ten thousand things

I have exactly ten thousand things to update y’all on. I have a post about breastfeeding that is desperate to be written. And one about grief and marriage. We started night-weaning last night, which I have thoughts and QUESTIONS and lots to say about. I have Bram updates to offer (the boy learns new things every minute; he is a wonder), Iris insights, my first post-miscarriage period (which is hell and which I’m in the middle of now), job conversations… Oh, and I finished my doctorate. Bloggers, do you ever have so much to write about that you find yourself sort of paralyzed and thus write nothing. I’m there. But instead of continuing to write nothing, I’m going to write a jumbled mess of WAY TOO MUCH. You’re welcome. By which I mean I’m sorry.

•  Maybe I’ll start with the week before my defense, which we got to spend with an out-of-town guest, a beloved professor/friend from Charleston. She came to our sweet town to run a marathon (!!!), and then to attend a conference, so it just worked out that she was here for my defense. She stayed without complaint on our couch for five days being alternately woken by a toddler and harassed by a kitten. She was a trooper. But what’s even more delightful is that she got us OUT OF OUR HEADS for a while. Things had gotten sort of dark around here: I’ve been struggling more with depression than usual (the loss of a baby, death of a father, loss of a(nother) pregnancy, and death of a beloved cat kind of depression, which isn’t slight) and J has been walking through the default anger that sorrow tends to bring up in her. I won’t say we’re out of the woods (really: we have work to do), but M coming brought us some much.needed perspective. She is a joyful person, and that’s what we needed: less navel-gazing and more lighthearted happiness. When she left, we sort of fell back into the tension a bit, but only for a moment. I think we both realize that as easy as it is to act out of grief and anger, it’s not worth the toll it takes. I’m not 100% sure what the next few months will look like, but I know we’re both devoted to staying grateful and present and kind again, and that, as my dad would have said, is a good good thing.

• And then there was my defense itself. It was intense, but so so lovely. My committee really seemed to like what I’m doing. They basically planned out my next four books, which is daunting (and laughably unreasonable, frankly, given my devotion to a work/life balance), but so exhilarating. One of my committee members said she “fell in love” with my take on vulnerability and wanted to re-read my dissertation immediately after finishing it. I can’t even tell you what hearing something like that does for my sense of… I don’t know… having labored with a purpose? Another said it was the most original he’d seen in a long time, and he called it “courageous.” They had all kinds of ideas about how to use the theoretical lens I constructed (to read history. to understand culture.). I hesitate to include this (and won’t go on) because it sounds like I’m bragging, but having felt like a failure for years in terms of my reproductive abilities, and having labored so painfully twice now with babies who will never be with us, it feels amazing to have actually accomplished this feat. So please forgive the self-congratulatory tenor of this part of the update. I truly needed a personal win to help dig me out of the sense of bodily defeat that has threatened to consume me of late. The feedback I got from my committee (and from J and my mom, both of whom read my dissertation and offered lots of wise insights) felt healing.

• Also healing was the party J threw right after my defense, a kind of open house at a local wine bar, which lots of my dearest friends attended. I always find such events overwhelming (I can never process them until weeks after), but I will remember the feeling of being surrounded by so much love and support for the rest of my life. The everyone-calling-me-doctor part, though? That’s just weird. I expected to find it sort of exciting. I mean, it was kind of a lot of work to get here. But so far, it just embarrasses me and makes me feel extremely awkward. Who knows what that’s about. A sense that it isn’t real, maybe? Because of course I’m not a real doctor, right? Or, to some people, a real mother. These narratives. Sigh.

• And then there’s this damn menstrual period. Oh, gods. It was this way for the first few periods after Emmett too. Every cramp is a PTSD trigger. Every bit of bleeding. Flashbacks. Panic. The constant reminder that we’re not. I’m not. That a lifetime of clockwork-like ovulation will almost certainly come to nothing but loss. Last Friday was supposed to be the first day of our second trimester. I had started to consider which dress to wear (for my defense) out of a box of gorgeous maternity clothes that friends lovingly sent. Now that box sits in our basement waiting for one of us to have the courage to mail its contents back, unused. It is a struggle. But Yogi’s Mama has been helping a friend through loss, and she wrote this about that mom: “she lost her child. Her son. Her second born. She didn’t lose a pregnancy and she didn’t have a 2nd trimester loss. While those things are technically true, they skate around the emotional heart of the matter. Although the mechanisms may be different, this birth will shape her life and the life of her family in ways that are no less significant or far-reaching then the live birth of her daughter.” It is no small comfort to have people in our lives who understand the loss we’ve faced, and who grief our babies alongside us.

• But then there’s Bram! This kid, I tell you. His words aren’t completely consistent, and they’re not super clear either, but man oh man are they awesome to hear. Cat, dog, mo (for pomo), mama, cow, horse, truck, eeeooooww (meow), oooo (moo), who who (the sound an owl makes), Nemem (for Nemesis), Ice (for Iris), mun (for monkey), no!, hi!, done! (said at the same time he signs “all done” at the table). He’s also gotten super attached to his (my) woven wraps. It used to be that when I wasn’t wearing him in one he kind of ignored them. Now he gets them out of their little basket and wears them like capes or snuggles them on the floor. It is SWEET. He’s never really had much in the way of a (successful) lovey, so I’m pretty sure these are the first objects he’s attached to in this way. Which, if you couldn’t guess this, makes my heart MELT. Also, my mom got him a squirrel feeder for his birthday which we FINALLY put up a couple of weeks ago and he is IN. LOVE. with the squirrels that come to eat corn off of it just outside our dining room window. She also taught him to use the sign “eat” for squirrels. So now whenever he sees one (here or out on the town) he puts his fingertips to his mouth. You know, because they’re always eating. Lovely little being, our boy. He also, though, threw his first temper tantrum in the grocery the other day. Oh, Id-driven little creature. J was alone with him, and I know she handled it wonderfully: she didn’t make it about her, she managed not to care what other people thought, she was present with him, and comforting. But it’s a whole new world. I mean, the trauma when something breaks: a Lego tower, a banana (he WILL ONLY eat the banana while it’s still attached to the peel)… Still, mostly he just loves life and we just love living it alongside him.

