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!!!

.life is good.

Five things that I really like about my life today:

- R is taking the boy to his first story time at the public library this afternoon (it’s a baby “lapsit” program). I’m bummed that I can’t attend with them, as I’m at work, but I’m so stoked that they’re able to go. My mom used to be the story time lady at my elementary school, so I’m extremely partial to this practice.

- The first 100-mile Farmer’s Market of the season is this evening at our Co-op. Plus, our regular city farmer’s market starts up this coming Saturday, and our organic CSA starts in three weeks!

- Bram has taken to sitting in his bumbo in the middle of the dining room table while we eat lunch and dinner these days. He watches us so intently while we eat. He’s even reached out for things here and there, and, though he’s too young for any solids yet, we’re stoked to think that he will be an “enjoyer” of food!

- We’re in the process of hiring a part-time, in-home sitter for Bram so that R can actually have dedicated time for dissertating. The young woman that we’re hiring is a talented, enthusiastic musician who is fluent in ASL. We’re so excited that she’ll sing and sign with B. Also, she’s totally happy to accommodate our attachment parenting/cloth diapering lifestyle. We’re also stoked because she’ll be coming over one evening a month so that R and I can have a genuine grown-ups date night! Yay!

- I feel like I’m really hitting my stride with this parenthood thing. It’s the hardest job I’ve ever had, but I think that B is thriving and R and I are strong and connected. B changes everyday. Last week, he decided that bedtime should be around 8pm every evening, so we’ve been enjoying the transition of having an actual evening to ourselves. He’s usually up twice in the night to eat, but he’s so damn sleepy and cuddly that I actually find myself waking up before him in the night, listening for his cues so that we can snug together. He has a new lovey, lapinos the french bunny (featured in the photo below). We think he’s likely teething, as he wants to munch on e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g and he drools like a mastiff puppy. He can sit up with only the slightest parental support. He will not let us wean him from his night swaddler yet, so we’ve stopped trying for the time being.

Mostly, all of this is to say that this kid is awesome, my wife is awesome, and this life is beyond my wildest imaginings. I am truly grateful.

 

doors

I closed the door last night to the last classroom I’ll probably ever teach in at this university.

I’ve taught a class a semester here for four years. As I turned off the lights and pulled the door closed in an empty building (I collected essays until 9:15 last night, so I think I was the last instructor there), I reflected on what these past four years have meant to me. When I came to this town, I had only been studying literature for three years, and had only taught for one. I knew I wanted a transatlantic focus, and that postcolonial studies spoke to me, but I was intimidated – completely baffled, really – at the thought of making my own narrow way through such broad spaces. Everything felt new, on the brink. J and I were committed, but not yet engaged. We’d yet to grieve Charleston. To find this little cottage. To find our footing as partners. To meet our wonderful wonderful friends. To sit in silence – in a room full of our loved ones – promising to always uphold each other. To honeymoon in Boston. To be nearly run off a mountain for being gay in rural Ohio. To get pregnant. To lose E. To get pregnant again. To bring our son into the world. J didn’t have an MA or a passion for doula work. We didn’t know I had Graves’ Disease or Factor V Leiden. I’d yet to hear Jack Halberstam speak and feel the puzzle pieces of my scholarship click into place. We had no idea what terrible gardeners we’d become. I’d only just started learning to cook. We couldn’t fathom how deeply we’d love parenting.

When we first got the offer here, we weren’t sure we’d come. I also got a funded offer from SUNY Stony Brook, which houses a higher-ranked program. My mentors in Charleston felt strongly that SUNY’s was the offer to accept. But J and I had a hunch, an instinct, that this was the place for us. So I called the man who would become my dissertation director (though we didn’t know it at the time). Then we packed up everything we owned in a u-haul, put the cats in a carrier on the seat between us, and drove across the country towards a small city we’d never been to before.

