Lightning in a Bottle

To borrow someone else's words...

2009-04-23T07:58:00.000-07:00

...and her much prettier voice.

Sometimes it's yes to a different question.

2009-04-02T22:22:00.000-07:00

When asking for God's will, I'm not always prepared for that answer. Sometimes I wish he spoke more clearly, louder and perhaps considered using those electronic road signs.

It became increasingly clear my marriage and home weren't safe places for me recently, nor appropriate for the children. I can't go into detail here, but sometimes the answer isn't what we first think.

As I left to give some time and space, the peace that entered my heart was surprising. I'm upset, saddened and dreading the battle ahead but I know I'm taking steps in the right direction.

I just wish it didn't hurt so much.

Sometimes he says yes

2009-03-23T16:12:00.000-07:00

"Please, God," I said, "I need your help. This is so much bigger than me, I can't carry it any more and I don't know what to do. I don't want to lose my husband, my family, and I don't know how to fix this. I want your will, and I'm desperately hoping that includes keeping my family together. I trust you, I need you and I can't do this without you."

I stayed on my knees for over an hour, sobbing and praying. The words, like my emotions and face, were messy and raw. It was a conversation long overdue, like many I've had recently.

For too long I've failed to ask for what I need and be honest about what's happening. With God, my husband, my family, my self. It's all come out now and there is some relief to be had in that, but there is no missing the fact the mess would be smaller and the repercussions less devastating had I only spoken sooner about so many things.

Our financial health is a mess at this point, thanks to a series of bad mistakes and decisions on my part as well as a lack of communication. For too long I've been hesitant, reluctant and downright afraid to have the hard conversations with the people I've owed the information to. Different decisions could and should have been made, and now the mess is bigger than it had to be. While I feel bad about asking God directly for money, I'm hoping we can improve our situation professionally and improve our personal situation as well. We have a hole to dig out of. Prayers for financial stability and recovery for ourselves and those we are responsible to would be deeply appreciated.

My physical health could be worse, and I'm fortunate in many ways, but I am not well. The time I spent ill last year, my lack of sleep and the stress of carrying many burdens without talking about them to the people who most needed to know has created some problems. I am anemic, my blood counts are not where they should be and several items tested were "off." Ultimately it boils down to not taking time to heal, and severe stress and anxiety. I'm having heart palpitations, sweats, fevers, and panic attacks. My lymph nodes are huge and I have recently been told I have a large cyst on my ovary, while still dealing with the interstitial cystitis. On the upside, I'm significantly closer to my goal weight, having lost an incredible amount of weight in a short time. Not in the proper way, I'm afraid - lack of proper sleep, having to force myself to eat, pacing and a racing heart have been the major contributors to my weight loss. Ultimately, weighing less will be a good thing and if I can get my anemia resolved and my energy level up I can actually exercise, which would be great stress relief and potentially help with my depression as well. I am hoping the recent events leading to full disclosure will ultimately lead to a reduction in my anxiety, but we have a lot of work to do to get things where they need to be so I don't anticipate the anxiety to abate immediately. I'm asking God for physical healing, and would appreciate your thoughts and prayers in that direction as well.

Mentally and emotionally, I've been barely holding my head above the surface for some time and I've finally reached the point of really losing it I am afraid. I'll be okay, eventually, and I have no intentions of doing anything foolish or permanent so I don't want to cast any doubts in that direction. I will admit there are times in the last few days I have hummed "they're coming to take me away.." but I am notorious for making terrible jokes when I feel at my worst. It didn't help matters to find the wheels falling off the cart and see my husband take his wedding ring off just days after the two year anniversary of my brother's murder. It has been a hard, difficult time and some have said I am holding it together but the only people who think that are those who are not looking closely enough.

There has been a bit of relief in the disclosure, more in the conversation held several days after I thought my marriage might really be ending when it was decided that we really are going to try to work things through. It would not have been my decision to divorce, but there were several days when it appeared that would be what my husband wanted. There's still a long road, a deep hole and much work to be done.

Part of that process is going to involve an attempt to return to working full time outside the home. I'll miss the days with my children, more than I can express, but keeping our family intact is more important. Somewhere along the way, I lost myself. The decision for me to stay home was mutual, but I have realized staying home altered my position in the relationship - at times making me feel as if I were a lesser partner. My contributions to our family are valuable, but harder to measure. As my husband was the one working full-time out side the home, and I was working part time but falling further behind in that work, I became more and more reluctant to have the hard conversations with him about finances choosing instead to juggle instead of saying "we can't do X." My guilt over our situation and what I wasn't disclosing led me to also swallow other things that bothered me, creating a situation in our relationship where I rarely talked about what bothered me.

I'm working on being healthier in a lot of ways. Another of those will be to pursue something of my very own outside of the house, not just in terms of a career but also a creative/social outlet. I have the best friends in the world, many of them living way too far away, but I rarely make a point to see even those who live across town. I allowed myself to feel so badly about how far behind I was in my work that I felt guilty even scheduling get togethers for a couple of hours, knowing there were other things I should do. I haven't been living my life, and it's time to change that.

In all of this, I am talking - finally talking. To God, my husband, my friends and trying to finally work through all of this. There are many, many things I feel grateful for including another chance..

I asked God if he would hold our marriage and family in his hands and help us work through this, if he would help my husband see we have something worth fighting for....and he said yes.

While we wait for the results...

2009-03-05T19:18:00.000-08:00

...a conversational nugget.

My husband called this afternoon after my appointment with the doctor. I told him the doctor had ordered quite a bit of bloodwork, told him some of the possibilities and that we'd know more on Monday.

Then he asked me if it was possible they'd screwed up and taken my bladder instead of my uterus.

Not what happened of course, but it made me laugh.....and made me think for just a moment...

Back to the doctor for me

2009-03-04T16:29:00.001-08:00

I'm not sure what's wrong, which seems to be a recurring theme with me, but I find myself struggling again with feeling crappy. I'm running fevers, having the occasional chill (though those are easier to deal with) and sweats. My skin feels like it's burning, I'm exhausted and run down.

At first I thought it was due to an increase in medication, but now I'm just not so sure. I was told if it was the medication, I was looking at a pretty short adjustment time but this has been going on for weeks. It might be hormonal, but I'm not sure that wouldn't explain actual fevers.

I don't know what's going on, and though I have an appointment with our general doctor tomorrow I'm just not feeling convinced I'm going to come away from the appointment knowing anything more than I do right now. He'll probably order bloodwork, and it will mean more waiting. Hopefully some answers, but my optimism fails me right now.

I just want to feel better.

My parents.

2009-03-02T13:03:00.001-08:00

Twelve years ago, my dad broke his neck. It was an unexpected accident, shocking and overwhelming, but his recovery was nothing short of amazing. He had a tremendous amount of damage to his vertebrae, but none to his spinal cord. After 12 hours of surgery, months in a halo and vest, he was able to go back to work. A portion of his hip bone replaced some of the damaged bone in his neck, and until recently he had no complications from the injury other than slightly decreased range of motion.

Recently, however, we've had some serious scares and it's not over. He'd apparently been having some symptoms for a few months that were put off, until one day he tried to stand and collapsed. It seems there's a problem with one of the discs. I don't understand it fully, but his situation involves a disc out of place, a bruised spinal cord and pinched nerves. If he's to retain his ability to walk, surgery will need to be done. Monday.

Meanwhile, mom is trying to care for him while not well herself. She's fighting the effects of multiple myeloma, a cancer that is currently in remission for her. Her own back is weakened, and while bringing in groceries a couple of weeks ago she fell -breaking her breastplate just above her sternum. A CT scan has shown that there is a fragment behind her sternum and surgery will be needed to remove that fragment before it causes significant problems.

My parents are overwhelmed, scared and struggling to hold it together. There are so many hopes pinned on my dad's surgery. They are fortunate to have good health insurance, but he's been unable to work for several weeks already and in March they will have to pay the premiums themselves. I wish I was in a position to help them financially, but all I can do is lend moral support.

Today my dad called me, seeking a promise that we'll make sure someone stays with mom if the surgery goes south. He's not so much scared for himself, as worried she'll stop taking care of herself. Apparently when he was in the hospital in February, she spent four days not eating ...just laying in bed, crying, drinking soda on occasion.

I worry about them both. I wish life had taken some different turns for them, so that if this was to be the end of my dad's working career he could just retire and they could still make it - but the end of him working would be financially devastating to them, especially because of their health needs and insurance issues.

I keep praying this will all be ok, that they'll both get through this and things will start looking up for them. They had started thinking things were getting a little better for them financially right before this all happened. As long as they have each other, I know they'll find a way to be okay....

The me I used to be

2009-02-21T09:13:00.001-08:00

I can't remember the last time I saw her, face relaxed and smiling, eyes sparkling. I know it was before stress and tension caused the night time teeth grinding and clenching, before it forever changed the line of her jaw into something tight, tense, older looking.

I know she used to laugh more, smile more, and go entire days at a time without feeling as if her stomach were turning inside out. Those wrinkles weren't around her eyes. Tears were almost always close to the surface, but they could just as easily be from laughter, joy or simply being moved as from grief, pain or fear. I know there were times she felt broken, but there were times in between that she either felt whole or felt confident she would be again.

I want to tell her it's going to be okay again. That all this sucks, it really really sucks, but God is there even if he feels far away. That he is carrying her through this even if she feels so weighed down she struggles to lift her legs to climb the stairs. I know she knows the only way out is through, and I watch her struggle to open her mouth to talk about it, watch her struggle to hold it together when it feels as if everything has shattered into a million pieces. I want to remind her she is loved, that there is always hope, and the sun will come up tomorrow even if it's still cold outside.

I watch her grasp at the moments that make her happy - playing with the children, moments of laughter with her husband, and I want to point to those things and say, "see! even with all of this, look at the miracles you hold in your hands. They haven't slipped away yet, you can keep this family together. You can."

I tell her, as much as I can, but I say it softly....for fear that these conversations in the mirror might just really prove that she has cracked once and for all.

glue.

2009-02-20T13:30:00.000-08:00

I keep meaning to update, but the truth of what's going on for us right now is harsh enough without seeing it in writing.

The kids are doing well, for which I am eternally grateful. The rest seems to be falling apart and we're barely holding it together.

The economy stinks and our business is seeing the effects big time, my health is still not right and I'm also fighting the effects of an increased dose of antidepressants in hopes that the bad effects are temporary and the good ones kick in soon.

Mentally it's the worst possible time for me to take on more, but I've had to. I'm lucky to have found two great kids to watch alongside my own for some supplemental income, but at the end of the day I'm absolutely spent. I have no energy left and I can only hope that gets a bit better soon. I think once we hit a groove, it will, but meanwhile I'm treading water. My dad's health issues don't really help matters.

It's not all bad -I love my husband and my children immensely and each day we have found several things to laugh about. I thank God for that, and hope he helps us hold this all together.

A girl and her daddy.

2009-02-11T12:57:00.000-08:00

We now live about a mile from my husband's office, making it easy for him to come home for lunch most days. For the family cook (me) it has meant an adjustment to what lunch means, in general. He'd grown used to leftovers being sent for lunch - complete with a main dish, fruit, vegetable and sometimes even a treat. Meanwhile, it wasn't uncommon for me to fix a mixed plate at home - a bit of cheese, a handful of grapes, some baby carrots and a chunk of cooked chicken or turkey. Sometimes it was just a reheated waffle and some fruit. With all of us eating together, those worlds have collided and the family cook (me) has needed to adjust to being prepared to serve a full meal.

There have been some benefits - leftovers never go to waste now, I've learned to plan for each meal to count at least twice. My husband's wasitline has gotten smaller as he can no longer forget his lunch (conveniently or otherwise) and dash out to the fast food place down the street. Our house is closer than any of them.

There have also been drawbacks. I'm not always in the mood for a full lunch, but the opportunity to sit down as a family has meant that's what I do. I've learned to use the small plate from our set instead of the full dinner plate and that has helped. Our routine is off at times, as often Joseph wants a nap right as daddy is coming home for lunch, and there are days I'd like to put Emily down a bit earlier but she is NOT about to go down for a nap while Daddy is still home for lunch.

The best part, I think, has been the opportunity for the kids to see their dad in the middle of the day. Sometimes he has to work late. At the old house that could easily mean he didn't see them at all that day. This way, he's guaranteed to see them and when they are in good spirits. Well, most of the time. He gets to see how excited they are to see him and he gets to hear my daughter squeal with delight when he opens the garage door. I don't think any of us would trade the newest part of our routine.

Garage door opens, he walks inside. He hears Emily squeal and yell, "hide! hide!" and she races to one of three hiding spots. No matter how I've tried to talk to her about how hide and seek is supposed to work, her next step is usually to yell, "come find me, Daddy!" often followed by "I'm hiding...." and tells him exactly where.

He finds her. They laugh. Then she asks, "will you marry me?"

I don't remember how that last part started, but it's such proof of her love for her Dad.....and it makes them both light up when she asks and he accepts.

No matter how hard things have been around here at times, those moments make my day.

2009-01-29T21:13:00.000-08:00

Where to begin?

Tonight I found myself edgy. Irritable. Stomach cramps sent me running to the bathroom, and then my chest started heaving. I couldn't breathe, wanted to call someone but didn't want to talk. Better still, I didn't know what I'd say when they picked up. I paced my house like a caged animal, not knowing which rooms I'd be walking into or why. Tears streaming down my face and fighting the urge to scream, only because I knew it would wake the children. For the life of me, I didn't know why.

Then it hit me. Hard.

Only and already, a year ago, we took Joseph to the hospital as he struggled to breathe. Watched as they worked on him. Watched and held him as he got a spinal tap and didn't flinch.

It's not that I was unaware of this date looming, though it wasn't a day I had any intentions of observing. I wanted it to fade into the calendar.

I was completely aware of the timing on Tuesday, when I found myself headed to the emergency room with Joseph. My daughter had opened the gate at the top of the stairs to get something from the playroom, and for the first time I'd failed to hear her open the gate - and she'd failed to close it. Joseph fell down our stairs, landing face first on our stone entryway.

My SIL lives between our house and the hospital, so she watched Em as I was in the ER with Joseph. It was just him and me, and that was the only thing allowing me to hold it together. As soon as we were entering the ER, a wave of panic hit. The flashbacks I have anyway were intensified, and they came wave after wave after wave instead of just a few images. I felt like I was drowning, but I had to hold it together for him and I did.

But tonight, my husband is at band practice. The kids are both fine, asleep and we are just past that time of night when it is polite to call. There are people I could call and they would understand, one in particular, but I can't dial the phone. I just can't. I know part of it is because even as bad as this is, I don't want to fully surrender to it. I don't want to feel all over again the fear and the worry and the panic. It's hell, and I just keep reminding myself that it's over. No matter how bad the memories are, they are memories. It isn't happening now. It just feels that way.

Tonight comes down to timing. Not just a date on the calendar, or the coincidence that practice night fell on this night as it did a year ago....that Emily was sleeping and I was trying to rouse Joseph for a feeding.. after he'd gone from seeming fine to seeming lethargic to skipping breaths in such a short, short time. I know that part of why I'm having this breakdown is because I can. There's nobody awake in the house but me, so I don't have to look brave or sane, for that matter. I don't have to pretend to be okay.

At one point I thought I'd set a counseling appointment for this week, but then life got busy and I didn't make it a priority. I should have. I'll probably still call tomorrow to see about next week.

In the meantime, at least typing it out has helped calm me a bit. I still think it's a bit freaky that I forgot long enough to actually wonder WHY I was flipping out. It's almost funny.

Almost.

2009-01-26T13:23:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I wonder how two people can experience the same thing, yet process it so differently. A bit like the joke about having 5 people involved in an auto accident and the police receiving 6 versions, our memory and experience are so easily colored by who we are and where we are in life. I know that, and yet I still sometimes have struggled with how my husband has perceived the last year...longer than that actually....my pregnancy and Joseph's life so far. There are times we talk about what happened and I find myself wanting to yell, "you were there, how could you not know/remember/get this?" A lot of that boils down to his wonderings about why certain things didn't get done or why I'm still recovering. I'm sure, too, that a lot of it has to do with my tendency to minimize how sick and in pain I was. It doesn't help that never once did I say, "I can't do it." I just DID for the most part.

I've been frustrated, feeling like he's handled so much of what happened better than I have. He doesn't have flashbacks or moments when it seems his stomach is caught in his throat. Why? Am I just so poorly equipped to handle all this, that I'm failing miserably while he is not? It seems so unfair. Where is that strength in me? Where are those bootstraps I need to pull myself up?

Occasionally, however, there is a glimpse. A glimpse that maybe at the time he did get it, that maybe he's still processing some of it too.

On the night before Joseph's birthday, I had a horrible dream. One that even now I can't talk about. I can't type it, I haven't told anyone, I just know the root of the dream is tied to all the days of fearing we'd lose him, the times we came close, everything we went through. The next morning, my husband said, "I had an awful dream."

It wasn't the same as mine in detail, but the root was the same. So very tied to our fears and the realization that he's ok.

I would have never wished a nightmare on my husband, but in hearing his expression of fear there was some validation of mine. A reminder that yes, he was right there, gripping my shoulder until it bruised as we watched them work on our son. A year ago today, we were so naive. We had no idea what we were in for, and I'm glad because we had those few days of peace before our world became a very scary place.

Sometimes I wish for strength, but other times I'm ok with settling for the knowledge that these emotions weren't mine alone. Sometimes I think maybe it would be good for us to go to a counselor together...though I know it would be more for my sake than his, and sometimes that seems unfair.

I just know I'm ready to put some of this behind us, move on, and stop feeling like I'm dragging the weight of these emotions with me.

Dear Joseph,

2009-01-16T06:41:00.000-08:00

Bobo, Bojo, Jojo, Bogee, Jogee, Boge, Monkey-a-bobo....my son...My sweet, sunshine boy.

Before your heart began beating, before any test could confirm your presence, I knew you were there. Maybe that's why, despite being shocked at how fast your first year has gone, it feels as if I have been loving you forever. You have always felt like a meant to be baby, even before we knew you were on the way.

We held onto that feeling, your dad and I, when things with the pregnancy got scary. Each trip to the hospital, "This baby was meant to be" was a bit of a mantra for me. It was scary, and I held onto faith, family and friends, hoping you would be all right. Hoping I could do my job in keeping you safe until you were ready for the outside world.

On the evening of January 16, 2008, after spending months in preterm labor and weeks in prodromal labor, I wrote a letter http://fireflycafe.blogspot.com/2008/01/dear-little.html to you about reaching the milestone when you could be born into a room full of joy, not fear. You were born January 17, 2008 at 10:09am to a room filled with joy.

Our world changed forever that day. For Daddy, Emily and me, you have been our sunshine boy. Smile maker and heart healer, you made our family complete. On the roughest of days, you bring joy to our hearts.

We have had a few rough days, I'm afraid. I wish I could say things got easier for you after you were born. You spent 8 days in the pediatric intensive care unit for a pneumonia caused by my illness when pregnant with you, two weeks on oxygen after that. A few weeks later, during what should have been a routine procedure, you almost needed a blood transfusion. And, instead of having a healthy mama, yours has spent the majority of your first year being ill.

The thing is, nobody would ever know this by looking at you. You are a miracle, many times over, and we are so lucky to have you. We are blessed beyond comprehension. Your are beautiful and healthy...I have to say it again...perfectly HEALTHY.

During the complications of your pregnancy, your dad and I reminded ourselves and each other of the feeling we'd always had - that you were meant to be. When you were sick, it was harder, but again we reminded ourselves. We joked about the big destiny you must have before you, to go through all this and come out ok. We've now lost track of how many other people have said you were meant to be, that you have a important life to lead. Total strangers stop in their tracks, just to talk with you. A Jyotish reading, strangers, a woman halfway across the world - all have made a point to say you were meant to be, have a big destiny, and that somehow we are your perfect parents.

I don't know what your future has in store, what your role in this world will be. I just know you have changed my world for the better, a thousand times over. Your dad and I feel honored and blessed to be your parents, and your sister can't get enough of you. You're such a happy boy, your grins and giggles are contagious. One day we were in the store and a pretty grumpy looking guy finally broke down after you kept smiling at him and trying to get a reaction from him. He said, "how am I supposed to stay in a bad mood when he keeps grinning at me like that?" Exactly.

I'm writing this at 4:15 in the morning, unable to sleep, and remembering at this time a year ago, I was waking your dad up to tell him it was time to go to the hospital. How time flies.

Happy, Happy Birthday Joseph. I can't wait to see you dig into your cake, watch you amuse the relatives with cruising around the furniture and putting the wrapping paper on your head. If you happent to look back on the pictures of this day and see tears in your mama's eyes (or even maybe dad's) please know they are tears of joy, relief and tremendous gratitude for every day and every breath of this year of your life.

We love you and we thank God for you every day.

Happy Birthday, Little.
Mommy

2009-01-10T14:40:00.000-08:00

I've always been a crier. Angry, excited, happy, frustrated....regardless of the emotion, once it hits a certain level - I cry. In the soundtrack of my life, the music would be full of those moments when the music swells.

At times that's been something that frustrated me, especially when I was angry. Nothing ticked me off more than to be angry and have tears well up in my eyes, and along the way I learned some tricks including one in a seminar about women in business. The speaker suggested if you find yourself in a situation where you feel you're going to cry but it just isn't something you can allow to happen, drink a glass of water as fast as you can. It's really hard to cry while you're drinking water.

Which means I must have spent the last several months drowning.....because there have been times I've kept waiting for the floodgates to open and found myself shocked not to be crying. Matter of fact, there have been many monents over the last year that I shocked myself by not sobbing. Maybe it was shock? Self-defense? I don't really know...because it's not that the emotions haven't been there. Prior to this, the only time I didn't cry when I fully expected to was my wedding .....and that was because EVERYONE expected me too and I was trying so hard to hold it together. Though my voice did waiver, my eyes did fill with tears...but I wasn't the gooey mess everyone expected.

I'm almost sorry I didn't open up betting among my friends and family for when my breakdown might occur. It might not be too late. Some might have expected it to happen after my first surgery, or the second, or when I broke my foot this summer. Possibly when I discovered it is still broken? Or when we bought a house? Figured out we're going to owe WAY more on taxes than we thought?

I thought for sure I was going to lose it when I got the diagnosis of Interstitial Cystitis recently, and the accompanying news that it's a forever condition. That they want me on a three times a day medication that won't even start helping for 3-6 months. That it can cause debilitating pain at times, and that part of it just might not go away...and in the meantime I'm on a special diet to figure out what my triggers are...and so far they are some of my favorite things. Like REALLY spicy food. But no, that didn't do it.

Neither did the discovery that I have tons of scar tissue in my urethra from Joseph's birth - scar tissue that should have come to their attention every time I had a catheter after his birth. I had a procedure this week that will need to be repeated three more times and it is excruciatingly painful.

No, the thing that might just do me in is probably the one that most people around me will not understand at all. After my procedure I was given a medication high in salicylates, which happen to be boldly marked on my chart as something I'm very allergic to. I've been having to take benadryl until it gets out of my system and pump and dump milk until it's gone.

Pumping hasn't been working, I haven't been able to pump ANYTHING and I chalked it up to stress, reaction to the medication, etc and then it hit me.....I've been taking benadryl. An antihistamine that can dry up a milk supply in no time flat. I may have just weaned my son without even realizing it, and while I know logically that my first responsibility was to take care of myself, I will be devastated if this is the thing that brings a complete end to nursing.

Most people around me won't understand what that means to me, and if I tell them I'm upset about it most will blow it off. I'm sure to hear things like "well, he is about to turn a year old..." or "that's what formula is for..."

They won't understand that it has been a point of pride for me that through all of this I've still been able to nurse my son, that it is one of the few things in his first year that I don't feel was taken away from me. That infertility and illness have left me feeling broken and betrayed, and nursing was a case of my body NOT letting me down.

I'm sitting here, sobbing, and feeling like very few people are going to understand why I feel so broken hearted. I wondered when the tears would start, but right now I'm worried about whether they will stop. People in my life have said I've been strong through this, they don't know I've held it together, etc.