Okay, I’m pretty sure this nap is about to end, so I’ll close here. But I still owe you updates on breastfeeding, grief and marriage, night weaning, Iris and Nemesis, Mother’s Day, job stuff, and a tiny little baby named Maya (AKA my craziness). Oh, and I clearly owe you photographs! Soon, soon, soon. I promise. I hope spring has brought lightness to all of you! I’ve kept up with blog-reading, just not blog-commenting. Forgive my failures and know I am with you, if silently.

Okay, little baby gave me time to post a handful of photos!

Iris. J. Bram. As you can see, we’re all struggling to bond.

Celebrating M’s marathon!

We get to look at this face. Everyday. Everyday.

Bram is a peaceful little lover of wide-open spaces. Which makes him different from his (city loving) mama and pomo and exactly like his Aunts C and A (whose land this is).

B wears Bernard (his stuffed rabbit) a lot. This photo is blurry, but I don’t even care. Oh and yes: that’s his pomo’s undershirt. We welcome warm weather/no air conditioning in style, I tell you. ;)

Pre-defense me. Not a maternity dress, but a sweet one anyway, and a graduation gift from my mom. Those gorgeous roses are a graduation gift from J’s mom. I have a thing for roses. And dresses. And graduating. And look closely: this mama even painted her nails! (Which chipped off immediately. Because I’m a SAHM. Which is incompatible with fingernail polish. Still. For that moment.) :)

Me and my wonderful friend Z wearing our left-leaning, sleeping babes on a pretty spring day.

Oh and see! He snuggles his wraps now!

facts & feelings

A friend told me this week that feelings aren’t facts. Oh, the great great freedom of those words. I started breathing more deeply the moment my mind grasped them.

It’s a Sunday, early evening, and I should be making dinner, but the boy is cutting a molar and a cuspid, which means he’s in agony, which means he’s taking a desperately-needed-late-nap on my chest. Here, then, are the scattered facts and feelings of my today.

• We have an astonishingly great community. I’ll write it again because it is breathtakingly true: we have an astonishingly great community. There is no such thing as deserving the profoundly generous and loving and empathic and compassionate and ever-present friends and family we’re surrounded with. We don’t deserve you all, which means that having you all is just a matter of grace. Grace. Not God’s grace, but humanity’s grace. We are surrounded by it.

• I am overwhelmed, crushed, by the simple narrative being constructed around the Tsarnaev brothers right now. We are so quick to condemn violence without struggling to understand our own complicity in it. Our willingness to model it in ways small and big. How is it possible that expressing compassion for a no-doubt terrified teenager (a child) can be read as negating the suffering that teenager likely inflicted? I am heartbroken by this tragedy, but I am even more heartbroken by our quick, unconsidered, vengeance-driven reaction to it. People suffer. Even people who inflict suffering suffer. I don’t know how to express what I’m saying. There’s complexity, and I shudder for our fate when I sense that it is being ignored. Yogi’s mama wrote a little about this this week, as did Anna. If I felt more whole, I’d try to contribute something meaningful. As it stands, all I can do is worry, and mourn, and wish. If my writing this makes you angry, please know that I mean no harm, and please let it go. I don’t even know how to process anger right now. I can’t meet it with anything but confusion.

• Nemesis is lonely without her brother. We are lonely without her brother. Saul (who is no longer Saul) is now five months old. He’s been gone for four months. His birth mother refuses to send us a photo. Since he left, we’ve lost my dad, and Love Child, and our puppy cat. We are not in the weeds of despondence, as we’ve been before. Instead, we’re heavy but moving. Walking with grief in a new way that feels permanent (though thankfully I see through that word). I found a list I made in 2009, shortly before our wedding. On it, I name loss as my biggest fear. It was relatively unknown to me then. It is no longer my biggest fear. It is like a friend I didn’t meant to befriend. I’m not even sure how I’d answer that question now.

• Anyway, we are lonely, and I keep having the impulse to bring home a kitten. Or a cat. Another being. A being who is unlikely to be taken from us. A being who is likely to stay awhile. Who will make Bram smile. Who will warm our hearts. Who will in no way replace E, or Sauly, or Love Child. Who could never replace Hades, king of the cottage frontier, cat-king of my heart. But who could be a home for some of the love we have that needs a home. I sense, though, that we’d be judged. That it is too soon. That there are appropriate ways of responding to loss and that we haven’t been appropriate. I’m not explaining this well. I just want more beings to love. Right now, I might adopt a flea circus if I felt that one needed me. Perhaps that is the argument for waiting.

• We went to a SHARE meeting together last week: our first together since B was born. I’m always struck by the gentleness in those rooms. People are fragile. There are spaces where that is just recognized.

• I found teaching! Okay, that’s overstating it. I found two sections for the fall. Media and the Sexes. With that phone call, the absence of students in my life this year came flooding in. Students! Yes! I am more fully me when I am teaching. When I am learning from students. When we are of one another in the way that the classroom makes possible. I sigh with relief from this news, not just because we (desperately) need the money, but because I desperately need that purpose again. The exchange of ideas. The intellectual intimacy. The community. The presence it demands of me. Yes. Teaching. What relief.

• My defense is set for May 10th. PhDs: How did you celebrate? We have to celebrate. If we insist (as we do) on mourning the losses, we must celebrate the victories. We have earned this. As a family. So how did you let in the joy.relief.pride of being done?

• We are interring my dad’s ashes on Wednesday. We will try to make a day of it: eat good food, take Bram to the zoo. A day that is not born solely of sadness.

• Tomorrow, Bram and I will celebrate Earth Day at a bird sanctuary. I never really understood birds before. Lately, I get tears in my eyes watching them fly.

• Here are my true, true loves. There’s no such thing as deserving this life. That I am living it is merely a matter of human grace. Kindness. The kindness others have bestowed on me.

.turning over.

The snow is finally melting today, and, though it’s teased us with this prospect before, it does seem that spring is near. I am so looking forward to a new season, to new life, and to more time outside. By the end of February living in the north, I start to feel trapped by the constant deluge of snow.ice.scraping.sliding.cold.dark.days. And this winter has seen its fair share of dark days of the soul with losing Saul and then R’s dad.