Now here we are. I closed that door last night and began to face the prospects of a whole year with no teaching. The last year of a long road of formal education. I found out last week that in addition to the internal dissertation fellowship, I will also receive an AAUW (American Association of University Women) fellowship starting in June. For me, this is a big deal. This is a dream. The AAUW has been funding women in higher education since 1888. They’ve funded some pretty amazing women doing some pretty remarkable things. I’m blown away to be in that kind of company. Truly: aside from my ongoing struggles with medical anxieties and an autoimmune disorder – both of which I’m trying to cure – my life is pretty much perfect. I’ve been striving for so much for so long, and now I’m surrounded by the things I’ve wanted. And you know what? Now that those things are here, they’re even better than I’d imagined.

As I type this – green tea at my side and rain falling steadily from a gray sky outside – Bram is upstairs taking one of his very.few.ever crib naps. (I know I should be doing the laundry, babe. I’m sorry.) We got to spend lots of time this week with our dear C (Kippie), and having her here makes all three of us happier. She even brought us some of this year’s first crop of asparagus, and you know how I feel about that. My mom’s coming on Friday, and we’re planning a trip (B’s first time on the road!) to visit lots of J’s family this summer. It isn’t that things are easy. Really, they’re hard. My writing schedule for the next year is intense. I just finalized the plan last night, and I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me. We need to find in-home childcare we can trust for about eight hours a week, and that’s daunting. Being back at work is hard on J, and though I love doing it, being home alone with B for forty hours a week is tough. We’re both exhausted. But it’s an exhaustion born not of grief, nor of longing, but of doing what we’ve desperately wanted to do. It’s an exhaustion of life coming together.

Now a few photos of that life.

First, Bram and Ramona at three months. He’s not one of those constantly-smiling babies, but he’ll give you one if you earn it, and gods they’re worth the world:

B and his dearest friend. He loves that boy madly:

Bram in Aunt Kippie’s arms:

Sitting up for peace:

B now joins us for family dinners:

I hope this spring is treating all of you kindly. I’m as grateful as ever for this community.

 

imagination

I have posts to write. Things I want to share. Questions for you all, explorations, photographs. And I’ll get to all of that soon, I promise. But today, J sent me an e-mail entitled “My Perfect Day,” and tonight she gave me permission to share [most of] it with you. This isn’t a real day, not one we’ve lived nor one we are likely to live any time soon. It’s just my wife’s current imagined ideal. There’s so much between these lines. So much implied with each sentence, each desire. That this is my wife’s fantasy day is so lovely. What a wonderful creature I’ve married.

A few things to note before reading:

- “G” is a little baby to whom J is currently donating milk. His mom has had a rough time.

- In my wife’s fantasy day, SHE makes breakfast and does the dishes. Adorable.

- Oh, for an afternoon stroller (and not in-arms) nap. This WILL happen, right?

- No neighborhood lawn boy – Skip or otherwise – weeds our lawn. If anyone knows of a Skip, though…

- In J’s fantasy day, she has found us an imaginary babysitter [so far we've only left B once, and that was with extremely trusted friends] who both adores Bram AND plays with the cats. The degree to which our cats are neglected haunts me MUCH more than it haunts her. J’s inclusion of this one detail lets me know how much she loves me.

- Does a gluten-, soy-, and dairy-free dessert even exist? If so, someone should make it for us.

- In her fantasy, our boy is sleeping in a sleep sack, which means we’ve successfully weaned him off of swaddling. Gods bless her for imagining us on the other side of this process.

- Finally, how adorable is my wife?!?

I wake up of my body’s own accord at 8:00 in the morning. Bram is still asleep in his crib from the night before. At this point, he’s clocked nine hours, so I know it will be over an hour before he’s awake. I stretch out and open my eyes. R’s warm, sleeping body is curled up next to me. Sunlight is streaming in from the sides of the blinds. Both cats are curled in a warm, contented ball at the foot of the bed.

