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!

welcoming newness

I wanted a new blog theme because – though there’s been so much sadness, and there ain’t nothing new about that – this is also a time of newness and possibility.

• This is my second week at home with Bram when I’m not also writing, and the difference is profound. Even with this tiny bit of space, I can see that writing my dissertation and being home with B was overwhelmingly intense. Trying to fit all the research and drafting I could into the two or three or four hours Bram was with sitters. Revising from the bedroom over the sound of dancing or kitchen play in the living room. Sending B off for bedtime rituals with J only to settle down for more work, night after night (which feels achingly impossible after being on with a baby ALL. DAY.). Wearing him through ALL of his naps so he’d sleep longer, and precariously balancing the computer on my knees, which got harder and harder to do as he grew. [Though full disclosure: I'm still wearing him through naps. Only right now, I'm doing it for the snuggles. So it's selfish.] The hardest thing of all was the feeling I could never shake that I should be doing something else. I never worked when B was awake and I was on alone with him, but I always sensed that I needed to be working, so I always felt a low grade sort of panic. Now the days stretch out before us, and they are exhausting, but they don’t scare me the same way because for the moment, my only job is mom. [This is not strictly true. I need to read my dissertation and plan my defense opening statements and do some formatting, but I'm ignoring all of that, and with an impressive degree of success.] And though I worried about what it would be like to only have this one hat on for awhile (the summer), I am finding that I love it. I feel a new freedom to just be with him. We’ll see how it feels after my defense, when the summer really just stretches out before us, but right now: I am aware of and grateful for the privilege of this tiny moment. Because it will likely never come again, not with B or with our other children. I’ll hopefully be on the tenure track. It won’t be the same. I now know that I could be a stay-at-home-parent for the duration if things were different, but I’m also okay working. I ADORE teaching, and I ADORE being at home with my kid. And I am so deeply lucky to feel fulfilled by both of these things. I hope to find a balance once I’m working full-time, and I do think that, R-1 universities aside, the professoriate lends itself to some balance. What I most hope is that J will get to do some of this with our next child (or children): that I’ll be able to carry us for awhile to give her a little space at home. It is hard, hard, hard work (as so many of you know), and I am dog tired by the day’s end. But compared to the weight of writing WHILE giving my son everything I have, this singular focus feels blissful.

• Oh, and this: I cannot thank you all enough for your communal, resounding GET A NEW CAT message. Y’all are just absurdly kind, and you get us, and we are so lucky. So I think we’re going to get a cat! I mean, that many of you can’t be wrong! :) Our vet feels strongly that N will do better with a kitten than an older cat. And he feels even more strongly that a kitten will do better with Bram because s/he will have just always grown up with an annoying being chasing her/him around, unlike an older cat who might resent the hell out of young children. So we’re leaning in that direction, though there’s a nine-month-old boy cat we’re also drawn to… Anyway, more on this soon. We might have happy news to post in the near future.

• And HUGELY: our dear friends A & C brought their second daughter into the world this week. Little Zora joins big sister Thea, and she is sweet sweet sweet. Thea asked to be with me during/after the labor (heart-melting, by the way), but she was sleeping through the whole thing, so they called me when C was pushing, and I walked in to the darling cries of born.seconds.earlier Z. I kept thinking of that Ani song when she says, “I was there to hear your bell the first time it rang, and the beauty was the beauty of everything.” It was painful because, you know, I want to do that (give birth to a baby who cries after), but it was beautiful. I brought Thea (who is three) home with me for the day so her mamas and new sister could sleep, and when we got here at 7:30, B was still resting. (Miraculously. Likely because he couldn’t sleep for awhile after I left at 4.) Since Thea was a little sleepy, I put her in bed with him. When he woke a few minutes later and rolled over to smooch me (like he does), he found her in my place! J said it was the sweet-sweetest thing. Anyway, welcome baby Zora. You are no end loved.

So, newness!

But there’s also other stuff.

