I Won't Fear Love

Wondering, slightly off-topic

2011-05-03T13:07:00.002-04:00

If anybody is still here, and on the off chance you still want to know where the hell I've been, I'll tell you. I spent the last day and a half same place most you likely did-- glued to screens and speakers, catching up on details and coverage. (Where I've been for months before that is a separate question, one I keep meaning to address in something other than a sidetracky note in parenthesis.)

As you undoubtedly know, among the coverage from the Pentagon and from Pakistan, and from the White House, there is coverage from Ground Zero and from many a studio where family members of those who perished on September 11th have come to answer questions about How They Are Feeling Now.

A digression, or a sidetrack, if you will. About two and a half years ago Elizabeth McCracken's An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination started making rounds in our little corner of the blogosphere, and so did the lines from the book that many of us wanted on t-shirts (or carved carefully and lovingly into rotten tomatoes conveniently available to us any time the urge to throw one, or at the very least the line on it, at the clueless/malevolent overtook us). One of those lines, one quoted frequently and with gusto by many a babylost mother was "closure is bullshit."

Back to present day. I notice one persistent theme in the coverage. Every time a relative or a friend of a 9/11 victim is interviewed, no matter the outlet, there is always that ridiculous question-- "does this provide closure for you?"

And so, though I know that is not the main thrust in the events that have been unfolding around the world since early hours of Monday morning Pakistan time (not entirely surprising, this, as I do tend to, from time to time, you know, digress... wait, where was I? oh, yes-- not entirely the central point, but...) I wonder whether maybe, just maybe, this time it will finally sink in.

Because in an inspiring display of dignity (and honestly, I find myself offended for these people every time they are asked about this), every single relative that I've seen or heard has said approximately what Elizabeth wrote, though in language more suited for mass media,-- there is no closure, there is no such thing, it doesn't exist, he/she/they are still dead, and we still miss them and have to live without them.

Closure is a convenient stamp. It is a useful plot device, and it is a great marker for those unaffected who want those affected to be OK-- what you need is to get closure and move on. I hope it will sink in, but I know it's unlikely. The allure of simple explanations and carefully wrapped up stories is too strong, and we're only human. And yet, knowing full well that I am pretty much hollering into the wind, I want to echo Lee Ielpi, father of Jonathan, firefighter who perished on 9/11, as quoted in the NYTimes this morning: "No closure. That word should be stricken from the English language."

Almost here

2011-01-29T16:08:00.003-05:00

Almost here. That's both it, another anniversary, and me. For me, that's about this place. The place I miss and want to inhabit again. The intensity varies through time, from burning to simmering, but it's always there. Always, despite the months and months of terrible neglect. I see the weeds all around, and I don't expect anyone to still be wondering by, looking for me. So I know it's not about the audience. It's about me. I still want to be here, still need to be here.

A few months ago now (ouch, already?), I told a couple of bloggers I met for the first time that night (hi, gals, if any of you still have this place in the reader) that my first post back would be a "how do you know you are still a blogger?" and would essentially boil down to "if you are constantly composing posts in your head, you're it." And I am. So I guess I am.

Last calendar year deserves a post all its own, and it will probably get one, sometime next week. This past month, January. Well, it should've gotten a small stable of posts, but except for the one I had on Glow earlier, this is it so far.

But what's there to say, this fourth time around? I miss him. Still, always. In some ways that are now familiar, and in some ways that are new and sharper for it. Thoughtless things people say can still get me. Sometimes in a new way. The one that happened earlier in the fall, but then crept back into my head and heart to mess with both earlier this month, was about how insignificant A is to others. It hurts, and it hurts worse for the casual manner in which she did it. And yet, as with other things, once I dissected that enough to understand what in it was so hurtful, it receded. These things always do. The one that doesn't is the simplest and the most basic of them all-- he is not here. He will never be here.

Four years ago I was still just a pregnant woman.

Time, flight of

2010-08-15T02:40:00.002-04:00

Back in April I said I am taking 2-3 weeks off. Ha! Tomorrow it will be 18 weeks. 18, which is, 3 squared times 2 ([3^2]x2). I did that for a bit-- thought as each week drew to a close that come Monday I will definitely post again, and, because nerd is who I am, not just what I do, found a way to represent the number of weeks it was in terms of 2s, 3s, and mathematical operations-- 2+3, 2x3, 2x2+3, 2^3, 3^2, 2x(3+2), 3^2+2. I think that's where I stopped, at 11 weeks out-- it got too depressing as each week zoomed by with a cackle and a whooooosh.

It was about the house projects at first. Then it was all about the job-- a great interview the very day of that last post, an interminable wait, a growing panic, and an official rejection email. Yup, email. Some more drama, twists and turns, and finally an offer of adjunct position for the fall. More drama yet with the course planning and coordination, then a major plot twist and a cliffhanger. The latter only resolved as of two weeks ago, prompting a mad dash of meetings and emails trying to get the course organized, coordinated and ready to go.

I am still in the middle of that dash, and will be right through the first part of the term at least. Because damn, but it's impossible to put the whole course together in the time I had from the final staffing assignment to the start of the course. Not happening is all I am saying. Also, there's the crazy and fun science thing I am doing at Monkey's school. Not paid, but I am getting to put a lot of my crazy ideas into practice, so that's a plus.

I haven't been entirely unplugged since that last post. I've peeked, here and there. More lately, as I've tried to get back to this place. And now I sit here, a mere hour (exactly) until the point in time when my youngest son turns two. If I look at him or, say, pick him up, two seems just about right for the heft of him, and for what he is up to these days. Though two also seems like a lot. And it just doesn't feel like it's been that long.

Or maybe it has. I am feeling ready to talk about the last part of my pregnancy with the Cub, and his early days, and what the whole thing did to my head and my heart. Last year the topic still felt tender, the way it doesn't anymore. Tonight I've been walking through the timepoints, two years ago. I am feeling a sort of a removed wonder, tenderness towards the people in the moving pictures in my head, towards the moments in those moving pictures. But I am not there, in the moment. I am here, this side of it all. Though I am compelled to watch again, to trace the timeline.

So I guess two fits what I am feeling, or what I am feeling fits two. I guess two it is then.

I've missed you all. I've missed this place. I've had things to say. I have things to say. Hopefully, I can find time to say them, and time to be a good blog reader as well as a writer-- time to read, time to comment, time to be there.

And if you have a bit of time, would you please stop by Sally's as she is walking through her hard days-- from Hope's due date today towards her birthday on Thursday, the 19th?

What? Where? Aaaa.... Argh!!!!!!!!!!!!

2010-04-12T23:52:00.002-04:00

So today is my blogoversary. Again. Where did my online year go? Anyone seen it?

Actually, I have a pretty good idea what happened. As I think back on where it all went kaboom, I have to go back to the one insane project that ate my March of 09, and then joyfully munched on April for good measure.

See, as part of the Judaic studies curriculum, in the second half of first grade, Monkey's school presents each student with their own prayer book, to be used for prayer and study. And as part of the community/continuity/uniqueness thing, the school asks each family to design and make a cover for the book, personalized to each child.

I bitched about this before, and even posted a picture of the work in progress, while I bitched some more. You may ask why the hell was the work in progress weeks after the ceremony where the books and the covers were handed out. Excellent question. And I will even tell you.

See, I spent a lot of time last March making drawings and looking for fabric. Predictably resulting in needing to more than less make the actual cover in laughably short time, like less than two days and two nights. Also predictably, I ended up pulling an allnighter the night before the thing was due.

I took pictures as the assembly process rolled on. Here's the nearly finished front and the back the way I was going to let it be for a time. The table under the stars thing is the back cover (books in Hebrew open from what we are used to being the back). See the monkey in the tree?

Finished front cover, already on the book. Quick tour through the significance. Behold the Tree of Life. The top of the trunk recalls the schools logo, and the each root hides the first letter of Monkey's name in the three languages of her life-- Old Country, English and Hebrew. Point being that she integrates all the parts of her identity at the school. And monkey in the tree is because she is, you know, Monkey.

The back cover, when it was finally finished. By which I mean that when it went to school on the day of the ceremony, the back was just that table at the top of the world. Over the next couple of weeks I kept taking the book home on the weekends until finally the table was set for Shabbat and the travelers were on their way.

Closer view of the travelers. Monkey's actual middle name makes her a lioness, so there she is, carrying a cub that represents (DUH!) the Cub. And the puppy... The puppy is for A, hopefully looking at least a bit like our stuffed A puppy.