I get out of bed quietly; careful not to disturb my sleeping family. I creep downstairs, open the blinds, turn on the monitor, and pump. Because Bram is sleeping through the night, I’m able to pump 10 ounces in 15 minutes. It feels good to pump. I can make a big weekend bottle for Bram and two freezer bags for G. Then I get started on breakfast. I know that R doesn’t like overly complicated foods first thing, so I make a simple egg scramble with hash browns and gluten free toast. There’s fresh-squeezed juice and freshly brewed coffee (with real local cream for Renee and coconut milk creamer for me). I set the table with placemats and napkins, and I cut a quick bouquet of flowers from the garden for the center of the table. I turn on NPR very quietly in the background. The morning sun is warm and relaxing. All feels right in our tiny cottage.

First, I hear R stirring. I can almost hear the contentedness of her slowly coming out of sleep, stretching out in the bed, realizing there are good smells coming from downstairs. A few minutes later, I hear her soft footsteps on the stairs. Her sleepy smile and bedhead are just too cute. She’s so excited about breakfast, about the boy’s good sleep, and about the day ahead of us. We leisurely eat and dress. Eventually, Bram begins to stir. I go to him and we have a nice morning nurse. R gets him changed and dressed for the day while I attend to the morning dishes and the laundry.

By 10am we are all fed, dressed, and ready to go. We head out to the Farmer’s Market where we pick up the week’s delicious CSA (lots of hearty kale, heirloom tomatoes, a load of fresh spinach, carrots, peppers, and radishes). We stroll around the market carefully selecting delicious food for the week’s menu. We visit with friends. Bram takes it all in riding around on R’s chest. He seems to delight in all of the sounds and colors and smells. On our way home from the market, we stop by the co-op to finish off our week’s shopping. After the yield at the market, we only need a few items. We pick-up treats for the afternoon and I notice that three more strips have been taken off of the doula flyer that I hung last month. As I already have two families on my docket, this could be the third family that I need for certification. I’m feeling really good about this new path.

After the co-op, we head home. Bram has some nursing while R puts together sandwiches and huge salads for lunch. After lunch, I clear the dishes while R and Bram begin some floor time. Bram’s gotten so good at rolling over and grabbing his toys. He’s started to vocalize a lot more now, and we really feel like he’s grasping the baby signs that we’re teaching him. It seems like we’re on the verge of some big “firsts.” The three of us enjoy stories, toys, kisses, and songs together. When we can tell that he’s getting sleepy, we head outside. Bram has gotten comfortable taking his long afternoon nap in the stroller, so R pushes him all around while I go for my run. We’re out and about for well over an hour. The weather is beyond perfect. We see so many of our neighborhood friends playing with their families, as well. Life is good. 

Bram is so asleep when we get back from our walk that he lets us put him down in the Mamaroo. We’re both able to finish our respective workouts before Skip (yes, Skip) the neighborhood lawn boy comes over to garden for us. We give Skip thirty dollars knowing that our whole garden will be mowed, edged, weeded, and otherwise perfected by dinnertime.

R and I take turns showering and being with the boy. By 6pm, we’re both cleaned up, Bram has been nursed and changed, and there are two fresh bottles for him in the fridge. Our loving and trusted sitter arrives in time for our date night. We feel incredibly safe about leaving Bram with her. They have a good relationship and we can always tell that Bram has been well-cared for when we come home to him. She even does the dishes and plays with the cats while Bram sleeps. She’s a Godsend and we always fall over ourselves trying to pay her more money, which she will only reluctantly accept.

It’s 6:30pm and Renee and I are out on the town. We have dinner reservations at [a restaurant we love but really can't afford] to properly fete our recent accomplishments. The dinner is perfect, candlelit, and intimate. We both love our food and our gluten, soy, dairy free dessert. We arrive at the movie theater (for a movie we’re both excited to see) with enough time to take pictures in the photo booth. The movie is good. Really good. And by 9:30, we’re feeling connected, relaxed, and like no-one has leaked any bodily fluids on us for over three hours. We’re so excited to see Bram that we talk about him the whole ride home. When we arrive, the sitter is feeding him the last half of his second bottle. He’s got that glazed over sleep look in his eyes. She recounts the fun they’ve had, we pay her well, and say goodnight.

