four months

It was four months ago yesterday that our boy (finally) slipped out of my wife’s body and into my arms. It was a year and four months yesterday that Emmett left. It’s hard to remember the people we were before Bram; it’s impossible to remember the people we were before E. I’ve wanted to parent since I was still a child myself, but even with all of that anticipation, this lived reality is so much better than I could ever have imagined. Our son gets sweeter by the day. He’s a joyful, curious creature, and watching him discover the world is like seeing it anew myself. We definitely want more kids, but right now we’re in love with the dynamic of our little family of three.

I’m thinking through a few big posts (politics this election season, attachment parenting and all this new press it’s getting), but I don’t have time to write one of them today. I thought I’d celebrate this lovely third.of.a.year, though, with a few glimpses into our lives right now, both narrative and photographic.

First the narrative:

• We’ve learned that Bram loves yogic ohms, and if he’s crying and we ohm to him – or sing his name that way – he’ll calm down almost every time. Sometimes his crying will even become controlled first, so that though he looks bewildered as to why it’s happening, he’ll stop crying and start ohming with us. It is magnificent to watch his out-of-control cry become a strong, controlled sound. Lovely to think that we might be teaching him to harness his own emotions instead of letting them take over.

• We’ve had a whirlwind weekend to round out his first four months. Dinner with our wonderful midwife/now friend, her wife, and their little girl (in the country, which it turns out is delightful!), lunch in a neighboring city with dear friends, and a wedding shower for Bram’s Aunt Laura. We kept the boy out past his bedtime both nights, but that seems to have caused me more anxiety than it has him. In fact, he slept through! the! night! last night (from 10pm to 6:30am), so maybe we’ll plan more outings soon. Having woken so well rested, we all spent the morning laying about in bed, probably the most relaxed morning we’ve had as a family of three. Then we took a family walk to visit other friends (who were nice about my whining re: the heat). We deviated from our no gluten, soy, or dairy a little this weekend, though, which seems to be catching up with Bram now in the form of an upset stomach and a little bit of rash. This afternoon has been rough, but otherwise: a triumph of a weekend. I’ve thought “this is the best weekend of my life” so many times since B was born that I think I need a new scale. Weekends used to be nice. Now they’re often things of glory.

• Finally – though I’m sure that lots of you already know this – we’ve been THRILLED to learn this week of the birth of a beautiful new baby. Congratulations and strong-baby-making to the moms over at Love Invents Us! Happy new world, sweet Monkey; happy new big-brotherhood (in the literal not the Orwellian way), Yogi! It’s such a joy to imagine the four of you together. J and I await each new photo with childlike pleasure.

Now the photographic:

A photo my mama took before our Mother’s Day brunch together. How different this Mother’s Day was from last year’s. Still, I’m thinking of all the women out there who are struggling with infertility or child loss, for whom this holiday is a crushing affair (many of whom, I know, are readers). May you find every bit of the joy we found this year in a Mother’s Day to come. And may you find peace in the meantime.

I had to send the AAUW a “work-action” shot. This was tricky for me because unlike some of their fellows, I’m neither an astronaut nor an acrobat. This photo is pretty much what my work looks like these days, so this is what I sent. I don’t expect to see it showing up in their advertisements, but it brings me pleasure to think that this is what my work looks like right now.

Oh my gosh, this little girl. I’m not sure how much her mamas would want us writing on here, and I want to respect their privacy, but I had to include this photo because we L.O.V.E. this child, and it seems that we love her about as much as she loves Baby Bug Bram. [Why didn't anyone ever tell me how much little kids adore each other?!?] Anyway, this child is bold and fearless and just full of bounding sweetness (and the perfect amount of mischief for a twenty-first-century girl). She is a total life force. B is lucky to count her among his first friends.

Our serious boy. His high, curious eyebrows. His widow’s peak. His elephant Shmuel.

Possibly my favorite new photo of my two favorite people.

Aunt Kippie is a bringer of lightness and laughter.

Bram adores his Uncle Buddy.

Snugging with Aunt Laura during her wedding shower.

Baby loves to stand. Mama loves the way baby’s naked toes stretch and squish out when he does so.

Our lazy morning.

Postscript: I recently got a comment from a woman who lost three of her four babies, full term, to Factor V Leiden (the clotting disorder I have that they think kept E from developing feet). I haven’t written her back yet because, honestly, I don’t know what to say. I read an article about Toni Morrison recently wherein she (having lost an adult son) says we shouldn’t tell grieving people we’re sorry; we should just hug them and mop their floor. I think this is just about right. Only I can’t hug this woman, or wash her floor. I can’t do anything besides hold space for this knowledge. For those little beings. For her grief, and for all that love.

 

.what could have been.