I’m currently at home sitting out a rare sick day with acute mastitis (sidenote: Ouch!). I’ve never had any kind of breast problem throughout the 14 months I’ve been nursing Bram, but I awoke Thursday morning with tenderness in my right breast (which I chalked up to PMS). By 9am, though, it had grown intense, and by the time I pumped at 10am, I was really miserable. I left work early and by lunchtime was running a 102.5 degree fever while taking extra-strength motrin, so we decided to go get it checked out at urgent care. I was prescribed antibiotics and motrin and told to keep nursing, massaging, applying heat, and taking it easy. I’m supposed to go in for a recheck tomorrow. The rest of Thursday, I was out.of.it. I was delirious with the high fever, had tingling and numbness in my joints and neck, and was just beside myself with discomfort in my breast. My heart goes out to the many new mamas who experience this multiple times early on in their nursing relationship. It’s really the pits. So today I am feeling a little more like me. The fever has abated and the prescription motrin seems to be keeping a handle on my pain. Bram and I aren’t showing any reactivity to the antibiotics (a fear given his recent bout with penicillin allergies). Still, though, I can’t move any milk through the left quadrant of my right breast. It’s red, hard, and warm to the touch, which makes me think that there’s still a plugged duct(s). I really hope that I can get this worked out myself, as the idea of more aggressive treatment sounds really unpleasant (and makes me worry about keeping our nursing relationship consistent). So: Heat-Massage-Drain-Rest-Repeat.

In much happier news, how about R’s last post!?! We are so so so excited by our new Love Child. Early Days, yes, but I’m choosing cautious optimism over debilitating fear and anxiety. We just miss out on so much living because of the latter. R is at the outset of nausea and fatigue (though that could also be the byproduct of it being less than a month before she goes to committee with her dissertation). Our first appointment with our midwives’ group will be in April, and we think we’ll be able to see our beloved friend and midwife, C, before she’s out for maternity leave with her own new bundle-of-joy. We really do love our practice and are very encouraged to think that we’ll be able to birth at the low-risk hospital again! And I for one am hopeful and excited about becoming an NGP to a baby that R carries. I look forward to the many things that I missed out on because I was so locked into my own bodily experience of our pregnancy with Bram. I caught glimpses of those benefits during our time with Saul, but I am curious how those dynamics will play out for me over a lifetime of parenting.

And I would be remiss to not offer some recent photographic evidence of our toddler (Toddler!?! How did that happen?). R has had to handle all of the big news and heavy pronouncements on the blog lately, so I’m bringing some lightness!

Storytime with Bubbie is the level-best:

Bram and I handle our co-op shopping together every weekend. He’s getting really sweet about interacting with the other customers and carrying produce for me…

Bram planking with Uncle Buddy:

B still adores being worn everyday:

Bram’s snow adventures in our backyard:

And he’s up! Bram started walking at right about 13 months. It was a shy skill at first, but he’s walking more and more each day:

This is our beautiful, sweet, goofy, earnest toddler (photo credit: Aunt Kippie at the Children’s Museum):

about life

This is a post about life and death (which is to say: about life). I have lots of middle to report about, but no energy to do it, so this post is all about endings and beginnings. I’ve missed writing here. I can’t promise I’ll be back a lot over the next five weeks (before I go to committee), but I’ll do my best. And once my dissertation is out of my hands… well, this space will be a welcome reward.

So just to be contrary (and thus my father’s daughter), I’ll start with the ending. We lost my sweet dad, Jack Emmett, last week. He fell walking up a set of stairs and hit his head, but he was stubborn, said he felt fine, and refused to get seen. When he went to sleep that night, both hemispheres of his brain filled with blood and, though he tried to stand once, he never woke up. We got the call around 11am the next day and, still hopeful, J, Bram, my mom (who was here for the day), and I headed south. We learned the sad news that he wouldn’t make it on the drive down, but we got there many hours before he left, so there was time to say goodbye (at least to his body). Bram touched him. I rubbed his hands and feet with lavender oil. His forehead. His chest. I curled up in his hospice bed next to him and sang while my mom stood by, filling in when my voice faltered. Because B was with us and needed to go home, I left a few hours before my dad’s breathing finally slowed to nothing. I hate that I wasn’t there for his last breath, but I was right where my dad would have wanted me to be, curled up in bed with my wife and son.

I was very, very proud to be his daughter. I remember countless road trips singing together, heartfelt, of course, but totally off key. I remember all the plays we did together, all the musicals, when I was growing up. I remember that when he went to prison, he traded another inmate something to make me a wooden box for Christmas, and several pairs of earrings. He did his best. He was so charismatic that I’m not sure you could help but fall in love with him. And his love for humanity was undiscriminating and Whitmanesque, unlike anything I’ll ever see again. He just loved people.

Born in the Great Depression to two Irish immigrants, he was placed in an orphanage when his mom and her “colored” (so says the news article) friend robbed a well-off man to feed their children. My dad watched all of his siblings find placement before him (the older kids able to work, the babies…well, babies) before finally finding a family at the age of four. That’s a rougher start than most people get, and I feel a huge amount of love for the little kid in him who was desperate for love. I think I’ve spent a lot of my life trying to find ways of hugging that kid.

He started theology school after high school, and, had his life gone differently, he would have made a profoundly good minister. But he left college to enlist in the Marine Corps at the start of the Korean War. He attended boot camp at Parris Island in an experimental platoon meant to see if marines could be trained in one short month. Fifty men started that training cycle; only six finished it. Among those six was Jack Emmett. Ultimately, the program was scrapped for being inefficient, making my dad one of the only six people in U.S. history to have graduated from one-month Marine Corps boot camp. He even had to pretend not to have strep throat in the final week because if you missed even one day of training you were out. He was tough.

My dad was many, many things upon his return from the war: a bail bondsman, an entrepreneur, a suit-wearing brother to the Outlaw Bikers. His dreams were sometimes absurdly big, but for an orphan of the Great Depression to dream big was a miracle in itself.