Before this thing happened, I was almost down to zero in my reader again. But then the cover came over, made itself comfortable, and decided to stay a while. And I fell behind on my internetting. And never caught up. Oh, I made several rather valiant attempts at it, but I always, always lost. Giant FAIL. So now it is over a year later, and I have to admit defeat.

Which I am doing, now. I have been a crappy internet friend and supporter over the last year. I know I missed important events, both good and bad, in the lives of many of the bloggers I read, and I never got around to adding everyone who was so lovely in coming out of the bloggity closet for me a year ago.

I need to write. But I also need to read. Not being able to do either (I have to admit to feeling bad about writing without reading) because of the backlog and because of all the continuously accumulating life crap has not been good for me. Not even a little, as my sister is fond of saying.

So here's what I am going to do, as an anniversary present to myself and a serious mental health measure. I am going to take a blog break for the next two to three weeks. By which I don't just mean that I won't be writing here during that time-- I've gone longer stretches in this past year, every one unintentionally. What I mean is that this time I am going to close the tab with my reader, and am not even going to attempt to skim. (Though I will read comments, since they come by email and since I am way too weak-willed not to.) I am going to use the time to clear the hell out of my to do list-- items large and small, you're all on notice. And when I come back, I am going to hit that awful mark all as read button, add all the blogs I have been meaning to add, and will start again with a clean slate. Clean slate sounds nice.

I've missed you all. I miss you all. I will be back. Soon.

Show and Tell: Sand and Time

2010-03-25T23:19:00.003-04:00

If anyone was looking for me sometime in the last couple of weeks (ha! like anyone would), my apologies, but I was wholly swallowed by preparations for and after-care of one little girl's way too many birthday parties. (Plus, a cool school-related project. Not material to today's post, though hopefully to be expounded upon tomorrow.)

This year, we are apparently going for a new record on the number of times one can celebrate a birthday. For the last two years Monkey has already had two kid parties-- one for classmates, and one for kids of our friends, the ones she grew up with and still hangs with a lot. Think of them as an unusually large bunch of cousins. Separate because I could never find a place that would accommodate that many kids all at once. This year a third kid party made its debut-- one for the girls of Monkey's gymnastics team.

She lucked out with that one-- envisioned as a karaoke party (because she wanted one, and because we figured the team was just small enough to fit here, unlike the contingents of either of the remaining parties), it turned into a mostly outdoor party thanks to a rather atypical patch of weather. A first for Monkey, and a big hit all around. Her class party was actually on a weekday, brought to all of us by the parent-teacher conferences and the attendant lack of classes. It went surprisingly well, and I might just bookmark those spring conferences as good days to keep track of for possible future birthday parties. The last of the kid parties is next weekend, but that is not the point here.

The point is that with all this crazy, I just couldn't bring myself to consider making the little bags'o'crap (aka the goody bags) that are such an integral part of kid birthday celebrations. In this country, that is-- we never had these in the Old Country, and we all turned out just fine. For a wide range of the values of just fine of course. So goody bags. Couldn't hack them. Came up with a brilliant idea to do a craft, and for that to be their goody bag. Hence, it had to come out looking nice and be somewhat useful. And I really didn't need it to break the bank.

Somehow I hit upon the idea of doing mosaics (getting a kit for someone else's birthday and seeing all the things you could buy piecemeal didn't have anything to do with this, I am sure). Shouldn't take too long, reasoned I. Doesn't look too messy at the design/tile gluing stage-- a definite plus. And of course, I wasn't about to let any of them near the grouting.

You know grout, yes? It is this sandy stuff that you mix with water until it's a fairly thick paste. You grout around, say kitchen tiles you install, that I knew. But it turns out you also grout to fill space between the pieces of glass and plastic that constitute your mosaic design. Then you wait a bit and sponge (or scrape with some serious effort; either way, you know) off the excess grout.

So some kids in the class didn't want to make one. And some kids at the gymnastics party wanted to make two. Altogether, that left me with 30 pieces to grout. Various number of tiles involved. Some very symmetrical and evenly spaced and all kinds of thought out. Others-- less so.

The thing I failed to consider when embarking on this ever-so-clever no goodie bag path? Time. Just.how.much.time it would take to finish 30 projects. And let me tell you, it took hours and hours. And hours. Many-many hours. But last night the last batch was drying, and today almost all of them went home. Like ET, but with far less drama.

But nu? They come out pretty, yes?

This post is part of Mel's Show and Tell for the week. To see what the cool kids are showing, click on over!

Nadia Rose

2010-02-10T23:27:00.002-05:00

Eight years ago I was in the hospital. Confined two days before, exactly four weeks before my due date, with the second episode of bleeding from my (as it turned out, partial) placenta previa.

The first night I was there, the 8th, I had a roommate. She was about 31 weeks along then, her first pregnancy. Around Christmastime, something like seven weeks earlier, a scan found severe growth restriction in her daughter. Severe as in that 24 week singleton fetus was nowhere near a pound. She was in the hospital that night because the doctors thought she'd might've reached a tipping point on the in vs. out safety scale, and they were going to decide, early in the morning, whether to do the C-section right then.

I wasn't allowed to get up on account of the whole previa thing, and she couldn't or wouldn't, I don't remember anymore. We talked through the so-called privacy curtain that night. In my memory, the lights in the room, or most of them at least, were off. In my memory, we talked in the dark. We talked for hours. So it is not exactly surprising that though I saw her in the light of day the next morning, and though I saw her several times after, it is her voice, her turns of phrase, and not her face that I remember.

I remember how she called one of the doctors in the practice Doogie Howser, because he-- DUH-- looks like the character. I still refer to the doctor by that nickname. I remember how she described the daughter of an acquaintance who was born weeks and weeks early, but only had a few minor challenges, fine motor skills, that type of thing, a few years later. I could tell that was her guiding light, her hope.

I remember her talking about the doctor who became her MFM after that scan at 24 weeks. I knew him too. A very big shot, chief of ultrasonography at the whole place, he showed me an extraordinary human kindness in the early, spooked days of my pregnancy with Monkey. A kindness I sorely needed because this was my second pregnancy, first ending in a miscarriage barely two months prior. For my roommate, he went beyond a kindness. He had her come in for a scan every weekday of those seven weeks. A short respite in each day for her, reassurance of "for now." I remember her talking about how scary the weekends were, having to make it from a Friday scan to a Monday one. I remember her saying that the doctors admitted to her some time earlier that when they first diagnosed the IUGR, they thought the baby wouldn't make it, and they thought that might be the best outcome for the baby. But not anymore, not since she's hung on for so long, not since she's put on that little bit of weight that she did.

I asked if the baby had a name. Nadia Rose, she said. Another trick of memory-- I don't remember my roommate's name anymore, but I remember her daughter's. I asked why she chose that name, and she said she just liked it. She talked about hope too, and I asked her if she knew that Nadia meant hope. She didn't, but she was glad I told her.

In the morning, after a somewhat prolonged back and forth among no less than three doctors, they decided to do the section that morning. I think I thought they would bring her back to our shared room after. But they didn't, and I was still on bedrest. I don't remember if I tried asking the nurses for information, but I know I didn't get any. A couple of days later as they wheeled me down to the clinic for the big ultrasound, my former roommate flagged me down. She was smiling. The surgery went well. The baby was very small, only about a pound. But she was in NICU and doing well. Come visit us sometime, she said.

I was hospitalized one more time that pregnancy, at 37.5 weeks. My MFM came on the floor with the morning shift, and that time his instructions were to get up and walk around. If I didn't start bleeding again by the end of the day, he'd send me home.

So I walked around the floor for a bit, and when nothing dramatic happened, I went to the NICU. Nadia Rose had one of the four glass-enclosed cubicles in the front of NICU. She was tiny and had a whole lot of wires about her. My former roommate was out, but I got to talk with the father for a bit. She has been doing real well, he said, but it is tough. This life, the NICU life, it's hard. And not just emotionally. I remember him talking about parking, and I remember thinking it odd in the moment that this would be what he'd gripe about. Now I think it a very human thing, to gripe about parking after the tubes and the wires and everything else becomes normalized into one's reality. And besides, he had a point-- they had to pay $6 for parking every day. And if they wanted to leave and come back, another $6. And they were looking at months more of this.