I’m sitting here with a sleeping Bram in my sling. I love feeling the soft, warm weight of him against my body, and the hands-free mobility that the sling provides is a welcome relief for my arms. I thought I’d take a few minutes to write, as I’ve been struggling through some postpartum depression in recent weeks. There’s been a lot to process alongside my hormones: breastfeeding/colic troubles, sleep deprivation, cabin fever, changes to my diet, etc. I think that having Bram with us has also cast into stark relief just what it is we lost when we lost E. To know that if the dice had been thrown differently, that she could have been with us in these ways, that R could have known full-term pregnancy/birth and a breastfeeding relationship, and that I could have known myself in an NGP role, these have shown themselves as more fully realized losses to grieve. I know that postpartum depression loses a lot of power when you talk about it openly and take proactive steps to treat it, so I’ve begun to open up about where I’m at emotionally. I’ve also started taking additional EPAs and DHAs, started light therapy again (as I think the winter compounds the problem), committed myself to a more rigorous exercise regimen, and made an appointment with my therapist to talk this stuff through. I’ve noticed a significant improvement over the last three days since putting some of these changes into action. I’m hopeful that this will result in an upswing, as I don’t want to waste any of these early days with Bram locked into sadness and irritability.

In other news, Bram’s rash seems to be getting better, as does his night-sleeping. I really attribute this to taking all of the dairy out of my diet. Also, he has let us put him down for a few long day naps in the Mamaroo swing, which has been wonderful (though R and I have a hard time pulling ourselves away from watching him in order to accomplish the work we need to do). I find myself transfixed with watching him all the time. He’s just such a miracle, you know? This recent post over at Insert Metaphor has me remembering the day we conceived him. We were only three months out from losing E. It was the day after my graduation from my Master’s program. My parents had visited and just left. We’d been taking OPKs all weekend. We had only ordered one vial of sperm that cycle (the only cycle that was ever true of). R had an instinct not to ask them to send the most potent vial available (again, something we had always done), instead she wanted to leave it to chance what vial we were sent. We planned to inseminate the night we surged, but R had an instinct to wait it out until the following day, which we did. I think that if we hadn’t trusted all of her instincts about that cycle, Bram would never have come into being. I am just so very grateful to have been able to make this particular baby with R at that particular time. I feel like we were always meant to be his mamas; we just had to wait our turn to pluck his little self out of the ether.

And on a closing note, some new cute pictures of this particular Rabbit:

                                                  Bram at home in his space-pod-esque Mamaroo!

                                                         This boy LOVES his Saturday tub bath!

                              I call this his Hobbit-look. Melts my heart every time he gives me those eyes!

 

nearly thirty-three weeks with a gestating rabbit

My son is in there! He’ll have been there for thirty-three weeks on Monday. Whenever dance music comes on, he starts to move. I adore him.

We got this guy from my cousin L, and I’ve been calling him Sue. (I like Johnny Cash.) My mom predicted that one day soon, we’ll have to drive back some forty miles when we realize we’ve left him and Rabbit won’t stop crying.

We’ve named this fella Shmuel. He arrived yesterday care of MTB, a SUPER talented (and loving) friend of ours. I alternate snugging Shmuel and Sue. Shmuel tagged along for our maternity photo session today.

This is our clearly mistreated boy cat wearing the rabbity-eared hat that MTB sent with Shmuel. (Alternate caption: Further evidence that it’s time.)

Back in May, I told J that once it was winter again – once it had been spring, and summer, and fall – our baby would come to us. When she walked in all dusted with snow last week, I felt the nearness of his arrival.

Our SHARE Support Group’s holiday memorial service was last night. We hung this swirly purple and white glass ornament for E. (C: This sphere feels like the sea.) Seeing all those ornaments go up on two full trees was powerful/heartbreaking. J watched one man light five different candles. Five. E’s ornament came home with us; I’ll hang it in Rabbit’s room this week.

Between the blogosphere and our natural childbirth classes, we know about a trillion expecting couples. As of this evening, we’re eagerly anticipating the arrival of three overdue babies (two here in our town plus the folks over at Parenting Cricket). What a world.

Happy December, friends!

 

giving thanks

Troublesome origins aside, I adore Thanksgiving. No material gifts; just gratitude, family, and good good food. Here (in no particular order) are just a few of my reasons for giving thanks on this day.

• You people. Friends. Family. Blog friends, whom I love from afar. Your words, your care, got me through this year, and then through this past week of panic. This week in particular, some of you came and spent whole days with me when my fear got bad. Some of you introduced me to paths of less suffering. So many of you listened to my fears, my struggles, without judgment. Thank you for your generosity and your compassion. It has not gone unnoticed.

• My health. All of my labs this week came back great. That rare disease? Not in my body. It’s hard for me to perceive my body as healthy and strong, but I’ll get there again. I am devoted to getting there again. To trusting. This week revealed some wounds. Now I’m ready to heal them.

• My wife, who as I type this is working on a vegan walnut lentil loaf in the kitchen. It’s an ineffable thing, the sense that you are understood by someone. That you understand someone. I am blessed by this marriage dance.

• My mom, who’s spending her Thanksgiving here with us, helping us prepare for Rabbit. Who bought J and me Christmas Eve pajamas for the last time this year (since next year, that tradition will move on to the boy). Whose presence this year has been of tremendous comfort. Family matters. Family matters a lot.