I know I got my love of strangers from him. From flirting with waitresses to always having something funny to say to a passerby, he loved those little interactions, and to this day, I love them just as much. He would pull over without hesitation for people in accidents. I remember picking up a woman who’d been in a bike accident. I must have been seven or eight. My dad had me move quickly to the backseat, and the woman bled all over the seat I’d just been in, and I was scared. But my dad was calm, reassuring to both of us all the way to the hospital. He didn’t care about the blood. He dug families out of the ’78 blizzard. He wanted to help. My father lit up for people, strangers, anyone. If you needed something from him, he would do all he could to give it to you. He spent his life rescuing people who others deemed unworthy of rescue.

And he lived a full, full life. He slow danced with Gloria Estefan, and was friends with Muhammad Ali. He had me convinced for decades that we were Romanian Gypsy and he laughed and laughed when he confessed that we were (obviously) Irish instead. Oh the stories he could tell.

My dad was a stubborn, magnanimous man with a heart that could swallow up a whole room, and I loved him fiercely. I will do all I can to carry on his generosity, and to teach my children to carry it on (though I might encourage all of us to do so with a bit more regard for the law). ;) He was, in his unconventional way, as fine a man as I’ve ever met, and I owe so much of the woman I’ve become to his example of compassion, generosity, and profound acceptance.

His funeral is Thursday. It’s an overwhelming prospect. It’s been just over two months since we lost Saul. Bram woke up with a 105 degree fever last night, and now we’re both sick. Things are hard right now. This is hard. I trust that they won’t stay that way, but at night, the fact that I can’t call my dad, that I’ll never see him again, threatens to engulf me. This will be a long road.

So that’s the ending. But I promised you beginnings, so here are two of them, full of all the hope and joy and promise new life has to offer:

The first is that a wonderful family we know has a brand new son, their fourth (not just child, SON!). G and H welcomed O last week, and I cannot stop staring at his magical, full.of.wisdom face. Of course, I can’t show you that face. Or tell you any details without breaking their anonymity. So okay maybe this isn’t as thrilling to you, but here’s the deal: that little baby is a gift to the world, so get excited. He will do something lovely and just right with his life, and I hope I’m around to see it.

The second is my biggest, most joy-filled congratulations to the NEW MOMS over at Two Mommies and a Baby. After seven months of waiting to adopt (and years, of course, of planning), they brought home their daughter last month, and she is gorgeous. Really: go look at her! You’ll forgive me for teasing you with news of O! She is Chubby and happy and all the things strong, healthy, beautiful babies should be. I can’t wait to read more about their journey as a family of three, and I thank them for their courage and their much.much.needed adoption success story. Millie is exactly where she should be. Oh, and Jessica: all the fact that you’re “too prone to irrational worrying” means is that you’re already a great great mom.

So there it is, folks. The cycle of life as plainly as I know how to tell it. Love to you all this new March. My dad would want us out living in it. May spring bring light to us all.

why the first year of parenting reminds me of boot camp, and other year-in reflections

This is the last day of Bram’s first year of life. The last day! Tomorrow marks one year since this sweet creature made us pomo + mama, and two years since Emmett Ever made us parents. This, I think, calls for a well-organized reflective post full of anecdotes and observations. The trouble is, I only have the length of one nap time to write it. I hope, then, that you’ll settle for a hastily organized, mildly reflective post full of what I manage to hold in my head long enough to write about it. :) Here goes:

I went to boot camp in December of 1997. I think it sounds strange to people now, but the truth is: I loved it. Not at first. At first I was terrified and homesick. I craved the comforts of sleep, relaxation, and good food. I felt small. I longed for a friendly voice and a hug. For touch. I don’t do well without touch. But as time went on, I began to realize that everyone felt that way, which was of immense comfort to me. When I went to officer training six years later, this was not true. People who go to officer training are, for the most part, already skilled in things-military. They are competitive. They want pilot slots, navigator slots, intelligence slots. They want to outperform their peers — doing so is the whole idea. But at boot camp, pretty much everyone’s a kid, and pretty much nobody knows anything. For this reason, boot camp suited my soul – everyone all vulnerable and relying on one another and having to work together – while officer training broke me. So when I say that parenting reminds me of boot camp, I mean it with love and adoration. I mean: the first year of parenting is fierce and formative.

By two weeks into boot camp, I knew the women in my flight. I knew who they’d left behind. I knew who got letters, and who didn’t. I knew what I could rely on them for: who was best at folding and ironing underwear into a perfect square (yeah.), and who was dynamo at polishing boots. I did pre-inspection checks of all of our lockers because I have a good eye for detail. I looked over uniforms. I quized them in preparation for the exam. Other airmen paced me as I struggled with the run. We took care of each other. We were scared. We missed our family, so we became family. By the end, I didn’t want to leave. I was exhausted, but I didn’t mind. We had made it through together, and there was nothing sweeter on earth than that feeling.

Nothing since boot camp (except officer training) has made me anywhere near as tired as I am today, and those experiences can’t even compare. I’m saying: I am tired. My fantasies are of napping in a cool, dark room, in a warm bed, alone. That must be what most parents fantasize about. Because really, there is nothing like attachment parenting a child through his first year of life to teach you exactly what the word tired means. But the exhaustion? I don’t care. I am so proud of the hours I spent sitting up with this person, holding him, rocking him, singing, bouncing, kissing, loving him through the newness of living. Through teething, Through colds and flu bugs and learning to share with Sauly. Though it has not always been pretty here, I am so grateful to have lived it. There is nothing sweeter on earth than this feeling.

And the community! Even with all of the community we had before parenting, I still couldn’t have expected this. Friends I just trust and rely on. My mom coming through all the time to make dissertating while parenting possible. Friends and family who’ve held our hands through every new hurtle. Who’ve offered guidance. Or quietness. Or help. Or all of these things in exactly the right way. Kate at All Things Relative is not too far into her first year, and she’s been struggling with some postpartum depression. I read what she writes and I think: yes. And I think: you are a lovely and a powerful mama. And I think: you are doing great. You don’t know it yet, but you will. She’s still in the trenches (that’s war, so I’m mixing metaphors now, but cut me some slack: I haven’t slept a full night in a year!). The “my baby’s sick.” The “what if something happens?” The vigilance. The insecurity. The trying to have something leftover for your partner, or sometimes, just sometimes, even for yourself. The depth of love that most days, you don’t even know what to do with. The terror of loving somebody this much. The way it almost crushes your heart sometimes.