The thing is, I don't feel strong, I don't feel as if I've held it together. I feel very weak, completely overwhelmed and discouraged and as broken apart as one can be.

The family newsletter I didn't send.

2008-12-30T13:36:00.000-08:00

I want so badly to write a funny post, about the family newsletter I didn't send. I'd recap 2008, including the births of Joseph and Frankencoochie - one adorable and wonderful, the other terrifying and still needing repair. I'd talk about anesthesia being the best (and feeling like the only) sleep I've gotten, and the stresses that can be added to a family by the birth of a baby, threat of the loss of that baby only 12 days later to bacterial pneumonia and my concurrent illness. His was 8 days in the hospital, mine was 8 months of antibiotics and two surgeries...with the after effects still ongoing. I want to make jokes, make light.....but the words get caught in my throat.

I want to write that post, but I can't.

Instead, I want to write about my son.

In less than three weeks, my son will be a year old. I'm not having an easy time with this. It was hard when Emily turned a year old, my baby having grown so fast.....but it is harder this time. This year seems to have gone so much faster than her first, and we've all been through so much more this time around.

My son is going to turn a year old, and it will mark the biggest miracle I've ever witnessed. He is on the verge of walking, he's saying some words (Mama, Dada, Hi, Wow, yes, Emmy, yeah, kitty) and he lights up every room he enters. He is such a flirt, shameless. He is healthy and vibrant and funny. He is HEALTHY.

So many times I prayed for his safe arrival, not knowing the worst of the danger would be after he was out. It's starting to get easier to forget (or at least not think about) how he looked with the oxygen tubes he wore for weeks. More days go by at a time without me remembering how he looked, tiny and small in a hospital bed, hooked up to so many monitors it was hard to hold him - but I did every chance I got.

He's going to be a year old, and sometimes it's hard not to feel cheated. Cheated by the time that passed while he was so sick and in the hospital - time that should have been spent nesting with my newborn. Hard not to feel cheated by the time I've spent ill, in surgery, recovering, then in surgery again. I want a rewind button so I can go back and enjoy some of those days, because he will never again be that little. So instead I try to hold onto these days.

Sometimes that means when he cries at night, even when I should let him settle himself, I still go in. Sometimes it means I go in to check on him when he's sleeping - to make sure he's warm enough, to look at his sleeping body and watch his chest rise and fall.

I'm not ready for him to be a year old, but I am more grateful than I can ever express that THIS is my problem, that THIS is what I'm grieving.

If I were to sum up the real message I'd send my friend and family,
"2008 was bad in so many ways, but it could have been so much worse, we have been incredibly lucky and we are grateful to have had friends and family that came through for us when we needed them most."

Just call me Kermit.

2008-12-16T19:09:00.000-08:00

Green has always been a good color for me. With pale skin, dark hair and green eyes it usually worked well. This particular shade, however, does not suit me a bit.

My brother's girlfriend is pregnant.

I want to be happy for them. I want to think, "Yay! Another niece or nephew who will think I am super cool." I'm just not there, and I have only a few days to get it together before I have to fake it.

It might be easier if the relationship between the two of them were better, if the girlfriend didn't hold my niece (a few months younger than my own daughter) over my brother as the ultimate bargaining tool, if it weren't for the fact that my niece is the main reason the two of them are still together. It might be substantially easier if my brother hadn't been considering leaving her psycho ass anyway, despite her behavior with regard to their daughter, and now that has all changed. Not saying he should or shouldn't, just saying she is too much like my own mother to be good for anyone.

It might be easier if the girlfriend wasn't giggling over her oops, or making "he just gets near me" comments - according to my sister, who was the one to tell me. She didn't want everyone to show up at my house for Christmas and have it hit me like a load of bricks when I opened the door. Because she is teeny, and 2 months along, and showing.

It might be easier, but I doubt it, because despite my thoughts that I was getting over some of this infertility crap I'm apparently not over it. I'm ashamed to say that as soon as my sister told me, the tears were in my eyes and I felt like I'd been punched in the gut. WHY? My family is complete, there were never going to be more children for me beyond two even if I hadn't had the infection and subsequent hysterectomy. It's not like I was planning/hoping for more children and now it won't happen, and it's happening for someone else.

I'm embarassed to be this upset about it. I know part of it is their lack of regard for the miracle of life and her specific lack of appreciation for the daughter they have. It's only part though. In what feels like being petty, these emotions I'm feeling are mostly about me....and this isn't about me.

It isn't about me.

I keep telling myself and yet I'm the one having the big ass pity party as if it is. Maybe it's grief over the fact that I once deluded myself about having an ooops the second time around, or at least not trying for years.

I have tried to write this so many times, and no matter how I write it, I sound like an asshole. THe thing is, I don't have it in me to write it in a nicer way, and I don't have it in me to delete it again.

It's not easy being green.

2008-11-27T08:02:00.000-08:00

I watched the sun rise this morning, from the gradual lessening of the darkness to full daylight. Kids, cats and husband were all asleep. It was me, the sun and God.

As I watched the changing sky, I finally let out some of the grief I've been holding in, let my gratitude overwhelm me and let the tears fall where they may. I talked to God, really talked, and laid it all out - realizing there have been so many things I've kept inside, things I never really had to carry alone.

I told Him the gratitude I feel has in some ways been as hard to carry as my grief, because they are connected and both feel so much bigger than me. Also because acknowledging some of the things I am grateful for has meant acknowledging what we've been through.

Looking back, thinking of my brother's murder, the loss of Eleanor, my pregnancy with Joseph, his birth, his illness and mine, my surgeries, the stresses on my marriage and family life, I took the time to recognize the good things that have come from all of that.

My relationship with my father is finally at the point of comfort and stability. I have two healthy children who stun me with their very presence, I am so lucky to have them, so lucky they are both ok that it takes my breath away. My marriage has been through some of the hardest tests a marriage can go through, and we're still standing together.

In the last year, I've been reminded of the beautiful, precious fragility of life. I have experienced love, true unconditional love, from my husband, children, family and friends. I have learned I am stronger than I ever thought possible and I have learned to ask for help. I have been reminded of the value of true friends, the kind that when it seemed my world was falling down around me showed up with duct tape and chocolate and helped me make it better. I have learned that what doesn't kill you actually can make you stronger, but not in the ways you'd think.

As I sat in our new home, allowing myself to be amazed by how much has happened and grateful for where it has led me, I took time to say thanks for the home itself. For the food in the pantry, the heat running through the pipes, the soft warm beds my family was sleeping in and the protection from the cold air outside.

I remembered those whose loved ones are far away or no longer with them. I thought of our military and their families, prayed for their safety, well-being and reunion. I thought of those who are cold, hungry, scared, abused, lonely or feeling forgotten.

I asked that God look over us all, and enjoyed the warmth of the sunshine and my blessings.

I don't know how I'm doing it.

2008-11-12T18:28:00.001-08:00

In the last two weeks, we've sold a home, purchased a home, and completed a large portion of the remodeling on that home. I've had pneumonia, daily confirmation my broken foot has not healed correctly and gotten the wonderful news that I need surgery. Again.

Between the cold he just got over and the breakthrough of two new teeth, Joseph's nighttime sleep hasn't been the greatest though I'm so grateful for good naps during the day. Emily is holding her own, but I'm worried about the change of home and school for her knowing how much she loves her current school. I'm sure she'll do fine, but it's a stress for me.

I've been getting up early, approximately 5 hours after stopping work the previous day and not necessarily getting to sleep all of those hours. The bags under my eyes are almost big enough to save me a moving box and there's still so much for us to do before move in. Today I painted the kitchen (minus the cabinets - there's just not enough time to do that right now).

Tomorrow is shaping up to be insane with the following on the schedule:
-Get Emily off to school
-Buy more ceiling and trim paint, exchange a light fixture for one NOT missing several components
-Meet with the phone installer
-Take Joseph to his 9 month appointment (for those keeping track at home, he's 10 months on Monday. We're a bit behind)
-Go to Sam's for food for the moving crew
-Get electrician and gutter installer started on their projects
-Paint playroom/office (HUGE room)
-Wonder what I'm forgetting, because there is something else....

I've had a few people ask how I'm doing it. I think moving is the only thing keeping me from falling down out of simple exhaustion. I feel like I'm burning the candle at both ends as well as in the middle and running out of candle. I want desperately to sleep but my clock is ticking and I'm running out of time. We've had a lot of help but there's still a lot to do between now and the move. We pick up the moving truck Friday, our official move isn't until Saturday. I know my husband, though - if he has his way almost everything will be IN the truck Friday night. Everything but those things we can't lift together that is - my strength is not what it used to be and it's not going to get better between now and then.

In the midst of all this, focusing on the tasks at hand have been a good diversion in some ways. Physical labor has taken the place of overthinking in some instances. There have been a few cracks though, times when I'm not even thinking about how tired I am or how stressful things have been. Times I'm not thinking about what this year has been like or the fact that surgery looms once again, and yet suddenly I'll find myself with tears falling that I didn't even know had surfaced. I joke that after this is all over, I'm taking a mini vacation to the loony bin.

The thing is, the joke isn't even really that funny. Sometimes, a day or two in the psych ward sounds like a good idea.

With regard to the surgery - I have an appointment mid-December with a urologist. After an appointment with the surgeon who did my hysterectomy, it is thought I have the following going on:
-interstitial cystitis
-need for a bladder suspension
-possible need for reconstruction to my urethra
-"something else as well, perhaps."

Sigh.

I keep moving because I have to. I need to. But I also need to SLEEP.

10 days

2008-11-10T21:56:00.000-08:00

Ten days ago we purchased our new home. When I left it this evening, I was stunned by the fact there's a lot left to do but we have made an amazing amount of progress in 10 days. Even though we've been working away that whole time, today was a turning point. Today, the house started to feel like it had turned into our future home.

We have spent many, many hours stripping wallpaper. So many that it is disheartening to think of what we could have accomplished in the same amount of hours and muscle aches. I have one finger that doesn't hurt and the rest of me is wrecked. Neck, head, back, shoulders, stomach (though that hurts from coughing), legs, butt - all of me. I swear to you if I get through this without dropping 20 pounds, I will be amazed. Oh, and the PCOS poster child.

We were supposed to have a family friend over to help with painting starting Saturday- and this person has a sprayer so it would presumably have made things go much faster. He forgot, went hunting instead, and we found ourselves doing everything by hand. We didn't even get to start anything other than taping until Sunday. We made up for lost time though!

As of when I left the house tonight the following had been done:

Paint - finished in the dining and living room areas, entry, hall, three bedrooms (master and children's rooms).

Flooring - walnut floor installed in dining room, living room, hallway. Sanded and will be stained tonight. Old carpet and pad removed and new carpet installed in three upstairs bedrooms (same rooms mentioned above). Old carpet removed and pad installed in remaining two bedrooms, hall and playroom. Old vinyl removed from all three bathrooms and laundry room, new subfloor installed.

Electrical - any switches that needed to be replaced were taken care of today, and we replaced the light fixtures in the dining and living rooms, cleaned up most of the vintage lights we were keeping and purchased materials to strip the paint off the bathroom light fixtures that were painted at some point. The "creative" wiring job for the garage door openers was also redone.

Tomorrow, we're scheduled to have the vinyl floor installed in the three bathrooms and laundry room. We'll also see the rest of the carpet go in. The hardwood floor will get another sanding and be sealed. We should also be able to complete painting of the kitchen, any touch up in the upstairs bedrooms and possibly even see the playroom painting completed.

After tomorrow, we won't be able to walk on the hardwood floor for three days, but we'll still be able to access the downstairs for more stripping of wallpaper adhesive. That needs to happen in one bedroom, the downstairs hall and the laundry room. Then we can paint those rooms.

Have I mentioned lately how much wallpaper SUCKS? The hours we've spent getting the layers of wallpaper down are ridiculous. There were three layers in some rooms, none of them attractive and all of them pasted like life depended upon the paper sticking to the wall.

We have been working our butts off at the house, but today we finally felt we were seeing progress. It's a good thing too - we move in Saturday!

A new beginning

2008-11-01T06:38:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, we closed on the sale of our new house.

I'm excited, nervous about the extreme amount of work and hoping I can get over my pneumonia before moving day.

Mostly, though, I'm excited. We need a new start in a lot of ways. More to come!

2008-10-24T07:18:00.000-07:00

I know I'm not alone in my love of fall, the glory of its color and the cool, crisp air that begins the day. The crunch of the leaves beneath my feet, the craving for apple cider and the chance to pull my sweaters out make me glad that fall is here. Simple pleasures for a time of year that feels anything but simple to me.

October is difficult. Halloween, especially.

I'm blessed to have had three grandfathers in my life, but the memory of the passing of two of them is triggered every year by Halloween decorations. My parents had spent the day decorating our house for Halloween on the day my first grandfather died. Dad picked me up at my after school job to tell me, and I came home to a plywood coffin on the porch. Two weeks later, my other grandfather died, and when we returned from both funerals the decorations were still there. When my dad pulled the decorations out the next year, I screamed at him.

October is when my Eleanor would have been due, she'd have been a year old this month. I can't imagine life without Joseph, but sometimes I imagine life with Eleanor. Would she have been serious, like Emily, as a baby or giggly like Joseph? My living children are blonde, but somehow I always picture Eleanor and Benjamin with dark hair like mine. I'll never know.

Benjamin was lost in the month of October, on Halloween night. It was the last time I wore a Halloween costume, though I'm sure that won't stay true forever. He'd be just over 4 now. The year before last, I "ghosted" the neighborhood with suprise treats of candy on their doorsteps in his honor. It seemed the kind of thing he'd have laughed over, sneaking around to leave treats in the dark of night.

I didn't do anything like that last year. After we took Emily trick or treating, we got her to bed and then I couldn't stop contracting. I spent the rest of Halloween night on monitors in labor and delivery and getting extra doses of terbutaline, hoping there wouldn't be another October loss.

This year, we're taking both kids to trick or treat after the closing the sale of the home we have lived in for the last 8 years. I'd like to think we're starting a new chapter, with excitement about halloween - less tinged with sadness.

9 months (and a few days)

2008-10-21T20:05:00.001-07:00

My son,
If only you knew how those two words get me at my very core. I'm not sure the day will ever come that I say those words and don't find myself a little suprised at them. They fall in the same category as the words "my daughter" and "my kids." Sometimes I find myself saying those words just to hear myself say them. Have I told you today how lucky I am to have you?

Enough about me, this is about you. (And me) Mostly about you.

Nine months is such a neat age, watching you in the magical in between space between infant and toddler. I want to press pause and keep you in this place a bit longer, where you still go down for your naps fairly easily and cuddle against me when you are tired instead of straining to get down and walk away. Of course, there are times you strain against my arms as if you expect to be put down so you can walk away - but you just aren't there yet, and for now I am glad.

Crawling all over the place, scooting, danger rolls, whatever it takes to get where you're going - you are all over it. Your focus shifts across the room to whomever is most active, whoever will make you giggle, whatever object strikes your fancy. Is it shameless bragging or mother love that makes me boast that for now I am your favorite? A little of both, I'm afraid...though I think I might be slipping in the ranks some days. I can make you giggle and smile, but your sister does it best. We've had strangers in the grocery store ask her to repeat the noise or gesture that cracked you up, because your laugh is like sunshine but loud and infectious at the same time. People beg to hear it over and over.

You've got your two bottom, middle teeth and the top two are rapidly approaching. You smile big, toothy grins that melt us all. You are truly our sunshine boy and it is often a competition to see who is going to get to you first after your nap. Notice I didn't say in the morning? That's because mama loves you best. Don't forget it. Oh, and something about nobody else wants to get up that early. Mostly it's that I love you best, though, I swear.

You're active and engaging, and you've learned that Mama, Dada and hi are words that will get you a smile immediately. Your sister has been trying to get you to say "Emily" for some time now, and she might just save her pennies to buy you a pony if you do it soon. She'd give just about anything to hear it, though she reminds us you can't say many things because you don't have all your teeth yet. I have to admit I'm a bit glad you don't have them all, as you're still going strong on nursing.

At 17 pounds, you're not a heavy guy, but if I ever remember to measure your length I'm sure we'll find you're fairly tall for your age. If you keep trying to pull up on things, it's only a matter of time before you're standing. From then on, we know nothing is safe, so we're hoping that holds off for just a bit longer. Maybe that's selfish, but we have an awful lot of packed boxes around this place right now.

You're healthy and perfect in every way, and we're so lucky to see you growing and thriving. Did I mention you eat like a teenage boy? Last night I literally lost track of everything I'd fed you until I looked at the samples of everything you'd dropped on the floor. We call you Joey Garbanzo because you can't get enough of garbanzo beans. Of all the things you eat, that's your favorite besides milk. Who knew?

I have more to say, but guess who just woke up?

No, really, I wrote every day.

2008-10-21T19:52:00.000-07:00

Recently, we had a glitch with our internet connection that I still haven't figured out. I could get to a web page, but if I needed to click a link to read the rest of an article or post or heaven-forbid follow a link it was all over. Every time. Ditto for logging in anywhere, which made working, writing or generally browsing a nightmare. Not good timing when I'd committed to a blog post per day and had a few ideas for articles to submit to a magazine and needed to do some research.

So, I wrote about my sick daughter, my son's 9 month check-up, the stresses of moving and my tendency lately to avoid sleep as if it's something I hate instead of the thing I crave most. I wrote and wrote and then got frustrated because I couldn't post those things here, couldn't prove that I was actually making good on my promise to blog every day for a month.

My internet connection is back, but I'm in a funk over the whole thing. It should be easy to shake it off and realize that it just doesn't matter whether I made the commitment work, but I'm so frustrated at the fact I wrote every day but still didn't meet my goal because they items weren't posted.

Off to sulk.

Farty naughty

2008-10-16T07:42:00.000-07:00

I logged onto the blog, Temperature started playing and my daughter started giggling. I thought maybe it was because I was moving my sons arms to make him dance to the music.

Then she said, "he said farty naughty."

It certainly sounds like she's right. What in the world IS he saying right there?

I will remember.

2008-10-15T08:00:00.000-07:00

At 7pm local time, I'll place a lit candle on my front porch - adding to the many being lit across my town, state, country... to be part of a wave of light bringing recognition to those who are all too often grieved in silence, when noone is looking.

I'll light the candle for Benjamin, Eleanor, Mary Catherine, Rivi, Aimee and Dana, Ashley, Gabriel, Maya, Kylie and far too many others.

This is really happening.

2008-10-14T12:23:00.000-07:00

Today I talked with the lender for our house to make arrangements to get the appraisal done and the mortgagee clause faxed so I can write the insurance on the home. As I hung up the phone it hit me that this is really happening, that buying this house isn't an if - it has become a when.

We're making plans for painting, getting estimates on carpeting and our current house is about 65% packed. We're starting to reach the point where there are fewer items that can be packed without needing them later or running out of room to put the boxes. My husband's band practices in our garage and right now his drums are in their cases in anticipation of his gig tonight. Part of me wishes we could keep them that way until the move, as there would be a ton of room in the garage for clearing things out of the house for painting, etc. The guys will be practicing here until the end of the month, though, so that isn't an option. *sigh* that's good and bad - good because I'm going to miss my husband's practices being at our home. I enjoy the guys, enjoy the music and love having my husband home so quickly after practice. Now he's going to have a drive after each practice night and that stinks. Trade-offs.

This house is starting to look less and less like our home. I'm trying not to think too much about how sad I'll be to leave it, just how glad I'll be to enjoy the new home.

Use your words.

2008-10-13T15:51:00.000-07:00

Words have an incredible amount of power. One of the reasons I struggle to write about what's happened with my health this past years is that I have wanted so badly to get the words right, to say things in just the right way. I've been almost desperate in my hope that what I went through will not be repeated in the lives of others. It's something I think about, obsess about and many times I've sat in front of the computer in a cold sweat trying to get out what I want so much to say.

Today I found a comment left by Emma that I'd missed because I'm having some spam issues with my email. She left it regarding the post below, where I talked about some of the warning signs for postpartum infection. (linked below) She's absolutely right that low grade fevers are still important - most of the time when I checked mine it was 99 degrees. It was only when I was deathly ill that it spiked high, and by then I was desperate for help. She's also correct about the bleeding. Even though I bled profusely on the delivery table, my postpartum bleeding stopped before I left the hospital. That should have been a huge warning sign to my care providers.
http://fireflycafe.blogspot.com/2008/09/your-best-interests.html

She wrote:

I want to tell you thank you for putting your story out there. I'd read your blog when I was pregnant, and when I started feeling Not Right after the birth, I remembered it. I got help pretty quickly, and I think I may be on the road to being okay -- I've got a ways to go yet, but at least I'm starting to improve, and we've got a Plan B in place. A couple things I want to add to your discussion of symptoms, if that's okay:

Bleeding too little can be a sign of trouble too, as surely as bleeding too much. I stopped bleeding two days after the birth, and didn't think anything of it. Turns out I was still bleeding, but it was all building up in my uterus instead of coming out -- not good.Even a low-grade fever can be a trouble sign when coupled with other symptoms. I thought I couldn't have an infection, because surely I'd have a higher fever instead of piddling around in the 99s. Again, wrong.Postpartum infections are serious and scary. Your story helped me get out of this one with my uterus and my sanity intact, and I thank you. I hope that's some comfort to you, that you've helped at least one woman.

When I read her comment, a dam broke within me. On one of my visits to the doctor, before my D & C, a doctor commented that she'd seen another woman the day before who was also fighting a persistent uterine infection. That woman haunts me in my sleep, as I can't shake the questions of whether she's ok, whether she finally got rid of the infection and if she still has her uterus. I have laid awake at night, wondering how many new moms are facing a danger they don't even realize, chalking their soreness and fatigue up to delivery and having a newborn.

My illness was costly, and has affected every aspect of my life in some way. My health, job, home, finances, marriage, relationship with my children, etc. have all been affected in some way and there has been a reminder of at least a portion of that every day. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel from a physical standpoint, though my immune system is shot from months of fighting illness, months of antibiotics and two surgeries. I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, though I know the hardest work is mental and emotional.

Emma, I am so relieved to know you are doing better and glad to know that you'll follow up until you're sure the infection is completely gone. I can't thank you enough for taking the time to let me know my story helped, that what I went through wasn't for nothing. It hasn't been easy to write about all of it, but I kept thinking that if I could help just one woman, if I could keep just one family from going through what we did, it was worth every second I spent sweating over what to say.

Most of us don't really get to find out if something we did made a difference. Thank you for telling me that I have - it's just the kind of salve this wounded spirit of mine needed today.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzz

2008-10-12T14:06:00.001-07:00

Blogger ate my post and I'm too tired to rewrite it. LOL

I suppose that's ok, it was a whine about being tired anyway.

Paint the light fixture?

2008-10-11T11:45:00.000-07:00

There's a lot to do in the new house. We've picked the flooring in the dining room, living room and hall. It's a great walnut and will have a light/caramel stain, similar to this (minus the pears - we don't usually keep fruit on the floor).

However, the ability to do a great floor like this means that some things are going to have to wait a bit. That includes new light fixtures. Below is the dining room. There's a lot in there now because the seller hasn't removed everything yet. None of the furniture shown in this picture will remain in the room.

This room forms an L with the living room, which has two fixtures on the wall that coordinate with this one. Whether those will be removed altogether, replaced or painted to match this one has not been decided.

As a temporary change, I'm considering painting the brassy looking portion of this fixture with a textured black paint, similar in look to an iron. However, there are so many different kinds of textured paint that I've not yet decided if that one is the way to go. The walls in this space will be some sort of warm neutral, and the floor with be a lighter stained walnut with honey tones. Other options would be leaving it as is, painting it white (which doesn't really sing to me) or going with a nickel or pewter type paint.

If this was your house, what would you do? Assuming replacing the fixture is not an option for now.

Our table and chairs are oak, with a darker stain than the flooring. The molding will remain white, the walls likely painted in some warm/neutral color. That will be one of our next decisions.