Together, we get him into his sleep sack, rock him and sing to him, and put him (fast asleep) into his crib in our room for another great night’s sleep. It’s only 10:30pm at this point. R and I are feeling rested and connected and excited to be alone together. … We go to sleep so excited to meet tomorrow.

.on getting here.

“So I know it’s just a spring haze
But I don’t much like the look of it
And all we do is circle it
And I found out where my edge is
And it bleeds into where you resist
And my only way, way out is to go
So far in” — “Spring Haze” (Tori Amos)

This post has nothing and everything to do with parenting. This is a subject that has been the work of a strenuous inner-dialogue, though it’s the first time that I’ve written anything publicly on the matter.

The day that my maternity leave ended, a large road construction project began smack dab in the middle of my route to work. As such, I’ve had to take a longer detour into the office each morning. Along this detour, I pass a settlement of recovery houses by the side of the road. The whole mismatched complex boasts the sign, “Serenity House” at the entrance. From what I can make of it, there are two residential houses with satellite trailers sprinkled on the grounds. Each morning when I pass (a few minutes before 8am), there are small throngs of folks hanging out at picnic tables outside. They are mostly scruffy smokers, some young, some old. There are a number of questionable fashion choices and scraggly haircuts. For some reason, seeing this sight in the morning (maybe because it’s early and I’m still very tired) brings about in me an extremely visceral reaction.

The reaction comes from the truth that I used to be one of those people. For years. This isn’t something that I talk about a lot anymore. To be honest, I’m not sure it’s a topic I’ve ever touched on this blog. In my teens and early-twenties, I had a serious alcohol and drug problem. I first got clean at 17, relapsed at 20, got sober again at 21, and have been clean since then (over eight years). My “program of recovery” has evolved to look very different from the 12-step prescription that’s so prevalent in America today. I don’t go to meetings, have a sponsor, or believe in an interventionist god. I’ve done all of those things in the past, and they were helpful in their own way, but the dogma couldn’t overcome the lack of authenticity that I found in myself in that space. For me, and I can only speak from my personal experience, the constant attention to the problems of my past (and other people’s chaotic lives) kept me in a sick spiral. Breaking out of that mode of thinking about recovery, like breaking out of the cycle of addiction, has been one of the most formative intrapersonal experiences of my adult life.

I find that this topic ruffles a lot of feathers within the structured recovery community. It’s never my intention to offend, but I can’t help but think that the subject upsets people because it casts a little grey area on the black and white rhetoric of 12-step programs. The bent is usually something to the effect of, “those who don’t go to meetings are dry drunks who will use again.” Nothing in life is that clear cut. I value my sobriety. I value my formative years in a structured program of recovery. But now, I value the time and energy that it takes to attend to the life I’ve built out of that recovery. Perhaps that’s a selfish conclusion (i.e., I’m not paying forward the time and attention given me by others). Still, I feel that the life I lead today best enables me to be of service and love to my wife, our son, my friends, parents, and colleagues.

When I sit back and think about what it took for me to get here, I’m floored by the complexity of my experience. While I hit a low “bottom” when I was actively using, I think that I sustained more unhealthy behaviors and relationships over time in recovery than at any other point in my life. Some of this was the by-product of getting sober so young, but some of it is what happens when sick members justify the behavior of other sick members. Dis-ease breeds dis-ease. This was by no means my across the board experience, so I don’t mean to sound petty. I was also inspired to new levels by many of the friends I’ve made in my years in recovery. There are some beautiful, healthy, intimate, vulnerable, loving people out there. And I’ve had the good fortune to share the road with many of them during some difficult times. That said, I haven’t found 12-step programs to be the magic bullet promised. I’m always striving for authenticity, which is fluid, not prescriptive. It’s like the dilemma in R’s last post about food: How do we strive toward higher ideals without sacrificing our critical thinking?

