Your Baby's Mama

As I mentioned in my first post, I am a single mother. Only not in the sense that I got married, had a baby and the marriage failed. I signed up for it. I had dated Jack for a little over a year, we broke up and a week later I found out that I was having a baby. I was pushing 30 and was ready to get on with the next chapter of my life. I told him I was pregnant and whatever decision he made as to whether or not he wanted to be a part of the child’s life was totally up to him. I did not push to get back together; as a matter of fact I went almost 5 months without any contact with him at all. Needless to say, he is a part of our child’s life and in all honesty a really good dad.

When it came time for the child to be born I had assumed that he or she would have my last name. Jack on the other hand thought the baby should have his. This was really confusing to me as his lawyer had told him not to sign anything in the hospital and to let me know there would be a paternity test. So as of right now 8 ½ years later our child has a birth certificate with a blank space where the father’s name is supposed to be and paternity test results that say the probability of him being the father 99.6%. Needless to say our son has a hyphenated last name.

Strangely enough when it comes time to fill out forms at a doctor’s office, I get very strange looks when the paperwork is reviewed. The receptionist never knows how to refer to me nor do the kids at my sons after school program. More often than not I get the “Mizzzzzzzzzzzzz……” with an extremely puzzled look on their face. The kids at the afterschool program just refer to me as Miss Smiley.

About two weeks ago my son and I were at Disney World and for the first time ever he actually got puzzled about his last name. While we were in line for the Peter Pan Ride he looked up at me very seriously and asked “Mom do you have G-Pa or G-Ma’s last name?” It was at this point in time that I realized, I don’t think he knows that his dad and I had never been
married.

Today Jack bought a new car and asked if he could use me as a personal reference. I said sure and gave him whatever information he needed. When it came to the part that asked for relationship he said “Oh crap, I never know what to put here” I told him just put “Your baby’s mama”