So, about that... A few days after I'd had Monkey, and we'd gone home, I had to go back to the hospital to be seen. Let's leave the gross and embarrassing details out of it, and just say that they needed to make sure I was healing appropriately. After they did, I made JD go by the NICU with me. As it turns out, the desk lady only buzzed me in because she thought I was a NICU mother. When she figured out I was trying to see someone else's baby, she focused on getting us out the door. I kept asking for Nadia Rose, explaining that she's my roommate's daughter, but the desk lady wasn't budging. She didn't know who I was talking about, or didn't want to tell me. I got her to let me look into what I thought was the cubicle where she was those couple of weeks earlier, but she wasn't there. Another baby was. After that it was quick work of kicking us out.

Once outside, I thought I looked in the wrong cubicle. But I couldn't be sure. JD, who then didn't know about the lengths of NICU stays, didn't get why I was so upset. I knew, though, and so I had to explain it to him. If she wasn't there in NICU, if I didn't just screw up the cubicle, or if she wasn't moved to the common room in the back where less fragile babies were, then she didn't make it. Then she died. But I didn't know for sure. And I had no way of finding out.

I thought of them, my roommate and her Nadia Rose, through the years. I hoped they made it, but always I didn't know. I still don't. After A died, I thought of them more often. And for some reason I wanted to know enough that at the Cub's anatomical scan appointment, supervised by my former roommate's ultrasound wizard of a doctor, the one who showed me that very human kindness, I blurted out my question. I asked him if he remembered Nadia Rose, baby of a patient from more than six years ago by then. The one he did daily scans for, the one with severe IUGR. What happened to her, I asked. He said that he honestly didn't remember this particular patient. That sadly he has too many patients who match the description. But also, and this I should've known, that even if he knew exactly who I was talking about, he couldn't tell me because of the privacy laws.

This past weekend, at Monkey's gymnastics competition, there was a girl with a name that reminded me again, essentially the same name, but spelled a bit differently. And a hyphenated last name-- not the same child. But thinking back, I realized that it was February when I met her mother. A bit of mental calendar flipping later, and I was sure-- her birthday was coming up. February 9th, somewhat early in the morning.

And this is where I am stuck. I don't know the proper grammar form to use now. She is eight now? She'd be eight now? I hope her mom, my former roommate, is busy with party plans for the coming weekend. But I also know it is very possible that she is walking through her hard season now, her grief season.

I don't really know how to end this. I hesitate to say Happy (belated) Birthday, because I don't know whether it was, whether it can be. So maybe just this then-- Nadia Rose and Nadia's mom, wherever each of you is now, I hope you are both happy.

Grief, changes

2010-02-02T15:44:00.003-05:00

Heading towards the first anniversary, I said we were not the cake and candles type of people. Yeah, go ahead, cue the laugh track. Last year Monkey changed her mind from previously conceived cupcakes to brownies sort of last minut-ish. Specifically so that we wouldn't have to make frosting. This year she insisted on frosting, to write his name with, and the date. And candles. (We didn't buy these candles for the occasion-- they were left from one of Monkey's birthdays. And yet, here it is-- happy birthday on A's cake. Um, actually, Monkey's reaction merits a longer description. I'll be back with that, later in the week.)

The weekend was ok, mostly. I spent some of my alone time with the Cub on Saturday morning asking him who I love the most in the world, and answering with all three of their names. Sometimes just the firsts, but more times the whole nine years-- first, middle, patronimic, last. Rinse, repeat. I think it was the convergence towards the end of the long form names, but the Cub found that hilarious. He laughed and looked at me expectantly. And I did it again, and again. That felt nice. And yet sad. Like maybe I was sneaking this in, being a little furtive.

Brownies came out well. Despite the projected great freeze, the weather was tolerable at the cemetery. I found nice flowers at the store (though as I was standing there considering whether to supplement with a bunch of small off white roses, eventually deciding in favor, a woman doing her own flower shopping proclaimed from behind "yellow and blue-- looks like spring"; apparently she wanted to register her approval of my choices, but sheesh lady, you have no idea; and besides, there was green too, and I thought they looked manly, so there). And did I mention the brownies were yummy?

So yes, the weekend was ok. Until a somewhat profound realization and the attendant complete breakdown Sunday night (actually, the clock said it was Monday by then), the kind that leaves you weak-limbed and exhausted at the end. I realized that besides the familiar missing, which, though bone-deep and abiding, I could almost call civilized, there is a whole other, much more ruthless and savage, side of grief lurking in me. I still want him. And ain't that a bitch, what with him being dead and all.

I am just now coming to, I think. I had grand plans for yesterday, and a list to go with. But in the morning I found myself still wrung out and exhausted, mentally and physically, and not much got done. Instead, I spent the whole day regaining my footing, partially by slowly, slowly, a drop, a word at a time writing about it at Glow. Visit me there too, if you will.

There is a common theme here, see? Surprises. Unexpected things that pop up, still, three years on. And yes, you can totally say that "DUH!" you've been holding in now. I know, I know-- grief is simultaneously about constancy and change. This is why it can get us, years on-- it finds new ways to say the same old thing. I guess I was just due for a refresher.

Here

2010-01-30T14:03:00.002-05:00

It's here. Three years. Death today, birth tomorrow. This order of things is the reality of our everyday life, something that just is. But on the page like this, in one sentence, it seems kinda crazy, doesn't it?

I am here too. I expected, when I wrote that last post, that between then and now I would have a lot to say. And I did. I just didn't get to say much of it. Some of what it was I might try to say still. Most is gone, struggled through and dealt with, probably messier than if I'd had that chance to write at the time, but gone nonetheless.

We've been walking through significant dates here for a bit. Hebrew calendar moves around from year to year with respect to Gregorian, and this year, yahrtzeit, the Jewish anniversary, fell on this week. My sister and brother in law came over. We lit a yahrtzeit candle, had good food, and raised our glasses a couple of times. Monkey, reasoning that this is A's Jewish birthday, wanted to blow up some balloons. Surprisingly, there was enough air in an old (as in from her birthday last spring) helium tank to fill three and a half. She drew on them, writing his name in three languages, and drawing faces. She only popped one. After they are completely deflated, she wants me to put the smallest one, the one with just the face drawn on it, into the drawer whereI keep her A artwork.

We didn't go to the synagogue to say kaddish that evening, leaving that part for Friday night. So we did that yesterday.

We didn't really have much of a plan for the weekend. Making brownies, again, as per Monkey's request. That's tonight, soon. Going to the cemetery, that's tomorrow. I've had this vague idea that there should be good homemade food this weekend, and so I've made some. Unlike last year, our friends have been calling and emailing. One family asked to stop by today. We will see another tomorrow.

Like most of the week before, it's been a close to usual Saturday here, and, unlike last year, when the ordinariness was unbearable, I am ok with it. I miss him every day, every ordinary day. I miss him today too, and in this way, today is just another day.

I haven't cried yet today. But as the clock ticks towards the hour that is listed in my chart as the official time "it was confirmed," I feel the tears. They are starting to build. Not yet, but later. After the brownies are baked, and the candle is lit, and Monkey and the Cub are asleep. Unless, you know, they come before then, which, I am suddenly feeling like they might. I guess it's not all that ordinary after all.

Seasonal

2009-12-09T19:32:00.001-05:00

It's that time of the year again. Holiday season and the beginning of my anniversary season. My season of whole numbers and visceral memories. My season of longing.

Today I am over at Glow in the Woods, offering a place to sit for a while and asking how everyone is. Tell me, if you would.

Some images from last season (and my first attempt at a virtual collage-- whatdayathink?).

And yes, if you looked on Glow, these are the same images in a different layout.

Where the pink elephants roam

2009-11-29T15:25:00.000-05:00

The last week has been such whirlwind that it's hard to believe it's been only the one week since we said our goodbyes by the ocean shore and Niobe and I headed back from whence we came scant 37 hours earlier. I sit now by a different, much warmer, shore of the same ocean, marvelling still at all that we packed into those 37 hours.

Back in college I spent some of my now-fondly-remembered time, and a good deal of brainpower too, trying to figure out just where that treasure was buried or who was really a well-disguised alien. Or, in other, more mundane, words playing live action role playing games. (And just so I am not left feeling ~~like the dweebiest dweeb in the house~~ all alone, let me hear a "hell, yeah" in the comments if part of your misspent youth was misspent doing the same thing.) The way this admission becomes relevant here is that frequently email announcements of these games came with a rating of the particular game's weirdshit factor. So a straight up Babylon 5 game would likely be fairly low weirdshit (though high on technology mechanics), whereas an Earth is under alien siege and there's a UN meeting to figure out what to do game is more likely to turn up high weirdshit, what with aliens masquerading as humans, and obligatory secret wizard societies coming out of the woodwork.