I don’t have the answers to that question, but I’m learning to trust my intuition more readily. I can make healthy choices for myself and my family. I can eat cleaner, locally grown foods. I can parent my child openly and actively. I can protect and strengthen my marriage each day. I can make smart choices of how to spend my time, money, and energy. I can find a way to work for myself while empowering other people. I can fight for my civil rights. I can strive to be a better friend and a better daughter. I can choose to tell the truth. I can choose to amend my behavior. I can choose to accept and love myself as a whole and unique person. I don’t think it’s true humility to walk through each day thinking of oneself as an emotionally diseased person who must submit their agency, as one is not to be “trusted.” I want to find my humility in reverence to life, to nature, and to the experience of love. I don’t need religion for that. And, I find, that as I strive for these goals, I’m able to measure myself by the yardstick of my own life. I spent much of my young life fruitlessly comparing myself to others. Inevitably, I always prided myself on my seeming superiority or chastised myself for my seeming inferiority. But when I take myself on my own terms, I can see the ways in which I have already outpaced my best self of last year. And I hope that I’ll be able to say the same thing with each subsequent year. Mostly, I don’t want to quell that deep inner voice with the thunderous pronouncements of external direction. If I want to teach my children that they need to learn and follow their own internal compass, then I have to be willing to lead by example.

All of this is just to say that I’m the most satisfied that I’ve ever been. Not because everything has fallen into place, not because I’ve solved all of the conflicts in my relationships, and certainly not because I think I have the answers, but because I am slowly surrendering what I think I “know” to what I actually need.

the other side

I recently received a comment that meant a great, great deal to me. I first planned to respond only to the woman who wrote it, but since part of what I love about this community is its ability to reach out to people we don’t even know are reading (this woman, L, has been reading Breaking Into Blossom for awhile, but I never knew), I thought I’d share my response here. L wrote that she and her partner also lost a daughter during pregnancy, that though she wants to desperately, she will not be able to carry again, and that they are switching to her partner’s body. She wrote that she has no fears about her ability to bond with a child coming to her in this new way, but that she’s heartbroken about all of the experiences she’s losing out on: the kicks, the nursing, the whole bodily deal. She wants to know how I have grieved this. What’s hurt. What’s helped.

This is a somewhat unusual subject position (a lesbian who wants to carry as much or more than her partner, but can’t). Until L contacted me, I’ve only known of two other women who share it, both of whom I’ve come into contact with via this blog. I’ll offer L – and anyone else who’s interested – my thoughts here, but if you’re out there, and you’re in this position, I’d love to hear what you think. How you’ve made peace with the loss you’ve faced (your child or children, your fertility, your bodily trust). Please share anything you feel safe sharing in the comments section of this post, or, if you have a blog, let us know so we can tune in. I think this conversation is worth having.

The infertility piece itself is one thing, and it’s a thing that deserves more attention. We should be talking about infertility a lot more than we are. Still, support is out there. I’ve wanted to get an infertility awareness ribbon for the blog for awhile now, but I haven’t known if it was right for me to do so. In my case, I could technically try again. I had a relatively easy time getting pregnant. They think there’s only around a 1 in 3 chance of what happened to Emmett happening again. Only, I’m still heartbroken over our little girl. I always will be. I can’t get behind 1 in 3; not where there are other paths. And with the thyroid disease that has surfaced since (as a result of?) my pregnancy, doing so feels dangerous. Pregnancy hormones wreck havoc on women with autoimmune disease. And what I want more than I want to carry is to raise Bram. To raise other children. So I never know whether what I have counts as infertility. I’m making this choice. What I do know is that the longing doesn’t go away. At least not for me, and at least not so far. I don’t even know that it’s gotten better. I do think, though, that I’ve made space for it, allowed that it will always be a part of me. It’s started to feel familiar. There’s an odd comfort in that.