This New (Old) House.

2008-10-10T14:35:00.000-07:00

We haven't closed on our new house yet, though that's just over a month away. (Prayers and good thoughts all continues to move forward)

Today I talked with the seller, who I love dearly and suspect I'll keep in touch with long after we've signed on the dotted line. I made arrangements to stop by tomorrow with a flooring sample to test against the colors of the flagstone fireplace and we'll be talking about which carpet stays for now and which is going to go (she's going to steam clean the carpet that's staying).

We haven't done any work on the house yet - though they've already started the process of replacing the roof. I'm glad I have my before pictures already, or I'd have missed out on a piece of the transformation.

They're planning to have everything out of there soon, which means it won't be long before we start doing things like painting and ripping up carpet. Construction dust coming to this space very soon, complete with pictures.

In the meantime, I'm trying to figure out how I can manage to get several items from IKEA to my doorstep without paying hundreds of dollars in common carrier shipping fees. We have one coming in about 18 months, but I want playroom storage a bit sooner than that! LOL

Moving men.

2008-10-09T14:32:00.000-07:00

I struggle with organization and have to work hard to be organized. My husband, on the other hand, is one of the more organized people I know. His desk at work is always neat and orderly, his clothes in his closet are hung in sections (from left to right - tshirts, polos, work shirts, work pants) so he can always find what he wants when he wants it.

He sure shoves that notion out the window when it comes to packing. The man keeps trying to make up boxes and mark them miscellaneous and I swear he's about to find himself in one of those boxes he's thrown together. He'll find himself keeping company with two extension cords, a statue of a ceramic wolf, three books, a set of cookie cutters and the remove for the VCR just because he fit in the box with them.

The box will be labeled "Misc. stuff" and will probably sit in the garage because nobody knows where to put it until I've searched enough boxes that I find him again.

Men. Hmmph.

Ride the white lightning.

2008-10-08T07:04:00.001-07:00

I thought my days of riding the dildocam were over. In fact, that was one of the things I told myself when I was pregnant with Joseph - that there were things I was never going to do again, and I was okay with this type of ultrasound being one of them.

I don't know how many I've had since the one that diagnosed my PCOS, but it's too many. Yes, they are old hat to an extent and definitely not the worst thing I've been through. Not even the worst thing I've been through in the last year, or the last 6 months for that matter. I've never had one that I wasn't nervous about. Hoping for a cyst to go down, hoping for proof of ovulation, hoping to see a heartbeat - so many times I've gone in with fingers crossed.

While I'm feeling much better physically (with the exception of this lovely virus Joseph and I have) I have some concerns. While the rest of me is getting smaller, my lower abdomen is getting bigger. I have a fullness and discomfort there that doesn't make sense, and some issues I had before that had seemed to resolve after my last surgery are making a reappearance. Generally, my best description is that something feels wrong. Not very specific, I know, but a feeling I've learned to trust.

Thanks to my mom's lovely history of ovarian cancer at 26, my surgeon had already made a plan with me that I'd be needing annual ovarian ultrasounds and CA125 tests but those weren't scheduled to start until a year from now. He'd gotten a good look at my ovaries during my hysterectomy, but based upon how I'm feeling I'm opting not to wait until next year. It's probably just a simple cyst. I've had them before, they suck, but tend to resolve fairly quickly for me.

Here's hoping I get enough of an answer today that it's not one of those "hmmm, we're not sure" appointments, but not anything bad.

2008-10-07T14:19:00.001-07:00

My friend Cynthia would like you all to know that she gets the credit for seeing the writing on the wall before I did. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY before I did, she wants me to add.

For months before anything actually happened between Tim and me, Cynthia had been accusing me of liking him. Accusing, I say, because he was not my type. Something I repeated over and over. He was (and is) older than me, by 8 years. He had long hair and played drums in a band. The guys I dated weren't anything like that description. Think fraternities. Think clean cut, not quite preppy type guys. They listened to music at parties and concerts, they didn't play it. Because we all know what musicians are like. ;)

I'd come home to the apartment I shared with Cynthia and her soon to be husband, tell her about my day and she'd squeal "you like him!" which somehow evolved into "you LIKE him" and then the inevitable "Oh my God, you're in LOVE WITH HIM!" Emphatically denied each time and each time followed with "he's not even my type."

One day she put her hands on her hips and said, "do we need to review where 'your type' has gotten you so far?" My only answer was of the "besides, he's not into me" variety.

Turns out I was wrong. All the way around, completely wrong.

I liked him, I loved him and he'd already fallen for me. Our jokes in the office had led us down a path we hadn't even seen and then suddenly there it was.

On Oct 6, 1997 I was getting ready for an out of state trip to my cousin's wedding, so I stayed late at work. He stayed too, and before he left he hugged me. The next day, more work to do before leaving, I stayed again. He stayed too.

I was standing at the filing cabinets, putting away a monster stack of files. He had been sitting at his desk, but then got up and walked over to me. As he leaned in, I started to panic a bit but the kiss erased all rational thought from my brain. My knees, previously unshaken when it came to kisses (and there had been some good ones prior to him) turned to jello.

When the kiss was over, I walked over to my desk, sat down and tried to collect myself. When I could walk again, I walked over to him (not knowing he was freaking out) and kissed him within an inch of his life.

There was no first date, no "will you go to dinner with me" but a conversation about how we'd see each other outside of work, etc. We skipped right into the relationship, except that the next day I had to leave for another state and would be gone a WEEK. The agony!

I came back from that trip, and we've been together ever since.

On this day...

2008-10-07T12:02:00.000-07:00

Eleven years ago, I started dating my husband. We'd been working together for several months, friends for most of that, flirting for some of that.

On this day, eleven years ago, we were alone in the office and he kissed me in front of the filing cabinets. (We had filing cabinets! LOL)

I still get weak in the knees when he kisses me.

Happy Anniversary, sweetie.

I was bound to drop something.

2008-10-06T00:52:00.001-07:00

In the dream, I was riding a bicycle. An older 10 speed type, with the curved handle bars, and it was too tall for me. I wobbled as I tried to ride it, a package tucked under each arm and something in my right hand. It didn't help that the gears kept missing as I tried to get into one th at would allow me to make forward progress. I knew, the way you know in dreams, I was headed toward the same place as my husband (work) but we were taking different routes. Then, as I tried to make a turn, putting my right foot down slightly to steady myself, one of the packages slipped out from under my arm.....

And I dropped my sick, sleeping son on the floor.

For the last week, his sleep has been awful and so mine has too. Saturday night I realized my throat was starting to hurt and by Sunday it was awful. I realized chances were good that my son might have been feeling sick all this time too, and when I looked in his mouth it made total sense. We're going to the doctor as soon as we can get an appt today, but in the meantime Sunday was rough.

We were in the rocking chair in his room, having both finally fallen into a deep sleep for the first time in what felt like forever, despite it being almost midnight. It was only about 30 minutes ago that he fell out of my arms.

I feel awful. He cried, but only briefly, then settled back down with no signs of major injury though of course I'll be checking on him and for signs of concussion, etc throughout the morning now. Even if we had turned a corner on sleep, that's over now, but that's my fault. Typically, I lay him down awake, and I should have tried harder not to fall asleep in the chair. Typically, I use the boppy so there would have been something between him and a fall. Tonight I was too tired to grab it. :(

I can't help thinking about the dream. It makes so much sense, it's practically transparent. Between that, how awful I feel physically, how much worse I feel about dropping him, I just can't stop crying.

Sick.

2008-10-05T12:31:00.001-07:00

My husband is trying to be helpful, but his version of being helpful is asking me over and over and over, "can we pack this now? Can I help you pack that? What about this?" when I've said I need a BREAK.

I finally had to spell it out for him, "No. Thank you. I don't want to sit on the couch while you bring me things to pack. I need to STOP for at least an hour. I feel like crap, I think I have strep and I have not had more than a few hours of sleep each of the last seven nights."

I love that he wants to help, but right now I just want him to take over with the kids and leave me be for a bit. Is that SO hard?

Fall

2008-10-04T16:09:00.000-07:00

I don't know what it is about fall that appeals to me on such a deep level. Yes, I love the colors of changing leaves and the use of apples and cinnamon in abundance. But there's more to it than that.

I love adding an extra blanket to the bed, bundling my children in an extra layer of soft clothing and having an extra excuse to scoot closer to my husband. I'm glad to trade lemonade for hot tea and ice cream for apple pie. Maybe it's the nesting type instinct it brings out it me.

No matter what it is, today looks and smells like fall. The temperature is cooler, there's a bit of rain falling and my yard is covered with the first leaves to drop from the trees.

This will be my last fall in this house. The one that greeted us after our wedding, unchanged but feeling different. It was this house that saw us bring our babies home.

I think today I'm going to stop packing long enough to get cozy for a while.

Ninja Funny

2008-10-03T09:20:00.000-07:00

"They" are full of advice, and at some point my husband started referring to that advice in terms of "you know what they say downtown.." Why he thinks they reside downtown I can't say, but around here it's as good as the truth. Even our daughter has started saying it.

One of the things they say downtown is that you should marry someone who makes you laugh. It's true that looks fade, health can deteriorate, hair falls out and wrinkles appear but a sense of humor keeps you going.

It's been a stressful time around here for what feels like forever. I seize up every time I try to make the list my counselor asked for months ago, the one where I list out everything that's happened in the last year. Partly because the list keeps getting longer, mostly because I just don't want to think about it. Laughter, however, is what is keeping us going. There are times when we'll be in the middle of a conversation and my husband will say something so funny that we laugh until we're crying, until our stomachs hurt and we just can't stop.

It's in those moments that I see the light at the end of the tunnel and I feel in my heart we're going to come through this ok. Despite the days we don't communicate well, days when the stress of the past and the present feel weighty and oppressive, days when the other side feels a million miles away. We make each other laugh and in those moments, all is right.

Sometimes those moments sneak up on us. It's happened that we're in the middle of a heated argument,even, and one of us says something funny and the argument fades away. Ninja funny - it sneaks up on you. For that, I am grateful.

What I'm doing to make it better

2008-10-02T14:35:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to continue to focus on work, not worry and translate that to as many aspects of life as possible. As a mom, I look at the world around me and wonder what it will be like for my kids as they get older. I have a lot of hope for them, their peers and the world in general. I know it's hard to escape feelings of doom and gloom when it seems every media outlet is focused on what is going wrong.

So, for today, here's what I'm doing to make it better in terms of the environment.

I've stopped using a lot of harsh chemical cleaners, and found that the simpler ingredients work just as well, if not better. For example, I get my laundry detergent recipe here (I use the powdered one) http://www.thefrugalshopper.com/articles/detergent.shtml, made at home with ingredients I can find easily at my grocery store. I've started making my own detergent for the dishwasher as well - 1 TBSP washing soda (NOT BAKING SODA) to 1 TBSP Borax. It works better than any I've ever bought. I fill my rinse aid dispenser with vinegar. My laundry is cleaner and softer, my dishes cleaner and free of spots.

I try to combine my trips and map them out in such a way that I can combine errands whenever possible. I use my cruise control on long stretches of my drive and pay attention to areas in town where I don't actually need my foot on the gas pedal to maintain momentum. I was surprised to find how many areas where I have been keeping my foot on the gas when I didn't need to. I've improved my gas mileage (and credit card charges for gas) substantially - and the less gas I use, the better for my wallet and the environment.

We already recycle as much as possible through our city's recycling program, and whenever possible I try to avoid excess packaging. Another bonus of making my own detergents - less waste of packaging.

As the kids outgrow clothing, I'm finding people who will need them and are willing to pay a bit for them (but less than a second hand store would charge) so I know they'll have more life after they leave our home. In our son's case, we've received a lot of hand me downs from a friend, so we're doubly lucky.

We're trying to buy toys that are less likely to break quickly, creating more junk. We're also not buying many toys to begin with. As my daughter has outgrown certain toys and baby items, we've passed them on to my nephew and they are now making their way back to my son. Being more environmentally aware (I'm the last to claim I'm perfect at this) is definitely having an economic impact as well. We've cut back on our spending by a lot.

This time next year, I'd like to be able to say that I spent the summer growing a good portion of our own vegetables and was able to can and freeze many that we'd need for the winter. I also have set a goal of a compost bin to help with that. I hate to see food go in the trash.

It's all little stuff, but hopefully it just keeps adding up.

Mama Trauma Drama - Part 4

2008-10-01T08:00:00.000-07:00

http://fireflycafe.blogspot.com/2008/05/mama-trauma-drama-part-3.html

I liked my OB, really really liked him as a person, but one of my irritations with him had been that throughout all of the excitement of my pregnancy he seemed so calm, so unfazed by what was happening. He cared, but his lack of intensity about it sort of pissed me off.In that moment, I realized that seeing him worry meant something was very wrong. I saw a bead of sweat roll down his cheek and realized I was shaking and cold.

He finally answered tha the others were working on him, and I watched my husband stand there, one hand on my son, eyes going back and forth between the two of us. A nurse answered my original question by saying "They're just trying to pink him up a bit."

I assumed the placenta was already out, so I was surprised when I heard him murmur to another nurse that it wouldn't deliver. I barely registered the two shots of pitocin they gave me to try to get it out, and I'm not sure what I thought was happening when the blood was rushing out, but I suppose I just assumed it was fluid from the pregnancy. I remember hearing what I thought was water hit the floor and wondering how their could have been any water left in the bag.

The next thing I knew, the doctor was instructing the nurse on how to press on my abdomen, and I realized his fist was inside and he was pressing from inside and out. It is a blessing in some ways that I was worried about my son, because I didn't scream until later when the numbing medicine was injected to take care of my torn urethra. That was a moment when I regretted not having any pain medication, and it would be the last time for a while that I didn't.

There are things I didn't find out until later, and there is a blessing to not knowing even if the later realization hits hard enough as is. The short version is, my son tore me up and down on his way out, but the speed of his delivery saved his life. The hemorrage after, my placenta that didn't want to deliver and my state of shock endangered my life. I didn't know until much later that the transfusion team had been called and was almost to the door when they finally got my bleeding to stop. I wouldn't know until later that Joseph's initial breathing issues were most likely because of the brewing infection he'd been living with, and that my failure to contract to deliver the placenta and the bleeding were all classic signs of infection.

I didn't know that 10 days later I'd make a call to my OB's office to tell them I was running fevers and not get a call back, or that 12 days later we'd be rushing my son to the ER, blue and limp, because he was skipping breaths. Didn't know that the infection in my cervix and uterus was also in his lungs, stealing his oxygen and was about to kill him until it almost did.

I didn't know how many times I would wonder just how much a pair of sterile gloves costs, and wonder why they couldn't have just used those when doing all those preterm labor checks.

What you don't know really can kill you.

Your best interests.

2008-09-30T11:58:00.000-07:00

Some people see a pregnant woman on the street and resist the urge (or not) to rub her belly. I want to run over and hand her a thermometer.

I want to tell her that I know the nurses coming in to take her temperature after the birth of the baby may seem an annoyance when they wake you up, may not tell you why they are doing this, but it is important. It is of life and death importance, as a matter of fact. I want to tell her that she should continue taking her temperature every afternoon until at least her 6 week checkup, even though the last thing she has time for is "one more thing."

Many women don't realize, and I definitely didn't, that postpartum infection is still a common cause of death for women. Some assume the temporary rise in temp due to engorgement is the issue, but any fever is important even if there are no other obvious symptoms. Infection can become seated in the breast, uterus, cervix, vagina, vulva, and urinary tract. C-sections can make you more likely to develop infection, but a vaginal birth does not put you in the clear.

Be aware of the following symptoms, but don't discount your fever if they are not present:

-fever

-bad smelling discharge (can be a sign of endometritis, the most common postpartum infection)

-Changes or difficulty urinating

-lower abdominal pain

-pain that increases during your recovery time

-Tenderness, discharge, redness or swelling at your c-section incision, episiotomy or laceration

-signs of mastitis such as chills,muscle aches, fatigue, soreness or hard area of the breast

Sweats and hot flashes are common after giving birth, but can also be signs of fighting infection. If you find yourself running hot and cold, take your temperature at BOTH times. I missed most of my temperature spikes while temping when I felt hot. When I tested during a cold chill I realized I was running a fever of almost 104.

Some symptoms can seem less obvious:

-rash

-sore throat

-fast pulse (over 100 beats per minute)

-vomiting and diarrhea

-headache and generally feeling unwell

Whether it is called postpartum infection, childbed fever, endometritis or purperal fever doesn't matter. What matters is that it is avoidable, treatable and women don't have to die from it every year.

But they do. I almost did.

I want to write about exactly what happened, the chain of events that took me from happy new mama to begging for someone to help me. I will, that's one of my goals this month. The thing is, it's hard. Even now, writing this, my chest starts heaving with the importance of what I'm saying. I want so desperately for others to avoid what I went through, that I fear failing to get this message across clearly enough.

I want women to read this for their own information, and pass it along to their friends, sisters, cousins, coworkers. Caught early, postpartum infections can be an annoyance, treated with antibiotics that can take care of them completely and permanently.

I was passed along, ignored, doubted, given the wrong antibiotics and told not to say my cervix hurts but to wait until they did the exam and could find out where the problem was.

It did hurt. It's where the infection started while I was pregnant and where it was allowed to grow more severe daily.I'm still trying to wrap my mind and my words around the fact that my son and I are both very lucky to have survived this. Still trying to cope with the fact that medical incompetence, negligence and a faulty system cost me thousands of dollars, major trauma and my uterus.

It shouldn't matter that I didn't plan on more children. I should have had my womb available to me, regardless. That's another story, for another day.

In the meantime, I just want to say that if you or someone you know has unexplained contractions they need to ask their doctor about the possibility of infection. If, after the baby is born, they start showing signs of fever or illness they need to call the dr right away and insist on being seen. Don't give up, keep pushing.

And use those thermometers.

2008-09-30T07:26:00.000-07:00

Who says a Gemini can't commit?

Missing.

2008-09-29T22:50:00.000-07:00

In quiet moments without witness,

I bring out the memories of you from their hiding places.

Unwrap them slowly, stingily, looking over my shoulder.

No pictures or proof, nothing to hold

Nothing to prove you were mine, carried only for a moment.

Tests and lab slips in a drawer I can't bring myself to empty.

Secret treasures, my hopes unfulfilled

I know your stories, the dates, how old you would be when, if, how...

I've kept you to myself, scared of those who would not understand.

This lump in my throat is choking me.

I need to say you were here, you mattered, I miss you so much

I have two lovely children but there would have, could have, been four.

There was the knowing and the knowing

Had I paid less attention I might have missed you completely

Might have missed the miracles I held for far too short a time.

You deserve recognition, and names

Not just whispered when I am alone, but by dad, and others.

They should be written, announced, set in stone and immortalized.

To my littles, babies I never held, never saw, and until now rarely acknowledged; We are going to bring you to the light, share you with others.

A bench is being made with a plaque that will declare your names for others to see, recognize, and know you were here and you did change us, you did and do make a difference.

You matter.

Announcing, for the first time, Benjamin Matthew and Eleanor Claire.

Work, not worry.

2008-09-25T09:26:00.000-07:00

One of my biggest character flaws is the tendency to worry about a problem, letting it get to the point of being overwhelming, when simple steps in the right direction would typically get me to the result I want. I focus so much on the big picture, that I avoid working on the little details that would chip away at the iceberg.

I do it with my weight. Instead of thinking of it terms of one brisk walk at a time, one less carb serving, one more flight of stairs I think about the number of pounds and sizes I want to lose. When I focus on how bad I feel for not being at a weight I'd consider healthy, I just end up staying overweight.

I've done it with work, too. Letting what I have to do feel overwhelming to me, when just one hour a day of working toward the things I need to accomplish would have me 7 hours closer to done at the end of the week instead of looking at a Saturday night and feeling I need to pull an all-nighter to make progress. By then, the mere thought has me exhausted - I've already spent at least that much time and mental energy WORRYING about the problem instead of working on it. I beat myself up about it, vow to do better, but still find myself overwhelmed.

I used to be the worst "great-student" you can imagine. I was a great student in that I could learn the material quickly, easily and make awesome grades. Unfortunately, I did it with some of the worst study habits imaginable. I'd start a semester with awesome notes, color coded sometimes to help my memory, rewritten neatly for ease of studying. Often the mere act of rewriting the information would cement it in my brain. Then, inevitably, at some point I would get behind. Illness, absence or something similar would momentarily interrupt that flow. I'd have two days worth of notes to rewrite. Or three. Suddenly it was a week. Two weeks. Then the test was there and I'd not have studied or rewritten, and oh crap - there's a paper due too. Typically I pulled it out of the spin, but not without a lot of stress, a lot of missed sleep and the self-admonition that I would never do this again.

I don't understand what it is about me that gets overwhelmed so easily once I reach that point. It's something I'm actually pretty embarassed about, though for the first time I'm working really hard to get it so that everything is above water (whereas there is usually SOMETHING for me that falls in the drowning category). It's a lot easier to row when the boat isn't full of water. If I can maintain, it will work better and I have spent enough time recently learning the "ask for help" lesson that I think it has finally saturated me to my very core.

I've made a new goal for myself. Instead of sitting and worrying about all the things I need to do, I'm going to focus on channeling that worry into actually WORKING on the thing I'm stressing about. It seems simple, embarassingly obvious, but I guess improving this at 30 is a hell of a lot better than waiting until 40.

2008-09-24T07:13:00.000-07:00

My husband can be kind, loving, generous, funny, understanding and so much more. Most of the time he is. There are times, unfortunately, that he gets angry and when he gets angry he has a tendency to say things that hit the mark every time when intended to hurt. It's not that I don't have this ability to say things that can be hurtful, but because of his upbringing he's especially talented at it. Add in a reluctance to actually say the words "I'm sorry" when apologizing for such statements, and it can be hard for us to make up after arguments.

Generally we can go a long time in between them, but lately the stress of trying to figure out if we can get this new house and whether that means selling or renting out our current home has really gotten to both of us. On one hand, I've lost over 20 pounds in a really short time. On the other, I'm a stressed out mess and I hate that. A lot of our recent issues have been tied to the house/move/financing thing and mistakes that were made in the past being drug up again as a result. It's a hard time in our household, made harder by lack of sleep, the events of the last year and his tendency to fire first and not want to say "I didn't mean that."

I'm trying hard to focus on what is going right, because there is a lot of it. At the end of the day, I'm still thankful that we're all here, safe and sound, and where we are (this house, the other, whatever) doesn't really matter.

Last night my husband was calmer, more relaxed, and apologetic (even if all the words weren't there) for statements of the previous days. I'm hoping that lasts.

I have this friend....

2008-09-22T16:12:00.001-07:00

Before I get too far away from when it happened, I'm dying to post about our vacation in August and what it meant. To me, my husband, our family as a whole. The thing is, words and time keep getting in the way and then another day/week passes and here I am....still no post about it and worried that words won't do it justice.

Typically when you come back from a vacation, people want to know where you went, what you did, what happened that you couldn't do at home, what happened that was out of the ordinary. The thing is, this trip was not about what we did (though we had a fantastic time in Seattle, at Ikea, the beach, etc.) it was about who we were with. The things we did were so very normal and that's what made the trip extraordinary. Our first day there, we talked with my friend and her husband as our children played together and even though we'd not seen each other in person until that very morning, it felt like the most normal thing on the planet. It felt like seeing my long lost sister, minus the awkwardness.

After a year of medical scares, medications and complications I found myself sitting next to my friend and suddenly very aware that my face hurt. From talking, from laughing, from smiling more in a few days time than I had in the previous year. I found myself watching my husband bond with hers over movies, meat and video games and feeling completely guiltless about our gabfests.

I was able to hug in person the woman who has held me up when I was ready to let go, the one who was able to answer the phone with a smile and reassuring words no matter how many times I called, no matter how late it was, no matter how hard I cried as I said "I'm on the way to the hospital again," or "I have a fever, again." The one who said more times than we can count, "you're not crazy," and she believed it.