So last weekend? It was a little high on weirdshit.

I am not even sure that the monkey here is the strangest creature on the boardwalk. Though I have to admit to thinking that they have a rather strange sense of what it means for a shop to be open.

I also have to admit a failure of imagination in figuring out why there is a go-kart place under a ship.

Or a ship over a go kart place. Or why the latter (both?) have a one-eyed fisherman and his oddly out of proportion surroundings on the side.

Also, if you are tired and would like to rest a bit apparently you are out of luck unless you are curly. Or a fry.

Their pirates (and parrots) are larger than life.

And make interesting choices in weaponry.

Their mannequins, on the other hand, are freakishly life-like.

They also inhibit abandoned shops and make one wonder what they do when no-one is watching.

And if all of this is making you want a good strong drink, may I suggest a few Old Country-style chasers? And yes, apparently you are meant to put these on your tree.

I attribute the fact that it took me this long to write about the weekend mostly to a thoroughly uncharacteristic inability to find words to describe what it was like. I've met bloggers before. Mostly babylost bloggers. A time or two even in small groups. But there were ten of us there (Angie, the creative force behind the whole thing, Lani, Tash, Tracy, m, Sarah, Molly, and Laura, plus Niobe and me), and somehow I didn't have a good way to explain how naturally the conversation flowed from sharing recipes to the many facets of the life after, or how we laughed until we couldn't breathe (or was that just me?) at each other's black humor. Reflecting back, it seemed impossible to have packed this much into the paltry 37 hours. I didn't have words for any of it.

And then Tash wrote about the weekend, and suddenly I had it. Pink elephants. A convention of them. Yup, that's it.

Which, if you think about it, makes perfect sense. Where else should we hold a convention of florescent pink elephants if not among the above-pictured weirdshit? Why, they fit right in. As did we, is all I am trying to say.

Our freak flag. Yes, it's tattered. Got a problem with that?

Long time

2009-11-21T17:06:00.001-05:00

So... ahem... it's been a while. A long while, in fact. Three months and three days.

Do I have an excuse? A boatload of them, actually. Not that anyone cares, of course, but it was mostly about working a whole lot, being sick, rinsing and repeating. The point, though? I've missed this place, a lot. I've promised myself that I would write already more times than I can remember.

I've been reading, trying to keep up with at least some blogs. I've been mostly failing. We had the flu. We are all better now, even me-- I've had my voice back for a whole three days now, yo. And yesterday I filed or unemployment. My contract technically ended last week, but I have been trying to finish up the things I didn't finish because of the flu. It's a weird, weird feeling-- I am supposedly unemployed, but I am still chugging along.

Come to think of it, it might've been good that I couldn't find time to blog for a while-- saved you from reading boring job search angst. Not that I am altogether done with it, I don't think. But for now I seem to be back to grimly determined (from, you know, flattened).

I was going to write this post (ha-ha) about five times in the last week. I was going to title it "Winding Down, Wound Up." Because, see, I am winding down my job, and I am, OMFG, wound up. Except I am not, anymore. And all it took is a seven hour drive. Which, to be fair, was only seven hours because of some serious traffic. I am away, at the retreat. Eating, drinking, walking among the kitsch that seems endearing this time of year, taking pictures, talking. Breathing.

It's nice. Really nice. So nice I'll have to write about it more. Plus, there are these crazy mannequins I just have to share... But, you know, later. Because right now there's conversation and laughter coming from the kitchen. So if you excuse me, I'm gonna go open a bottle of wine and join the fun.

One

2009-08-18T22:30:00.001-04:00

The Cub is one. A full year. JD thinks it flew by. I don't think it did so much as the birthday snuck up on us. Either way, he is beautiful and gorgeous, and more expressive and able every day.

I tried to explain to a friend what I was feeling on Cub's birthday, and it all seemed a strange mess. I am, apparently, still wondering whether he is here to stay, as betrayed by relief-like feelings on the cuff of the day. Which, you know, make so very little sense. Since, of course, there's never a line getting to which guarantees continued sunshine and ponies of various sizes and colors.

And then there's also the part where I am not anywhere near being done processing the pregnancy. Which, I have to say, is annoyiiiiiiing-- would've made for a much nicer rhetorical device had I cleaned, sorted and aired out all that stuff by now. For one, I would've been able to perhaps speak intelligently on this momentous occasion. For another, headspace is at a premium around these parts, and I really do need it back-- I have a job to find, and my current one to finish up in a spectacularly competent manner assuring me glowing letters of recommendation for years to come.

The celebration on the actual day was very low key-- a couple of babies for the ultra-social Cub to share germs with, plus their parents to share chips and hamburgers with us. My parents arrive Thursday, and there will be a family celebration Sunday. To mark the year since his homecoming from NICU, as I said to my mom who would've preferred to have come this past weekend, but had to change plans to also accommodate my FIL's big round birthday party.

So we are now in the anniversary of the week the Cub spent in NICU last year. As transient as that experience was, it's also apparently indelible, at least so far. I don't know whether it will get better in future years. But for now, out to dinner with friends Sunday, drinking a toast to the Cub, JD and I both knew exactly where we were that time a year before-- in the kid's NICU room, me asking the neonatalogist what else they had in their arsenal, should things keep going in the wrong direction, as they had been all day, and JD pacing the room or crouching in the chair, hearing not a word of what was being said around him.

It's something that we in DBL learn early, and notice often-- a good day for one is sure to be a disaster for someone else. When he was born, the Cub wasn't due for another three plus weeks, and short of his scheduled induction date by more than two weeks. It wasn't supposed to be his birthday. But it was supposed to be another baby girl's, half a world away. Had things gone to plan for them, that beautiful girl's mother would've spent this past weekend fussing over the details of the most perfect birthday ever. But they didn't. And so instead over the past year Sally and Simon have been learning to live without their first-born daughter, Hope. Please stop by and remember with them.

Show and Tell: Self-portraits in shadows and water

2009-08-13T10:36:00.002-04:00

It's been a while since last I participated in Mel's Show and Tell. So long, in fact, that in the meantime it has moved from Sundays to Thursdays. So we now rejoin this lovely community tradition, already way the hell in progress.

The Cub is turning one this Saturday. Still a bit surreal. A lot surreal, actually. It's blatantly obvious that the only thing keeping him from trading in his baby designation, which looks on him like nothing so much as one of those onesies, overstretched from use and fitting, still, only because of the use and attendant overstretching, that the thing keeping him from trading it in for the otherwise way more appropriate toddler one is that he, you know, refuses to actually toddle unassisted. Even in just the last week, sudden and impressive development of hand-to-mouth coordination, and now-- desire to eat with a spoon. So to look at him, yes, a year is about right. But in the abstract spaces of my head it's a lot more like a year? already? really? wow... All adult and complete-sentence-like of me, I know.

I know what I was doing a year ago. I know, too, that in my head, I am not yet done processing that pregnancy. I am working on it, though. There are things yet to say. But today seems like a good day to look at pictures.

I took these, with a friend's point and shoot, last year at the shore. 55 weeks ago, days before ending up in PTL and on bedrest.

I got a chance to download these from that friend's camera only recently. They are all electrons, from start to finish-- from being taken with a digital camera to being, now, stored on a hard drive. And yet to me they have the feel of those old black and white family photos, of events and people long ago.

If you want to see what the other kids are showing, summer break be damned, please stop by Mel's place for the master list.

Perspective

2009-08-11T23:32:00.002-04:00

I actually figured all of this out a while ago (though, as is usual these days, didn't so much post), but a post today at Beruriah's brought it up again. It's about timing. People with babies the Cub's age, plus/minus a few months in either direction are pregnant again. Not overwhelming numbers of them, but enough for me do a gut check.

I've never made a secret on this here blog of the fact that I want to raise three children. In my before life, I was going to aim for a rather short age gap between the younger two-- two and a half years or so, give or take. In my after life, I was considering an even shorter gap, mostly because I didn't want Monkey to be too terribly older than the youngest. I am eight years older than my sister-- it works and has worked for the duration. I wasn't so sure about longer gaps. By the time I'd had the Cub, though, I was pretty clear I needed a break from this pregnancy thing. Told my MFM I won't be back for at least a year, probably more.

At some point I started to push my mental target for the "next time" ever further out. Factoring in things like the job market (blows; also on academic calendar-- matters both for being able to interview and for being able to start and finish at least my first year at whatever my next job might end up being), and talking to adults who've had longer age gaps with their siblings, and to parents of kids with longer gaps. Monkey, by the by, has started asking a few months ago. And really? The nerve on that kid! Oh, she also thinks eight is a good number. Ha! Told her that ain't happening.