The NGP experience, for a person who has struggled with this longing, is bittersweet. I compare it to adoption in my mind a lot, both because that’s where many heterosexual couples turn when they face what I’ve faced and because that’s where I hope we’ll turn for our next child. On the one hand, you get so many of the experiences that adoptive parents don’t necessarily get. I did J’s insemination, so I am as responsible for why B is who B is as much as J, or as our donor. A different moment or different pressure would have made a different child. And the memories of this pregnancy are so, so sweet to me. That first faint line, and the buzzing I felt in those early days. The protectiveness that sprang up in me. Nursing J through morning sickness. Watching the baby grow inside the woman I love most in the world. Cooking them nutritious food. Attending every single midwife appointment, and hearing all those heartbeats. All those heartbeats. The ultrasounds. The kicks, which I started to feel only one week after J. The reading and the singing to the belly. Those sweet hours in bed with my hand so close to his body. Just layers of beloved flesh away from my beloved son. The labor preparation, and the labor, and the believing my wife when she says that I was pivotal all those hours. Catching my son. Being the first person to touch him. Holding him when he took his first breath. These memories are the sweetest of my life. The level best. They are such a part of my love for him that I know I’ll mourn them deeply if we get to adopt our next child. In this way, queerness becomes a sparkling privilege, one unbeatable ability that outshines all of the rights we’re denied. If one womb falters, for whatever reason, there may be another womb there waiting. J and I were a team in making our children, and I feel with all of my body that we share them both equally. I know she mourns E as much as I do. I know B is as much my son.

But there’s another side to these moments, which is watching your beloved experience each and every moment of something you wish you could do. Watching her feel those first kicks. Watching her grow. Watching strangers congratulate her (leaving you completely out of the conversation even when they know you’re together). Noting her cravings and aversions. Learning about labor with her in spaces that make it clear that you’re very much secondary. Watching her labor with, and then deliver, your child, and feeling none of the pain. Being surprised that you don’t feel the pain. There’s privilege here, but the intimacy of being oh-so-close to pregnancy, and yet not being pregnant, is not without deep sorrow. I often think I had to grieve my infertility more fully as a result of J’s pregnancy. Had we gone straight to adoption, there’s so much I would never have seen, never have known I was missing. All that beauty would have been enough out of my reach that it just might never have haunted me. It did haunt me, though, and it made every second of J’s pregnancy complex. Neither of us could just revel in the glory of it. It was all double-edged, even for her, which broke my heart. We’ve had to grieve that too: that trust. That simple excitement.

If you might occupy this subject position in the future, you should know that the pain you’ll likely feel will be pretty much invisible. Even more so than infertility or pregnancy loss, and those are pretty invisible too. Very few (deeply empathic) people in your life will understand the complexity that is a subsequent pregnancy, not of your body. People will be insensitive, not because they’re cruel but because the subject position will be so far outside of what they can grasp. If your partner struggles with pregnancy (if the hyper-femininity of that subject position is foreign to her), you’ll have to work through that too. You’ll have to sympathize with her, stay compassionate about the parts of pregnancy that are daunting to her, all the while struggling to put down your own jealousy. There will likely be much talk about irony. You will both feel hurt and isolated sometimes.

So that’s some of what you might face. How you get through it, though? I don’t know. I can tell you what I’ve done. I’ve searched for power in the loss, in the vulnerability. I’ve come to understand that this (my infertility) was the only path to this child, and I will say this: this child is the most incredible creature I have ever known. I don’t believe in destiny, but I can’t imagine a wider joy than being my son’s mother. For this reason, I can’t wish away a moment of what it took to get here. I’ve also investigated the assumptions I held about womanhood, and I’ve let lots and lots of them go. I’ve noticed, from this place, how left out fathers and other NGPs are from the pregnancy and birth experience, and I’ve become an activist in that arena. J and I have stretched and grown into roles we weren’t sure we’d be any good at filling. As a result, we’ve discovered that our capacities far exceed what we assumed them to be. She found her female body empowering for the first time in her life. That’s just huge. And I found deep pleasure in nurturing both of them, which I could not have done if I’d had the inherent self-absorption of pregnancy. J found a calling: she’s attending doula training now, and she wants to become an advocate for LGBT parents. To offer consultations, family-inclusive childbirth classes, and doula services. And I found a calling, too, in advocating not just for NGPs but for a redefinition of family that is not about blood. I am passionately devoted to undermining the weight those around me place on biology. Family is about so much more.