We teared up at the realization that two women with PCOS and years of fertility treatments were watching their four children play. We cheered when we pulled off a trip to the grocery store without any of them. We finished each other's sentences and never ran out of anything to say. We ate the best hamburgers, salmon and steaks in the world and I am forever ruined on them, so I HOPE they will be coming to visit me soon so we can at least revisit the steaks and hamburgers.

There is still healing to be done, physically and emotionally, after this last year. There's no doubting that, but during the trip it felt like we turned the page, as a couple, as a family, and with the help of some freaking incredible friends.

Thank you, C, D, D and G. For welcoming us to your home, into your hearts, cooking us amazing food and just being the incredible people that you are. We missed you the moment we got on the plane, and that's not about to change any time soon.

We need to get this house so you can visit us as soon as possible.

Packing it away

2008-09-20T13:29:00.000-07:00

Do I want to bring this with me?

I have asked myself that question many times over the last few days, in the process of packing the contents of our home. Viewing each item with a critical eye, I look at books, trinkets, dishes, toys and more books. It seems I deem my cookbook collection still worthy, despite the fact it fills more than three paper boxes will hold.

I look at pictures, paperwork and presents and try to decide whether it is important, meaningful, something I actually use or love.

Is this still serving a purpose?

Maybe there are people who can pack their belongings quickly, methodically, without regard for where they came from or where they are going. I can do that with some things, but with many things my packing is slowed by the memories that get in the way. Who I was when this item showed up, who I am now and whether those two images match.

What if I let this one go?

I'm trying not to pack things that I'll regret moving, unpacking and trying to find a place for. We're moving to a bigger house, a better home, a change that feels strangely like a new start, a second chance, a step toward better in so many ways. There's so much to be excited about, and my tears over leaving behind this home are tempered by the thought of turning the new house into home.

I fill the boxes and try to designate where they will go....playroom, dining room, the closet under the stairs. I alternate between flashbacks of this house...bringing my daughter home, her first birthday party, my son's first days home, the breakfast we hosted here the day after our wedding.....with imaginings of our life in the new house. I picture birthday parties where we aren't crammed together like sardines, imagine the kids chasing each other in the back yard, my husband and I sitting on the balcony outside our bedroom on a warm summer night.

I sort through things and wonder why I still have material for so many projects, why I have two copies of certain books and more canning jars than my own grandmother did.

I wish I had taken more pictures.

"Underweight" child.

2008-08-25T07:53:00.000-07:00

When my daughter was 6 months old, things started going haywire with her growth chart. By haywire, I mean she wasn't gaining weight the way they like to see it happen with kids her age.
By not gaining weight the way they like, I mean her growth curve plateaued. Flatlined. Freaking STOPPED. It's almost impossible not to panic in that situation.

The worry was compounded by the night, referenced in the previous post, when she had what we later found out was an absance seizure. There were no more until 7 months, when she had several more of them. She was hospitalized, an EKG and EEG were run. There were blood tests and the fear in our house was a fog as thick as pea soup. We were absolutely terrified.

The tests were all normal, and there's not been another seizure since shortly after that hospital visit at 7 months. Ultimately, after a lot of research and connecting of the dots, when we saw a recurrence of the rashes that appeared when she had seizures, we found out that she is extremely intolerant of foods that are high in salicylates. What started out as a major orange juice craving for me turned out to be dangerous for her - but it saved us the scare of her first introduction to orange juice being straight out of the cup at around a year, when it might have been incredibly dangerous for her.

Back to the weight thing.

We could not understand why she wasn't gaining weight, blood tests had ruled out any genetic or metabolic reason, and we were all just perplexed. On paper, she fit the definition of failure to thrive. However, we knew that couldn't be right. She was ahead on every possible milestone and doing extremely well. In fact, if we had never laid eyes on a growth chart we'd know she was petite but never would have thought something was wrong with her. Even with the people who asked "don't you feed her?" At one point we were having weekly weight checks. I'd get excited, knowing she'd eaten really well in the previous week, only to be devastated by a growth of an ounce or two...sometimes none. I'd just know she'd grown, her clothes fit differently.

Then we realized during one two month period, she'd gained only a few ounces but she'd grown two inches in height. Further talk with the pediatrician pointed to the knowledge that calories go first to their growing brains, then their heights, THEN weight. She had two out of three, and we decided unless there were other reasons to worry, we were going to STOP freaking out about this.

It was hard to let go of the worry about why she wasn't gaining, especially having heard that kids grow really fast the first year and slow down the second. My daughter was the complete opposite, and when she hit 18 months she really started gaining faster. She's still petite, but you'd never look at her and think she was underweight. She's tall and thin and has a quick metabolism. She eats until she is full and stops, something many of us just don't know how to do.

Last night I talked with a friend who was worried. Her son, 20 months old, hasn't gained much weight in recent months and her pedi has her worried. I've seen him very recently and petite isn't a word ANYONE would use, but because he's in less than the 10th percentile for weight (he's TALL!!!!) they are concerned. She was asking me what we did with Em and food.

I told her the things my friends told me when I was worried about my own baby. To keep offering healthy foods, including good fats, but don't force food. To avoid making eating a power struggle and look at the baby, not the growth chart. To remember that if someone is in the 90th percentile, SOMEONE has to be in the 7th and that doesn't mean there's something wrong with them. That it's okay to rule out any problems, but assuming all comes back well it's ok to just acknowledge this may be his body type and that's ok. I reminded her of her brother - tall and lanky his entire life. I told her if the tests come back ok, and I'm confident they will, then to go with her instincts. If she wouldn't have worried BEFORE looking at the growth chart, it's ok not to worry after.

I realize the system of weight checks and growth charts is intended to track a child's progress, to catch problems before they get out of hand, but this system is not perfect. Just as there are children who achieve developmental milestones on their own time, they aren't all going to grow at the same rate or on a nice little curve.

And for the record - if you look at Em's growth chart now, and cover the plateau with your fingers, she's right back on her original curve. My son is now at the age where she started plateauing. I've introduced foods in the same order (Though I'm not drinking OJ while nursing!), and he has gained in a completely different manner. He eats more, gains more and weighs what she did at over a year. More than ever I realize she grew and is growing the way she is meant to, and so is he.

Reach out, reach out and...oh. wait.

2008-08-20T20:57:00.001-07:00

When Emily was a newborn, I was amazed by so many aspects of motherhood. The reality can be so different from the imagination at times, but I'd never even really thought about how her cries would affect me. Yes, I thought I would pick her up and comfort her. I knew I would try to calm her with loving noises or songs or rocking motions.

I didn't realize the effect of a baby's cry on her mother would be so physical, so instinctive that I would react before I'd consciously acknowledged the cry. I lost count of how many times my body tensed, my arms moved and my breasts leaked. It amazed me there were nights she would cry and I would find myself by her side before I was even fully awake.

The night she had her first seizure, she was 6 months old. I was up late, trying to get some work done, and I heard a cry from her room that was different than anything I'd ever heard from her. It wasn't a diaper, hunger or discomfort. Something was WRONG.

I had her door open, light on and had her in my arms before the cry itself was even finished. It was an instinctive, gut reaction and while I don't know exactly what I'd have done if the boogey man had been in her room, I can tell you he'd have been very, very sorry he was.

As someone I once knew used to say - I told you that so I could tell you this:

I have tried to understand my mother, and it is just never going to happen.

So many times in so many ways she has let me down and I've been the walking definition of insanity, expecting one day things would be different. I've felt deep down that somewhere in there she has the capacity of being empathetic or at least understanding, but I'm finally acknowledging I was wrong.

I've tried picturing her as a young girl, as a teen, as a young woman with a family. When I think of her in this way I fully recognize that she never set out to be the way she is, didn't intentionally decide she was going to cause the hurt she has. It makes it a bit easier to think of her that way, but it doesn't erase the way she was and is. Doesn't make it easier to swallow when she lets me down, yet again.

My mom works in a profession where she is bolstered by the notion of being needed, and more times than I can count she has put the people she works with ahead of her family. Treating them better, being there for them when she is not for us, constantly reminding us that they need her, that they are like her children. Except she treats them better than she has treated/treats us, so the last one is hard to swallow.

I understand having needs outside your family, I get it. But when one of the people she works with had a medical issue recently, she called me in a panic and worried. She kept saying that losing him would be like losing one of us. Only, she's treated the medical issues I've dealt with in the last year as an inconvenience. Mostly I hear from her if she has a problem and wants me to help her with it. Financial or otherwise.

When she called about this medical issue, I was torn. I knew the person she was worried about and I prayed for his well-being (he's fine now) but I also knew that when I was having surgery, she really couldn't be bothered. She moved heaven and earth to take care of this person and even my dad took several days off. There was nothing like that with any of my medical issues. When I was put on modified bedrest and told not to travel more than 30 minutes from the hospital with the level III NICU, she didn't even come to see us for Christmas. They didn't see my son until he was a month old. They live 45 minutes away. She did offer to come when he was hospitalized for pneumonia, but didn't. She didn't offer when we went back to the hospital because he almost bled to death after his circ. She didn't come for my daughter's 3rd birthday. She did come for my son's baptism, last month (5 months after the last time they'd been here) but left early, in a huff, because I didn't stop cooking immediately when she wanted to show me something, even though I was just trying to get food on the table for everyone. But I digress!

Shortly after that phone conversation, my sister came to stay with us so my husband and I could go to an event. My mom called when we were getting ready to leave and said, "I've been thinking about our conversation the other day..." For a brief, stupid moment I thought maybe she was going to say something about likening her clients to us kids, about how that might have come out wrong or maybe say something about how she'd been worried about me too at some point in all this.

There was nothing like that, however. She has some health issues of her own, and she was calling about the pain medication I was given by mistake that I can't take. It was yet another example of me thinking that maybe, just maybe she might come through and kicking myself in the butt for having that hope.

She called last night, a few weeks now after the incident above. Not to talk to me. Not to find out how I am or even tell me how she is. To ask me to ask some billing questions of a company she deals with, when she had all the information to do so in her hand. I mistakenly decided to tell her I'm overwhelmed, I'm frustrated, I'm trying to recover from all the medical crap and not getting enough rest or relief. She really didn't sound interested, and the conversation ended pretty quickly.

I found myself wondering, how could she not recognize that cry? How is it that I can be so in tune with my children and want to do anything I can to keep them safe and comforted, and have a mom who alternates between clueless and uncaring? How is it that she's motherly when she has an audience, but not when I need her? What happened? Why? How is it that she gets so caught up in how much these other people need her that she doesn't hear her own children when they do?

Why can't she be there for me, if only to say something soothing?

More importantly, how do I stop reaching out for the mom that just isn't going to be there?

Let's pretend aka WWYD?

2008-08-18T11:59:00.000-07:00

Say you were a month out from major surgery, getting there but still sore and easily fatigued. And you had two broken bones in your foot.

Add in a 7 month old and a 3 1/2 year old.

Now, say your husband in an attempt to do something nice and fun for the family bought tickets to a Major League Baseball game.

The game is a one hour drive from your house, takes place two hours before your 3 year old's bedtime, and will be at least an hour and a half drive from your home.

And while he did get 4 seats, they are tiny and in the full sun.

Would you suck it up and go, hoping for the best but knowing at best you'll have a good time and be thoroughly exhausted at the end ? Or would you try to encourage him to go and take the three year old, and maybe the thirteen year old nephew and BIL?

Just wondering.

ah.

2008-08-15T06:55:00.000-07:00

My nephew is going to be ok. By late last evening they'd been able to turn his oxygen down half way, he was breathing a bit better and they were hoping to have him completely off oxygen by late this afternoon. My SIL is hoping he'll be able to go home then,and I am too, though I know there's a possibility they'll want him for one more night. She did say he's now (lunchtime today) down to a third of the oxygen they were giving him, and he'll need to be off of it for 4 hours AND keep his saturation up before they let him go home.

We're grateful for all prayers and good thoughts, and hope he'll be home soon. They've decided it's something viral, that he must be more succeptible to this stuff, and they'll prescribe some medications and a nebulizer for home use for a while until he hopefully outgrows this tendency.
___________________________________________________________________

Several times I've started to write something about what happened last night, after the kids were asleep and my husband was off helping a friend. I tried to write how yesterday brought about memories and flashbacks more severe than the ones I'd been having already. I sat on the living room floor and cried, open mouthed and loud, until my eyes were puffy and I had the hiccups. Until my shoulders were heaving and the cats were looking at me like a creature from the lagoon.

I tried to write about how and why that meltdown happened, and my hopes that it was the beginning of getting over some of this. Nothing came out right, though.

Today I feel like a raw nerve, yet again. On the verge of tears from the moment I woke, I'm trying not to worry that means there's been a setback (I know realistically it's just an emotional hangover). I'm tired from little sleep, thanks especially to my own congested little man, and I must have overdone it yesterday because I am sore hysterectomy wise again. (post about that coming soon).

We'd appreciate your prayers.

2008-08-14T07:52:00.000-07:00

My nephew, just under 18 months old, is at the hospital right now. He's on oxygen, struggling to breathe, and we don't yet know if this is RSV, pneumonia or asthma.

Please pray for my nephew, for my SIL and her hubby. This is really scary stuff. He had a problem in June with breathing troubles while they were out of the country, and we'd hoped for no recurrence.

I'll update when I can.

Update from shortly before lunch - they've ruled out RSV, but still really aren't sure what's going on. He's still on oxygen, was going to be getting another dose of prednisone around lunchtime, and was sleeping but still breathing quite heavily.

Who says it can't be real AND fun?

2008-08-12T13:13:00.001-07:00

When I first started this blog, I had plans for it to be fun. FUN!

Yeah, another thing that didn't happen quite as I planned in the last year. It's been honest, which I would like to think counts for something.

Recently I've been thinking about what I'd ultimately like my site to look like. I'm picturing a real website, banners, different pages, the whole deal. I'm picturing some fun aspects to the site, including reviews of some great books and awesome products and companies I've come across, and I'm hoping eventually I'll even be able to incorporate some contests with real life giveaways. I want to talk about food, marriage, kids and writing. Especially the writing.

I don't know how soon this will happen, but I'm working on it. There are many reasons, but a big one is all about bringing some of the fun back.

In the meantime, here's a bit of trivia about me. I love hitting a farmer's market with $20 and a canvas shopping bag, leaving it with more fresh produce than I can easily carry. It makes me feel as if I've conquered something and I love having enough veggies in the house I have to find excuses to put them in everything, including breakfast. (Made a fantastic zucchini, squash, red onion, egg scramble this weekend)

Now excuse me, I'm off to try to blanch 4000 green beans.

We don't HAVE to tell my mother.

2008-08-11T14:26:00.000-07:00

We've had some behavior issues with my daughter recently. Nothing we can't get around, but she's cranky and prone to meltdowns. We've adjusted nap and bed times accordingly and that helped a bit, but there was still something nagging as well as the feeling she just wasn't getting enough rest.

I think we've found part of the answer.

My dear, sweet girl has been getting out of her bed at nap time, grabbing books off her shelves and spending the majority of her nap time looking at the books instead of sleeping. Further, she's figured out that if she turns on the extra nightlight in her room at night, I can't tell from outside the room she's done it and she can look at her books for a while at night too.

I was notorious for reading by nightlight, flashlight and even opening my bedroom door after my parents were asleep to read by the light that came down the hall from the bathroom nightlight. One of my most vivid childhood memories is of being told it was time for bed and asking permission to finish the chapter I was reading in a Nancy Drew mystery. Mom agreed and I kept reading until she finally stopped me....a full two chapters later, as I was a fast reader and just had to push that limit. She finally made me go to bed, but I'll bet you can guess the first thing I did when I woke the next morning. I finished that book before breakfast when I'd only borrowed it the afternoon before.

She comes by it naturally.

Not the End.

2008-08-05T13:46:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I wrote:

The magnet on my fridge declares for all to read:

"Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end."

I'm exhausted, frustrated, spent and at my limit in almost every regard. I have hope things will get better, but better seems so far away right now. I haven't had a full day of rest since my hysterectomy, despite that being what I'm supposed to do. There hasn't been a day, including the day of my surgery, I haven't done something directly contradictory to doctor's orders for recuperation.

It's not that I'm being stubborn or willfully ignoring them, I just don't know what else to do. "

Then my son woke, smiled, cooed and babbled while I changed his diaper. I decided to put in some music while I fed him, and sang louder when I discovered my singing was making him laugh. When he was done eating, we danced. Despite my pain, regardless of how tired I was, I decided I was not going to let another day go by without dancing with my son.

An hour after that dance, I found out my foot is broken in two places, contrary to what I'd been told before. It wasn't just a torn ligament, and the suspected damage to the tendons is in fact there too. (Did I even mention this, that I stepped down shortly before my surgery and hurt myself? I don't remember) I go back in a month, I'm still wearing the same lovely boot I've been wearing for weeks, and if all goes well I will not need surgery. The bones are already trying to knit back together.

Several hours after the dance, I learned the cuff from my surgery is healing fairly well but showing signs of potentially being infected. (Pain, extreme tenderness, etc). So, once again, I find myself on antibiotics. At least I'm finding this out NOW. It's quite possible with as long as everything else went on, this is just the last little bit of ick left over.

I started my day frustrated, in a lot of pain, looking for a break and didn't mean in my foot.

By the end of the day, though I didn't feel I'd crossed anything off of my to-do list, I felt like a success. I danced with my son. I laughed with my daughter when she came home from school until our stomachs hurt. I did the "made of state" puzzle with her three times in a row, and marveled at her memory of the states, who lives where, where she's been.

I booked a flight for our family to go see my dear friend, at the end of this month, and I am over the moon.

So, while it isn't over, I'm healing. It's about freaking time.

What a crock.

2008-08-04T13:07:00.000-07:00

Moved Heaven, Earth and way more weight than I was supposed to in order to get to my post-op appt only to find out my surgeon's nurse had cancelled my appointment. The receptionist didn't think I was supposed to be there, then saw it had been cancelled. They called the nurse up and she must have been having a bad day, as she acted as if I was an idiot for not knowing the surgeon schedules postops for a month after on hysterectomies.

I suspect this got messed up when they changed me from a laparoscopy to hysterectomy, but regardless of the reason I put a lot of effort into getting there and now I'm frustrated and in pain.

Oh, and having to wait until August 25th to get the rest of my answers.

I'll be back, after these short messages.

2008-08-04T10:47:00.001-07:00

This afternoon I'll meet with my surgeon for my post-operative visit. He'll go over the details of the pathology, the pictures of the parts I can no longer call my own, go over what his nurse told me and those details he wanted to discuss with me personally.

I've already heard the word benign, several times. Gratitude is too small a word for hearing that term, but I didn't expect malignancy to be a worry. Now I just need the rest of the story.

It is my greatest hope this is the beginning of a new chapter, a return to the old normal....though I do not think I could have possibly come through this year unchanged. I just hope when the dust settles, the changes are mostly for the better.

A watched pot...boils over.

2008-07-29T03:21:00.000-07:00

For more days than I care to tally, my emotions have been under scrutiny. Friends, family, doctors, acquaintances, my hairdresser, my counselor....all have watched, most have commented. I've made more jokes about the breakdown I was going to have "when all this is over" than can possibly be funny. Most have said I'm holding it together well, they are surprised I'm still standing, they wouldn't blame me for cracking just a little.

All the while, everything has been simmering just under the surface. Like a pot of water in the moments before the boiling point is reached, there has been a current underneath my daily thoughts and emotions. Some steam escaped, there were times I freaked out, choked up and broke down. Some came in the form of a good cry, an argument with my husband or a panic attack. A notable one occurred after I made the mistake of watching a video of a vaginal hysterectomy to satisfy my need to know what it involved. (It was not nearly as easy a video to handle as the one of a laparoscopic assisted supracervical hysterectomy....that one didn't leave me wanting to rock in the corner). I know it's likely not normal to want to watch those videos at all, but I needed to know. I panicked, and almost cancelled the surgery. Mostly, though, I've tried to hold it together by focusing on other things.

As it turns out, while I'm still in a considerable amount of pain and it's clear my recovery is going to take time, having the surgery was definitely needed. While I feel very rough right now, I can tell there is going to be improvement. After talking with the surgeon the morning they released me from the surgery center, I understand better what I was dealing with.

The pathology isn't back yet. We may or may not get more information from the study of my uterus, but what the surgeon was able to tell me was pretty amazing. To me, at least.

He said there was not a thing about my uterus that looked healthy. In fact, he described it as boggy, shriveled, lacking proper color and sick looking. He referred to our conversations where he asked me if I was sure I was done having children, sure I would not change my mind, and said based upon how my uterus looked it is unlikely I'd ever have conceived again. Even more unlikely I'd see another live birth, if I did conceive. We are extremely lucky to have our children.

The first bubble broke the surface of the water in that moment. The grief I have been fighting, denying, pushing down and trying to keep a lid on finally boiled over. All at once, the sadness of infertility, trying to conceive, the loss of two babies I have yet to properly acknowledge, my brother's murder, my pregnancy with my son, his birth, his illness after, my illness and the fear I'd have a surgery only to be told they couldn't find anything wrong just boiled over. I fear I may have scared the hell out of that poor man when I just started sobbing.

I tried to explain my relief at the notion this could all be over and the fears I'd had about the surgery, told him I'd been worried he'd come in and say something along the lines of "well, I took it out but I didn't really see any obvious problem. Maybe there will still be some pain relief, but I'm not sure."

He reassured me that it was very clear my uterus was quite sick, very obvious that I had to have been in a lot of pain and feeling awful with it looking that way and certain that had I not had it removed I'd have continued to hurt and feel sick. That was a validation for which I had not dared to hope.

It's not clear without the pathology whether it was just the infection that caused this damage, if my D & C earlier this year played a role or if there is something more. He mentioned the possibility of Adenomyosis, a condition where endometrial tissue penetrates and grows into the uterine muscle causing several symptoms - including chronic pain. I'm anxious to get the results back from the lab. It can be treated, but from what I've read it can't be completely resolved until menopause or with a hysterectomy.

I realize it was not entirely logical to worry there would be no obvious signs of a medical problem when the surgeon looked. I know in my heart that I was feeling pain, fatigue and a level of sickness I couldn't explain....but it seemed so strange there were times I worried I was losing it, or that others would think I was. Knowing something and knowing can be two different things.

I have a bit of extra time on my hands right now. Time where I'm not allowed to work, to busy my body with running around or taking on new tasks. I have to be still and in that stillness, the grief is bubbling to the surface. Bit by bit, I'm working on it.

Our church home, the church I was not able to attend for so long as it was outside of the radius allowed while I was experiencing preterm labor, is rebuilding its outdoor worship area. An elder has been handmaking benches, and all of them are done except one. The one my husband will help him make that will bear the names of our two babies that have yet to be fully acknowledged. This week we will call the elder with the first and middle names of the children whose feet never touched the ground, whose hands we never held. We will say their names out loud to another person who will literally set them in stone.

I watched the pot so carefully, afraid it would boil over when I wasn't looking, afraid I'd be trying to deal with this at a time when I simply could not. His timing, of course, is perfect. With an abundance of boiling water, time that cannot be spent on activity and a prescription for rest and hot tea it seems the perfect time to sort through all of this. If that were not irony enough, I actually received a written prescription for a device that would me take slow, deep breaths.

Someone is making sure I take care of myself now, and reminding me you can't really get cooking until the water boils anyway.

Surgery complete.

2008-07-24T21:02:00.000-07:00

I'm updating on behalf of my dear friend and am happy to say that her surgery went well today. She didn't have many details when I spoke with her (and yes, I actually did get to talk to her in person, not just her husband, which was a happy surprise). I'm sure when she's ready, she'll post the details; when we talked she didn't know much other than the surgeon referred to her uterus as "shriveled." Not a nice word when you're talking about an internal organ. She was also able to keep her ovaries, which is great news, considering the last thing she needs is to have the major hormonal upheaval that losing those would entail.

When I talked to her, she sounded surprisingly good. The must be giving her the good drugs.