But all of this was happening sort of on low boil in the background, with the occasional eruptions of "I am so not ready yet!" here and there. Until, that is, Christina found herself somewhat unexpectedly pregnant again. You see, Christina was due last year a day after me. The Cub was born shy of 37 weeks, but the lovely miss Cate went almost all the way to the due date. So, you know, when it's Christina who turns up pregnant now, it really rocks my world. I think I even told her in my comment that I can't imagine being there myself right now.

And then. Then I thought about it. The Cub was 11 months old when Christina found out. Which just happens to be three days longer than the interval between when A was born and when we found ourselves in possession of a piece of plastic with two lines in a window. So... ahem... right.

It seems that the actual operative idea here is that I can't imagine, am not ready to do that again. And I really think it's not about the distinction of doing it with or without a baby already at home-- I think for me it's much more about the stress of the pregnancy itself.

My pregnancy with the Cub was hard. Emotionally hard (DUH) but also objectively complicated. (There are things to say about that, and I will say them, hopefully soon.) I am also still incredibly overweight-- weight of two pregnancies (on top of extra ten still hanging around since Monkey), less a few pounds now, thanks to my friend metformin. And I need to lose a hell of a lot more before it's not insane to start piling fresh new pounds on.

I am finding comfort in that again above. It's like I forget that before A died and was born, I was actually pregnant with him. Not forget forget-- I can tell you all kinds of dates and facts about that pregnancy, but sort of dissociate from it, as if it too lives in the before. The again is soothing, a reminder that my body has been through a whole lot in the past little over three years, and that there is nothing wrong with acknowledging that fact.

So that's my new internal refrain, whenever I learn of someone else going another round with only a short break: "I did that last time. And right now I am just not ready to do it again." Somehow this feels both more honest and more reassuring to me than my old tune of "wow-- I can't even imagine doing that now."

ETA: It just occurred to me that even though I certainly don't assume a good outcome when I think of a future pregnancy (either in attaining one in the first place or in maintaining it to the point of a take home baby), talking about it in terms of "doing" might be read by someone as if I in fact assume. I think "attempt" would've been more precise. As in "I did that last time. And right now I am just not ready to attempt it again."

Processing

2009-08-10T13:10:00.002-04:00

I remember reading bereaved bloggers whose tragedy came before my own talk about how people forget, how friends say inconsiderate things, how time comes, sooner for some, later for others, when people grow tired of accommodating your new self, the one still (or permanently?) sensitive and raw in many places, when they want you to have gotten "over it" already.

And what I thought about that was "not MY friends." Not the friends who dropped everything and came to stand by us. Not the friends who called, and brought food, and asked to see the pictures, and let me talk about how beautiful A was. Not my friends, who, when pregnancy came up as a topic, always and deliberately included my pregnancy with A in these conversations. Surely these people wouldn't forget, or displace, or expect me to revert to my unaffected, my "before" self.

Um... yeah. I am still processing not so much the careless remark from this year's shore trip (it has been apologized for), as the aftershocks of finding out what some of our friends really think. Processing and thinking. Thinking about duty over at Glow, about what we owe others, and what others owe us. Please feel free to stop by and add to the conversation.

Free your goat Friday: wet and tired

2009-07-31T14:49:00.002-04:00

The goats of today, they are connected. I got soaking wet because it was pouring when I needed to move the car. I needed to move the car because coming into work this morning I was cutting it too close for an important meeting, and had to grab the first parking spot I could see-- a 2hr meter. I was cutting it close because I just couldn't get up this morning, which, in turn, is due to one very lovely baby boy whose nighttime antics have lately been less than lovely. Oh, and for the second day in a row weather predictions have been wrong wrong wrong, with rain arriving much earlier in the day and coming down much harder than predicted. Hence, me not grabbing the umbrella from the car when I got to work. Hence, me getting wet on the way to the car, but not on the way back. Though I must've cut a puzzling picture on the way back from moving the car-- a clearly completely soaked person under an umbrella.

Ok, so now that my poor goats are off to dry themselves and get some rest in the pastures, won't you let yours go and join them?

Bling borrows the image from this story.

Warp

2009-07-27T23:25:00.002-04:00

It's been an interesting, in the sense of that famous, but apparently fake Chinese curse, couple of weeks inside my head.

It seems strange, incongruous, that the baby I feed sweet potato to, the boy who flings himself at me, laughing and squealing, off the side of the pool, and who doesn't mind getting a face full of water from the shower head or from a wave in the ocean, the baby who really likes his boob juice, the boy who is, I swear, at once the sneakiest and the sweetest thing there is, that he is the same baby whose health, quality of life, and, possibly, the very life, hung in the balance* a year ago. A whole year ago. Just a year ago. Exactly a year ago. I am having trouble processing this.

Last year I ended up in the hospital at the tail end of the first of two weeks we were supposed to have been at the shore. It's a tradition now-- our large and noisy group of friends rent a bunch of condos in a development by the shore, some for a week, some for two. It functions a bit like a commune-- we cook and eat in subgroups or all together, we keep track of each other's kids, feed them, run sleepovers.

It is a great place. And I have a complicated relationship with it, revolving around my reproductive status. The first year we rented there, I was just pregnant with A, first trimester and shoving progesterone up my hoo-ha. The next year I wished I was pregnant, and the year after that was last year. With contractions and the hospital.

This year's week at the shore worked out to be the same week on the calendar as last year. I realized that well ahead of time, and I knew it would make things tough for me. I was right. Packing for the shore was anxiety-inducing. Actually being there was uneven-- at times relaxing and nourishing, hanging with the usual suspects or with friends who flew in from out of town just for the weekend, and at times difficult, inherently, or because of a friend's careless remark.

Last year we were sharing a condo with the family whose youngest son, M, was supposed to be A's best friend, due as he was mere four weeks after A. This year they have the whole place to themselves-- they had an extra person stay with them most of the week, and needed the bedroom. But that person left Saturday, and they offered us her bedroom so we could stay through the weekend (unlike these friends, we were only staying one week this year, and were supposed to have left Saturday too). That is how come we ended up staying an extra night in the very same unit where we spent the week last year, from where I drove to my appointment the morning of the day that ended with me hooked up to the magnesium pump.

That morning I was up early thanks to some painful contractions. I didn't know if I would get to come back after the appointment. I thought there was a nontrivial probability that I wouldn't. Because of that, I wanted to get a few things done, to make things easier for JD and Monkey in case I end up in the hospital for monitoring. Coming up the stairs from the basement after throwing in a load of laundry, I saw JD in the big chair reading to Monkey and M, the two of them nestled on either side of him. I stood there for a while, taking that picture in, the would've been picture of my family. Yesterday coming up the same stairs after throwing in another load of laundry, I happened onto Monkey playing on the carpet with the Cub and M. She was very good at corralling the over two and the not yet one, and oh, but the scene echoed.

A year ago now things were already looking up-- I had made it through the 48 hours needed for steroids to do their thang, and my contractions were behaving. Earlier that day Monkey came for a visit. She'd had nightmares after JD left the shore to join me at the hospital. Not really surprising-- nearly eighteen months before that week her mom left for a check with the doctors, then her dad left to be with mom, and when they came back, they told her her baby brother had died. When her small face appeared in the doorway, her eyes were wide with fear and desperate need to have that fear be unsubstantiated. She was so tentative walking into the room. Suddenly I could see just how small six years old really is. JD had told her about the machines in the room, and the IV bags, and that I would be in bed, and she eyed all that. But it was the belly that held her hope, and, unlike that last time, it was still big and round. And there was a sound in the room-- baby's heart rate monitor, which I had asked the nurse to leave on pretty loud. A bit later, when she got comfortable with her surroundings, and JD went to the bathroom, she danced to that sound. That was one of the sweetest things I've ever seen.

*Then I didn't think his actual life was in any real danger due to the onset of labor any more (as opposed to the possibility of him dying inside of me, of which I was scared up until he was actually born), since he was past 33 weeks at that point. Now I think it was. I mean to write about that sometime soon.

P.S. Free your goat Friday was on vacation this past week, along with us. It will return in only a few short days. Get your goats ready, people!

Free your goat Friday: 4-letter word

2009-07-17T01:12:00.002-04:00

I've got a whole herd of tiny little goats running around. They may yet grow up to be featured on this very blog one of these Fridays. But not today. Today I've got precisely one goat that has been got. One big fat, practically obese, goat. Hey, look at that-- goat is a four letter word. So is work. Which is what got my goat this week. What a coincidence.