• I went to the dentist yesterday because I have stress fractures in a filling (so, pain), and the hygienist asked (when looking at my medical records) if my son inherited my clotting disorder. I told her that he didn’t because my wife carried him. When I mentioned later that I’m at home with him full time, she said, “Oh, so he’s practically yours then.” So, yeah. That happened. He’s practically mine.

• In terms of wanting to give birth to a healthy baby, I’ve been letting myself fantasize about a number of things this week, and it needs to stop. When I lay down at night, or when B is napping, or when I’m washing dishes, I find myself imagining calling my dad, and hearing him answer, hearing him call me sweetheart or tell me to have a good good day. I imagine him at my graduation. I imagine seeing him proud of me, with tears in his eyes. I fantasize about being huge and pregnant and feeling the baby move inside of me. And about pushing, which is what I most wanted to do, most of all, like desperately. Desperately. I fantasize that Hades will run into the room, meowing his disgruntled old-man meow. That he’ll push his head into my mouth for kisses. I’m not sure how to stop letting these fictions in. It feels impossible to me that these things can’t happen. And I feel so peaceful and happy when I’m playing them out in my head like a movie. Maybe writing this down will help.

• Also, probably because of all the loss, I’ve been (and J has been too) obsessed lately with B’s health. Like, checking his breathing every ten minutes at night like you do with a newborn. And asking our NP to run a CBC on him. (Which she gladly obliged, and everything looks great. And by the way: Bram LOVED having his blood drawn, the weird child. He sat on my lap, and they prepped me for how to keep him steady, but he watched the whole time and never even flinched. And then he wanted to go to one of the techs after!) We’ve always been worriers on this front, but the last couple of weeks have been newly bad. So, trust. Something else to work on. And thank the gods because I was bored. ;)

• One good thing, though, is that other than the wanting to be pregnant, and to give birth to a big, breathing baby, I’m not all that sad about the fact that I probably won’t try to carry again. When I got pregnant this time,the emotions were just different than before. And I was deeply sad to be losing my NGP identity. I LOVE this role. I feel like an ambassador for NGP-hood. I think about the misunderstanding out there, about how many people believe that the only way to truly be a parent is to have a child who carries your DNA, and I think: I can help undermine that. I think that at this point, adoption would be even more profound for me than carrying to term, because then J and I would SHARE the NGP role. That sounds just mindblowingly great, doesn’t it? But of course, that requires being chosen by another birth mother. So we shall see. It could happen, right? Anyway, the peace I feel in this regard is surely nice.

• Okay, that’s all. Thanks for letting me ramble. I’m glad it’s finally spring. I’m sure I join most of you in welcoming the sunshine.

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):

Love Child

This is actually a surprisingly hard post to write. It’s strange to have big news, though, and not be sharing it with this community, so, having just finished dinner, with J and Bram upstairs in the bath together, and with absolutely no desire to do what I should be doing – which is still.working.on.my.almost.due.dissertation – I thought this might be the right moment.

****

So, here’s the thing.

We’re pregnant.

I’m pregnant.

With my body. A baby we’re calling (for reasons I’ll explain) Love Child.

****

Why this is hard to write. For most of our readers, this will be nothing but joyful news. And I love that. And I’m grateful for that. But I know that some of our readers found their way here because they were unable to get pregnant, or to carry, and they wanted sisters in that. And there is something about sharing the NGP role as mothers who didn’t choose it at first, but who ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY choose it now. Who have embraced the magic that is NGP-hood with a love that is fierce and great and in no way less than. I feel a huge tie to that group of women. I feel like whether or not I’m able to carry to term, I will feel of them for the rest of my life because that was just my path to motherhood. But I know that for me, when other NGPs have gotten pregnant, it has stung a little. I have felt happy for them, sure, but also a little sad for me. Sometimes more than a little sad. Like they’ve left my club, and we fought for this club, and it was hard earned, and it is deeply beloved, and really: can’t we all just stay in the club? For this reason, I almost never tried again. And in part for this reason, I decided to give my body exactly one. more. try. And I can’t say what the next year will bring, so I may not carry safely to term, but I have an awful lot of faith in this new being. And if I do, that will make me both an NGP and a GP. And though this makes me happy, it also makes me deeply sad. And like I’m somehow betraying the single best (loosely assembled) group of women I’ve ever known. And that is hard. But that’s only one part of it.