Thanks to everyone who has kept her in your thoughts and prayers. Please continue to pray that this finally does the trick and her poor body can heal. Healing and peace are something she and her family desperately need.

This Woman's Work.

2008-07-24T07:02:00.000-07:00

I've talked about myself a lot. What this has been like for me, how I feel about it, blah blah blah me me me blah blah blah blah me me me blah (extra points for the movie reference). In reality, though, I've thought a lot about the effect of all of this on my family. Especially my husband.

He's held me up and held my hand. Done the dishes, laundry, bedtime routines, vacuumed, gone to work and repeated that cycle over and over while doing his best to make me occasionally put my feet up. If it weren't for him, I'd probably not take the time to take care of myself at all. I still don't do it enough, but that's not his fault.

We had an argument, shortly before our wedding. I was not yet diagnosed with PCOS. We both knew something was wrong, both knew whatever was going on was getting worse, and the stress of not knowing and preparing for our wedding was starting to get to us. I don't remember the catalyst for the fight, what ultimately made it happen but I am sure my hormones and the wedding did not help. Worrying that there might be something really wrong with me had me scared. I remember shouting at him "are you in this for better or worse? What about the part about in sickness and in health? Can I count on you to be there for me, no matter what? If not, you need to say so NOW."

His diabetes diagnosis had come years earlier, when we'd only been together a year, and I think I was a bit resentful that I'd really tried to see him through it...and here I was scared about my own health issue and worried he didn't get it. I realize now he cared, very very much, and I wasn't taking the time to see it.

We waited until after the wedding to do the ultrasound and bloodwork that would confirm what was wrong. I didn't want anything to damper the honeymoon, and he said he wanted to marry me no matter the outcome. It was hard, learning about pcos, hearing the infertility statistics and worrying about the other complications. Infertility itself was harder. The last year, my pregnancy, complications, illness, our son's illness, surgery, etc...it's been the hardest year of my life. I've never, ever, been so stressed, so emotional and so on the edge.

Through it all, he's been there. I've soaked every shirt he owns with tears. I've been emotional, hormonal, scatterbrained, unreliable, short tempered and in many ways not the woman he fell in love with. Not once has he thrown his arms up in the air and said "You're so not worth this."

There have been moments when he's been just as tired, just as stressed, just as ready for this crazy cloud of medical scares to blow over. He's been short tempered and short on sleep at times too. He's stood by me through all of it, keeping his vows in every way. Better, worse, rich, poor, sickness, health....and even more sickness.

When he can he makes me laugh. When he can't, he lets me cry.

We've been together almost 11 years, and he still surprises me with how sweet, funny and loving he can be. I have to remind myself that sometimes he gets scared too. We've stayed up late the last several nights talking, a bit about what's coming, a lot about where we've been, and a bit about things completely unrelated. It's been nice to have those talks. There have been a few moments where he's confessed how hard it's been on him, and a few where he's admitted he's worried about today too. Sometimes in my selfishness I've failed to notice that. I've worried so much about my fears that I didn't address his.

Today, while I'm having surgery, I get to sleep through it. Yes, my body gets to go through the wringer but I won't be aware of it at the time. I don't have to be the one sitting, waiting, worrying. He's held my hand through all of this, but for the really crappy portion of today's events he's got nobody to hold his. I feel terrible for not considering that until today.

Throughout all of this, there's been a lot of "that really sucked....but we were SO lucky" moments. So many events that could have turned out dramatically worse than they did, so many times when we were all too aware of the thin line between bad and tragic. Several people have commented on my bad luck in the last year, and honestly, I feel like I've had an awful lot of good luck. My children are here, healthy, thriving and I have had my husband to see us through all of this. Never wavering, never faltering, getting up every morning and doing what he has to do to take care of all of us.

I am so lucky to have him. There will never, ever be enough days with him.

Outreach.

2008-07-22T07:04:00.000-07:00

Invisible, unless you know where to look, almost all of us carry at least one and sometimes more. Heavy, cumbersome and awkward, emotional bags come without wheels and handles, just a strap to tie onto your back and loop around your heart. How many times have we heard that saying about each person we meet carrying a burden almost more than they can stand? How often do we actually talk to someone about theirs?

I am terrible at asking for help. If you've been to my house during an event, you've seen an example of it first hand. I fly around like a drunken bumblebee, doing this, doing that, often denying offers of help by saying "no, thanks, I'm almost done" or "I just have a couple more things to do." In my heart, I know people don't mind helping - they are, after all, OFFERING and yet I have trouble accepting. I have even more trouble asking.

The last year has been an exercise in asking for help. While I've never been the type to think I could do it all alone, asking for help is something I struggle with terribly. Part of it probably boils down to a combination of a need to do it myself in order to feel worthy, capable, competent. Some of it is likely related to this tendency of mine to take on too much. There's certainly a fear of failure thrown in there for good measure, and the worry of appearing weak.

Lately, my ability to hold it together is wavering. While I have faith in the notion that God doesn't give us more than we can handle, I'm not joking when I say I feel he's putting too much faith in me. Yesterday it occurred to me that maybe that's the point I've been missing. That maybe, just maybe He is intentionally giving me more than I can handle. I am having to ask for help, and I think that might just be his master plan this time.

I struggled recently with the admission to my husband and my doctor that the minimum dose of zoloft is not cutting it for me. I'm not able to handle it all, and the stresses of my pregnancy, my son's illness, my own, the complications of the last year, stress with work, my upcoming surgery - all of it piled onto my back, and I felt I was faltering. I didn't want to, but I started to ask for help. I expressed my frustration at feeling weak at not being able to just handle this.

Then something happened.

A woman I've known for three years, someone who has been a ray of sunshine without knowing it, confessed to me yesterday that she wasn't holding it together. That she, in fact, had a breakdown this weekend that left her rocked to her core. She said, "I hate feeling so weak" and in that moment I confessed what I'd been dealing with. Talking to each other about it didn't make it all go away, didn't make it all better, but we knew we weren't alone. We agreed we'd call each other if it felt that way at any point.

Then something else happened.

I checked my email and there was a message from someone I've known for 13 years. THIRTEEN YEARS, I can't even believe it's been that long. I love him like a brother, even though when we first met it didn't seem we'd click as friends. Over the years, he's been a constant source of support and encouragement, of honesty and loyalty. He's the one that told me trying to conceive was like trying to catch lightning in a bottle and he was incredibly supportive in many ways. He's hurting and struggling, and he took the bold step of reaching out and asking for help, just in case. I'm proud of him, and honored to be trusted in that way.

I hope the dark days are over soon for all of us, but I realized some things in the midst of all this. Not for one moment did I consider either of my friends weak or incapable for asking for help. I realized that for all of us, regardless of the baggage we are carrying, there are several someones who would be devastated if something happened to us. Our lives are touched by many people, not even just our families or the people we see every day - and theirs are touched by ours, whether it is said, whether we take the time to acknowledge it, or not. I think most people, at their core, want to help. Want to be needed.

And being needed can go a long, long way in this world.

Who's your Mommy? (11 lessons about your mother)

2008-07-17T12:49:00.000-07:00

When I'm not paying attention, for example when laying on the couch, I have a tendency to rub my feet together. It reminds your Daddy of a praying mantis, and it used to drive him nuts. Then he saw Emily do it during one of the ultrasounds when I was pregnant. Since then he's seen both of you do it, and now he thinks it's cute.

Lesson #1 - Sometimes the things that annoy you about someone become endearing. Then we call them "quirks." I have lots of those.

I love Dr. Pepper, strawberries, sappy stories and songs that make me cry. Emily has asked many times why I was crying only to discover it was about a song or a movie. Kids, your dad once explained to Em that my heart was closer to the surface and easier to get to with stuff like that. It's true. I cry easily. Good, bad, touching, frustrating, moving....it happens to us all, perhaps just a bit more easily with me.

Lesson #2 - It's ok to be empathetic, to care about what happens even if it doesn't happen to you or even in real life. Tears are therapeutic. OH, and Em, cool compresses for those swollen eyes. You get that puffiness from me. Sorry about that.

My favorite movie in the world is The Princess Bride. It's not the best made but it has true love, swordfighting, a giant and some of the best one-liners ever. Death can not stop true love. Killed by pirates is good, inconceivable and more. Your dad isn't so into it, I love it.

Lesson #3-Differences are part of what makes the world go round. So does love, adventure and dedication. Remember that. Oh, and remember you can get through the fire swamp if you learn its secrets. Life is a bit like that. Just don't give up.

I like coffee. Sometimes black, sometimes with an insane amount of chocolate syrup and some whipped cream. I like mayo and mustard, a little of both, on the same sandwich. Dad doesn't. If you do (Em does so far) you get that from me. Also, if you like to smash a sandwich until it's really thin and then eat it, that's a me thing too. I love lemon. Straight lemons, lemons squeezed into ice water (no sugar or very little), lemon filling in cake, lemon yogurt, lemon on seafood.

Lesson #4 lemons are good. If life gets rough, lemonade won't fix it but it might remind you that even in a sour situation, there are ways to sweeten things. Just don't put it in cuts.

Look at your hands. Emily and Joseph, if you look at the shape of your hands and fingers you will see carbon copies of my own. If ever, even if you're old and gray, you are thinking of me and you wonder about something, look at your hands. They are just like mine. And mine are like my fathers, and his were like his mother's. You, me, Poppy, and my Grandma Jones...we all have the same hands. Isn't that fantastic? If I'm far away - say when you're in college (please consider transferring somewhere closer), or grown (you could live close!) or even when you're old and grey and I'm not around anymore, hold your left hand with your right. I'll be there.

Lesson #5 - we are connected, and we always will be.

Before the two of you came along, I'd have never considered anything about me beautiful. It's not that I was so very down on myself, but I'd have never used that word in a thought about myself. But then. Everyone who has seen you has used that word about both of you - and the thing is, you look a lot like your Daddy but you also look a LOT like me. Which means, parts of me are beautiful too.

Lesson #6 - Don't be afraid to acknowledge areas you need to improve, but take the time to notice what is lovely about you inside and out. Be proud of who and what you are, and know that a lot of what determines beauty is the light that shines from within. The two of you shine so brightly, it's breathtaking. Don't forget that.

I try to be silly with you. Em's current favorite punchline is "poopyhead" and I have to admit that sometimes I use it too, just to make her laugh. Joseph, you're a little easier to make laugh - a tickle or a surprised gasp and you're giggling. I love to hear your laughter. It soothes my soul like nothing else could, and I swear it keeps us all young.

Lesson #7 - Laugh. Laugh a LOT, even if it's only almost funny. Even when life is frustrating and overwhelming and you are bone tired, try to laugh about something. Laughter through tears is one of the best medicines. Oh, and contrary to what they tell you in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, you can't die laughing. If science one day proves me wrong, don't get mad just think of it as a great way to go.

Speaking of going. Someday I won't be here. Hopefully it's when I'm really, really old and ornery and people are referring to me as "feisty for her age." Know this now. I will never leave you. At the very least I can hang around in your hearts and minds forever, as long as you let me. However, I'd like to think I can keep an eye on you when I'm gone, watching and putting in a good word for you. Rejoicing in your joys, comforting in your hard times. Moving your furniture when you aren't looking. Leaving little presents or tokens. Maybe opening your kitchen cupboards. Who knows? There are people who aren't alive any more that still feel very much with me. I miss them immensely, but I can still think of them and smile.

Lesson #8 - it's ok to be mad, sad, upset and let those emotions show. Then try to think of the good stuff too, it helps, I promise.

Maybe one day you'll have children. God knows how I pray that I will be there to see it, because that would be such a blast. You're going to make mistakes in your parenting and I can guarantee there will be some mistakes I've made that you vow not to repeat. That's ok - most of us try to be better parents than we had, and most of us succeed. I know you will. I'm sure there will be things I have and will screw up. But, oh my gosh, do I love you two. With everything I have and more.

Lesson #9 - start your most important journeys with love. It's not everything, but it's a fantastic start.

Summing up who I am is complicated, and at the same time very simple. I have hopes and dreams, and while some of them are a work in progress (I've yet to write anything publishable, for example) some have come true right before my very eyes. I'm a gemini, and while I don't possess the fickle in the love arena type traits, I am the gemini that wants to try so many things when they grow up that maybe they never quite reach the grown up phase. Traveling, writing and reading are current passions of mine. I want to scrapbook, learn to be a lactation consultant and learn photography. You kids are my greatest success because I wanted you, (dad too, but I haven't been writing this about him), had to work hard to have you, and you're here. Every day I'm more proud of you than the last.

Lesson #10 - If you want to sum up who I am in the smallest of nutshells, you and your dad are my dreams come true. The lights of my life, and the best part of my day. Every day. Follow your dreams, kids. No matter what they are, no matter where they take you. Don't be afraid to go after what you really want.

I read. That's an understatement. Emily once came home from school and asked if we wanted to play "Indiana an a Jones." then asked who wanted to be Indiana and who wanted to be a Jones. I asked how you would be a jones, and before Em could answer, Daddy said "you have to read a lot of books at the same time." Your relatives on the Jones side would be tickled to hear that definition. Because we read, a lot, and often it's several books at once. We can't help it. I'm glad we can't.

Lesson #11 - Read. No matter what your interests are, you can find something in a book to pull you in and fascinate you. You can travel to distant lands, find empathy for someone else, research your own situation, do anything or find anything. Not just magazines or internet, read books. There's something about the excitement of turning to the first page, of picking up where you left off, of closing the final chapter.

Now, about your dad.

Yes, I know this wasn't about him. Consider this a bonus section.

Sometimes it can seem that your dad is so busy having "Stuff to do" that he's never going to sit down. I've never known anyone who works harder than he does, with the efficiency he possesses. The man can clean circles around me and does. Watch the way he does dishes, laundry and cleaning and you'll have a picture of how he is at the office. He takes a task and whips it out every time. I've just never been good at it like that. I get distracted, I stop to do something else, the last load of laundry sits in the dryer until I remember it.

But.

This is the same man who will sit for a third, fourth of fifth bedtime story and tell you the character's name in the book is "hock-tooey" even if it's not because it makes you giggle. And he will live for your giggle. He will also do everything to make sure you have everything you need, and a lot of what you want. We don't put all our stock into horoscopes and astrological signs around here, but let me tell you that your dad is the ultimate crab. He's got a hard outer shell, and seems tough. Don't get me wrong - he's really strong, and he will tackle just about anything. But inside, he is as soft hearted as I am. He loves you as big as I do, and he won't be afraid to show it. That's one of the reasons I picked him. He'll do his best not to let you forget that he loves you immensely, but I'm reminding you here. I've seen him tell you thousands of times how much he loves you, and for every time he told you guys he loves you or he's proud of you, he's told me twice how much you mean to him.

Be patient with him. You get your smiles and giggles from him. And your monkey toes.

Love,
Mommy

6 months old.

2008-07-17T10:09:00.000-07:00

My son, how in the world can you possibly be 6 months old? Just yesterday you were my favorite daydream. Can it really be so long since I felt you kicking? Perhaps no, because you still have those crazy arms and legs going all the time. If you are awake, you are moving.

You're the type of baby people have in mind when they ask "is he a good baby?" But generally, if they've seen you they don't ask that question. They take one look and comment on how handsome you are, how alert and what a happy boy you are. I've lost track of how many you've won over with your smile, how many have said "does he even cry?"

You cry, all right, but typically only when really hungry, teething, shortly after shots or when you just need...well, me. I know the ways you need me will change as you grow, but there's an honor in the fact that you need me because I am your mommy. I am so lucky to have you.

You're very healthy now, my son, and I thank God for that on a daily basis. Nobody would ever know by looking at you that there have been so many close calls. You giggle and coo, squeal and make kissing noises. You have us all wrapped around those tiny fingers of yours. One of the delights in my world is hearing your sister tell you she loves you, and say "you're the best baby in the world, Joseph." Those are her words, come up with all her own, and I hope the love between the two of you grows and strengthens just like your bodies and minds.

Speaking of growing. My goodness. You are almost 16 pounds now (15 pounds 12 ounces) and 27 inches long. In the 25th percentile for weight, and just over the 75th for height. You're a handful, to be sure, and it's so neat to see you thriving. Watching you grow is soothing to me, and hopefully by the time you're old enough to notice I'll be much less anxious about how you're doing.

We need to talk about girls for a minute, already, my son. Contrary to what you seem to believe, not all breasts in this world belong to you and you just can't keep rubbing them whenever you get a chance. Yes, I know that for now if you flash your million dollar smile it melts whoever has just said "Hey! Did you see that?!?!" but your luck is eventually going to run out, so you'd best learn now. Your dad and doctor aren't so good about discouraging this behavior, so please listen to your mother on this one. At least you're flirting with the smart and beautiful women. I give you credit for your taste.

I cannot believe you are 6 months old, but you so clearly are. You're rolling and scooting and trying your best to crawl. As a hint, maybe if you move your arms out from under your chest you'll stop doing the superman pose with legs sticking out in the air straight behind you. Don't feel you have to take that advice immediately, though....I'm not ready for you to be completely mobile yet.

You are sweet, loving and lovable. If I could keep you right where you are for a few extra moments, I have to admit I'd do it. You're the only person in the house that allows me to hug and kiss you as much as I want without protest. (eventually Emily and Daddy yell Mercy) You eat it up, and that's special to my mommy heart. You just love to be loved and it's thrilling to watch, whether it's me holding you or someone else who cares about you.

You've inherited my hands, as your sister did, and you're fascinated with them. Always chewing or sucking on your thumb or fingers if not your pacifier. Come to think of it, you're a big fan of thumbs in general and will chomp on the first one that comes your way - daddy, mommy or doctor.It makes us laugh, you little carnivore. I suppose it goes along with the fact that when you were teeny and swaddled, sucking on your pacifier, I once got the giggles because you reminded me of Hannibal. A cute, harmless, adorable Hannibal of course.

You keep brightening our days, kiddo. We just can't wait to see what happens next.

Saying Goodbye.

2008-07-16T01:51:00.000-07:00

Tonight, I held my son as he fell asleep. He's almost 6 months old, teething, and his infancy is passing by too quickly. I listened to my daughter, talking in her sleep, over the monitor in her room and I'm not sure where the time has gone with her either. I thought of their milestones, their births, my pregnancies with them and thought, "never again."

Never again will I hold my hand over my abdomen, mentally counting the days, and wondering if life is growing inside me. Nor will I feel the the strange warmth that was my first indication of a new pregnancy, the butterfly flutter of first movements, the rolling wonder of a baby mid-swim or the jolt of hiccups. My days of waddling with an achy pelvis, wearing clothes meant to make my stomach stand out versus suck in, eyeing the teeniest section of infant clothes and holding my breath while listening for a heartbeat are now in the past. No more waking at night in wonder at the acrobatics inside, patting my tummy and waiting for the return kicks. I enjoyed the excitement of labor (when it was the real deal, not that scary preterm crap) and giving birth, knowing my body played a role in bringing a miracle to light.

My husband and I never hoped for more than two children, and we spent many days wondering if we'd be blessed with even one. When it was confirmed that I was pregnant with our son, I remembering thinking "Really, God? You're going to give me everything I've hoped for? This is really happening?" Even though I'd felt convinced there were supposed to be two, the thought that my dreams were actually coming true just floored me.

Never again will I take my temperature or submit to ultrasounds, tests, medications, treatments and timing in hopes of conceiving a child. There will be no more obsessing over charts, "signs," estimated test dates or my dog-eared copy of Taking Charge of Your Fertility. No more getting excited over a temperature rise occurring the day after intercourse or feeling sick to my stomach as the temperature bottoms out and my period inevitably comes. I won't be driving myself crazy with "magical thinking" - convincing myself this is going to be the cycle because it's someone's birthday, anniversary, a holiday or some other date that just must mean this is it. (Though I do have to say my positive test with my daughter came during a blue moon and my son was conceived on Mother's Day, right in between a regular moon and a blue moon)

No more freaking tampons!

A new phase of my life begins next week, and while I will still be me through and through, it feels odd to think that so much will change and none of it will be visible from the outside. I fought horrible periods, infertility, gave birth to two gorgeous children, have had a horrible recovery period and terrible infection and now I'm getting off the ride, never to return. Forget "stop the ride, I want off," I'm blowing up the train.

I'm okay with being done having children. I couldn't ask for more than the family I'm blessed with, truly truly blessed. I do wonder about the two children I lost, and some recent comments from my daughter make me think the time is coming to truly mourn their loss. Still, my family does feel whole.

I'm not going to miss trying to conceive. TRYING is an understatement, and I feel so lucky that my marriage is one that came through that period stronger, not strained.

But.

So much of the last many years has been tied up in the struggles of trying to get pregnant and have a healthy outcome, there is a bit of a "now what" aspect to it. I'm afraid I'm going to have to wait a bit before going to Disneyland.

I know there will be times when I see a baby and feel that pang that many women know so well. I have loved babies my whole life, and in another set of shoes I might have had many. I can honestly say when its all over, even though I'm having surgery, that I will have had as many children as God would give me. Doesn't have to be a big number to fit that bill.

I'm a bit sad, knowing we're done and done in such a permanent fashion. My hubby had a vasectomy in April, and I was surprised when he walked out to find tears filling my eyes. I felt more than fine about taking that step to be done. Making it official was still a little emotional.

Next Thursday, I'll be having surgery and it's now official. There are simply too many issues with my uterus and it's coming out. I'm okay with that, just a little surprised at how all of this has turned out. Many years ago, I told my husband that I felt I would be done with having children at 30. I didn't have any major reasons for that number, I thought, but I guessed part of it was the tendency for women in my family to lose their reproductive organs at an early age.

I turned 30 just a few weeks ago....and here I am....Done.

All the riches

2008-07-10T07:30:00.000-07:00

My Emily.

You wake in the morning with a smile on your face, and make a beeline for Daddy. If he's going to work that day, you sit on the toilet and talks to him while he shaves. Later, when he's getting dressed, you help him guide his belt through the loops on his pants. It's your job and you take it very seriously. If he's not going to work, you greet him at the side of the bed with a book. When you wake from a midday nap, you typically tells the first one of us you see "I was missing you while I was sleeping."

We missed you too.

You speak like a five year old most of the time, and by most of the time I mean when you're awake. It's true- your doctor and school have said your verbal skills are at that level, and most who hear you agree. You keep us on our toes, to be sure. Sometimes at the end of the day I find myself feeling completely "talked out" but once you're in bed and I've had a bit of time to unwind, I find myself reflecting on the conversations of the day ...and yes, missing you while you are sleeping.

You love us with the innocence of a child, with your mind, body, heart and soul. We joke that there are hugs and then the big, "squeeze my guts out" hugs and we're just not sure who likes them better; the you or us. One of your favorite games is the "I love you better than..." and I'm proud to say you love me better than chocolate, butterflies, stars, peas, cheese, m &ms and even *gasp* yogurt. That last one is huge.

A friend once told me while I was pregnant with you that she thought I'd be a good mom because she could picture me enjoying questions about why the sky is blue or where babies come from. I have to admit, we've had a lot of fun talking about why it rains, why we have fireworks on the fourth of July and many conversations about where babies come from. You keep saying someday you're going to have a husband and "this many children" holding up both hands. The thought of you as a mommy one day is almost more than my heart can stand. You breastfeed your baby dolls and hold them with so much care and love, I know you'll be a wonderful mother someday.

The days of wondering if I'd I'd ever have a child are still fresh in my memory, but here you are- the one who made me Mommy. I'll never forget the day I bought the little pink dress with embroidered roses and matching white bonnet. I was still pregnant, and I cried at the thought of the little girl who would one day wear the outfit. We didn't find out were having a girl until the moment you were born and your Daddy said to me "we have a daughter." Those four words changed my life in was I cannot measure.

You've had a love of all things pink, princess, butterfly, fairy, sparkly and downright girly from the very beginning. I remember wondering how I would teach a girl about femininty, but I have to be honest and admit that you are teaching me. You're three and sometimes says "Mom, I think it's time for us to get our nails painted again." Of course, you're completely correct. And, if sometimes you throw in some truck driver burps or "Did you hear me fart, dad" or end your favorite jokes with the punchline "poopyhead" well, that's ok too.