I think it would be easy to miss all of the unexpected beauty this experience stands to offer. To stay in the hurt, the resentment, the bitterness so that your eyes are closed to all that you’re being handed. Sometimes I’ve done that, and I think that’s okay. More often, though, I’ve rediscovered myself. I’m proud of who I’ve become through all of this. When I first lost E, I felt like less of a woman. Now I feel like more of one: I am resilient, adaptive, and generous. I am open to vulnerability. I hope that if you’re reading this, and you share this position, you’re able to find a path through that brings you more fully into yourself. I hope that you find a path to motherhood that is full of more joy than you ever could have imagined, even if that joy comes alongside sorrow. And if you ever want to talk, please seek me out. It can be lonely work, this grief business. I’m here if you need a friend.

.what could have been.

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

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

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

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

                                                         This boy LOVES his Saturday tub bath!

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

three weeks with an abby-bear

• They say (those who research such things) that it takes twenty-one days to make a habit. If this is right, J and I are now in the habit of parenting Bram. And there may be something to this, as I feel like we’re finding our stride as a family. Learning each other. Learning ourselves in these new roles. What a life changing three weeks it has been. Also, this just in: we have a three-week-old son!

• I started teaching again on Tuesday night. I cried all the way to campus. Then I got over myself. I’d love to take a few years off with this boy, but I can’t. And, I mean, you can’t really have everything you want. What I do have is a super flexible schedule and a job that – when I have to be out of the house – is so all-consuming that it’s hard to think about anything else. I always thought I’d raise at least one child I gave birth to. I always thought I’d stay at home for a period of time. But when those were my dreams, I didn’t have this: a rock solid marriage, a son I adore, and a job that I’m good at, that I make a difference in doing. I am one of the lucky ones. This is better than my life would have been if all my first dreams had come true.

• Your comments on our birth story meant a lot. It should have felt (maybe?) strange to send such intimate details out there to be read by strangers, but you don’t feel like strangers. You feel like our people.

• Bram took his first tub bath last night. J got in with him and nursed him throughout, and he LOVED it. We seem to prefer our baby a bit on the unclean side, but it was fun to wash all his bits a bit more officially than one can do with a wet washrag on the changing table. I think we’ll try it again.

• We also started introducing a bottle (of breast milk) yesterday, which was a great success. J is an AMAZING breastfeeding mom, but she’s been feeling a little oppressed by the ever-present necessities of the breast-feeding relationship. I think the occasional bottle will give her just the break she needs, and it was a joy to feed my son for the first time. I cried. Oh, the hormones. If you drive by, you can probably see a cloud of them hanging around our cottage.

• We took our first real outing today: running a few errands on my campus (J and B stayed in the car) and heading to our favorite lunch spot with B’s Aunt Adrienne. It was lovely to see the sunshine together. To see our little town as a family of three. A glimpse of the sweetness to come.

• I’ve thought a lot lately about a phrase Gail used in a post over a First Time Second Time. The phrase – “tilting at windmills” – comes when Gail discusses Lyn’s initial reaction to non-gestational parenthood, “how invisible she felt, how afraid she was for the future, cherishing the process of becoming a mother but feeling left out of it. We talked and talked, because, frankly, that’s what we do. Sometimes I heard her. Sometimes I thought she was tilting at windmills (she wasn’t).” This is the part I love: Sometimes I thought she was tilting at windmills (she wasn’t). I sense that people think I’m doing this. Not so much (though sometimes) J, but some of our friends and family. I think there’s a subtly with which NGPs are left out that’s just invisible if you’ve never been one. Some judgment about how often I’m holding him in our professional photos. A preference for photos with only the two of them. The occasional narrative that (accidentally?) leaves me out, that almost makes it look like J is a single parent. An emphasis on their shared looks (which: boy does our boy favor his mum; it is BEAUTIFUL to see, though threatening). Is it just my insecurity that makes me notice this?