• Emmett Ever, who was with us last Thanksgiving, and who we carry now. I’ve always loved Yeats’s idea that “nothing can be sole or whole / that has not been rent.” I just never quite understood it before our girl.

• Rabbit River. Who kept his mama and his mum up for most of the night last night. And who is nearing four pounds. And who has the sweetest energy. And who I believe I was meant to parent.

• Rabbit’s donor. I don’t think about him a lot, but he’s on my mind today. Though we may never meet him, he is our family now. And I love him for his gift to us and for his silent presence.

• Gratitude itself. And joy. And the ability (struggle though it sometimes is) to be present. And wisdom, even when it comes through painful experience. And growing pains. And surrender. And vulnerability, even when it feels like it might break you.

• The greatness that is J’s 31-week belly, and the way it peeks out from this flannel shirt.

The mobile above Rabbit’s crib. The way it dances in an apparently still room.

The stained glass full of concentric circles. Circles, which feel like life to me. Circles, which will surround our little boy in the space where he will begin his life soon.

Thank you all for reading. For being a part of our family this way. For the things you share with us. For community. Happy Thanksgiving.

 

attachment living

It’s been an intense few weeks. On top of the typical post-midterm craziness of any academic semester (made more intense for me this semester because I’m teaching an upper-level course I’ve never taught before and trying to write as much of my dissertation as possible before Rabbit comes), I’ve been working on applications for dissertation completion funding. I’m applying for three different fellowships, and if I receive one of them, I won’t have to teach next year; I’ll be able to focus exclusively on my writing. This sounds like an unimaginable luxury to me. Really: it’s almost too delightful to consider. Throughout my course work, I thought of the dissertation as a means to an end – one last difficult requirement – but now I find myself deeply devoted to the work itself. I love the female (and two queer male) characters I’m writing about. I sense their power, their strength. But when they’ve been written about by other critics, it’s been to point out how powerless they are. So I feel a responsibility to offer them a different reading. A recognition of what has gone unnoticed. These characters have become real to me, and I love them both as individuals, and as a collective body of feminine power that has been long.long.long overlooked.

This funding would give me time with them. If I don’t get it, I’ll still have time, so the situation isn’t dire. (And I should add: I fully recognize this as a luxury problem. I mean, who gets a year off to just think and read and write? It’s an almost absurd privilege, and I see that.) But I long for it, and that’s disconcerting to my don’t.get.too.attached.to.anything.that.isn’t.yours cautionary self. These are very competitive. I met with a friend of J’s (from the private college they both work at), and she was tremendously helpful. But she also (inadvertently) made me aware of how different my public-school world is from her liberal-arts-college reality. There’s a different kind of grooming. Money begets money. These fellowships don’t just go to the neediest applicants, they go to the best applicants. And “best” means “best equipped to present oneself in a particular way.” This takes training. Grooming. So while it makes sense that I might not get these because they’re competitive – because others may have better (or more important) projects in the works – it makes me sad to think about not getting them because I didn’t go about applying in the right way. Anyway, I came away from the meeting feeling defeated, but I’m still trying. And though it seems dangerous to want this funding so much, I’m letting myself do it anyway. If there’s one thing I’ve learned this year, it’s that I can adapt. If (in the spring) I find out that I didn’t get any of them, I’ll go to plan B. Or plan C. And I’ll find things to love about those plans too.

Anyway, this process has made these past weeks stressful, which in turn made yesterday AMAZING. We took our last road trip as a two-person family to a favorite city of ours. J and I are so happy in cities. Every chance we get to travel, we find our way to one, and we eat, and coffee.shop, and people.watch, and stroll and stroll and stroll. Like Clarissa Dalloway in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, I’ll take city walking over country walking any day. Yesterday was even more special, though, because we splurged on a 3D/4D ultrasound of Rabbit River! Seeing him was incredible. Afternoons are his sleepy time, and he adorably refused to lower his hands from his face, but the tech still got some wonderful images. We are both so entirely in love. There is no holding back out of fear. No wishing things were different. There is only the sense that this baby is our son, and that we are meant to parent him, to help him become…well…him.

Here he is, left hand pressed sweetly to forehead:

And sleeping away:

And left hand, right arm, face, skinny ribs and all (I suspect this boy will be long and thin):

I said at one point that I think he’s going to have a big nose, and the tech said, “No! His nose is cute.” She doesn’t know how much I adore big noses. :)

After the ultrasound (which was after an amazing gourmet-Chinese lunch), we headed into the city, and we practically fell upon one of those upscale baby stores that basically amounts to crack for new parents and parents.to.be. We oooohed and aaaahed our way through TWO stories of gorgeous baby accoutrement, test drove our stroller (which J’s mom bought us, but which we’ve yet to see as she’s giving it to us at the shower next weekend), tried out the baby sling I picked for myself after lots of internet research, and purchased Rabbit’s first pair of baby leg warmers and a striped kimono-style onesie that we couldn’t bear to leave behind.

Then we hit a local coffee shop for a chocolate croissant and two espressos (J’s decaf, mine regular), where we watched the seemingly thousand new babies/new parents, and stared and stared at the ultrasound photos of our sweet boy.