And though it’s so much deeper than the intimacy I shared with those women all those years back, the sense of having done this, together, with J is immense. We let go of the comforts. We let go of the indulgent pleasure of childless evenings. We jumped, together, holding hands. We put this little boy before all else because doing so was exactly right for all of us. I watched her become a pomo. I am her truest witness, and she is mine. I am fiercely proud of her, of us, not because we didn’t have a hard year, but because we did, and we’re here, and we’re in love. There’s nowhere near enough time for each other, but we are in love. We get tired, we get worried, we snap at each other, but we’re in love. Being her co-parent is the hardest and finest thing I’ve ever done. We got each other through this year day-by-day, hour-by-hour. On bad nights, minute-by-minute. No one will ever know the mama I am at 2am except her. She recognizes the subtle shift in my voice that means I need help. That I might not have it to give for just a moment. It’s a dance, and we’ll go on perfecting it, but it is the hardest and finest thing.

And now here we are. We are the parents of a one-year-old son. I am the mama of a one-year-old son. A son who took three steps from his Great Aunt Nancy to his Bubbie when I wasn’t even watching. When – after what has felt like a year of never looking away – I glanced down. A son who will go on being his own person, at once of me and not of me. A son who loves broccoli and eggs and chicken – his pomo’s boy – and curry and French lentil soup and oven fries – my kid. Who lights up for pomegranate seeds and animals, Oh Animals! A son with a hilariously goofy overbite, and his pomo’s big eyes, and his mama’s uncaged expressions. A little person who hates to sleep without one of us curled up next to him. Who knows how to hug and to smooch like nobody’s business. Who knows the word “dance,” and who wiggles and bounces every time he hears it. Who signs “more” when he wants anything, and is sheepish and quiet when we ask him to sign “please” instead (though just today, he finally did it!). A baby whose laugh holds all of the goodness. All of it. A little light in the world who is at turns vulnerable and tough and brave and clingy. Whose love for play is as aggressive as his love for our arms. For being in our arms.

All these years later, I still think of the women in my flight at boot camp. I’m not in touch with any of them, but that doesn’t matter. We met 4am together, day after day. We urged each other through one more mile, one more day, one more fear. We listened. I would not have made it through without them and – philosophical concerns about the military aside – the person I was then needed to make it through. Being a mama is eight trillion times greater than being in the military [and more important! and harder!], but there’s something of the pride and gratitude and camaraderie that I felt then in what I’m feeling now, one year in. There are lots and lots of people I couldn’t be the mom I am without, and I’m thinking of all of you now. And of my partner in all of this, and of how sure I am – despite all the bumps – that I chose very, very well. I’m thinking of our little girl, and of her almost-brother this year, whose lessons to me as a parent were how to let go. And I’m thinking of our little birthday boy. Our sugar-sweet son, whose joy is the only thing I ever need to believe my life here is meaningful.

Happy birthday, Bram.

Strong work, pomo.

And thanks to all of you for cheering us on through this sweet sweet sweet (hard) year of parenting.

christmas 2012

The thing about community is, there’s always joy to be found.

There’s always hardship too because, you know, communities are full of living people and living isn’t always easy, but there is always always wonderment to be found in some corner of every community, and our little blog world is no different. On the home front, this has been a complex Christmas: full of the delight of a near-toddler opening his first gifts and the low of sorrow over our sweet baby. But alongside this roller coaster – the kind of roller coaster Yogi’s Mama describes sweetly here – two breathtakingly wonderful and right things happened. So this Christmas – with J and B at a friend’s house for dinner and me at home because I just couldn’t manage company tonight – I am taking a break from the sorrow just long enough to honor those things, and to offer a few photos of our sweet Bramble Bug and his first-ever winter holiday.

These two bits of goodness are especially delightful because they happened on the same day, because they complement each other so perfectly, and because they happened to two of my absolute favorite bloggers: Olive and Allison.

The first is that Olive at Insert Metaphor Here got the magical news – on Christmas Eve of all magical times – that she is expecting their second child, Goldie’s little brother or sister. Read this news here, and lift a glass to Olive and Fern for their hard-earned bravery and their openness throughout this TTC process. We all carry battle scars of some kind or another, and these amazing mamas carry plenty when it comes to the hardships of infertility. This BFP is all the more glittering for the daring risk it took to seek it out.

The second is the joyful news that Allison over at Two Moms To Be just gave birth to their second child: a perfect, tiny daughter to be sister to their sweet, sweet son. You can read this joyful news here. Like Olive and Fern, Allison and Jen are wonderful, inspiring parents, and their new daughter is so, so blessed to call them her moms. I am thrilled by this Christmas Eve arrival, and I can’t wait to read all about this new, sweet child as she grows into herself, and as this family learns itself anew through her.

All of this sweetness makes the sadness a bit easier to bear, as do photos of B’s first Christmas – spent quietly at home with his mama, pomo, and bubbie – which I leave you with now. Peaceful days to you all, wherever you are. Thank you for holding our hands through the pain and welcoming us into the sweetness time and again, and for allowing us to do the same for you. I’ve decided there’s exactly one thing that matters, and that’s kindness. This community brings that in spades.

So, photos:

My first ever (as an adult) Christmas tree: small and high this year because of our boy and his resilient devotion to putting everything in his mouth, but J has promised me a real tree for B’s second Christmas.

The sweetest handmade heart – truly, its slight weight carries the love of a hundred hearts – from our beloved Laura at greensteeped.

One of three perfect gifts from Olive at Insert Metaphor. This one is a sailboat for our sweet baby Saul, who is still our Sailor.

Olive’s second gift: a star for our beloved E.

And her third: a rabbit with the most delightful face for our Rabbit River.

Finally, this delicate copper heart from our dear JE. It’s open at the bottom. I told Bram that was to let all the love of the world inside.

Our overalls-clad boy – thank you, dearest Kelley – opening his first-ever wrapped gift on Christmas Eve.