• Things I simply love: Bram’s breath, and the smell of his head. How quiet and sweet he in the morning, and how we share this. How he prefers a cool room to a warm one (my winter boy). Listening to J and B together in the next room. Folding stacks of clean diapers and putting them away again. All of his hand-me-down clothes, and picturing the other kids who wore them. How his big ears get caught on his clothes when I change him. How much eye contact he’s starting to give us. How he loves my singing even though it’s always off-key. Every single second of quiet wakefulness. The new intimacy of co-parenting with J.

• Things I’m looking forward to: Our CSA starting up again. Asparagus season. Taking the boy to this wedding in July (Bram’s Aunt Laura is getting married!). Seeing our nearest Great Lake with him in the spring. Regular outside walks together as soon as it warms up a bit. Traveling back to Charleston in August: B’s first ocean-sighting, peninsula walks, time with our great, great friends there, a visit with his Grandmom Sarah. Heading up to Aunt Kippie’s city for mama’s favorite vegetarian sandwich this side of the U.S./Canadian border. Bram’s first Art Hop. A movie date with my wife in the spring. His first (intentional) smile.

• Oh, and here’s a slideshow of Bram’s newborn photos. Have we mentioned how much we adore our sweet and talented photographer?

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.intimacy.

I’m putting this picture up because I think it best symbolizes what I’m trying to get at in this post: there is definite empowerment to be found in intense vulnerability.

I’ve been feeling a bevy of emotions in recent days and I’m not entirely sure what to do with all of them. On the one hand, I feel like I’m beginning to climb the walls with being home all the time. I feel tethered to Bram because of the breastfeeding relationship, so when I do leave the house to run errands or take a walk I find myself easily panicked and feeling rushed back to home (this is, of course, all self-imposed, as R always does an excellent job of comforting our boy). In my frenetic dashes to be in the outside world, though, I’ve put a bit too much strain on my healing body. It is in the process of telling me to slow the hell down, which I’m working on this weekend.

On the other side of my emotional spectrum, though, I feel like all I want to do is be snugged in close to B taking in all of his sweet little newborn creature-ness. I’m so damn analytical, though, that I have a hard time just resting, finding peace in being laid back, and letting myself totally fall in love with this baby. The vulnerability of this new found intimacy is destabilizing. When I first fell in love with R, my whole world changed in ways similar to this: sleep deprivation, changing priorities, the seeming absence of time. It was different, though, to be having this experience as two adults. We could talk about what was happening, we could rationalize, we could plan (albeit poorly). With a baby, though, it’s the best I can do to surmise his needs in a given moment (hungry, wet, cold, hot, gassy, lonely) and to meet them to the best of my abilities. R and I can communicate with one another throughout this process, but B and I are just beginning to develop our lines of communication. It’s terrifying to 1) love someone this small this much, 2) feel 50% responsible for his well-being, and 3) not be able to guarantee his safety in the world.

I find myself having lots of dreams where I can’t find the baby or he’s hurt. I wake up panicked and rushing to his crib to be sure he’s safe and sound. I recognize that some of this is the by-product of sleep deprivation, but, I suspect, a lot of it is the process of my subconscious making peace with this level of vulnerability in the world. The early parenting experience has certainly ripped away another layer of the illusion that I move through the world with. This will be, in the long run, a positive thing. After all, what’s true is always already true. Denial doesn’t change that. Still, I find myself longing for a little bubble that I can keep him in…just for now…

n.b. We’re dilligently working on our birth story, so that should be up in a few days.