After that, we walked around for awhile in search of an ornament for Emmett Ever. Our SHARE support group hosts a holiday memorial every year, where parents can hang an ornament on a tree to remember their lost babies. We chose a blown glass sphere with purple and white swirls that has a distinctive seashell-esque look.

We also discovered an oil and vinegar shop, where we sampled about a dozen aged balsamic vinegars and brought home one bottle of white balsamic (which we learned is less sweet/more acidic than the darker stuff).

Then we ate at a favorite Jewish deli and headed home. On the drive back, we listened to music that made me think a lot about E. I cried for awhile, not because I miss her or because I wish she were here, but because I love her. Because my connection to her creates an ache that is painfully sweet. Because I can love her and be happy at the same time.

So all told, a GREAT GREAT day, and a much needed break. I am so in love with my wife, who is carrying this baby with about a thousand times more grace than I could have done. It’s funny, we thought we knew which roles we would thrive in: I would be a better GP because I’m feminine; she would rock out the NGP role because she isn’t so into the girly side of girliness. But the truth is, all of that was culturally dictated. And none of that has anything to do with what it takes to nurture a child (via either role). None of that was about our particular strengths and weaknesses. In truth, I’m so well suited to non-gestational parenting. The choice it requires. The care it allows me to give my whole family. And J is brilliant at the gestational role. She’s heartier than I am. Less anxious. I don’t believe in an interventionist God, but it’s impossible not to recognize some wisdom to all of this that surpasses our limited understanding.

 

.nine months.

Tomorrow will mark nine months since we lost Emmett Ever. I’ve been thinking of her a lot lately and of how drastically the trajectory of our last year has changed. I think I’m finding my way to a place of acceptance. The grief is ever present, but life has progressed in such a way that to wish her back would be to wish away so much of the good that has sprung from her death. I think that transformation is the true gift of loss. This Rabbit baby wouldn’t exist had E lived. R and I wouldn’t be the people we are today (as individuals, as spouses, as parents) were it not for her short presence in our lives. These facts are Emmett’s sweet legacy.

Tori Amos recently released a new album, Night of Hunters, which is a narrative arc set to refashioned classical pieces. It’s a gorgeous set of music and a pretty exciting project from a long-time favorite musician of R and mine. The whole arc is set within one night and it focuses on a woman whose lover leaves her after they complete the Atlantic journey from America to Ireland. The acuteness of the loss she portrays speaks to me about what we went through in January. There’s something about those moments in life where you completely lose your fixity to that point, where your compass is just so wildly rewritten. For as extremely difficult as it is to walk through those moments, there is beauty to be found in the perspective therein.

The final track of Night of Hunters, “Carry,” has been haunting me this week. I would encourage you to check out the music video. In the meantime, here are the lyrics:

Love, hold my hand
Help me see with the dawn
That those that have left
Are not gone
But they carry on
As stars looking down
As nature’s sons
And daughters of the heavens
You will not ever be forgotten by me
In the procession of the mighty stars
Your name is sung and tattooed now on my heart
Here I will carry, carry, carry you

Forever
You have touched my life
So that now
Cathedrals of sound are singing, are singing
The waves have come to walk with you
To where you will live in the land of you,
Land of you
You will not ever be forgotten by me
In the procession of the mighty stars
Your name is sung and tattooed now on my heart
Here I will carry, carry, carry you
Here I will carry, carry, carry you
Forever.

It’s message is simple, but her delivery strikes such a resonant chord in me. Just stunning.

On another note, R and I recently had the good fortune to participate in a research study that is investigating resources for the LGBT population with regards to child loss. The scholar conducting the research is very thoughtful, which made for an engaging and emotional conversation about our experiences after losing E. One of the chapters for this book project is going to be largely photographic, in that the researcher has requested that the participants send along photos of items or symbols that they have used to commemorate their children. As such, I’ve taken some time to photograph and detail some of the ways that we have remembered E.

E’s urn:After we had E cremated, we chose this cloisonne urn to hold her ashes. We know folks who have handled this in a variety of ways, but, for us, it was important that she stay in our home. We know that we won’t live in this town for a long time, so it was very important to us that E’s ashes stay with our family as we move. We both loved the delicate colors of this urn. It’s tiny size breaks my heart every time I hold it.

E’s box:A week or two after we lost her, R contacted a lovely carpenter in Massachusetts. We commissioned him to make this box to hold both Emmett’s urn and the bowl of stones from her memorial. I love the subtle construction of the box, the tiny gold lock, and the swirl of the wood.

E’s stones: At E’s memorial, everyone brought a stone (or other object) that spoke to them. We bought this bowl from an artisan and filled it with these stones. Folks also brought poetry and prose to read aloud. These are copied onto note cards and accompany the stones in the box. R blogged in more detail about these dedications here.

E’s blanket: This was the first thing that R and I ever bought for E. We were in our first trimester and bought it from a local children’s boutique. After we lost her, R and I slept with the blanket every night. This continued until we bought Rabbit’s crib for the nursery. We’ve since moved the blanket into the crib, as we want it to be something that they share between them.

