that means he was missing parts of his brain and skull. Incompatible with life.

Our son, Jack Henry, passed away on November 17, 2009. I was not able to see him or hold him or kiss his little feet and tell him that I loved him.   One moment he was a part of me and the next moment he was not.

As I write this, I sit here crying, weeping for my baby, my husband, myself, and how I thought in that moment while lying in the recovery room that his passing meant that my two week nightmare was over. Little did I know, it had only just begun.

I spent much of my mid twenties living in a state of grief, of guilt, of anger, of fear and of sadness.

Through the help of my loving husband, my parents, my in laws, my sister, my best friends, a wonderful psychologist, and by the grace of God am I able to sit here today and tell you this story.

Not to mention, at the end of my nightmare is a wonderful rainbow. And I can’t wait to tell you all about it in my Part 2 of this story."

My beautiful sister, Kristen, her wonderful husband Mike and their sweet Frank.

http://momquery.com/kristens-story-still-birth/

XX,
Kathryn Lane
For more of Kathryn Lane's writing, go to www.babehair.blogspot.com