Smart, funny, beautiful and charming. I'm completely unbiased. You have changed so fast, but those things stay the same. There isn't a day that goes by that I'm not intensely proud of you. There are moments when how awesome you are hits me like a wave. We are so lucky to have you. I hope you never forget that we feel this way.

I have had so much fun watching you change from a baby into this amazing little girl, and I know seeing you develop into a preteen, teen and woman will be amazing as well. No matter how old you are, you'll still be my baby and so I'm going to take advantage of the times you ask me to crawl in bed with you even if you are so active it feels like sleeping on a boat.

I love you, love you, love you little girl.

Who's my bitch now?

2008-07-09T14:53:00.001-07:00

There are some who would call me a control freak. When I hear that term, it brings to mind a person who seeks control merely for the reason of wanting it. No logic, no exceptions, just control, control, control. That's not me. Or then again is a control freak someone who wants it but justifies it by listing multiple reasons aka excuses for wanting control?

I choose to believe I have my reasons.

I like to be in control of my mind and body. That means I've not done drugs and I drink only in moderation. Inhibitions are there for a reason. There's a reason why my sober, conscious mind keeps me clothed and out of harm's way.

I remember meeting with my doula to talk about the birth and at the end of the meeting she asked if there was anything else she should know about me. My husband said "She doesn't like to be out of control of her own body." As if this was a weird thing. Maybe it isn't so common, I don't know, but reflecting on my deliveries with both kids I can understand why her eyebrows were raised after that statement. Labor and delivery are in many ways a big lesson on what you can and can't control. Contractions are definitely your body's way of saying "who's my bitch, now?" You're pushing with or without your conscious consent.

I'm going to have surgery on the 24th, and I've never felt so out of control in my life. I don't know what's wrong with my body, though I can now add a raging UTI/kidney infection to the mix. What doesn't kill me, blah blah, blah.

I'm struggling with the concept that I won't know what they had to do during my surgery until it is over. I know for sure they are doing a laparoscopy to look around at my organs. I know they will do hysteroscopy to look inside my uterus. What I don't know is whether I'm *only* having a D &C or if it will be an ablation, or if I will wake up missing my uterus. I've consented to any and all of the above, but I know only the minimum of what they will do.

I'm churning through these lists of things to do before my surgery - stuff for our business, our home, our kids. So many things to prepare when all I really want to do is sit on the couch and hold my children. Because there is this part of me that is beyond scared. I'm freaking terrified. Terrified, and nobody around me seems to get that.

Before my first surgery, there was a moment in the waiting room with my sister and husband. I was trying to explain that I was nervous, and among other things I hated that I would be in such a vulnerable position and completely unconscious at the same time. It wasn't about trust or lack of trust, wasn't about worrying that something inappropriate would happen - just that I was about to be naked from the waist down, spread eagle in a room full of strangers and asleep. I don't think it's illogical to be uncomfortable with that. My husband and sister started joking about it, trying to lighten the mood, and saying that it didn't matter because I wouldn't be awake for any of it. MY POINT EXACTLY and they totally missed it. It wasn't until I started crying and told them they weren't helping that they grasped just how serious I was.

Now I'm doing it all over again, but the stakes are higher, the anesthesia longer, the potential for organ removal and the fear that I just really don't know what they're going to find in there. Maybe my son left his Red Hot Chili Peppers poster in his womb, I don't know....but I'm worried and no amount of trying to think positive is changing that.

Before I had kids, I didn't worry about what would happen if something happened to me. Now it matters. I mean, yes, my husband would likely miss me a bit. ;) But the thought of missing out on life with my family is mortifiying. I can't control whether or not I wake up from this, what they might find while they're in there, and if I could I'd cancel the surgery RIGHT NOW.

The good news is I'm a little bit over the whole naked in a room full of strangers thing. The bad news is that there is still the anesthetic portion of the evening that has me worried. And, it's not like I'm going in knowing my uterus is coming out. That would be easier for me than wondering. But, here I am. I don't know if my recovery will involve a hospital stay, don't know if I'll have to be away from my babies. I just don't know, and I don't get to be the one to decide.

I hate how awful I feel physically, how tired I feel mentally and I hate that so much is weighting on my mind that I am not even being the mom I want to be because I'm stressed. What if my daughter's lasting memory of me is "Not now, I've got to get this done?:

This is a jumbled, chaotic mess of a post and I'd try to fix it but the fact is it's at least honest even if it isn't good.

If one more person comments on how surprised they are that I haven't lost it, I will probably die from laughter. I'm not ok. I haven't been ok for a while...I'm just treading water with the hope that eventually I will be. Right now, I am not giving my all, my most, or even my best to anything and I hate that. My son is almost 6 months old, and I feel so angry, so robbed, so very very frustrated. He's never seen the best of me, and my daughter doesn't see it as much as she should.

I'd take even the illusion of control back, if I could have it.

Keep your bon bons, I've got something better.

2008-06-17T06:43:00.000-07:00

I've worked three years, two months and 10 days at my current job and have yet to see a raise or day off. I've recently earned a promotion by adding another client, but I fear that also means the privileges of unsupervised bathroom breaks and solo showers are on the way out.

I once thought my current position - full time stay at home mom, part time employee for our business- would mean enjoying the best of both worlds. I'd still get a paycheck and have something for myself, while being able to contribute to our family life financially, emotionally and be the one to care for our children. I wouldn't have to leave my child with anyone else and drive myself nuts with worry or guilt. I imagined caring for the children, taking better care of myself than I had been and greeting my husband with a hot dinner, clean house and the smile of a woman fulfilled. I just knew I'd find the time to finally work on that novel in my head.

Innocence is a beautiful and scary thing.

In reality, I haven't had a full night's sleep without responsibility for (and usually the waking, feeding, settling, or thoughts about) another human being since the end of 2004 when I hit the third trimester of my pregnancy. When I have time to write, it is sporadic and scattered, much like my hormone-riddled, sleep deprived brain. Maybe children think their mothers are dumb because we are - thanks to sleep deprivation, stress and hormones. I'm told this brain fog is temporary. I see moms with older children who give me hope, so I'm hanging in there...waiting for my brain to return.

No particular thing I do is that difficult, that's probably why outsiders seem to think I have the cushiest job ever. Feeding, changing, comforting, playing and teaching my children are things I enjoy immensely. Time with my children is rewarding and even changing diapers isn't a big deal. Well, there was the time the baby had a blowout when I didn't have a spare outfit or enough wipes and I had to change him on the seat of the car on a cold, windy day. That sucked, but we survived and he rode home with a new diaper and an origami type receiving blanket arrangment.

The thing is, the job isn't the sum of its parts. If it were, this would be a cake walk. Some people have said a stay at home mom sits around eating bon bons all day. I'm not sure what those are, but I haven't seen one in the last three years and some days I'm lucky to eat at all. Fact is, if I'm sitting down I'm either changing a diaper, nursing or doing something frivolous such as balancing the checkbook. Sometimes I don't even sit to do those things. With a three year old and a five month old, the majority of my day is centered around their food and poop. If you give them one, they're going to give you the other. And lots of it.

The three year old is potty trained at least, but any parent can tell you there's nothing like a potty trained three year old and a list of errands to run that will make you fondly reminisce about the days of diapers. Unless, of course, you want to see the toilets of every establishment you visit. I learned quickly which stores and offices have the cleanest and most accessible toilets. You know you're a parent when bathroom proximity and availability are a factor in choosing with whom you'll do business.

Sometimes I feel a bit nostalgic for the world I left behind, where my accomplishments were measurable. There was a time I could see the results of my work on a piece of paper, in numbers instead of abstract ideas. At times, I'm frustrated knowing many consider what I'm doing unimportant, insignificant, easy and "just" staying at home. I know women who consider staying home a sell-out, a step backward instead of progress. I don't doubt what I'm doing is important -there is value for our family specifically, even if the world does not see it. Even when I worry that I won't know whether I've done a good job until it's too late, until they have children of their own and fully realize how many mistakes I've made.

Then my daughter says, "Mommy I love you. You're my best friend," and it changes everything. My son giggles and squeals at my silly faces. I am reminded that I get to see their firsts, teach them to talk and be the one to witness the everyday miracles that happen in between the meals, diaper changes, meltdowns and crayola mustaches. These days will not last. My children will be grown before I know it, and while I sometimes get frustrated I've always known I will never regret spending time with them. I am incredibly blessed to know I won't have to look back and think "I wish I could have done that." Their mere presence is a miracle in our lives, I'm lucky to have them and lucky to have this opportunity. Not a day goes by, not even the hardest ones, without me knowing that.

Staying at home is a choice I've made, a choice I remake every day I spend with my children. It isn't always easy - often it isn't...it's just the right thing for our family. Some days my husband comes home to a hot meal, a somewhat clean house and fairly happy family. Sometimes he's greeted with a trashed house, a three year old who didn't nap, a teething infant and the news dinner will be delivered some time in the next 45 minutes. On those days I wonder who is more worried - him worrying I might quit or me thinking I might be fired. Each day, I juggle home, work and child care responsibilities and no day sees everything getting done. When I fall into bed at night, I know I'll be awake within a couple of hours at most and my to-do list will be longer than it was when I woke the morning before.

It's not unusual for my day to start with a feeding somewhere between 2 and 4 am, when the previous day ended with the 3 year old's midnight nightmare. Most days are a blur - similar enough to recognize I'm doing the same tasks over and over again, but unpredictable enough that I can't always know how long (or if) either of them will nap, whether I'll get much accomplished or if I should order pizza now or wait until after I've managed to burn dinner.

There was a time when women stayed at home, their sole career consisting of the caretaking of home, husband and children. It was the only option considered acceptable and while it was a lot of work it was at least considered acceptable, valued work. Now women have more options. We can have a career, or family, or even both....but no matter what we choose it will be judged and sometimes by those closest to us.

I'm lucky to have a husband who acknowledges the work of my day and values it, who recognizes that this is the decision we made together and I need his help to make it work. He does more in terms of help with the house and the kids than many fathers I know, and his support lightens my load in more ways than one.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter whether people think my job is easy or if they think I have nothing to do but sit around all day. They have clearly never stayed up all night to watch a sick child breathe, tried to keep one child occupied with playdough while the other nurses or tried to balance the baby on their hip while they stir spaghetti sauce and explain to a preschooler why it rains. Even though their boss will never (hopefully!) try to join them in the bathroom, demand 24/7 shifts, throw some of their best work down on the floor (or throw it up on their shirt), or smear vaseline/lotion/baby powder all over their work area, they can continue to think their job sucks compared to mine.

Because it does.

I lost a bet.

2008-06-11T07:38:00.000-07:00

There. Happy?

And yes, I always laugh when you act stupid. So there.

Better be nice. Metrosexuals I've never met are miserable without me.

Gnomes in the backyard. OH yeah.

My husband.

2008-06-07T10:00:00.000-07:00

Pook.

I tried to write something that would sum up the last five years, but you know me - I just kept making the keyboard soggy. On the day we married, I knew I was lucky to have you..you can see it in the pictures of that day. (Luckily you can't see I was so excited I woke up many hours earlier than I should have, and called Grandma to chat because she was enough time zones away that it wasn't too early for her)

Today, I understand even more how lucky I am. You are my strong shoulder, my firm grasp, my best friend and the one who makes me laugh until milk comes out of my nose. You're the knight who comes riding in with my bra on your head to make me laugh as you shower me with caffeine, roses, dinner you picked up on the way home and the promise of a roudy game of scrabble or monkey sex (my choice) after the kids go to sleep. The stinker who once asked me if I wanted to play fairy princess, then handed me a new toilet brush and said "here's your wand!" You told me I wasn't broken at a time when I felt that's all I was. Even now, when I feel cracked, you just hand me some super glue and remind me to call the counselor.

Nobody knows all the trouble I've seen, except for you, and you love me anyway. You spoil me whether I feel like I deserve it or not, and you tell me I do. You do crazy things like telling me we can go shopping for my birthday and don't complain when it takes hours and our daughter introduces you to every toilet in sight (and many you have to search to find). I didn't hear a single complaint about the shopping trip where you had to buy stool softeners, deluxe super ultra absorbant pads, tucks and zoloft after our son was born. Not saying I'd feel super sorry for you, given my condition at the time, but still...you didn't blink an eye, you just did it.

I know we're done having children, and we're so incredibly lucky to have the two we've got, but seeing you with them makes me understand why some people have several. When I watched you teach our nephew to ride his bike, many years ago when we had only been together about 6 months, I instantly pictured you with our own blonde kiddo. At that moment I knew our story would ultimately be one about a family, though I could not have pictured the details of when or how.

It's been a rough year, and we've been through so much since last anniversary and this one. I think it speaks to our strength that we've gotten through it, we're doing okay. You still cop a feel or hump my leg as you pass me in the kitchen and I still look at you and think....

Happy Anniversary. I look forward to so many more.

Love,
Me

THAT Neighbor.

2008-06-05T13:47:00.000-07:00

There are some 12-13 year old boys that are all fairly new to my neighborhood. Recently I've seen them all playing together and generally being good, though perhaps a bit mischievious. Nothing too harmful, until I noticed them start playing on the roof of the house across the street. (Where one of them resides)

I debated about whether to say something, or more specifically how to say it to the parents. I just don't want to see any of them get hurt, and I'd want to know. I haven't actually been home when the parents of two of the boys are, and the third lives a few streets over...I'm not sure where.

I had been contemplating a note (though I wondered about it being intercepted) when I ran into two of the boys at the store yesterday. They were polite, respectful and came up to me to say hi. I realized after the fact that I missed an opportunity. (Darn it!)

So today I went out to my car and saw all three boys playing on the roof. I wanted it to stop right away and I couldn't tell their parent right away because they weren't home, but darn it I didn't want to hear a scream a bit later and find out someone had gotten hurt either.

I yelled over (in as much as I could yell, my voice is almost gone) for the boys to come here for a minute, I needed their help.

They all three got down and came over, which I think speaks to the fact they are generally good boys. When they came over I had a moment of panic because there was nothing that would require them to actually listen to me, and I even briefly wondered if my car was going to see some eggs in the future. No matter, I carried on.

"Gentlemen, I really need your help."

All eyes were on me. I could see the gears turning.

"I've seen you playing on the roof."

Cue the "oh shit" looks.

"It's not acceptable and you know it, that's why it needs to stop now. I'm not the only one keeping an eye out in the neighborhood, and the next person to see one of you up on the roof is going to tell ALL of your parents. Got it?"

Solemn nods all around.

"Are you going to stay off the roof?"

Affirmations.

"I don't want anyone getting hurt because they fell off or because their parents found out there were up there in the first place, so keep your word."

Then I asked them to help take some cookies off my hands.

They'll either love me or hate me, but I'll keep my word as long as they keep theirs. If I see them up there again, I'll let all the parents know. As a mom, I 'd want to know the first time, but this seemed a way to warn them without getting anyone in trouble and hopefully get them to stop.

Maybe I'm just incredibly naive, but it seemed worth a shot.

The Tell.

2008-05-30T13:45:00.001-07:00

What happened between the time he was born and now? What about that time?

Exactly. That's exactly what I want to know.

It took time for everything that happened to sink in, as I watched my OB sweating and didn't know why. I asked for blankets and saw his brow furrow as he asked me if I was cold or just shaking.

The placenta did not deliver normally. It had to be helped by a shot of pitocin, then another. My doctor had to manually remove a blood clot, then another. There were bimanual compressions, a fist inside and pressing from outside, all as they tried to get my uterus to contract and get me to stop bleeding. For weeks, months, I had contracted and now I wasn't and that was bad, bad news.

It took time for me to realize that the reason my son is covered in blood in the pictures my doula took is not because I tore, though I did, but because I bled everywhere, on everything. I didn't know until much later that the blood bank had already been called because it wasn't stopping, that the reason my doctor seemed surprised I was asking about my son was because he was so worried about me.

We're fighters, my son and me.

Sometimes I wonder now if what happened in the delivery room was the reason my postpartum nurses didn't massage my uterus the way they had after my daughter's birth. I'll never know, nor will I know which glitch along the way was the reason for the complications I've seen after.

We now believe that the reason for my son's grunting after birth, the reason for the bacterial pneumonia that almost took him away for us, was tied to an infection that was most likely brewing in my uterus from before he was born. It would explain a lot of my preterm contractions, how crappy I felt...it could even explain why my uterus wouldn't contract after the birth. Hindsight being 20/20, it could explain a lot.

The day after J was hospitalized, I mentioned to our pedi that I'd been running fevers, felt awful and hadn't received a call back from the OB's office the day before. He agreed to talk with the OB office's oncall doctor during rounds to ask if he'd see me so I wouldn't have to leave, but the answer was no, I needed an ultrasound. I said I wasn't leaving my son. He said "if you continue to get sicker and die, you'll be leaving him for a long time. Get your butt into their office." Strong language from a laid-back guy, so I took it.

I'll never know why the OBI saw (not my own) gave me the wrong antibiotic or didn't give me methergine to make me cramp when the ultrasound several things I hadn't yet passed, and an area of my uterus through which there was no blood flow. I'll never know why she didn't seem to connect the dots between my visit and my statement that my son was in the PICU with bacterial pneumonia. Why she didn't realize that I'd pointed out to her I'd stopped bleeding before I left the hospital, when I know that wasn't normal at ALL.

What I do know is that what followed, at least in my own health care, became a comedy of errors. The wrong antibiotics or the right one given too short a time, symptoms that never fully went away, courses that ended with me feeling better but not whole, with raging symptoms to return within days of stopping the meds. Telling doctors that I didn't feel right, my uterus felt like it was burning, telling them I'd been fighting a fever for so long even though it had turned into a low grade fever.

In the midst of this, the little recovered. He came home on oxygen and stayed on it for two weeks. I spent just over three weeks of his life not able to hold him as close as I'd like, not able to just rock him, not able to put him in the sling and place his tiny body over my heart. I felt like I was forced to love him from afar, but I can say that there is no distance between us.

At the end of February, we rescheduled his circumcision. If I had it to over again, knowing what I know now, I don't think I would. Babies are circumcised early because they are too young when tiny to fight much, but I told you...he's a fighter. We didn't have his circ done at the hospital because he was a bit early and we all agreed we'd wait a bit. Then he got sick two days before he was scheduled to have it done. Then we waited for him to recover.

I made arrangments for my daughter to stay longer in school that day, thankfully, as I didn't want to have to bring her with me. My husband was supposed to come to the appointment, but was accidentally double booked and I told him I was ok with him missing it. He finally agreed he was ok with that. So when he started bleeding after and wouldn't stop, my husband wasn't there.

The doctor didn't do anything wrong, we know that from a medical standpoint as well as in general. There was a blood vessel closer to the surface than normal, and for whatever reason (there's no bleeding issue with him, in general) it wouldn't stop. Not even with direct pressure. At one point it looked like a stitch might need to be involved, but in a last ditch effort to avoid that, silver nitrate was used...a tiny, teeny amount. The bleeding stopped, we waited in the office to make sure it was ok, and finally got the all clear to go home.

He slept as I picked up my daughter, as my husband came home and finally woke for a diaper change. When the cool air hit his skin, it stiffened, and that blood vessel reopened. The sight of a soaked diaper is nothing new to a mom, but a diaper soaked with blood, so soaked you can see it from the outside of the diaper, is horrible. My husband got the dr on the phone, we applied direct pressure as instructed...but still we couldn't get the bleeding to stop. I took him to the ER and my husband stayed home to calm our daughter, as that night we had nobody else to watch her.

He lost a lot of blood that night, avoiding a blood transfusion by the smallest of margins. As our doctor sat with us, waiting for the urology consult, he prayed with me. My phone wouldn't work in that part of the hospital so I couldn't even call my husband to update him, the ER staff kept promising they would bring me a phone to use and kept forgetting, and our doctor's phone wasn't working either.

When we finally went home, when he was finally ok, I did not sleep. I not only didn't want him out of my sight, I was terrified that fully clothed and in a diaper he could bleed to death and I'd never even know it. I found a way to swaddle him and put him in his bouncy seat, then open the blanket and the front of his outfit just right so I could see the front of his diaper and open it if I needed to. I sat in the same spot all night, watching him, checking him, praying.

I was amazed at the time how many people kept telling me how well I was holding it together. The same thing was said during his pneumonia. I'm starting to think maybe I should learn to play poker.

We had a lot of follow up appointments after his circ, but everything has healed perfectly. You've never seen a mom so relieved to see her son receive his first stiff breeze, if you get my drift, and the urologist agreed without reservation that everything healed just as it should.

There's a picture of my son and I, asleep on our couch. It looks so innocent, my husband took it because he thought we looked cute. You can't know just by looking at the picture, that I was holding him because I needed to feel his chest rise and fall and just know that he was ok. You can't see that I'd ground my teeth terribly in the preceeding several days or that I'd managed to chew so hard on the insides of my cheeks when I did sleep, that I had sores on the inside of my mouth. You can't know by looking that his blood results from that day had found him just barely on the other side of the level that would require a transfusion. If you look closely, however, you can see that he is pasty pale from all the blood loss. You can see that I don't look well either.

If that picture were any less a badge of courage for both of us, I think I might burn it.

But I kept singing.

2008-05-29T19:19:00.001-07:00

Babies make noises. They cry, coo, gurgle, sigh, moan, fart, squeal and laugh. If they are like Baby J, the little, they do a mean pterydactyl impression. They even grunt.

The thing is, there's grunting and then there's grunting respirations. If your baby is grunting when they exhale, that's not cute, it's not a normal baby noise, it's reason to seek medical attention. Now.

In the moments after my son was born, as I started to become worried about whether he was ok, he'd started grunting. The nurse told my husband "we don't like that noise" and what she really meant was "this is not good." With some oxygen, they were able to get it to stop.

12 days later, we were not so lucky. My husband, daughter and I had a cold when the little was born. I worried so much about that, but everyone kept telling me that my breastmilk would help protect him. It didn't hurt, but it couldn't prevent a crisis either. The day had started pretty normal with the only oddity being that he was sleeping a bit more than normal...but he was 12 days old, newborns sleep a lot and he was still feeding frequently. He was sounding a bit stuffy, but we'd had him checked by the doctor a couple days prior and he was fine. I didn't like that he had a cold, but I was suctioning his nose to keep it clear and he was eating like a champ.

At around 4pm, he was sleeping in his swing and sneezed. A huge glob of green snot came out. If I had it to do all over again, I'd have called right then...but it was the end of the day, I was pretty sure we wouldn't get into the dr with an hour left to the day, and I planned to call the next morning.
As it turned out there was no need. By 9 that night I was telling my friend on the phone that he'd gone an extra two hours between feedings, and as she was on the phone with me I decided to wake him and get him interested. Nothing worked. He would wake, but he wouldn't nurse and he just felt wrong. I rubbed him, took his clothes off, put my nipple to his mouth...nothing . I let my friend go. I changed his diaper, I talked to him, I called the doctor who said give it one more hour and if he wouldn't eat, come to the ER.

At that point my husband came in and I told him what was happening. He held him for a moment and I watched as in a manner of seconds, he turned blue and started grunting. I think I will be able to see that image in my mind for the rest of my life, hear that noise, and I hope one day I will stop dreaming about it.

We started throwing together his car seat, grabbed a diaper bag, waited at our car until my MIL could get to our house to stay with our sleeping daughter. If I had it to do over again, we would have, should have, called an ambulance. I didn't know. I just...I didn't know.

He grunted the whole way to the hospital....a trip that normally takes 15-20 minutes that time of night took us less than 10. When we got to the hospital, he was skipping breaths and it was the only time I saw a triage nurse actually move quickly.

At one point, there were a dozen people touching our son - not counting us. We'd had to move out of their way, so we went from being able to try to comfort him, to touching his toe, to standing, watching, praying and crying. I remember holding onto the hat he'd worn in, that cold night, turning it over and over in my fingers, wondering if it was going to take on a grim significance.