R’s tattoo/irises, which you can see photographs of here. Blue irises have taken on a lot of meaning for us this year. Our dear friend, L, sent a bouquet of not-yet-bloomed irises during that first week. There was something so cathartic and right about those flowers, their colors and bloom, that reminded us of our girl. R had a large half-bloomed iris tattooed on her back in the spring. We were already TTC with me, so while I plan on also getting an iris tattoo, it will have to wait until after Rabbit is born.

E’s papers and photos:In addition to the really gut-wrenching paperwork (certificate of stillbirth, notarized paperwork from the crematorium should we choose to bury her ashes in the future), we also have some lovely papers, including photos of our sweet girl, her ultrasound pictures, cards from so many loving family and friends, a Certificate of Life that we had made this year, as well as the many note cards with words from her memorial.

These items will always hold a sacred place in our hearts and our home.

 

the good, good now

We went for a walk last night, which rounded out an incredible weekend (rest, time with friends, two excellent movies: Sarah’s Key at the theatre and Adam at home, lots of Rabbit flutters [see J's post below for these sweet details]). I think we’ve both started to realize that, if all goes as we hope/believe it will, these will be our last handful of months together without a child to actively parent. With J at work, we are settling into a new routine of missing each other, and adoring the time we have together.

On our walk, as is our custom, we were actively planning, talking about our timeline, anticipating our unfolding lives: how old Rabbit River will be when we leave this town, what the adoption timeline might look like wherever we end up, whether we’ll want for J to carry one more time as we wade through the adoption process, if we’ll find a townhouse to rent for two years while we decide on a neighborhood and a forever.home. But in the middle of all of that, we realized that none of these decisions can be made yet. Really, they can’t be made for more than a year. We need to know where we’re going, which we probably won’t know until March or April of 2013. We need to know ourselves as parents, to know what will emerge as important, and what just won’t matter. We can understand the choices before us, but we can’t make them yet.

This is an indescribably freeing reality. As we walked, and as we let go of the responsibility of making these major decisions, we realized that our lives have been so full of difficult choices for so long now that we hadn’t even realized, hadn’t noticed what a weight that is, how much energy it requires. Decisions like where to apply for grad school, which offer to accept, where to live once we got here. Getting married (and all of the decisions that necessitates). Choosing our first and second donor. The complexity of trying.to.conceive (the charts, the guessing game of timing, the questions of how and where). All of the decisions E’s little life required of us. Deciding how to move forward after losing her. Choosing a new bank. A new donor. A new set of how and where and when. Then the registries, the nursery, the name. All the great stuff, but even the great stuff takes energy. Takes attention away from the present moment.

But here’s our reality as it stands now. This little cottage is the thirty-first place I’ve ever lived, which is a lot of moving for a thirty-three year old girl. But this next April, we will have lived here for three years. I think that’s longer than I’ve ever lived anywhere. And we’ll be here for two more years. That means it’s settle.in.time. Likewise, we’re nineteen weeks today with this little Rabbit. He feels strong and solid to both of us. So in terms of this pregnancy, that means settle.in.time too. J adores her new job. She’s totally fat.cat.happy over there. I’m writing and teaching. It doesn’t always go perfectly, but I’m chipping away at the work. I have a good schedule.

It might sound crazy: after all, we have a child on the way; this should maybe feel like super.flux.time. But J and I realized yesterday that, after years of perpetual planning, we can just sit back for awhile. For the rest of this pregnancy, and for our son’s first year of life, we won’t need (the universe willing) to make any big decisions.

This is the closest thing to liberation that I’ve ever experienced. Life in the moment. Not in the past. Not in the future. In the now. Today. It might be an adjustment for us, learning to live this way. After all, we’ve lived in perpetual.future.mode for a long, long time. But I think we’re up to the challenge. I asked J, smile on my face: “what will we do with the part.time.job worth of time that we usually spend making decisions?” She had plenty of sweet, fun, happy ideas.

There’s a constant heaviness now, and none of this negates that. A presence of something.missing that I don’t think will ever go away. But we’re learning how to live happily alongside that. It has become a part of us already. We still miss Emmett in ways that aren’t easy to explain. but I feel like we’re finally submitting to that vulnerability, and because of that, there’s deep wonderment. There’s gratitude. This is a good, good moment, and there’s reason to believe we’ll have lots, lots more.*

* My dad often describes things as “good, good.” For example: “Okay, sweetheart. You have a good, good day now.” It’s one of my favorite things.

 

.turning point.