For my whole life, my mom has bought me Christmas Eve jammies. Every year. This is the awesomeness that happened this year. And yeah: those are butt-flaps.

The night before Christmas, after the boy went to bed.

Bramble and his big present from us – a Waldorf doll named Rudy.

Bram wearing Rudy for the first time in the same sling our beloved doula/friend JE’s boys wore their babies in when they were this little (which wasn’t all that long ago):

Bram and Rudy. B clearly knows how to do this.

Our sweet boy and the (handmade) pushcart his bubbie got him. He is in love.

Boy, bubbie, pushcart, Velveteen Rabbit, and (fast moving) organic felted wool ball:

B and the music table his sweet Grandmom sent from the south:

Love to you all.

saul spencer, 2

Thank you all for your kind thoughts. Connecting with other women.parents.hopeful-parents.families means so much. I have missed you.

I guess I’m not sure where to go from there in the story. Maybe it doesn’t feel done; maybe I’m still waiting to get him back so it will have a different ending. I am still waiting to get him back so it will have a different ending. I haven’t put away any of his things, which is just not like me. But for whatever reason, I can’t give up hope that he’ll come home soon. That he isn’t home now. That I’ll see him again, and be allowed to know him as mine.

We put so much thought into how to be good parents of Irish twins. We held Saul in our arms while feeding Bram at the dinner table. We sang. We danced with both boys: Bram at our feet, Saul in our arms. We wondered if we sang as much as with Bram. We wondered all the classic second kid stuff. We almost never slept. We were the most exhausted we’ve ever been. We felt wrecked. We felt absolute joy. We went for family walks, Saul’s tiny body held close to mine. We lived day by day, like you do with a newborn. We fell in love day by day, like you do with a newborn. Friends came bringing food. They peered at him in our arms. They held him and called him a bird. A tiny, delicate bird. Which he was, though he was already filling in when he left. Filling in on J’s milk. Getting strong from her body.

L never let on that she was considering changing her mind. We texted every few days, and she always said she was reassured that he was in such good hands. That she loved us. That she was hurting but healing. She had said she’d want a few weeks of no contact, but we heard from her all the time. That was hard because we were trying to bond, but we wanted to follow her cues, to start the open adoption off right. At the beginning of last week, she called our social worker and said she wanted a meeting, that she needed to see that we loved him “with our hearts.” We set up a meeting for last Thursday: we drove almost 2 hours each way with two little babies; the social worker drove L over an hour. We met somewhere that Bram could play while we visited. L told the social worker on the way there that she thought she might have made a mistake, but she asked her not to tell us. At the meeting, L was open and calm. She said we’d meet again in the spring so her daughters could meet Sauly. She even called him Saul for the first time. She said we should hibernate for the winter so that he wasn’t on dangerous roads. She said she loved us. She played with Bram. She told me about a program she’d gotten into, and I told her how (genuinely) happy I was for her. We hugged. Everything was great. Then she got into the car and told the social worker she was taking him back, that it was “non-negotiable.” She refuted all of our social worker’s concerns. Then she got home and texted me about how great the meeting was. She said it was too bad we had forgotten to take a family photo. When I said we could do it next time, she said we’d probably just start talking and forget again. She said that after affirming her decision to take him back. For no reason at all, she just lied.  For no reason at all, she pretended things were fine. Why lie? The sense of betrayal is huge.

We got the call Friday morning, so we’ve known for a week now. I can’t really write much about the days between the call and saying goodbye. And I can’t write about letting him go. Maybe J can write about that. What I will say is that since the call, we’ve learned a lot that makes it clear that L planned this, or at the very least was on the fence (despite pretending to be extremely sure). We’ve learned some other things, too, that I can’t talk about yet. I wish I could because I don’t do well just sitting with big things that need to be processed, but for now, silence seems like the only way to handle this. More on everything soon, I hope.

I think I’ve been shut down since he left. Though I didn’t know I could do shut down, I guess I can. I’ve cried very little. I can’t possibly process this – at least not while being a good, present mama to Bram – so I sort of just don’t. I wait for Saul to come home. I try not to imagine what his days are like. I try not to remember the thousand good reasons L said she couldn’t keep him, the reasons that mean he’s not safe, the things I know. J is engorged from working so hard to get her milk supply up to feed two. That pain is a constant reminder. Sauly will never feed at the breast again. He will probably never be worn again. I sent my K’Tan with him (the first thing I ever wore Bram in), but she probably won’t use it. We have reason to worry about him, reasons I can’t talk about here, but that make me deeply sorrowful. We spent about a third of my inheritance from my dad, which was the only money we’ll probably ever have for adoption. My dad cried when I told him. My eighty-two year old adopted dad. He had to hang up the phone. He will never meet Saul.

If I close my eyes, I can remember what he felt like in my arms, the slight weight of his, his warm skin, his milky smell. So like and yet so unlike Bram’s newborn smell. He is a subtle baby. Where Bram is aggressive and gregarious, Sauly is cautious and complex. I wonder: what will his life be like now? His needs are different from other people’s needs; will they ever be met? I sense that he needs subtly and lots of careful attention. I sense that I know how to parent him, but I’m reminded by so many people that no one knows how to do that as well as his birth mom. But how is that just universally true???

There are other narratives to tell. To come are stories about community in all of this. Blessed, blessed community, and blessed, blessed friendship. To come are questions about the politics of adoption, and my mother’s saying that 180 degrees from sick is still sick. And photos, which I look at constantly, but which I’m not quite ready to post here. And details about what we know now, and what can be done with that knowledge. To come are plans for how to move forward, not towards happiness with this situation, but towards peace.

And to come are stories about our now eleven-month-old boy. And our third wedding anniversary. Life does go on.

He really loves to be sung to. He didn’t care how bad my singing was, he just wanted my voice. I pray that she’s singing to him.

guest post: the unintended mom

J, B, and I just got back from our first long vacation as a family of three, and we have lots to share, though it may be a few days before we have time to write about it. Luckily, we have something lovely to offer you now: Breaking Into Blossom’s first guest post! I’m not sure when Heila started reading BIB, but I know how happy I became when she first started commenting and sharing her story with us. I asked if she might write a guest post because her subject position – her way into motherhood – is so unique. Here, then, is her story. Enjoy!