I mentioned before that I've been surprised by how calm medical professionals can be, and I admire that trait in them...the ability to be calm even when it seems the walls are crashing down.

The thing is, I can tell you when your son crashes on the table that they lose their calm too....but I pray you never, ever see that. When the neonatologist started yelling, when a nurse started tearing up, when they brought someone in to hold our hands because they thought our son was going to die, I thought I was going to die of a broken heart right then and there.

I can tell you that fear didn't kill me, it just closed my throat so I felt like I couldn't breathe. It made my heart feel like it was going to stop beating, and while I squeezed that tiny little hat for dear life, my husband held onto my shoulder. I had perfect impressions of his hand on my shoulder for at least 8 days. The memories have not faded so quickly.

When they finally got him stabilized enough to be moved, we went up to the pediatric intensive care unit. It would be our home for the next 8 days as he fought bacterial pneumonia.

As a mom, I wanted to make it better, I wanted to comfort him, but there was nothing I could do and he was so sick that he wasn't even upset. There was a moment when our pediatrician came in to do a spinal tap to rule out meningitis. He and the nurse showed us the position he needed to be in, explained the importance of helping hold him still, etc. I don't sing in front of anyone but my kids, but this was important and I didn't want him to get upset and cause further harm.

I sang "You are my sunshine" in a wavering voice as my son had a needle pushed into his back and didn't move, didn't flinch, didn't cry. I once thought seeing my child in pain and upset was the worst thing I'd ever see. Seeing him fail to react to a test I'm told is incredibly painful was worse than if he'd screamed. When I got to the part about empty arms, I cried for all of us. But I kept singing.

They asked me many times "how are you doing, mom?" At the time, I thought it was just because of the stress of the situation. I didn't know I was white as a sheet, didn't know I was running a high fever, didn't know my body was fighting the same bacterial infection that my son was fighting. I just knew that my son was sick and my husband was upset too, and he was very much the forgotten guy in the room.

Before it was over, a lot would happen in that tiny room. The little would get worse, better, worse again before he would heal. I'd declare I wasn't leaving him for anything only to be told if I didn't leave to seek help for myself, I might die. My marriage would suffer a serious and almost crushing blow. I'd find out who my real friends were and I'd learn that when the going gets tough I have to be reminded to breathe. Ultimately, the little would spend 5 days on PICU status, an additional 3 hospitalized and 2 weeks on oxygen at home. I'd also acquire the memories for some serious flashbacks that still haunt me, asleep and awake.

Recently, he had his four month shots and on the way home I heard that familiar grunting. I pulled over to the side of the road and watched him breathe. It passed quickly, without repeat....until a few days ago, the reason for my post about breathing.

We were at a store, the little in his carrier in big part of a shopping cart, when he started grunting, turning blue around his mouth, breathing quickly, then skipping breaths. He did it twice that day and once the next. We don't know why. His chest xray was clear, but I am in a hypervigilance mode after finally reaching the point where I was less worried about his breathing, finally relaxing a bit.

I don't know what's going on, I don't understand it, and reflux has been mentioned as a possibility...but I'm just not sure. All I can do for now is watch, ask lots of questions, and focus on breathing. For all of us.

Please.

2008-05-28T15:03:00.000-07:00

Heavenly Father, I post this prayer in hopes that others will join me. Please help my son remember to breathe. In, out, repeat. I don't know why this is happening, I don't understand, but if you help me remind him to breathe, I'll do my best to breathe myself. We'll remind each other.

I feel like the walls are closing in, but I'll be ok if he is. I swear it. I need him to be ok. He has to be ok. He's got a big destiny, remember?

And you can't make me.

2008-05-23T14:15:00.000-07:00

Skipping ahead again.

It appears I'm hysterectomy bound, though we're not yet sure about the timing, and I'm scared.

I'm not scared of the anesthesia, the complications, the potential that any surgery could end poorly or worse...with a fatality. Nope. Yes, those things are all worth considering but I figure I can't do anything about them really and in that way I am able to let them go.

No, what bothers me is the question of whether I'll be allowed to keep my son with me in the hospital during the recovery period. That probably sounds stupid. Still, it doesn't change the fact that I know nursing will be much easier on me than pumping during the couple of days I'd have to stay in the hospital and I know that I could make it work to have him with me, if we do this soon.

I know it's likely going to be suggested that I not have him with me. That I let someone else watch him for a couple of days. The thing is, I just can't. I won't. And if it comes down to it, I'd take waiting longer with this thing they are still calling a uterus than give in on not being able to nurse him for a few days.

After everything we've been through, I don't want him out of my sight for that long, I don't want to go without nursing that long. I just don't want to.

Mama Trauma Drama Part 3

2008-05-20T14:40:00.000-07:00

We're told to listen to our bodies, to trust that instinct that whispers, that throws pebbles at our mental windows and then finally screams "Something is wrong here!" We're told to listen, but we're not really told how to act once we've heard the message.

My pregnancy thus far had seemed like one big false alarm. A series of scary events ultimately turning out fine...bleeding, contractions, falls, gall bladder attack, a kidney stone....all of it turning out ok in the end. Sure I was on two medications to prevent contractions that weren't working and I had more trips to the hospital than seemed possible, but we were okay.

Then the wheels started coming off the cart. I'd been testing my blood sugar and the numbers got increasingly higher. My metformin dose (normally prescribed for PCOS) was raised. The contractions continued. Each time I went to the hospital I was asked if I'd been given steroids for the baby, each time I said no and they still didn't give them to me. (What was THAT about, by the way? I should have insisted they go ahead and do it, I suppose)

I reached a point where our biggest worry changed from what we'd do if baby came too early, to what we'd do if my water broke at home and we couldn't get to the hospital fast enough. That turned out fine, luckily, but there were things we didn't worry about that really blindsided us.

The last thing my doctor had said before he left the room that day was not to have the baby in the tub. "we're not equipped for that." We all laughed. I felt like the hurry up and wait queen having had so many false alarms. Now we knew it was the real deal we still didn't think it was going to go that fast....after all, I'd already fooled my doula. She didn't think I'd make it to when my doctor came on shift. That's me and the little, I guess, surprising people at every turn.

I walked to the tub, got in, and immediately had a brutal contraction. I changed position in hopes for a bit of relief (went to hands and knees) only to immediately have another bone wrenching contraction. My body started pushing, and all control was lost. My doula said "are you pushing?" I told her yes, I couldn't help it, and just as she was about to pull the call cord the nurse happened to come back in. There were frantic calls of "get back to the bed" and "we need help in here" and "we're having a baby!"

The doctor came running in, and I said "I need to push." He laughed and said, "Go ahead." I didn't know until my husband told me later that our son's head was already crowning at that point. It was only a few pushes later and he was out, all happening so fast there was no time for perineal massage, a pudendal block had I wanted it...quick and dirty was the name of the game this labor.

Then it all went south.

The cord was around our son's neck, so while he was immediately placed on my stomach he didn't stay there long. They said it was to clean him up, and I had heard him cry, but they were very quiet in that corner of the room as they stimulated him, as they gave him a bit of oxygen, as they encouraged him to breathe.

I remember looking at my OB and asking "Is he ok?" several times without him seeming to hear me, finally saying "Look at me! I want to know if my son is ok!" When his eyes met mine, I saw fear but could tell he was thrown by my question. It didn't immediately register that he was worried about me, not the little.

I liked my OB, really really liked him as a person, but one of my irritations with him had been that throughout all of the excitement of my pregnancy he seemed so calm, so unfazed by what was happening. He cared, but his lack of intensity about it sort of pissed me off.

In that moment, I realized that seeing him worry meant something was very wrong. I saw a bead of sweat roll down his cheek and realized I was shaking and cold.

Gotta love it.

2008-05-19T14:06:00.001-07:00

"Look Mommy, I'm Cinderella," she said as we were leaving to drive to her school. She'd insisted that the crown was what she wanted to take for show and tell. Who am I to judge?

At that moment, however, she was looking especially regal...more used to the concept than Cinderella would be. "Hmmm," I said, "you look more like Princess Grace to me."

"Nope. I'm Cinderella, you're Tinkerbell and DADDY is Princess Grace."

You can't make this stuff up.

Multitasking

2008-05-15T12:16:00.000-07:00

Do you think styling my daughter's hair while I'm going to the bathroom and she's brushing her teeth is the type of thing that will scar her for life?

Maybe I should relabel the kids' education account 'therapy' and just leave it at that.

Then again, maybe I'll just tell her it's her own fault for coming in and out during my one moment of solitude.

What do you need to say?

2008-05-14T15:02:00.000-07:00

Posts to come about why Mother's Day is hard for me to discuss, the rest of the Mama Trauma Drama and a question about whether my multitasking might scar my daughter for life.

For now, I'm off to play this video again because my daughter loves when the song comes on and yells "Sing it, mom! Sing it!" then says "please sing it!!!" and when it isn't on she requests it by name:

"Samwiches need to say."

My stars, I love that girl.

Worth a Thousand Words

2008-05-06T23:13:00.001-07:00

How I Turned My Kitchen into a Death Trap in 30 minutes

2008-04-30T10:38:00.001-07:00

...or less.

Someone on a message board I belong to asked how often we clean our dishwashers. Most of the responses were a typed equivalent to a blank stare. Clean a dishwasher? What?

Then I looked inside the dishwasher that so desperately needs replacing and I realized the only thing it needs as much as a replacement is a good cleaning, especially since it's going to have to last us a while longer.

This morning I finally remembered to buy a bottle of dishwasher cleaner, the instructions seemed simple enough, so I started running it while I worked on some things. It said it was environmentally safe. I swear, if I had a canary that sucker would be DEAD.

I'm just glad I fought the temptation to run my self cleaning oven feature at the same time. I'd be typing this from the grave.

Scar Tissue that I Wish You Saw

2008-04-29T07:03:00.000-07:00

(Skipping ahead to the present for a bit)

Recently, I found myself hurt and offended on behalf of someone I don't even like. As I heard the comments being made about her situation, I could feel myself growing defensive and angry on her behalf. "Don't minimize her situation," my heart yelled. I remained silent.

I didn't speak up for her because *cough* she's a dog.

My mom and sister have dogs of the same teeny, annoying, ankle biting breed. They decided to try to breed them. The first time didn't take. They blamed the younger dog and his inexperience. The second time didn't take and they laughed that "maybe they don't know how to do it." The third time they joked that maybe these two weren't meant to have babies.

Do you see where this is going?

I got more and more pissed off about the whole thing. We were talking about DOGS and I was hurt and upset on their behalf. I know dogs have emotion - I mean, they get excited when their loved ones come home. You can upset them....so what do I know about whether they have feelings attached to reproduction. I found myself wondering, just a little, if maybe the female got upset when it didn't work but assuming the male was probably just in it for sex. Then I thought "that's not fair to him." Then I thought, "shut up! We're talking about DOGS."

Then it happened.

Mom and sister were excited. The female was pregnant. They watched as her belly swelled, her teats got bigger and then....nothing. Eventually she started bleeding.

They called it a false pregnancy and that's where I think I drove my little looney cart right over the deep end.

I found myself angry, upset and defensive on behalf of this dog because what if it wasn't a 'false pregnancy?' What if they had conceived but she miscarried?

Suddenly, I found myself thinking about how incredibly frustrating it is to lose a pregnancy, a much wanted child, and have the feelings of grief and loss dismissed with words like false pregnancy. Or "nonviable" and "meant to be." So easily, others can dismiss a loss like that with suggestions that there was something wrong with the baby or that it is in some way a blessing.

I've never understood how the concept of there being something wrong with the baby was supposed to make anyone feel any better.

Clearly, (Duh) I'm projecting my own thoughts and emotions on this poor little dog and that's what's a bit funny about this whole thing. I never expressed these things I was thinking to my mom or sister, but last night I was thinking about it and mentioned it to my husband. I was in the mode of laughing at myself when I told him, so I pretty much expected him to laugh about it too.

It was actually quite nice that even though he laughed about my inner dialogue about the dog's reproductive angst, he said "and what is it with saying things like nonviable? I HATE THAT. Why can't they just say things like I'm sorry or that sucks and leave it at that?"

We'd had an argument earlier that evening that I was still steaming over a bit, but in that moment when he so clearly was on the same page as me....when he understood where I was coming from, all was forgiven.

Sometimes it's nice to show someone your scars and see theirs too.

Mama Trauma Drama - Part 2

2008-04-24T12:34:00.000-07:00

I have a tendency to apologize for things which are not my fault.

Adding up the number of hospital trips, doctor visits, online posts, calls to a friend when in distress, contractions, bills, medications, etc it felt like looking at the sum of my failures. I was scared, none of this was in my control....I contracted whether I moved or didn't, before medication and with medication. I contracted and dilated on the one medicine considered the big gun for stopping preterm labor. I wasn't in control, nor were my doctors, but I kept apologizing to everyone.

I apologized to my husband about the money, the time, the work I wasn't getting done for our business. To my friends for being what I felt was self-involved, to my daughter for being stressed and unable to play as rigorously as usual. To my mother for not being able to make the one hour drive to see her because it would put me outside the radius around my hospital my doctor had suggested. (Though I can honestly say SHE should have been offering to make the trip, not making me feel guilty about this)

Life essentially screeched to a halt in many ways as I tried, begged and pleaded not to give birth to my son too early. I even apologized for not having it as bad as some of the women who were offended because I was complaining about a situation that still looked like it would result in a healthy baby. In every conversation I had where I talked about something going on with my pregnancy, I had an overwhelming need to stress how lucky I was, how grateful I was because I didn't want anyone to think for an instant that I was taking any of this for granted.

I was so worried about the emotions of others, that I didn't really acknowledge a lot of my own. So worried I would trigger in others thoughts of "well you wanted to be pregnant" or "at least..." and it was hard. Really, really hard. It wasn't the worst pregnancy it could have been by a huge stretch, but it was still very hard and took a huge toll on me, my husband, our daughter, and our family as a unit. I rarely felt it was ok to talk about how hard it was, how scared and frustrated I was without justifying, explaining, apologizing, worrying about my phrasing or making a point to say "but I'm so lucky." yes, I was. But damn it, sometimes I didn't feel lucky, I felt scared. My husband and a dear friend were my sanity during this time, but even they couldn't quiet the fears of my heart.

I suppose it might be appropriate that I'm still healing physically, just as I am trying to heal emotionally.

A piece of me died each time I walked into the hospital as "two" and worried that I would leave it alone. Some have said that one day I will be able to use these stories as a means to guilt my son into good behavior. The fact is, if it weren't for the notion that completely hiding all of this from him would likely be unhealthy, it would be easy to insist he never know about any of it.

As the time approached when his birth was no longer scary, when it was clear he could make his appearance and likely be just fine, there were still a few fears. Including the fact that if my water broke, there would be no way we'd make it to the hospital on time. He was so low, I was dilated quite a bit already and I had contracted for so long that it was clear things would move fast when the time came. At one point it was suggested I call the fire department's non-emergency line to double check their response time. They assured me they could get to me on time, 3 minutes or less unless there was something else major going on.

For weeks I contracted at 5-10 minute intervals...sometimes even closer together. So many nights we thought "this is it"and so many nights I stayed awake wondering and waiting. Prodromal labor they called it at this point, as there was little change in my cervix during this time. We'd long since thrown out the protocols for when to call the OB's office or head to the hospital. If I'd gone or called every time my contractions were incredibly close, I'd basically have been there for months. We worried we wouldn't know when to go for the real deal, worried we'd blow it off and be too late.

We made plans, backup plans and backup backup plans regarding where our daughter would go when the time came. We laughed that at least all of the back and forth trips to the hospital had made it clear whether our bags were missing anything and even joked that we should just reserve a locker at the hospital.

In the back of my mind I was worried still about complications, nervous that I'd been asked so many times whether I'd been given steroids to mature my son's lungs, and feared that my list of things that happened this time but didn't last time would end with a c-section.

There were many things I worried about that never happened. Many that I worried about that did.

The scariest, however, were the things I didn't worry about. The things I never saw coming that hit me like a ton of bricks.

Mama Trauma Drama - Part 1

2008-04-22T20:05:00.000-07:00

I can't say that I'm really ready to talk about all this. Eventually, ready or not, I need to. I have to.

I swore my pregnancy with the little would be so much different than that with the bug. I vowed to enjoy as much of it as possible, to worry as little as possible and swore I wouldn't leave the hospital without a good anti-depressant to make sure ppd would not steal from me the joy of having a newborn.

Apparently the universe heard "different" and ignored much of the rest.

At eight days past ovulation, I woke with a start, immediately convinced of two things. I knew I was pregnant and I knew there was a problem with my progesterone. (Not totally unexpected, I do have PCOS - however supplementation with my daughter's pregnancy was purely precautionary) I called my RE, said I knew they'd think I was crazy but would they test me anyway. As it turns out, it was a darn good thing and I started progesterone supplements as soon as the results were back. That was probably the last simple time in my pregnancy.

So many things happened during my pregnancy that it seems unbelievable to me. Hyperemesis set in pretty quickly, and ultimately didn't let up until two weeks before my son was born, despite anti-nausea medications and trying every trick out there. Things that worked during my morning sickness with my daughter either didn't touch my symptoms or made things worse. I even found myself in the ER for IV fluids one night, because I simply could not keep up.

Placenta previa (mild) was an issue that resolved itself eventually, but not before a few bouts of bleeding.

Then there were the preterm contractions - most of which not really considered preterm labor because for a long time they did not change my cervix. Still, I found myself on prescriptions for oral terbutaline and procardia. I had more trips to the L & D ward than I choose to count, though I'm kicking myself for not saving each and every one of the bracelets those trips earned me. By themselves they would tell an amazing story. I could title it "our winter home" or "our visits to --Hospital."

The contractions, of course, were the scariest part. I simply couldn't believe that I was having that problem, that medication wasn't helping and I hated that I made so many of those trips by myself while my husband watched our daughter. Normally with my instructions that I would call if this was it. I didn't want to feel like chicken little, calling family in to watch our daughter, and I was embarassed. I could not believe my body was in such a state that I kept having the contractions, I could not believe that after a normal pregnancy with our daughter things were so different and I was humiliated that I seemed to be failing at that. The cracks and tears caused by infertility, healed over by our daughter and now this pregnancy seemed to reopen. My faith in my body was decreasing instead of increasing.

In the midst of it, a group of women turned against me in ways I can only describe as devastating. A lot of what happened was orchestrated or fed by one woman, whose motivations I'll never totally understand, but it was still awful. In the midst of what was a terrifying time for me, I felt some didn't believe me, some thought I was exaggerating and some scrutinized my every word looking for evidence of...I don't even know...exaggeration, misleading information, excuse to attack. It was like nothing I'd ever experienced, and from women on a message board that I'd trusted as friends, family and confidants. A friend of mine (in real life) joked that I'd singlehandedly brought down a message board. While it wasn't my fault, it still stings that a place I loved is no longer in existence in large part because of what happened. I'm mostly over all this, but sometimes it still hurts to remember what happened and to know when I needed them most, many of those women turned their backs on me.....and in some cases I think it boiled down to being because my situation wasn't as bad as theirs had been.

My whole pregnancy I kept thinking "that was bad, but it could have been so much worse." Every day I was pregnant, I made a point to thank God for it. Every time something happened but didn't turn out as bad as it could have, I was grateful. I lost track of how many times I said how grateful I was, how many times I checked myself from repeating another story because my reactions were being judged as either too careful or not careful enough. I was too worried or not worried enough. It was truly traumatic for me and unlike anything I've ever been through.

In the midst of all that, there were falls, modified bedrest, a kidney stone, a gall bladder attack, more tests, blahblahblah. It wasn't the worst pregnancy it could have been, I just was completely unprepared for it.

I remember one particular night, when nobody in the room thought I would leave it pregnant. The contractions had intensified and they weren't backing down. I'd gone from contractions every 10 minutes, to every 5, to 4, my cervix was dilating and my labor pattern was consistent. They gave me a shot of terbutaline. They put me on magnesium. And still I contracted. We talked about what to do, a NICU nurse came to talk to us about what a baby born early was in for (she painted only the worst case scenarios by the way) and ultimately it was decided the magnesium wasn't helping and should be turned off.

I remember saying to God that we knew this had always been in his hands, that it was hard for us to trust him but we were once again turning it over to him. I remember saying "please make it be all right, whatever that looks like." I remember them prepping the room for a delivery, moving me into "laboring" mode and doing things like allowing me to use the tub.

We'd gone in at night and ultimately left the next afternoon. 3-4 cm dilated (depending upon who checked) and about 80% effaced, I walked out of the hospital. I remember thinking I needed to check my clothing for bullet holes, as if we'd dodged tons of them. I remember wanting to put a bubble around my house and just stay there, not coming out until 39 weeks hit.

I remember wondering just whose life I'd walked into.

Wardrobe Malfunctions...and questions

2008-04-22T12:50:00.000-07:00

Wardrobe Malfunction the first:
I love, love the convenience of nursing camisoles under regular shirts. Much easier than wrestling with a nursing bra, nursing top with the two layers and side hole while using one hand to wrangle baby and the other to manage a preschooler, blanket, etc. However.....what the hell do you do with your nursing pad? The kind I use have adhesive on the back, so they are theoretically stuck to the part of the nursing camisole that folds down...but they inevitably end up scrunched up under my breast, or on my lap, the floor...etc. I suppose I could take the pad out and immediately put in aside to be thrown away, but sometimes if my son needs to nurse on both sides that may mean a small bit of letdown on the first side. Not good with no pad, and the little man is not always patient enough to wait on these maneuvers. It seems there is an easy way and I'm just not thinking of it.

Wardrobe Malfunction the second:
Maybe not malfunction, actually, but why is it that so many shirts right now are either so low cut a nursing bra doesn't stand a chance (yes, I want to show off my bulging mammary glands, so what!) but often are not designed for women who actually have breasts? just wondering.

Wardrobe Malfunction the third:
How many changes of clothes does your child have? (Specify age too) Or in other terms, how long can you go without doing laundry for your kiddo? It appears my daughter is not the only clothes horse in this house. I'm trying to be more reasonable with my son, and most of his clothes have been given to us, but today I needed to go buy some pants as he's got tons of onesies but few pairs of pants. It's often just cool enough that well...baby needs some pants. But how many pairs?

Songs for moms to sing - part one

2008-04-21T10:29:00.000-07:00

To the Tune of Brother John:
Please quit whining
I said sit down
You're just fine
Is it naptime?

I just want a quick break
Why can't you just go play
Leave me be
Guess who's three

Three months.

2008-04-20T11:38:00.000-07:00

My dear son,
Three months into this and there's no doubt about it. You're a keeper. Never have I seen a baby smile more, enjoy breastmilk so much or have such excitement over me manipulating your hands into a game of pat-a-cake. At over 13 pounds, you weigh more than your sister did at 6 months old.

You spend your days eating, sleeping, smiling and waving your arms and legs as if to say "hey! look at me! I'm cute!" Why yes, yes you are. You sit well, supported, and for some time you've been supporting your own weight on your legs when we hold you. What is new is your tendency when laying back to strain your neck and back as if you are trying to sit up on your own. Most nights, with the exception of the last week when you were eating as if trying to gain a pound a day, you are sleeping at least a nice 6-7 hour stretch. Not all of that while I'm actually sleeping, but we'll work on that. You've been rolling over more and more lately, proving that the first couple of times weren't a fluke, but now we have to try to keep you in the same spot roughly in the bassinet or bed.

Your ahs, goos, and ah-goos never fail to make us laugh, and they only intensify when your dad comes home from work. You light up when we talk to you, you love music and if we combine the two you are in heaven. If I breastfeed and sing to you at the same time, you are entranced. My son, you melt me.