This week work's been like gas-- expanding to take over all available volume... err, time. Boo hoo. Things it ate? Two big blog posts. Important ones, at least to me. A ton of little things too. Like family time. Who the hell needs family time? Grrrrrrr...

Oh, well. Meeting with boss in the am. Hopefully, the crazy ends then, at least for a bit.

And how are your goats this fine day?

P.S. Oh, I seem to have lied. Oooops. Another goat. Well, a fly. An annoying one, that doesn't take a hint. It's been buzzing around my kitchen (where I sit at the table working on my laptop) for well beyond what could possibly be considered not worth a mention. Where's POTUS when you need him?

Bling borrows the image from this story.

Free your goat Friday: Bright and early

2009-07-10T09:26:00.006-04:00

I am going on fumes and four hours of sleep. Oh, and coffee. Of course. Been up since 5am, working on the bloody stupid important report for work I've been trying to finish for too depressingly long to think about. And I went to sleep around 1. Fun times. So this is to be short and sour. I'll tell you my goats, you tell me yours, and they walk off into the sunset together. Or, to pasture. You know, whatever metaphor works for you.

Goat-getter the First, or Not cool, public policy people, not cool

The Cub had H1N1 this week. Well, he got it Sunday afternoon, as we were packing up to leave the lovely and wonderful place where we spent the most relaxing weekend I've had in a long, long while. And we didn't know that's what it was until our pediatrician came to see him (that's right, our pedi does house calls, jealous?) Monday, although I began to worry about it fleetingly on the drive home and then for real when I realized just how hot the kid was early Monday morning. The high fever was not fun, and the coincidental pink eye added a layer of wonderful. (The Cub, he doesn't appreciate anyone putting drops into his eyes. And four times a day? Oh, the betrayal!) But, he broke the fever in a day and a half, instead of the worst case three to four, and none of the rest of us got sick. So good deal.

Where this becomes a goat-getter, though, is that according to our pediatrician, about 90% of what they are seeing now is it. 90 bloody percent. And do we hear about that on the radio? Do we read about that in newspapers? Of course not. Because ooooooh, big, bad, scary virus, with big bad scary farm animal name. The reasons I worried about whether the Cub had it were that (1)I knew it can carry very high fevers for a number of days and I didn't want him to be so miserable for long and (2) because I thought we'd have to quarantine, causing Monkey to miss her beloved gymnastics practices (three mornings a week at 4 hours a pop, and she'd love to do more, if she was allowed; I know-- insane). But I didn't for a second worry that the diagnosis might mean a particularly dangerous illness or a bad prognosis. This is because of my education and what I do for work-- I am used to analyzing scientific information. JD on the other hand? Flipped out. Until, that is, he spoke to the doctor and learned both how common it is these days and what the typical prognosis, oh, and that the Cub looked like not a bad case at all. And my mom didn't get much sleep Monday night, staying up thinking bad thoughts about her youngest grandson.

So this is what gets my goat-- that we are not being talked to like adults about this by our government OR our scientists. We hear on the radio that WHO has called the thing a pandemic, but that the course is mild. If we perk our ears up a whole lot, we can hear stories here and there about how official figures are such and such, but unofficially they are probably a lot higher. And yet, no story that comes straight out and lays the facts out. For our own protection, I am sure. Harrumph. I do enjoy being treated like I am three years old. Don't you?

Goat-getter the Second, or Oh, Academia, the bastion of civility

I applied for one job this fall. I received an email saying that if they needed any other materials, they would contact me. The closing date for the search was end of last month. I finally called this week to see where things stood, so I could plan my fall. Oh, the search has been completed. I can deal with the place two miles from my house not wanting me, even for an interview, I really can. But seriously, people, how hard would it have been to send out rejection letters, even by email? Let me break it down for you-- you are looking for a person to be a colleague of yours, your equal. The person you pick comes from a pool of applicants. You don't think people in that pool deserve the respect of being told they didn't make it? And don't you remember when you yourselves were swimming in the pool? C'mon! It's a form letter, how hard could it be?

Ok, my goats are free. Where are yours?

P.S. I am also at Glow this week, talking about telling people about one's dead baby. And screwing up.

Bling borrows the image from this story.

Free your goat Friday: Lazy

2009-07-03T18:10:00.006-04:00

If you are looking for me, I am in a hammock on the porch. Mind you, not my porch or my hammock-- my BIL's parents were nice enough to invite the whole clan over for the long weekend (featuring my sister's birthday today-- Happy Birthday, sister! :)), and we are all having a ball. There's a lake on the other side of the house, and the sunny weather was only interrupted by one short thunderstorm today. And did I mention that it's been years since I've been in a hammock?

And yet, I have goats.

Goat-getter the First, or Now I know what the f in aperture designation stands for

My precious, my birthday present, my macro lens! Sigh, but it seems to be too much ~~woman~~ complicated for my camera's tiny little ~~brein~~ processor. It's not happy with me changing aperture, insisting, by way of locking out my ability to take pictures any other way, that I set it to the maximal setting of 32. Not to mention that the camera can't bring itself to operate the lens in automatic mode-- something about lack of motor power directed to the right spot. But I can live without the autofocus-- this thing is a sports car, and those are way more fun with stick shift. But aperture? This is like making me drive said sports car with half the air let out of the tires. Sniffle...

Goat-getter the Second, or Careful with the mirror-- your (reflected) brilliance might blind you.

Some days I can't help myself, and I get into internet discussions with people who are not listening. (Important: this is NOT about here or anyone reading here-- this is about an Old Country language corner of the internets.) Worse, some of these people seem to be writing for the purposes of showing off how brilliant they are. They wave hands, using words such as clearly, obviously, for the most part, and in general. When you try to challenge their assumptions, or correct facts they simply have wrong, they respond with more hand waiving and side-stepping, failing to acknowledge your points. Worse, their pseudo intellectual drivel is supposedly about the plight of this group or that, which does not stop them from dehumanizing either the group they purport to defend, or some other societal group interacting with the group being defended by ascribing some rather unattractive qualities to all members of a group. If you are asking why I engage with this crap, you are not alone-- I am wondering that myself. Oh, right, I remember-- because people about whom they are talking smack are my friends. And I seem constitutionally unable to walk away and let the maligning of my friends (even if as members of a groups) go unchallenged. I need a drink.

And what has been getting your goats lately? Tell us and set them free. Let them celebrate their own Independence Day. I know-- corny. Very. Sorry. Anyway, share your goats. And if you are looking for me, try the hammock.

Bling borrows the image from this story.

Advanced

2009-06-29T23:01:00.002-04:00

So the weather didn't screw us too badly, the food and the booze were good and plentiful, there was occasional dancing, and my husband conspired with my sister to produce sinfully gorgeous deserts from our favorite place in the general area, including a cake decorated with a nod to his and mine ancient history together. We even had an unexpected, wasn't-on-the-guest-list guest drop by.

I am officially a year older. 35. The age that gets one that coveted designation at the OB's, the kind all the cool girls are after. Advanced maternal age. Yeah, baby.

I am actually mostly joshing there. I sort of expected that I would feel the birthday as a threshold, that it would inspire some kind of contemplation from me, a reflection. That I would feel it deeper than I seem to be feeling it, I guess. So far, though, not so much. I think I like it this way.

Of course, the fact that my grandmother had a minor heart attack in the early hours of Saturday probably contributed to the lack of idle contemplation, brain cells being busy with actual things to worry about and all. She was airlifted to a big hospital, where they got the stent in. She's occasionally cognitively better, recognizing people and inquiring after others (like me), and occasionally worse, as the last of the anesthesia leaves the system and as they are trying to get her new medications right. Overall, not a bad way to have a heart attack, and a definite proof that it's a good thing she's not at home anymore-- we collectively shudder to think of what the same scenario would've looked like had her home health care aids not recognized the signs and hadn't acted quickly enough.

As for the celebration itself, it was just right in tone. The big deal meter hovered comfortably in my safe zone-- well short of either pompous or overly sentimental, but unmistakably in the we're here because of you range. Like I said, just right.

Tell you what, though. I may be older now, but I also have better toys. You know, as a direct result of ~~telling husband exactly what I wanted~~ getting older. Waaay nice toys. My precious.