Good news, good news. There has been an abundance of good news in our little Cottage of late. For starters, I finally landed the perfect job! After four months of unemployment, 50 positions applied for, and five interviews, I’ve finally nailed the right fit. What’s ironic is that this is a position I hadn’t even applied for. It’s full-time with a prestigious, private liberal arts college here in our city. I had applied for a position there earlier in the summer, which I didn’t get, but they (apparently) held onto my resume. Two weeks ago, the Provost e-mailed me to ask if I would be interested in interviewing for this other position, which, of course, I was most happy to hear. I went in for an interview last week, which was a dream. I love the folks that I’ll be working with. And the Provost called me at home the following day to offer me the position. It’s a great fit for so many reasons. I’ll be overseeing the administrative dealings of the History, Anthropology, Sociology, Business, and Economics Departments. Plus, they’re interested in developing a new staffing model for this type of position at the College, which means that I’ll also be enlisted to help faculty with special projects (including their own research). This is all right up my alley. I’ll have full benefits for me, R, and the Rabbit. They’ve been offering domestic partner benefits since 1998. Not to mention that the health insurance policy is nicer than anything I’ve ever seen before (100% coverage across the board with no deductibles). Additionally, I’ll qualify for paid maternity leave after only 90 days on the job. Since I start next week, and we aren’t due for five months, I should be completely covered. Even after I had already accepted the position and salary, the Provost offered me a generous pay bump beyond what I had agreed to (who does that?!). And one of my very favorite things about the position is that I’ll be sharing space with a well-known center for social justice leadership, which I’ll be able to get involved with right away. Again, did I mention that this is a dream job? R and I are both so very grateful, relieved, and excited. I start next Wednesday, the 24th. Wish me luck!

Also in the good news category, we had our 16-week appointment with our midwife last week, which went swimmingly. Rabbit seems to be doing very well. His or her heart was beating at 162-4bpm and we could hear little kicks and punches through the doppler. I haven’t felt the baby move yet, but since this is my first time being pregnant, it’ll likely be another week or two. The positive aspects of the second trimester are kicking in with full force. My nausea and smell aversions have almost entirely abated. With the exception of first thing in the morning (which, I suspect, may have something to do with digesting my prenatal), I feel good throughout the day. I have more energy for my normal activities, and the bouts of depression that I was struggling with through the first trimester are rapidly dissipating. The bump is growing very gradually. It’s a bit anticlimactic, as I think I looked more pregnant at the end of the first trimester (because of bloating). R assures me that this perception is only in my mind, which I guess means that I’m just becoming accustomed to the look of my pregnant body. Our big mid-pregnancy ultrasound is next week, which I’m equally excited and anxious about. It’s been hard not seeing the baby yet in this pregnancy, though (with no complications) there’s been no medical reason to. I just pray that our little Rabbit is healthy and thriving. Also, it will be fun to know whether we’re having a boy or a girl. Neither of us have a preference (and we certainly have no intention of gendering the baby), but it’ll be nice to narrow down names. I suspect we’ll share all of this on the blog once we’ve had a little private time with the information.

We spent this past weekend putting our registries together. It’s amazing just how many decisions have to be made concerning all of the necessities the Rabbit will need. I woke up on Sunday morning to R (already on her computer) with 17 different Firefox windows open comparing the various safety ratings, styles, and environmental friendliness of car seats. I feel a tremendous sense of accomplishment having made choices about all of that stuff. We’ve been trying to get the nursery as put together as possible before the fall semester starts, as we won’t have a lot of free time during the semester itself and we’ll be nearly full-term by the winter holidays. Our sweet friends J & J sent us home with a myriad of baby goods from their children. So we have a cloth diaper system and many wonderful clothes. We’ve already cleared out the old office furniture, purchased and built the crib, put down a floor rug, built a bookshelf, and special ordered our dresser and glider. We can wait on everything else to come through the registry, now that the basics are handled.

Getting to this point in the pregnancy (nearly halfway there) has made me think a lot about Emmett lately. On the one hand, it’s reassuring to know that with every day this Rabbit grows bigger and stronger. We’ve been very blessed to have such a normal, textbook pregnancy this time, as our capacity for fear and anxiety is so low. On the other hand, though, getting to have these new pregnancy experiences makes me sad to not have had them with Emmett. Decorating the nursery, enjoying the pleasantries of the second trimester, growing bigger and bigger, taking prenatal yoga, and preparing for the second-half of pregnancy, all of these are experiences that I wish that we could have had with E, and that I wish that Renee could have experienced bodily. I think that both R and I have settled into these new roles with as much grace as we can muster, but it still makes me sad sometimes to think about how different all of this looks from the way we envisioned it going last year. Still, I trust that the presence of this Rabbit in our lives will make so much of the bafflement of the last eight months ease up, even a little.

 

july 19th, 2011

Louis Comfort Tiffany, “Magnolias and Irises” (1908)

~~~

Today was Emmett Ever’s due date. This has been a complicated (sorrowful, cathartic, confusing) time for us. I wanted to mark this day for her, but I don’t feel ready to write about any of it yet.

I’ve been sitting for awhile with the cherry box of her things (her small urn, the bowl of stones and shells collected for her, photos, the bag of lavender given to us by a friend so that her box would always smell sweet and healing) and I thought that, instead, I might offer a few of the pieces friends chose to share at her blessing. I’m leaving so much out. I’m not including any of the letters written directly to her – by us, or by friends and family – as those feel like they belong only to Emmett. Only one of these selections (the last, “Elegy for Emmett”) was written for her. Still, each one speaks to the love our little community feels for her, to the hope that she offered, to the things she had to teach.

We will carry you with us, little mermaid girl. You are loved with no end, and no measure.