I have never been a girly girl.  I never dreamed of having a great big wedding, or kids.  But at the age of 33 I fell in love for the first time, with a wonderful man and his adorable two and a half year old daughter. There was a twist to this tale.  She wasn’t his, biologically or legally.  O had been married to her biological mother E, whom he met when little D was only 11 months old.  They had intended for him to adopt her, but then  E died when D had just turned two, and before they did the paperwork.  O was D’s dad in all the important ways, she had never known another and he was the anchor that remained in her life after she lost her mom.  Unfortunately not all the biological family agreed, and there was a court case pending to decide who gets to adopt D.

         

Dating a man with a toddler who is missing a maternal figure can be a minefield.  We were very responsible about it.  We decided that she would initially only be exposed to me once a month until we knew which way this relationship was going to go.  Of course it never worked out that way, because what is a single parent going to do with his kid every time he wants to spend time with his girlfriend?  I quickly integrated into their little family and D and I had a strong bond almost from the beginning.  Within a couple of months I realised that, for her sake, I had to make this relationship permanent or get out.  It placed a lot of pressure on fiercely independent me, but in a gigantic leap of faith I agreed to marry O.

         

By this time the legal proceedings were well under way and we had a wedding with the sword of Damocles hanging over our heads, not knowing if our family was going to stay intact.  The Monday after we got married we changed the adoption application to include me as well.  I won’t bore you with the details, but after a lot of heartache, stress and tears the case was settled and we adopted D.  The adoption went through when she was four.

         

Being a mom was weird initially.  I felt like an impostor, and compulsively told people that my daughter is adopted in case they could detect something strange in our relationship and wondered about it.  Of course this was all in my head, we loved each other like any other mom and daughter out there and nobody could tell the difference.  One of the worst things for me was taking her to doctors where she had been before and having to explain that her surname has now changed and although I have the same surname as her biological mother had, I am in fact someone different… I think we left a string of very puzzled receptionists in our wake.

         

Another real challenge has been the social pressure we were under to produce a biological child.  (We decided that one kid is enough.)  I was, and still am, offended by the question But don’t you want one of your own?  My daughter is my own.  Who else’s would she be?  Our relationship is not inferior just because I didn’t give birth to her and I resent that implication to the point where I’m probably a bit oversensitive about the issue.  Luckily now that I’m 40 people have stopped asking – a great benefit of being older!In April this year I wrote the following comment on blog post Feminist concerns about the natural childbirth community:   I’ve been a mom legally for almost 6 years and effectively for 7, and I still sometimes find myself insecure in my role. I tend to think of my daughter as belonging more to my husband than to me, as he has known her longer than I have and was married to her bio mom. I know this doesn’t make sense but then feelings often don’t. I love my daughter and will protect and nurture her with everything in me but I must also admit that parenting is HARD. There are days when I feel I might have been better off without this challenge. I’m not proud of these feelings. I’m pretty sure that at least some bio parents also occasionally feel this way. But in the back of my mind there is always a question about the quality and intensity of feelings, positive and negative, in bio vs NGP.

         

I don’t feel like that every day, or even most days, and it does depend on my state of mind at the time.  Talking to other parents on a regular basis helps to keep me grounded in the reality that parenting is hard for everybody.  That the issues we have are by and large not unique to adoptive families.  That it’s ok, and even healthy, to have your own life separate to your child’s as well.  I’ve learnt that kids are resilient, and even if you mess up big time you always get another chance to set things right.  I’ve also learned not to sweat the small stuff. The challenge is sometimes deciding if something is small stuff or not!

         

There is of course a huge upside to being a parent.  Nothing compares to the feeling of having her arms slide around me, looking into those big brown eyes and hearing I love you mom. Joy is D crawling into bed with us on a weekend morning, bringing a cat and a book, and spending some time snuggling, reading and playing.  It’s a  privilege to coach her through issues like being bullied, or a fight with a friend, and see her handle the situation successfully.  It’s beautiful to see how much our parents love her and she loves them back, especially my father-in-law who is her “partner in crime”.  When she was preparing for her first ever exams I found her furiously making notes and when I congratulated her on her study methods she said but that’s what I’ve seen you do mom.  It’s humbling to realise that your example counts more than your words every time.  It makes me want to be a better person, for her sake.

        

We are raising a bright, confident and competent child and watching her grow into herself and knowing that we are helping to mold the woman she will become is the most amazing thing… scary, and awesome and the most important work I’ve every done.

firsts in photographs

I owe you a proper post. And I have a few in the works; I just can’t seem to pull them together. So for now, I’m buying you off with photographs. Will that do?

Bram has lived lots of firsts in these last few weeks (the last weeks of his first half a year). His first trip out of state, first visit with my extended family, first camping trip, first time in a big body of water, first solid food (avocado), first time in the gorgeous Stokke his Grandmom Sarah bought me for my birthday, first taste of banana. All of these (and a few other moments) are depicted in images below.

I hope you’re all well, and I promise to write a real post soon! Happy mid-summer, everyone!

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streak!

We are on a STREAK. This is not to be confused with streaking. Which, by the way, I did not do when – about eight years ago – I was drunk for one of a handful of times in my whole life, and I yelled “we’re going streaking!” while I ran through my apartment complex and dove into the pool — completely dressed.

But this is nothing like that. We are on a good, good streak. A deluge of goodness. Our lives are just chock-full of happy. And serendipity. And I want to be sure to notice.

I remember in 2011 feeling like we just couldn’t catch a break. And I don’t think there’s any way to avoid those periods of your life, nor to avoid noticing them. But they become kind of self-fulfilling, right? Like, every tiny thing that happens – most of which, on its own, wouldn’t even be noteworthy – becomes further evidence that the universe has it in for you. What starts as four or five terrible things in a row turns into a full year of your bad luck because you read simple annoyances like traffic congestion as a sign that things will never be good again.

