DO WE REALLY GET WHAT WE DESERVE

In the spring of 1996 i was a eighteen year old girl having the time of my life.That was when i met Steve the prince i had been dreaming of since i was a little girl. Or so i thought. Steve was good looking,charming,and made me feel like the prettiest girl in the world. We dated for a little over a year. It was so amazing all the late night phone conversations,flowers,letters;i felt so loved. In October of 97, if found out i was pregnaunt. I was scared but excited at the same time. As the pregnauncy expanded, everything started to change. Steve stoped coming home after work, sometimes for two or three days straight. Then there was an instance where he came home after threee in the morning and realized his supper was not warm nor fresh. He through me on the floor and all i remember was the thoughts going through my head. Why, why is he doing this to me. After it was all done i had a busted lip and a deep gash on myforehead.I didn't want my baby'sfatherto go to jail so i kept it to my self. On July 9, 1998 i gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. She was fine at first, then a few hours later ;she stopped breathing. The doctor was my angel that day. He got her to breathing again and she was diagnosed with sleep apnea. That is where when you are sleeping the brain forgets to tell you to breathe. She wore a huge monitor at all times that would have an alarm go off when she would stop breathing. Then we could thump her foot gentally and she would begin to breathe. When she turned three months old i found out i was pregnaunt again. This time i was worried. Things were good with Steve and I, he had not been violent anymore. But, my baby was still new. I learned to accept it and began to wait for the arrival of my second baby.Seven months into the pregnauncy Steve started drinking heavily and began to fight with me often. I remember one night he came in drunk in the early morning hours. He came in theroom screaming at me. I asked himtoquiet it down before he woke the baby. He began shouting no, that baby wakes me up at night and now its my turn. He then grapped a knife and came towards me and the baby screaming. I was so scared but tried to remain calm to protect and shield my baby. He finally calmed down and went to sleep. The next day i left him.He treatened me daily, began to harrass me all the time. The police wouldn't do anything. Then after my second birth, he was given visitation rights at my parents home. I was usually in college when he would show up. One day i couldnt find my keys that my youngest was playing with. He said she had them and we searched everywhere looking for them. I finally bought another copy, thinking i'll find them later. It was getting late and i needed to get them to bed. A few months past, then one night my mom picked me up from college. We were headed home when she told me, Steve had called a friend of mine and was saying that he would be atmy house when i arrived fromclassthat evening. He told her he had a copy of my key and was going to kill me and my children. So we went home checked everything out. And i laid the baby down to change her diaper. All the sudden we heard a key jigiling the door. My mother, my sister and i jumped to the door to lock the deadbolt. He pounded and screamed. We called the police and they claimed there was not enough withnesses. And the so they could'nt do anything about him breaking the protection order i had finally gotten a month prior to that. Then my landlord said she had signed criminal tresspass on him before. And that mistakeinly disappearred from the file. After two more years of looking over my shoulder on a daily basis he began to go on with his life. He finally met someone else and began to leave us alone. Since then the attorney general has threatened to put him in jail several times. He is over $35,000 behind as of date. He has had around two hundred dollars taken out ofpaychecks in all. Usually it istwentydollars here and there. He changes jobs when they take a payment out. My oldest daughter is now ten going on eleven. She is having so many problems, that the school decided i needed to home school her. She would not let go of me to go to class. She has been diagnosed with severe social anxiety. I have had to quit my job and my schooling to stay home and take care of her. She won't stay with anyone. We are living off her disability check of six hundred and seventy four dollars a month. And it is hard to provide for them in this situation. It is also very hard on my youngest daughter, i miss lots of her events, and i feel she is suffering through me dealing with her sister. I love my children dearly.And i am a honest, forgiving person. But i can't stop thinking while i am dealing with this all alone. Their father is somewhere out there doing as he pleases,probablly reacting the scenerio with someone else. I am the one paying for his actions. I am theone not recieving childsupport. I amthe one dealing with the problems my daughter is having. And i am doing it all alone. He is not providing any support. I constantly think is this what i deserve. Or do people get what they really deserve?