If I have any guilt over this time period, its that I'm less able to just hold you sometimes as I was your sister. Luckily you don't seem to mind this, you just eat it up when I do. Between me and you, while its true that I love you both tremendously, it seems you love me more than your sister does. That might be temporary, but I will enjoy it...because she loves me an awful lot. The two of you together....it is healing hurts I knew about and those I did not. I can't wait for you to have me as a whole and healthy mom...I swear, I'm even better than you've seen so far. One day I might even earn some of those looks of adoration you're sending my way.

Love, Mommy

Patient, heal thyself

2008-04-14T16:17:00.000-07:00

...because nobody else will do it for you.

Low grade fever (99.6-101 on average)
Major cramping
Mild bleeding

All potential signs of infection 3 weeks after a D & C. Doesn't that just figure?

Snot serenade

2008-04-14T08:30:00.000-07:00

Last night the little slept for 7 hours straight. A huge victory in sleep that we didn't see with his sister until much, much later. Matter of fact, neither his sister or dad slept as soundly last night as he did.

I know because I could hear my husband snoring, my daughter tossing and turning and occasionally calling out to say she needed another diaper. Yes, diaper, because her current cold seems to have been compounded by some fabulous diarrhea.

I know because I was watching my son to make sure he was breathing. He's about a week behind his sister on this cold, and I'm scared out of my mind. He's so congested in his nose, the boogers have turned green, and so far he's holding his own but I'm scared given everything we've been through.

His temp has stayed fine and he's not having breathing problems but I can't say the same for me. occasionally there is a pause in his breathing, as there is with babies sometimes, or time when from across the room I can't see his chest rise and fall, and I find myself holding my own breath.

One day, this will all pass. Not that I'll never be worried about my children again, but it will be nice when I'm no longer on high alert. Hopefully soon.

Like you should all over yourself.

2008-04-11T15:59:00.000-07:00

"You'll feel warm, then at tingling sensation in your ears, followed by the taste of a penny in your mouth, an odd smell...and then you'll feel like you've peed your pants, but you won't."

Those were the words of the CT scan technician before my scan began yesterday.

Wait. What? A CT scan? I know...I thought everything was fixed too.

Friday, as in a week ago, was the last dose of my antibiotics. By Monday I was feeling odd and as the week went on I became increasingly sore, then realized I was running a low grade fever. Again. And to think I'd been feeling so much better.

Matter of fact, even though I didn't fit the "day or two" time frame originally given to my husband by my OB, I had started feeling a lot better. Sore, but better. Then the antibiotics wore off and I started feeling worse again.

Wednesday I saw my primary care doctor, then another OB for a follow up. A CT scan was ordered to rule out things such as pelvic abscess and there is talk now of sending me to an infectious disease doctor because I've been on so many antibiotics. I should NOT be running even a low grade fever. I should not have soreness where my uterus is.

I should not hurt internally as if I just birthed my son this week. Speculum exams are supposed to be uncomfortable, not painful, but my cervix is so tender it's ridiculous. My v*agina hurts and when I told the OB that, he asked if I'd been having intercourse.

I made him wait until I stopped laughing before I answered. We haven't had sex since the first week in January. Do the math. I'll wait.

It's really hard not to doubt myself at this point. I shouldn't be hurting. I shouldn't have had to fight so long to get the infection taken care of, and now that tissue is out, I shouldn't be back to feeling sore and running a slight fever.

I should feel better.
I should be able to play with my children without pain.
I should be able to sit and not be acutely aware at any given moment that my vajayjay HURTS.
I should be able to move on with my life.
I should be able to stop checking the toilet paper for the blood they keep asking about.
I should be able to find out what is wrong with me.

Instead, I sit here and feel like I'm shoulding all over myself. I'm tired of it. tired of feeling like I'm crazy, tired of feeling like I need to start any conversation with a doctor by saying "I'm not crazy, I checked and I'm not imagining this."

Happiness

2008-04-10T20:57:00.000-07:00

Swaddled rocking babe,
sweet sleeping older sister.
Mom peeks, sighs, sits, rests.

Three Times a Lady

2008-04-08T13:50:00.001-07:00

My dear, sweet girl,

One day you'll get tired of hearing how I blinked and you were bigger, taller, stronger and more mature. If I ever find something else to be true, I'll be sure to let you know. For now, however, I am stunned.

You told our friend, one of your many admirers who happens to own our favorite restaurant, on the day of your party that you were two and a half, but that soon you would eat your cake "and then I will be three." Just like that, you were. I think there might have been something magic in that frosting after all because suddenly there you were - looking just like a little girl and no longer like a baby. Seemingly overnight you no longer want to play baby, and when I call you baby you set me straight. You are a big girl now. I'll try not to cry in front of you.

Three years ago, on a beautiful spring day, I gave birth while the daffodils started blooming. So much more than petals opened up in my world that day. When you were born I immediately felt that "I know you" feeling, and I'll never forget telling you as you cried to "Tell them, and keep telling them until they get it right, baby girl." I fear your inability to stop talking some days may be my fault. Some people, sweetie, are just never going to get it.

At every turn, you amaze us. If we were to look at typical milestones, especially for speech, we'd know without a doubt you are consistently ahead. We are immensely proud of you, but don't really focus on all that...to us you are just you, and we love you with a fierceness we didn't understand before you came into this world.

So many things to say about who and how you are these days. Some days you are a mini teenager, full of attitude and spunk, fire and and ferocity. Luckily for all of us, you put as much energy into fighting bedtime some nights as you do into hugging us so tight we can't breathe. In the moments when you kiss us over and over, tell us "I love you so much" and "well, you're just my best friend" we just can't get enough of you. You are funny, loving, smart and so tender sometimes that it takes our breath away. You may not always like that having a little brother means you have to share our attention, but you love him with an intensity we could not have expected. Just let someone suggest that he stay there with him while we all leave and there is a price to pay!!!

I love the wild abandon of your signing and dancing, the lack of inhibition when you decide to strip your clothes off and twirl like a dervish, or when you sit looking prim and proper in a party dress only to burst into giggles.

One of your biggest frustrations these days is your serious anger about not being able to read the words in your books all by yourself. We try not to laugh, and we're working on teaching you at your request, but you want to read!!! You must, after all, be ours. There's no denying it. What you can do is so much fun to watch. You know your alphabet, of course, your colors, and you can count from 1-31 in both English and French thanks to your school. I could listen to you speak French all day long, even if you seem to derive great joy in teasing me by either not telling me what you are saying, refusing to repeat it or doing so only when it is convenient to YOU.

You are the sweetest little mommy I've ever met, mothering your dolls in a way I aspire to emulate. Though, if I'm being honest, the truth is that I know you are imitating things you've seen me do, and I have to admit to great pride in watching you breastfeed your babies, put them to sleep, rock them and tell them stories. I never felt more like Wonder Woman than the moment you first put a baby doll in your shirt to pretend to be pregnant, then laid your palms on the table, rocked your hips side to side and took some serious deep breaths. I knew you were watching in those moments before we left the house on the day your brother was born, but I didn't know that I'd watch you imitate those moments. Simultaneously I feel pride in the fact you got to see it, that it wasn't scary, and I feel a twinge with the hope that one day you might let me be there when you have babies of your own. Yesterday you told me you had two children and three grandchildren. I pictured you old and gray, spinning around the living room in a dress with three small children and it was such a lovely picture. Somehow I can picture you always having a bit of a childlike nature.

This year was the year of the butterfly birthday party, the tricycle and (you don't know it yet) a robotic pony from grandpa that's going to blow your little mind. It is the year of you getting excited over multicolored hair bows, barrettes, bands and ponytail holders and the fact they can Match. Your. Outfits. Oh. My. Goodness! You're a girly girl if ever I have met one.

No matter how much you change, no matter what the future brings, I can't imagine a day when I'm not infinitely curious about what the next will bring. You keep us on our toes, pretty princess, which is just perfect for when you're asking us all to pretend we're ballerinas or doing "gymastics."

Happy happy birthday, my sweet, sweet girl.

An Elephant I'll Never Forget

2008-04-08T07:03:00.000-07:00

Three year old post coming soon. As of 2:35 pm yesterday, I have a three year old who looks (and acts!) the part in every way.

For now, a quick brag.

This puzzle, recommended for ages 4-7, was one of the items I picked out for the bug for her birthday. It was taken out of the plastic wrapper approximately 15 minutes ago, and she has taken it apart and put it back together already.

Then she said "Mommy, I love this Elephant! It's beautiful!"

In Other News..

2008-04-04T15:40:00.000-07:00

I joked while pregnant that my son, the Little, would likely be a grower. I said I wouldn't know what to do with a baby that outgrew clothing at a normal rate, when there were outfits that were worn very little versus lasting months or even years. (I'm not joking about that by the way, the bug has a dress that once went down to her ankles - today she wore it as a shorter dress with pants, then it will be a big top with leggings until finally someone rips it out of our hands and makes us retire it. She's had it since she was a year old.)

When I 'm right, I'm right.

Today my son weighed 12 pounds 7 ounces. No idea where that is on the chart, we were just borrowing the scale, but by comparison - my daughter weighed 12 pounds 15 ounces at her 6 month check. She weighs 27 pounds now.

I'd better start lifting weights.

Coming soon....ode to a three year old.

Mostly dead is slightly alive.

2008-04-04T03:27:00.000-07:00

I've started and stopped this post many times. Writing makes it seem real, and yet, it doesn't quite feel real to me.

Yesterday afternoon a packet arrived from the hospital with records I'd requested about the Little's birth and my surgery. They included the pathology report from my surgery, and there was information there that my OB did not give me.

While it is true what they told me, about tissue consistent with infection, that's not ALL they found. They also found pieces of tissue that indicated chorionic villi, suggestive of a hydatidiform mole. While this was never going to be a live baby, there was a failed conception and I'm feeling some loss over that.

I'm also feeling...angry, frustrated and betrayed that I was not given this information, and concerned as the reading I've done (as well as reading by some friends) indicates this is pretty serious stuff. AND, reading indicates that I should be followed damn closely for a while, as even after a D & C this type of tissue can come back. In some cases it can even spread like cancer or turn into cancer.

From the sounds of things, had I not pushed regarding my health, if the infection hadn't gotten me in serious trouble - this could have.

This explains so, so much. Common symptoms of this situation include a bigger than normal uterus for gestational age (check), hyperemesis (check), bleeding early in pregnancy (check), large noncancerous ovarian cyst in early pregnancy (check) and your body's attempts to end the pregnancy (check, check, omg CHECK!). No wonder none of the meds to stop contractions worked. It even explains a bit my twin wonderings early on.

It explains my first ultrasound at the OB's office where I heard "hmm...that's odd" and was then told "we don't normally see the yolk sac at this point." Probably was NOT the yolk sac.I'm guessing this was missed later on because it wasn't being looked for. Molar pregnancy seems to be reasonably rare, and molar pregnancy along with a live, healthy baby is VERY rare. It can happen, as did in our situation, but it seems that often (not always) women are pushed to terminate because of the seriousness of a molar pregnancy and chances of things like it mutating into cancer and/or pushing through the uterine wall and causing hemorraghe, and numerous other complications.

It seems we are also very lucky it stopped growing, because the growth has the potential to overtake the healthy baby when it occurs in situations like ours.

I wonder now about all the tissue I passed. The time I went to the ER thinking I was miscarrying because I was bleeding and passed a "clot"and all the tissue I passed after Little's birth when they were saying there was nothing in there.

I'm not sure how they missed this after he was born, though my first u/s for the infection they pointed to two things that they said looked like clots. They said those must have passed after I was given the methergine to make me cramp, as they didn't see them anymore, but clearly there was still some tissue in there.

Things BFF and I found indicate that when there is molar tissue, some pretty extensive follow up is supposed to happen including regular exams and beta hcgs to make sure the #'s don't go up again. That's recommended in the pathologists report.

The only mention of any of this, when I called my ob to get the results, was that a hcg test was suggested and we discussed that I'd had a hcg test right before my surgery (serum that monday when the surgery was scheduled, urine immediately before the test). the beta was negative (less than 2). That's good but something that should be followed, esp considering how much tissue I'd passed before that point.

I'm meeting with my primary dr today to discuss several things, and I'll be brining this up too. I knew prior that I needed a new GYN, a dr who is familiar with pcos and female cancers due to family history, but I now also need one who is well versed in this topic, just in case.

I really just
don't believe this.

I want it back.

2008-04-02T16:02:00.000-07:00

In trying to determine how severe our complaint against the OB clinic and hospital will be, medical review board only or involving an attorney, a friend who practices law in another state asked me to consider several questions to help make the decision.

One of those questions was about damages - real and punitive - and what they were.

It was easy to total the monetary costs from a medical care standpoint. This many visits multiplied by this copay, that many visits by a different copay, prescriptions, the ER visit, etc. More difficult was things like the inability to do my job, the help we had to get with some household tasks, transportation to and from appointments, time lost, etc.

The hardest part, however, was looking at the theft of time with my children and the stress all of this has caused in our lives. No dollar amount will give my son's newborn phase back to me. It is gone forever.I prepared myself mentally and with medication not to have it stolen from me through ppd as my daughter's was, but I was still robbed by a different thief. I've been in pain since he was born. Two and a half months ago.

My daughter, with a memory better than an elephant's, will likely remember this period of time as being the one where everything was stressful, where mommy and daddy were short tempered, mommy was sick, and you know she is incredibly upset that I STILL am not allowed to take a bath with her. Something she desperately wants. Something we did together, before.

I hope that one day I will be over the trauma of all of this, but for now I feel, well, traumatized. I have changed from a person that generally trusted medical personnel to someone who will probably generally mistrust them. I have to shop for a new gyn, I have to muddle through medical records and try to determine whether there is anything I can do to prevent this from happening to someone else.

I have to try to get over the fact they almost let me die.

I want my life back, after being miserable and sick for so long. I want my smile, my bounce and my shine back. I want my friends and family to see ME again and I think they're starting to. The problem is, there are things I want back that I'm never going to get. Their negligence cost me time precious to a mother, time that I will never ever have again. I want it back, and I can't have it. I have to try to get over that too.

At the bare minimum, we'll be filing a complaint with the state review board and I think we're going to at least consult with an attorney - although thanks to all the medical bills and my inability to do my job, we can't afford to hire one. We have to see if there is a good one that will work on contingency. At least the initial consults are free.

I want my innocence back. My faith. My trust. My inherent belief that most people, given the opportunity, will do the right thing. Especially when they're holding the keys to someone's health and happiness.

No matter how bad it is,

2008-04-01T19:23:00.000-07:00

there's always something worse. A story you read that can rock you to your very core. I read about this story through another blog, and I'm linking to it for many reasons. Because I'm a mom, because I know what it means to love a little girl named Emily, because I've had health scares that turned out ok with my children but remember what it is like to be scared and spend a lot of money on medical bills.

Please read, please donate to their cause if you can....and help me spread this story to others who might be able to help. Most of all, please pray.

http://captainhambone.typepad.com/not_that_you_asked/2008/03/these-are-our-g.html

The Neverending Story...with a happy ending?

2008-04-01T13:47:00.000-07:00

There's light at the end of the tunnel, my friends, and I no longer think that means I might die.

Well, eventually I will....but I no longer think it might be something that comes soon due to medical malpractice and negligence.

I'm definitely not fully recovered, but I feel that I'm on my way. I'm sore, still very tired and wear out easily but I no longer feel very, very sick. I can tell a lot of my soreness is from the procedure itself, and I'm sure my uterus was very inflamed when they did the D & C, but I no longer feel like I'm in mortal danger.

That sounds so odd, but the fact is, I really believe the doctors I'm dealing with were truly in danger of letting me die before things were resolved. A lot of the symptoms I was exhibiting were signs of becoming septic and I was still pushed aside because I wasn't bleeding profusely and experiencing high temps, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. Then when the nausea, vomiting and diarrhea hit I was told that it could be a stomach bug or perhaps even a drug fever.

Now, I looked up drug fevers after the fact and they're pretty rare. They are also a reaction to antibiotics that I would have most likely had LONG before now if I was going to. In other words, the ER doctor was completely full of it.

Along the way I've been amazed that the number of times doctors have failed me along this path. Toward the end of this I honestly started to worry that mine would be the story that started with "she kept saying something was wrong" and ended with "this could have been prevented."

In my reading I've discovered that mistakes were made from the very beginning.

Due to some of the circumstances of the little's birth (I'm almost ready to talk about it) written protocols suggest prophylactic antibiotics.
The nurses who managed my aftercare failed to do the uterine massage that was done after my daughter's birth.
When I started running a temp before I left the hospital and feeling crappy, it was attributed to the cold I had - with thoughts it had turned into a sinus infection.
Instructions to take my temp postpartum were buried in a book the hospital gave me, with the instructions "read this when you get a chance, no hurry."
When I felt very sick again, my regular doctor's office gave me a prescription for a different antibiotic, for a potential sinus infection.
The first doctor at the OB's office who saw me 12 days pp when I was running high fevers and in severe pain gave me an antibiotic that's NEVER advised to be used for postpartum infections and failed to give me a med to make me pass what was suspected to be a clot and tissue in an area of my uterus to which there was no blood flow.
The next time I saw my doctor he knew the antibiotic I was given was not strong enough to fight the type of infection I had, commented on that, and gave me a medication to make me pass the clot as I was still in pain.
A follow up ultrasound showed what was believed to be the clot was gone, but they did not recheck the area of my uterus where they had seen no blood flow prior. This would be the ultrasound (done 2/18) that all subsequent doctors would point to as "proof" that nothing was in my uterus.
Each time I came off a dose of antibiotics, I would start to feel sicker again, having temporarily felt better for a bit but never out of pain and CONSISTENTLY running a low grade fever. When I am examined, despite crying in pain from speculum exams I'm told that I don't seem "that sore" when my abdomen is pressed. I occasionally pass tissue.
Mid-march I see another doctor in my OB's practice, she confirms with speculum exam evidence of infection and recommends another two weeks of antibiotics. This will be my fifth round. "If that doesn't work, then maybe a d & c will be needed"but then says it's doubtful it would be - the infamous ultrasound was clear, you know. I pass tissue again when I get home from the exam.
I call my regular dr and my RE to run the scenario by them. Both suggest I push hard for a D & C.
The next week I see my doctor, I tell him this isn't working and he suggests taking a look, asks me if I've been stressed and I tell him THIS IS MY STRESS. He again points to the ultrasound and I remind him it was done over a month prior and I passed tissue after the last exam. He schedules a d & c for that friday.
Wednesday was the day I posted about fever, nausea, vomiting and the ER trip. The on call dr from my OB clinic instructs the ER doctor to give me a bag of IV fluids, a shot of morphine and send me home. She never even laid eyes on me. Speculum exam done by the ER dr was excruciating and I was told "sorry that was uncomfortable." The dr suggests that either I had a stomach bug or perhaps it was a drug fever. I spend the night in sweats, chills, and feverous delusions. (By the way, when I called the OB's office before going to the ER they said I should do that and they would most likely admit me. The failed to notify the ER or on call dr I was coming). When we were still at the ER and the on call doctor hadn't come, my husband called the clinic only to be told "She is aware of the situation and must be doing something more important."
The next day I bring my sister up to watch the kids, with the intention of parking myself in the doctor's office if I have to, to call news stations if I have to, whatever it takes to get SOMEONE to treat me.
I call my OB clinic one more time and his nurse listens to what's going on and pages him. He asks her to schedule my surgery for that night.
That night I had my D &*C. Despite weeks of being told that despite my symptoms there couldn't possibly be anything left in my uterus, my surgeon's words to my husband were that there was something on the back wall of my uterus and he believed he got it all.
Pathology for the tissue removed showed very inflamed endometrial tissue, consistent with infection.

I told you so. Assholes.

I'm waiting for copies of my records and some input from a few people, but I think ultimately we're going to contact a lawyer. The time frame I listed actually is missing a few things, and when it's all written out it is simply appalling how many times this was brushed aside because I was not presenting in a fashion they expected. The fact is, you do not have to be bleeding to have something in your uterus that doesn't belong there.

At the very least, we're filing a complaint with the state medical board and shopping for a new OBGYN clinic.

Vindication is MINE

2008-03-28T03:40:00.000-07:00

While I don't believe you should ever have to be in the position of telling your doctors "I told you so," there is a bit of satisfaction in having confirmation that I'm not crazy, I wasn't being a wimp, and it most certainly was NOT resolving on its own. There was something in my uterus.

Full story later, but already I feel better. Lots of pain, but better.

Keep me in your thoughts please

2008-03-27T14:05:00.000-07:00

I originally had surgery scheduled for tomorrow, but it has been bumped up to today, a few hours from now. Yesterday I started having troubles with nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, fever, chills and just feeling AWFUL. I went to the ER, where they couldn't have been less helpful - essentially ignoring all the info I tried to give them about what's been going on.

Today I called my OB's office and he was very angry about how I was treated, about the fact he wasn't called sooner. My surgery will be today at 5:30, checkin an hour before. It's likely to be a long night, but hopefully this is the beginning of feeling better once and for all.

Anonymous comments are ok!!

2008-03-25T03:46:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to clarify - anonymous comments are totally ok. I love to know people are reading and hear what you have to say. There were two specific people that I thought were reading, I now know they are, and one admitted it. They were the ones I was uncomfortable with, as they were reading knowing I was comfortable with them doing so.

Comment away. :)

He was sent to us.

2008-03-22T20:15:00.000-07:00

His car must have sputtered to a stop just as my husband stepped outside with the trash. My husband watched as he got out, shut the door and looked around. Confused, he started off in one direction, stopped, then turned and headed the other way.

"Do you need a ride?" he asked as the snow fell, increasingly heavier.

The man stumbled a bit, looked down and said "Yes. I know I live around here somewhere, but I'm not sure where."

We invited him inside to warm up while my husband started and warmed his car, and gathered his wallet and coat. He was polite, but very confused and scared. His eyes reminded me of my great-grandmother when the Alzheimer's had stolen many of her memories.

My husband helped him find home, then the man realized his gas can was back in the car. Back to the car for the gas can, to the station for gas, back to the car. Then my husband led the way back to the man's apartment.

During their time in the same vehicle, the man talked with clarity about his military service, then jobs at a car dealership and as a life insurance agent. He spoke lovingly about his wife, dead 2 years now, and the home they shared together that he recently gave up for a more manageable apartment.

My husband came home about 2 hours after he left, and we talked about the man. We both had noticed his very thin coat, not nearly enough for the cold night and my husband said he'd only had a small amount of money with him...and he'd muttered something about his credit card being expired.

Before he forgot the man's name and where he lived, we wrote it down so we can check on him later. There are times when I am immensely proud of my husband, and tonight was one of those. I love that we are on the same page about things...we'd both been silent for a bit when I started gathering a few things from the pantry. A few minutes later he came out of the bedroom with some flannel shirts and Louis Lamour books.

"Maybe we can take him something for Easter, on our way to dinner tomorrow" he said, then saw the box I'd started with some chocolate bunnies, soup mixes, pasta and sauce.

My husband made sure he was inside his apartment before leaving and asked if he was in for the night. I wish he'd gotten his phone number or name of a relative, but neither of us are sure if asking the question would have gotten an answer or caused more confusion. The swirling snow would be enough to confuse many, and our neighborhood is a bit confusing as is. Still, it was clear he was disoriented and scared.

Tomorrow we'll drop the box off to him, check on how he is and try to get his number while giving ours. Times like this I wish we were able to help more.

I find myself sitting here with a lump in my throat, thinking of how glad I am his car stalled next to our home, how grateful I am he didn't walk alone in the snow, confused and scared. I hope tomorrow we have a chance to talk with him, hope there might be someone - a child of his, perhaps- we might be able to contact. We don't have a lot to offer, but it would be easy to occasionally take some soup or whatever it is we're having on occasion over to him. Tonight I'm praying there's someone in his life to notice how he's doing and step in. I hate to think of anyone being alone.

Still, for as much as my husband helped tonight, I know we received as much benefit if not more. What a reminder about the fragility of life, the passing of time, the enormous GIFT of just having each other. The thought of a man, once young and active, with a home and loving wife now alone and missing her is just almost too much to imagine.

So tonight I hug my hubby and my babies, and I am very, very grateful.