And then you wake up and they are. And what I’m thinking right now is that you better damn well notice when that happens. And you better read every single little sweet thing that happens as evidence that you’re on a good streak – that the universe is madly in love with your sweet self – because who knows how long this spell will last, and it’s a thousand times more worthy of your attention that the bad streak that preceded it. So when telemarketers wake up your baby from his nap, you don’t even notice. But when friends let you hang out on their screened-in porch chatting the afternoon away, your life feels delicious. A good streak. Not to be overlooked. So here, in no particular order – with big deals mixed in amongst the frivolous – are a few of the elements of our current good, good streak. There are some great (amazing. unbeatable.) things we can’t talk about yet, but even without those, this, my friends, is a bonafide streak:

1. We had brunch this weekend with our beloved friends B & P in a new, small (eighteen top), foodie establishment that makes gluten free, dairy free beignets. Great friends and gf/df beignets are streak worthy in and of themselves.
2. Though I know not everyone has this experience, J and I are both beside.ourselves.over.the.moon with this thing that is parenthood. Like, lords this is fun!  J is the most inspiring pomo you can imagine, and for my part, being a mama is ineffably great. And this kid! Aw man is he wonderful. And he gets wonderfulER every day! Cute and sweet and curious and trusting. So delighted with the world, and sure of his safety, and ready to meet each new moment. This family. You can’t beat it with a stick. (And we’d be SUPER pissed if you tried.)
3. Our sweet MJB is back in town for the summer! This had better mean live concerts.
4. We celebrated Aunt Kippie’s thirty-first birthday! Our boy loves his Aunt Kippie. (We’re pretty fond ourselves.)
5. Our home study is scheduled for July 6th. If all goes well, birth mothers should be able to consider our family for their babies by end of summer.
6. I got two new birthday wraps — a total indulgence, but I wear this boy SO. MUCH. that one wrap wasn’t really getting us there. I mean, he spits up a lot, which means that every once in a while, I really need to wash a wrap. And wearing the same wrap everyday is also a lot like wearing the same t-shirt every day. Every. Day. And different wraps are good for different temperatures, carries, activities. So I got a Girasol Symphuo Rosa/Fuschia weft (whom I call Rosa) from J, and a Didymos Indio Porrinho (whom I call Indio) from my sweet mama. With Leo, my stash is now set. I hope to carry three happy babies in all three of these wonderful wraps, and to give each of my children a wrap when they’re grown so they can (if they choose) wear their own babies in them one day.
7. We’ve got our August vacation to Charleston all planned out! We’ll get to spend lots of time with J’s parents, we’re taking an overnight to Savannah with some VERY pregnant friends, AND some wonderful friends of ours (with the kind of kitchen you salivate just thinking about cooking in) will be out of town, so they’re letting us crash at their house for EIGHT DAYS for FREE!!! They’re about ten minutes from the beach. They have lots of bed options for co-sleeping. Their house is gorgeous. And they’re coming back in time for us to visit for two days before we have to leave! (And to cook for them. In that kitchen.) We’ll get to hit our favorite farmers markets, eat at lots of our favorite restaurants, show B our favorite island beach, stroll around the peninsula, visit our sweet old college and all our professor friends there, introduce Bram to all his southern admirers, and have a delightful home base to bring him back to/relax in between outings. And we’re staying long enough that we can do just one or two things a day, and lounge about the rest of the time! This = vacation perfection.
8. I have decided that I’m not longer afraid of flying. I have decided to be among the many, many people who find flying to be relaxing and joyful and exciting. Because really: wearing a napping B for a (not-quite-even) two-hour flight? And letting him nurse at take-off and landing? SO. MUCH. BETTER. than days and days and days in a car where we have ignore B signing “up,” which just breaks his little heart. And thus ours. So, flying. I love it! I can’t get enough of it!
9. We’re going to visit my family for an AMAZING cookout this Saturday (my mom has been working on the delicious menu for weeks!), we’re camping with Thea and her moms NEXT Saturday, and we’re going to Laura’s wedding the Saturday after that! Hello, sweet summer!
10. And speaking of: J’s summer schedule starts next week! 20 hours a week for two months, baby!
11. We added side rails to the bed for extra safety, and now we’re co-sleeping all the time. I can’t even tell you how much joy this brings us all. For those of you who wrote with encouragement and advice, thank you so much! This little baby’s face, sleeping, so close to ours? His hands reaching out in the night, just to be sure of us? Magic.
12. B napping on me right now in a loose Kangaroo carry, grinning away in his sleep.
13. Our two-year-old friend telling me two visits in a row that B is a “happy baby.” Because two-year-olds know. And I can’t think of a single thing that is more important than this boy being happy.
14. Having FINALLY gotten my hair back to its natural color. It took FOUR color processes to bleach all the red out, and then to dye it back to my natural color so it can grown in that way, but I’m finally there. I miss the red, but when Bram was born, and I saw his perfect, artifice-free self, I felt an instant aversion to artifice. So for now, anyway, I have decided to embrace my dishwater blonde hair. Though in embracing it, I should probably find a more appealing name for it.
15. L’s wedding is a great excuse for a new dress. So, I get a new dress!
16. Our sitter is amazing. B loves her. We love her. She loves B. There’s love. (And trust.)
17. I finished a barely-drafted-but-still-drafted-drafty-draft of my penultimate chapter. So I’m working on the last first draft of my dissertation now. Once I finish this one, I’ll have a full first draft, and I’ll get to leave behind the grunt work of from.scratch.writing and dive into a full academic year of revision: reading deeply into theoretical works, building up scholarly context, playing and playing and playing with language. My favorite parts of writing. AND I’m down to only one (of thirteen) primary sources to re-read: Nadine Gordimer’s Burger’s Daughter, which is a fictitious retelling of Bram Fischer’s life and family. So I get to think a lot about our boy’s namesake. And I get to spend time with the first novel I fell in love with as a graduate student. This all seems just right to me.
18. We got together with seven of the eight families from our natural childbirth class! All healthy babies. All lined up. :)
19. J and I finally found a movie we both want to see! So soon – maybe in the next week? – we will take our second date in this boy’s lifetime and head to the big, downtown, air conditioned theater. And we’ll sit together in the dark for two or so hours. We’ll probably even hold hands. Then we’ll drive home, talking about our son the whole way.

See? A streak, right? I mean, I can’t even apologize for this post’s blatant overuse of exclamation points!!!