Sadly, operating my precious seems to require actual skillz, or, at the very least, time invested into reading the crammed little multi-lingual booklet that came with. But since I wasn't bloody likely to read it at the party, I just went ahead and played with it a bit. Here's what I managed to get, in the presentable category:

I'd say that while the subject needs improvement, I really like the resolution and the detail. And this is just fooling around. I can't wait to figure out how to actually drive this here fancy sports car.

Free Your Goat Fridays: Hectic

2009-06-26T16:41:00.005-04:00

It's been that kind of week. It's not over yet. But I did attempt bling, using the image that came with this quaint little British tidbit. Whatdayathink? And be honest, I can take it.

~~So I will be back with my own tales of goats gotten and freed, later.~~ My goats:

Goat-getter the First, or You would cry too...

My birthday party is tomorrow. Because, you know, it's my birthday tomorrow. One of those big deal ones, divisible by five. I didn't get a birthday party last year (because of all the fun with PTL). Two years ago I cleverly attached JD's and another friend's birthdays to mine, thereby escaping being the subject of celebration/center of attention five short months after my baby died. So this year I wanted a fun party, something easy for us to do, with adult company and dancing (don't ask why, I have no idea. It's not like I look or feel hot. Perhaps I just don't care). We have a nice new wrap around deck that my dad built us last fall (separate story I must tell one day). So the plan was to have a party on the deck, with catered food and dancing by DJ IPod. So did I mention it's been raining here for weeks now? And did I mention the forecast had the rains clearing the hell out of here by Thursday? And did I mention forecast changing gradually to include scattered showers? And then full on rainy forecast? Pretend like I did. And say it with me: ARRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Goat-getter the Second, or Oh, for the love of the Flying Spaghetti Monster!

I am generally a fan of Air America Radio, if for no other reason than that Rachel Maddow was a host there before she scored what is now my absolutely favorite news/commentary hour on TV. This is why it upset me so much to see it highlighted in their daily email that one of their hosts had a leading proponent of Intelligent Design (ID) as a guest. It upset me even more to listen to the clip and hear the guest essentially riding roughshod over the genial host, name- and title-dropping, driving home the essential message of the water's fine over here, even people who are not religious fanatics are with us.

Intelligent Design is not science. It's the worst kind of pseudoscience. I say the worst kind because by actively mascaraing as science, it confuses and misleads the public (and children/students in particular-- making my job that much harder) about what science actually is and how science is properly done. The clip of that conversation is 14+ minutes long. Somewhere at minute 12.5, the host finally gets around to offering substantial criticism to the ID proponent, and then not nearly assertively enough. Personally, I would prefer that we not legitimize ID movement by giving its proponents a media stage. At the very least, though, let's not give them an unchallenged stage. Let's not let them pretend that their collection of logical fallacies is a scientifically legitimate viewpoint. I understand that radio hosts may not be knowledgeable enough for a debate like this, but there are scientists (an overwhelming majority of whom accept the multidisciplinary and consistent evidence for evolution and do not begin to see ID as even approaching scientific legitimacy), and there are even journalists experienced and skilled in this debate. So if you find yourself giving in to an irresistible urge to talk to an ID proponent on the air, no matter how charming the proponent, please-please-please call for backup, will ya?

~~In the mean time,~~ And the floor is yours. What all had your goats this week?

Devil's Dozen

2009-06-23T23:50:00.002-04:00

In the Old Country, baker's dozen, 13, is known as devil's dozen, in keeping with the number's status as bad luck of course. I have to say I was never on board with castigating 13. In fact, I am rather a fan.

A devil's dozen years ago, the party was still going pretty good. The ceremony was supposed to be at 3 (invitations said 2:30, to account for Jewish Standard Time), but ended up being slightly later. With the pictures and the cocktail hour, the party didn't get started until close to 6, but six hours later there was our band, playing way past the hour of contractual obligation. The band leader is my aunt and uncle's friend, but still it was way nice of them to stick with us. Particularly considering the discount we got courtesy of the friendship. I've never known time so packed to move so quickly.

A dozen years ago, on our first anniversary, I was supposed to be in another city, at a conference, by myself. In fact giving my talk the very day of the anniversary, so not so much with the skipping possibilities. The first is the paper anniversary. So I left JD a paper gift, in a dresser drawer-- a plane ticket to the Conference City. Before I bought it, I talked to his employer to make sure he could have the day (he worked in a small office, and they were swamped). I told him where to find his gift that morning. We were broke then, so I got the cheapest ticket I could find. It had JD flying in very small planes, very very slowly. It turns out that he ordered flowers for me, to be delivered to the hotel. He ended up delivering them himself. We went downtown to a nice restaurant I remember only vaguely now. The food was good, I remember that. I think it was French.

Five years ago late afternoon-ish I was coming back from a workshop in yet another city. JD picked me up at the airport in a car the lease for which he signed that very day. I was told that Monkey had taken a test drive in it, and that she approved. We had dinner that night in a restaurant we keep meaning to go back to. (Damn, this means we haven't made it back to a place in FIVE years. Exciting lives we lead. On the plus side, though, since I saw the place out the car window not two months ago, it also means the restaurant, which was a new business at the time, has survived for over five years. Good on them.) The next morning I had to be at a hospital by 6am. My friend Natalie was having a C-section, and her husband, a big, tough guy, wasn't sure he could do the delivery room thing without moral support. He did fine, though he forgot his camera in the before-and-after room. Hence, I was the one to take the first pictures of the little guy.

Four years ago it was JD's turn to start the day elsewhere. He was in the City Where I Hate to Drive. I was driving up to meet him after his conference session for dinner and a play. I had a nice dress with me, and I was driving my shiny new five week old car. With a stick shift. Which feature was half the point of getting that car-- I've had it with the tyranny of the automatic transmission, aka my otherwise exceptionally beloved previous car. I left home in what was supposed to be plenty of time, and for a while it looked like I was even going to be early. But then there was traffic, and I was getting nervous and pissy. And trying to change lanes at the traffic light, I scratched another car, one that, it seems, was sitting much farther to the left than I estimated. Yup, with my own, barely five week old car. When I finally made it to the hotel, I got ready faster than I remember ever getting ready for a fancy evening out. Record time, I tell you. We still made it to dinner (cab), though I think we skipped appetizers. That was so we could make the show. Which we liked. Though not as much as the show we saw the next day, having bought the tickets based on nothing more than "this sounds interesting" and the fact that they still had tickets the day of. We sat in the first row for that one.

Tonight, now that my sister and BIL, themselves married a year and a day and gracefully sharing their anniversary cake (gotten from whence their actual wedding cake came from-- sneaky, I know, and a hell of a lot smarter than keeping a cake in the freezer for a year, no?), have left for their own humble abode, I am the only adult in the house. The first time in thirteen years we are for real not together on our anniversary. JD is coming back tomorrow, and a make-up celebration is in the works. I thought I was going to be fine. I told him I was going to be fine. And I am completely and totally fine. But I have to admit that it feels weird not to have JD here today. What do you think-- a force of habit? ;)

It's past midnight now, as I finish writing. So happy day-after-anniversary to us! (And I am off to catch some Zzzzzs.)

Free Your Goat Fridays: Still Blingless

2009-06-19T13:25:00.002-04:00

Yes, it's that day of the week again, the day, I know, you've all been waiting for. We'll let the uninitiated think that the excitement is all about the weekend ahead, the laundry piling up in anticipation of all the copious free time you think you will have during said weekend, or all of your planned outside activities, that, if you live in my city, are sure to be rained out. Unlike the uninitiated, though, we know the truth-- the excitement is all about the impending arrival of the second installment of Free Your Goat Fridays. And what do you know-- it's not impending anymore-- it has arrived. Feel free to cheer now.

Yes, we are still blingless, but let not that deter you from setting your goats free. Tell us what got your individual goats this week, and let them roam free!

Here are mine.

Goat-getter the First, or No shit, are you syndicated?

This one's short and sour. I purchased some toys over these here interwebs. Bath toys, to be exact. The kind Monkey loved to pieces all those many years ago. It seems they are not as popular now, and I could only find a couple of online retailers that carry them, no physical store in my area. So what was I rewarded with for my trouble? As is customary, retailer sent me a confirmation email. As is less customary (I hope), this particular retailer distinguished its email with this gem:

Thank You for your purchase and enjoy. Please visit us again as we will be adding new products. Cherish your children as Life's Greatest Gift.

No, really, faceless online retailer? You think I don't? Cherish my children? Or maybe I do, but not enough to fit the Life's Greatest Gift (note capitalization-- all that's missing is the TM symbol) criterion? Or do you think that all that stands between me and cherishing my children as prescribed is your aptly placed advice in imperative mood? Grrrrrr.....