~~~

We’re undone by each other. And if we’re not, we’re missing something. * Judith Butler, Undoing Gender

~~~

And if anyone had said this was the price I would have agreed to pay it. That surprises me; that with the hurt and the mess comes a shaft of recognition. It was worth it. Love is worth it. * Jeanette Winterson, Written on the Body

~~~

From the complications of loving you
I think there is no end or return.
No answer, no coming out of it.

Which is the only way to love, isn’t it?
This isn’t a playground, this
earth, our heaven, for a while.

Therefore I have given precedence
to all my sudden, sullen, dark moods
that hold you in the center of my world.

And I say to my body: grow thinner still.
And I say to my fingers, type me a pretty song.
And I say to my heart: rave on. * Mary Oliver, “A Pretty Song”

~~~

To think of the sea
is to hear in the sound of trees
the sound of the sea’s work,
the wave’s labor to change
the shore, not for the shore’s sake, nor the wave’s,
certainly not for me,
hundreds of miles from sea,
unless you count
my memory, my traverse
of sea one way to here.

…

But I owe a human story,
whose very telling
remarks loss.
The characters survive through the telling,
the teller survives
by his telling; by his voice
brinking silence does he survive.
But, no one
can tell without cease
our human
story, and so we
lose, lose.

Yet behind the sound
of trees is another
sound. Sometimes, lying
awake, or standing
like this in the yard, I hear it. It
ties our human telling
to its course
by momentum, and ours
is merely part
of its unbroken
stream, the human
and otherwise simultaneously
told. The past
doesn’t fall away, the past
joins the greater
telling, and is.

At times its theme seems
murky, other times clear. Always,
death is a phrase, but just
a phrase, since nothing is ever
lost, and lives
are fulfilled by subsequence.
Listen, you can hear it: indescribable,
neither grief nor joy, neither mine nor yours….

But I’ll not widow the world.
I’ll tell my human
tale, tell it against
the current of that vaster, that
inhuman telling.

I’ll measure time by losses and destructions.
Because the world
is so rich in detail, all of it so frail;
because all I love is imperfect;
because my memory’s flaw
isn’t in retention but organization;
because no one asked. * Li-Young Lee, “Furious Versions”

~~~

Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand
Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore
Alone upon the threshold of my door
Of individual life, I shall command
The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand
Serenely in the sunshine as before,
Without the sense of that which I forbore -
Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land
Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine
With pulses that beat double. What I do
And what I dream include thee, as the wine
Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue
God for myself, He hears that name of thine,
And sees within my eyes the tears of two. * Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Sonnets from the Portuguese, VI”

~~~

I am not sure I know when mourning is successful, or when on has fully mourned another human being….Perhaps one mourns when one accepts that by the loss one undergoes one will be changed, possibly forever. Perhaps mourning has to do with agreeing to undergo a transformation (perhaps one should say submitting to a transformation) the full result of which one cannot know in advance. There is losing, as we know, but there is also the transformative effect of loss, and this latter cannot be charted or planned. * Judith Butler, Precarious Life