****

So a few more parts. Written chronologically, which is never my thing, but which seems the only way to tell this story.

• A couple of months ago, I went in for an annual/physical. We did a big lab workup, and everything looked great. My thyroid numbers are holding steady and healthy, which is wonderful as I’ve been medicine-free since late July. This was a nice moment for my bodily confidence.

• A week or two after that, we got curious, so we contacted the high-risk clinic we saw near the end of my last pregnancy to see if they’d want to see me before or during a possible pregnancy. They said no. They said to take a baby aspirin a day for the Factor V Leiden, and to see whoever we wanted. That we could go to the low-risk hospital where we delivered Bram. That we could stay with our beloved midwives. We also asked our dear midwife friend and two nurse practitioners, and they all felt confident that what happened to E was about her and not me, and that I could, and even should, try again.

• From there, J left it up to me, and I was fairly set against carrying. I liked knowing that I had support, and that people believed in my body, but the strong, decisive desire I used to have to carry has just faded now, so I felt a lot of ambivalence. It’s been that way for awhile, really: strong, biological urges when I ovulate, but otherwise, I’m fully contended with NGP-hood. [This is still true now. I don't need this in any way.] But then, shortly after my period ended (the only period that J and I shared, by the way, between her pregnancy with Bram and this pregnancy), I woke up with a strong (STRONG) instinct to try THAT cycle and never again. To try one time. To see how it felt and leave the door open for future tries, but mostly: to offer my body to the universe for this purpose one time and then let it go for once and for all. I called J at work a few hours into the day, and she (bless her consummately supportive self) quickly agreed. She’d called our nurse practitioner and our sperm bank by the time she came home that day. It was one of the most spontaneous things we’ve ever done.

• Those two weeks were great. One of the things I wanted out of this try was to see if we were able to be laid back, happy people about it. To make the try as close to a moment of reckless, playful, forgot-to-use-protection sweetness as possible given our, you know, lesbianism. I wanted to know if it could feel fun. I was so worried and stressed and frantic about getting pregnant with Emmett Ever, and we were so grief-stricken when we were trying to make Bram. I wanted to see if we could enjoy just playing around, giving the universe an open door, but being okay whether the universe took it or not. And we nailed it. We had a blast. We dreamed of a baby that could come of that experience, but we didn’t do it with desperation. We were playful.

• The insemination followed suit: intimate, casual, sexy. We put Bram to bed, J made a little nest on the living room floor, and our nurse practitioner stopped by. J did almost everything. It was magical. I had no real expectations, which was so nice. We actually had fun. This, by the way, is why we’re calling this baby Love Child. Yogi’s mama knew we were trying, and she called any baby that came from this try “a little a love child,” and we adored that. Love Child. Yes.

• The next day, I felt hopeful and peaceful, which was surprising to me (the peaceful part, at least). I had expected to be anxious (nervous whether or not I was conceiving), but I just wasn’t. But I also felt strongly that I never wanted to try again. We had had such a lovely IUI, but I didn’t need it at all, and I sort of didn’t want to push further, if that makes sense. I told J that this was my only try, and she was completely supportive. I felt excited for the two-week-wait because I felt that it could be the last two weeks of my life when I might be pregnant; I wanted to enjoy it. Anyway, it was a sweet day. But, though we didn’t know it, my dad fell that day. And when he went to bed that night, he would never wake up.

• We got the call the next morning, and we rushed to him. There was a moment when the rest of my family went to move their cars while I followed two nurses and my dad from the ICU to hospice. It was just us. I told them we’d just tried to conceive because I wanted to tell my dad, and because I was struggling to make sense of the timing. They were kind. And as we moved through the hallways, his bed in front of me, I put my hand on my belly and wished there was a baby there. Someone to make this make sense. Please be here with me now. It was the one and only time I wished fiercely for a particular outcome (instead of just surrendering to the experience).