~~~

Clarissa had a theory in those days – they had heaps of theories, always theories, as young people have. It was to explain the feeling they had of dissatisfaction; not knowing people; not being known. For how could they know each other? You met every day; then not for six months, or years. It was unsatisfactory, they agreed, how little one knew people. But she said, sitting on the bus going up Shaftesbury Avenue, she felt herself everywhere; not ‘here, here, here’; and she tapped the back of the seat; but everywhere. She waved her hand, going up Shaftesbury Avenue. She was all that. So that to know her, or any one, one must seek out the people who completed them….It ended in a transcendental theory which allowed her to believe, or say that she believed (for all her scepticism), that since our apparitions, the part of us which appears, are so momentary compared with the other, the unseen part of us, which spreads wide, the unseen might survive, be recovered somehow attached to this person or that, or even haunting certain places, after death. * Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

~~~

This is a poem of welcome.

Your presence says yes

this world is marked by suffering;

yes, and measured by compassion that will answer it.

You say, loss does not preclude love

nor pain, peace.

You are always the right time for these things to begin. * E.B., “Elegy for Emmett”

 

.july thoughts.

Disclaimer: This post is not written in my usual style. I’m often a facts-driven, optimistic blogger, but I’ve been struggling with a lot of difficult, emotional stuff lately, which, when coupled with the onslaught of mood destabilizing pregnancy hormones, has got me feeling pretty off. I don’t actually feel this way all of the time, but when I do have these days, they feel all-encompassing.

I’m not quite sure what to do with myself. I’m sure that I’m being unreasonable. I’ve hit a patch of depression, and I worry that depression coupled with unemployment is bad for the baby. We’re twelve weeks and one day pregnant, again. I’m carrying this time. I’ve been unemployed for two months, one week, and five days. I have a Master’s Degree and over fourteen years of work experience. I’ve applied for something like 40 jobs. I’ve signed up with three temp agencies. I’ve gone on three job interviews, and still, nothing. Granted, we live in a state with a 10.3% unemployment rate. Additionally, last month marked the worst national jobs report to come out in recent years. Still, this is the longest I’ve been out of both work and school in my entire adult life. At current, R is writing the first chapter of her dissertation. Her research assistantship has been our only source of income in the last two months. Our nest egg has dwindled to half of what it was when I graduated in April. My private health insurance expires sometime next month. I think that I’ll continue to qualify for Medicaid, which will pay my prenatal bills until after the baby is born, but I hate the thought of having to continually qualify for a state aid program. What if I’m somehow booted off of the program? Or the funding is cut because of the economy? Or I need tests or services that aren’t covered? I’ve had private insurance my entire life, and while it hasn’t always been great coverage, it’s felt stable.

Additionally, I am so fucking sick of being at home all of the time that I could scream. Until recently I haven’t felt well enough to go out and do much of anything. Now I’m starting to feel a little better, but I’m feeling depressed and I’m scared of finding that true whether I’m home or not. I usually don’t wake up until mid-morning at the earliest. By the time I eat breakfast, look for jobs online, and read pregnancy blogs and e-mail, it’s almost noon. Then it’s time to eat something else. I find that, though it often feels like a chore, eating is the only time that I feel like I’m doing something mutually beneficial for both me and Rabbit. The baby needs food, and, now that I’m feeling better, I like eating food again. Then I have to screw up the motivation to do the things that I’ve committed to R that I’ll do with my day. Usually it’s only a little more than two hours worth of chores (housework, yardwork, errands, etc). But I feel like I move at a snail’s pace. Occasionally I’ll have moments of satisfaction in a job well done (a nesting instinct might kick in while I’m cleaning the house, or I’ll be proud of the weeding job that I did in the yard). But even then, I’m usually overwhelmed by the fact that I’ve made such a little dent in the world (our little corner of the world, even, not to mention any sort of larger impact).

R is still handling 95% of the cooking, 95% of the dishes, 100% of the trash, cat food, and kitty litter. She’s responsible for the car, for fixing many things around the house and yard, and for lifting anything over 20 pounds. I’m dependent on her for any income right now. I feel like my long-standing niche in our family (as the fix-it person, the handyman, the provider) has been usurped. Some of it, like the heavy lifting and the cat box, doesn’t bother me, since I know that they are the safest choices for the pregnancy and things that I was more than happy to take over during R’s pregnancy. But many of these aspects, not being able to contribute financially, not being useful in the kitchen, not getting out of the house, these things aren’t really related to the pregnancy anymore. They have much more to do with a lack of motivation, with a fear that I’m just going to barely get by as this pregnancy progresses, the fear that, even then – once the baby is born, I still won’t be able to provide for my family. In a million years, I never thought that I would be worried about these kinds of issues. I am a geek for personal finance (I just love paying bills and investing wisely and spending within our means). I am motivated to work and have always held a job since I was in high school. I am devoted to R and to our family. So the prospect of being a depressed, unemployed, pregnant couch potato has never been on my radar before. I’ll admit, I’ve judged others in this position pretty harshly in the past. Perhaps, then, this is my comeuppance.

While I understand that it’s a poor social model, I myself have always had a bootstraps mentality when it comes to achieving my goals, yet I feel like I’m struggling in quicksand a lot of the time. I know intellectually that it’s July, but I feel like my authentic self, my confident self, got stuck back in January. It’s like I can’t really get my bearings in a world where my daughter is dead. Try as I might, I just can’t figure out how to carry it right. I want more than anything for Emmett’s death to mean something important, I want for her to motivate me toward gratitude and compassion. But most of the time I just feel so upended. I’m stuck in the loop that says that this isn’t fair and that we didn’t do anything to deserve this (which, I recognize, is a wholly useless line of thinking). My sense of justice and security has been ripped out from under me and I feel like I’m struggling to hold up my half of our life. I feel like anger is the only emotion that staves off sadness and fear. I love this little Rabbit with all of my heart, but I worry that I’m not providing him/her with the best prenatal environment, I worry that I won’t be able to provide for him/her in all of the ways that a stable parent should be able to once s/he’s born. I worry that I’ll be a disappointment to my wife and children. I worry that I’m just not what people are looking for in a well-paid, well-respected worker. I worry about everything. I find that my moments of pleasure are fleeting. This makes me sad because I know just how good and right this life can feel when I’m open to it and tuned into my marriage and home life. It’s just easier to feel tired, to want to curl up and pull the blankets over my head.

I know that R fell in love with me for the strong, self-willed, sexy, independent person that she found in me. It’s often hard for me to find those innate qualities in myself when they are masked by sadness, apathy, and fatigue.I know that I have often made the mistake of attributing my self-identity to external ties. This situation is no different. I trust that my inner reserves, my spiritual core, my unique drive is in place. It’s just a tad out of practice at this juncture. I want to trust that when I dig deep to summon strength, confidence, and compassion, that I’m not somehow draining an unsustainable resource. I know just how sustaining and fulfilling this life can be if I can just open myself back up to vulnerability. It’s a scary, but rewarding prospect.