• In the days between when my dad died and his funeral, I became increasingly convinced that I was pregnant. I was sure when I gave my dad’s eulogy. Not sure in a willful way, but just sure. I told J sometimes, but I tried not to be too confident out loud. I knew that with my dad dying, I would sound crazy, desperate. And I didn’t feel that way. I just felt sure of that little being. Sure that s/he was with me and my dad when I was saying goodbye. [Incidentally, I don't remember ever feeling confident during my pregnancy with Emmett. Deeply desirous, but not confident.]

• This Sunday, J, Bram, and I spent a gorgeous afternoon together. A long walk that ended at the pharmacy to buy pregnancy tests, followed by a delicious dinner. Lots of laughter and sunshine. We had agreed to test Monday morning, but I didn’t want that: the tense waiting, the expectation. I knew what it would say (as insane as that must sound), and I wanted it to be on that gorgeous day, not in the morning, not rushed. So when she took B up for his bath, I tested. Then I ran up the stairs to show her.

• So that’s the story so far. I don’t have a worried feeling, but I could be wrong. A dear friend said, “you know, sometimes souls just head up, and then bounce right back down again.” I don’t know that I believe in that exactly, but it’s the sweetest thing to imagine that my dad is a part of this child. It’s not the tribute to him that I always wanted – that I always thought we’d find only through adoption – but it feels like the loveliest tribute nevertheless. We’re leaving our profile up at our agency because, of course, this little one could not stay. It’s early days. And even when it’s not, there will be higher risks. We wouldn’t want to leave the agency if we didn’t have to. Only time will tell, and we like open doors better than closed ones. But it feels good. It feels sweet and right in a strange, grief-stricken, peaceful, almost wholesome way. Our little Love Child, who we invited in but didn’t beg.

• Oh, and about timing. We probably conceived on the day my dad fell. And this child is due on November 21st, 2013: one year to the day after Saul came into the world. Our second trimester begins on May 10th, which is the day I defend my dissertation, and ends on my mama’s birthday. This baby has our kind of timing.

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.

photo challenge, 3

Clouds.

Taken at the end of our little block, on a much needed family walk last night. (Which felt like a Friday night though it was Wednesday, so long and trying has this week been).

* Having been privileged to watch her change and grow into herself as a person and a parent, I loved J’s post yesterday. I won’t say it’s always been easy to be married to each other through so much growth, but it is rewarding in immeasurable ways. I hope we get to be old people together, looking back on the pain and joy with equal respect and appreciation.

* I’ve thought several times about writing a post explaining why I love wearing my son – why, especially as a non-gestational parent, babywearing is so critical to me – but I’ve never known just what to say. It’s always felt a little ineffable. With the exception of his first two or three days, I’ve worn Bram every day of his life, and for many, many hours. Though we’re transitioning to back carries more and more, as often as not I still wrap him tightly to my chest, and I love the feeling of his breath against my chest, his heart beating against my heart beating. Though I ache by the end of each day (my son is not small, and I am not big), I plan on doing this until he self-weans off of wraps, which I hope he won’t do for a long, long time. It’s such a small period of time, the years when our children are small enough to be secured to our bodies. A blink, I’m guessing, and I don’t want to miss a moment of it. It makes him visibly happy, and it seems to make him feel safe, sure of me, sure he is loved. When he’s tired, it’s the quickest way to soothe him: sometimes he’s sleeping even before I finish tying the wrap. Other times, he’ll pull back so that he’s staring straight into my eyes, his face only inches from mine. Sometimes, he’ll even lean forward and put his lips on mine before settling back in with his head to my chest. When I badly sprained my ankle on our vacation last month, wearing Bram was my first thought: I can’t have broken it because I can’t not wear him. But I’ve never had quite the language to say why it matters so much to me. Beautifully, Cricket’s mama has written a stunning post about just that: why babywearing, for non-gestational parents, can be so powerful. Here are her words, which describe my heart.

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!!!