Oh, and ETA: And, is it, dear retailer, mandatory for one to have living children, to, you know, cherish as prescribed, in order to buy bath toys? What if, and stop me if you've never considered this, the one making the purchase is a battle-weary infertile or a bereaved parent, buying yet another gift for yet another baby shower? You think maybe, if you feel entitled to dispense this particular flavor of unsolicited advice, you might also be so kind as to ship, by way of a free gift with purchase, a child or three, to, you know, cherish?

Goat-getter the Second, or Oh, we find it cozy

My office, the one we moved into. The furniture is still not there. The shelves are there, but not secured, and we can't unpack our boxes because we can't be sure at what height to place the shelves without seeing them in relation to our desks. Which, we heard today, are not going to be arriving until Tuesday. Which will make it just over two weeks since we moved. So we are working on some tables that we dragged in, barricaded among the many boxes the three of us own. Yiiiihaa! Yes, that was one of the reasons why I decided to go visit my parents this week.

So? Your goats? Will you share? Mine are free, but oh, so lonely.

P.S. The lack of bling is the situation I hope to remedy by next Friday. Provided, of course, I am not just talking to myself here.

Nearly Wordless Wednesday: Bodies in Motion

2009-06-17T12:28:00.001-04:00

This was Sunday-- Monkey's end of year gymnastics show. Her last year as a "civilian."

It's Level 4 in the fall, complete with team leotards, matching warm-up suits, and, and this is the key, actual trophy-awarding competitions. It also comes with nine hours of practice a week, starting in September, and twelve a week July and August.

She couldn't be more thrilled. JD couldn't be more ambivalent-- it's a lifestyle, admittedly, and he's not looking forward to being sucked into it. I am deeply philosophical. She's been waiting for this, working for this, for years now. She's having a ball, and she is learning all kinds of things any kid, and more so a risk-averse by nature kid, could really use in life. And did I mention that she's loving it? If she ever stops loving it, if it becomes a chore, we'll walk away, grateful for all she's learned and all she's become. In the meantime, my feeling is you go, girl!

Right now, though, we have half a week of no school, no camp, and JD out of the country again. So tonight we are leaving on the jet plane too. Destination: half (ok, more like a third) way across the country, my parents' house. I was promised some alone time, by which I mean time with my computer. I hope to put it to productive use, both work- and reader-wise.

P.S. The Cub began making his acquaintance with gym equipment this weekend, and so far he seems to like. Since he might find himself spending a good bit of time there, I am declaring it a good thing.

Reminder: if you are inexplicably missing some goats already this week, remember that Friday, and your opportunity to set your personal oppressed animals free, is just around the corner.

Introducing: Free Your Goat Fridays

2009-06-12T17:17:00.004-04:00

Friends! Readers! Passers By!

I come today to offer freedom to your goats. Yes, goats. Those hard-working, self-sacrificing and nearly always under-appreciated guardians of your mental well-being. Think about it-- how often does someone or something get your goat? You are on the internet, so likely not infrequently. And the goat? It goes to be gotten, never even a bleat of complaint. Because that's the way they roll, these noble animals-- taking one for the team. Because you know, it's either "this really gets my goat" or "this really gets me," and the goats? They bear the brunt.

And I know what you'll say-- seemingly every time you get your goat back, or give up and purchase a new goat, someone new comes along to get it. I feel your pain, I do. But think of the poor animal!

So isn't it time we started treating our goats more humanely? A small start, perhaps, say giving them at least an hour or two off a week?

How? Glad you asked.

It is my contention that by sharing what it is that got your goat, you will set him free. Until, of course, the next round. But perhaps the goat can relax in the meantime, no?

So, c'mon, it's Friday, which must mean you have some excellent goat stories from the week just wrapping up. Big stories, little stories, doesn't much matter. Share them here, and set your goat free. Go into the weekend with less poundage on your chest and your bearded four-legged companion trudging peacefully by your side.

I'll start.

I have for you not one, but two goat-getting tales. One a small annoyance that got my professional and parenting goats in one strategically-aimed sentence, and the other-- a repeat auditory offender that has had my IF goat tied up in the corner for days now.

Goat-getter the First, or Ignorance Club Presents

We do not often go to fast food places. But last year Monkey discovered that ZOMG, they give out TOYS there. With, you know, kids meals. So now when we travel by car, she asks to stop at a fast food joint to get chicken nuggets and whatever plastic crap comes with. Last time we did this, she got an actually kinda-cute remote-controlled Wii character. Not bad, thought I, until, that is, I read the product insert.

My poor goat-- it didn't have a chance.

Do you see it? There, right above Boo's head, the part that talks about magically propelling him forward. Because, of course, magnets work by magic, don't you know?

All that observable phenomena thing, explained by physics and described by equations? That's all for N-E-R-D-S, nerds. And it won't do filling our children's heads with that kinda nonsense. Especially the girls, our precious princesses. Perish the thought!

Whew, I feel better already.

Goat-getter the Second, or From the We Didn't Even Get to Try Files

There's a commercial for a charitable event running on the progressive radio station in my area. Performance to benefit a good cause. So the commercial is read by the local semi-famous comedian, who will be MCing the thing. He tells us all the good reasons to go, and the good causes the thing will benefit. So far, so good. And then-- perhaps to fill the 30 second slot, I don't know,-- he goes on about how this is a great Father's Day gift, and how we should all bring notable fathers in our lives. Already thin ice for the fatherless and the infertile, sure, but the man's got a few more seconds, and, I hasten to add, not a clue. Because what does he say next but... drumroll.....

"Not a father? Conceive before Father's Day, and come to the show!"

Because, clearly, all the infertile couples you know, they are not conceiving for shits and giggles.

So there-- my goats are off to pasture. Please don't leave me here all alone with them. I mean, I like them and all, but they are not very chatty. So, your turn-- what has gotten your goats lately?

(P.S. If this works, I will make this a regular feature. And might even make a snazzy bling thing for it. No pressure, of course... :))

A day

2009-06-10T23:57:00.006-04:00

Around here, today was a day like any other day. Well, not exactly, as it wandered a bit into both the wow (Monkey's class project presentation fair-- damn, but those first graders are impressive; and major credit to the teachers-- DUH!) and the absurd (office move at work going not entirely smoothly). But what of it wasn't either good or usual was all manageable, and we managed. It was just a day.

My thoughts wandered today, more than a few times and clear across the continent, to where I knew the day was anything but ordinary. And from there to a year ago, and also to 28 months ago.

After A died, JD spent some time at Monkey's piano, learning to play Hatikva, the national anthem of Israel. He doesn't usually play the piano-- he's a guitar man. Plus, the left hand part on that is not at all easy. So he learned the right hand part, slowly and deliberately, repetitively, filling the house with melancholy sounds of the notes, one at a time, twisting together, falling in place to make the familiar melody.

Ha in Hebrew is the definite article, which makes the title be The Hope, meaning not exactly congruous with the melody. The melody is plaintive, sorrowful even, moving into something like defiant. Not exactly your standard issue triumphant or even assertive, it's really yearning mixed with determination, made manifest in notes. It takes a particular type of life experience, or a particular type of historical identity, to call that hope.

I didn't really understand why JD was so thoroughly stuck on Hatikva then. It seemed to me that the words (the meaning of which I learned many years before, and which are about the longing of a people for the land of its long-ago history) were not relevant. In fact, I rather thought they made it an odd choice of a song to be stuck on just then. I think I get it now. I think the common thread connecting the words of the song and our life in the immediate aftermath is the yearning for a way of life, geopolitical or personal, whatever the case may be.

A year ago it was T-12 days to my sister's wedding. I was happy to have the AC in the house working again, allowing me to institute the sub-polar temperatures regime that kept me just this side of human for the rest of the summer. I was also talking about how emotionally taxing the subsequent pregnancy gig had turned out to be.

Across the country, that same day saw the birth of a beautiful baby girl. Tikva, whose name, of course, means hope, entered the world already loved beyond measure, and was welcomed by her family, and by the doctors who were waiting to try to help her. Today Tikva would've been one. Sadly, she is not here today to smear cake and make faces. Instead, today her family marks her birthday, and begins to walk through the days and weeks of Tikva's life, one year on. They could likely use support along the way, so please stop by and listen.

Mixed

2009-06-04T23:39:00.003-04:00

Some weeks fly by like a bullet train. Some drag on while simultaneously not leaving me any room to breathe, kinda like what I imagine quicksand might be like, in a slow version. And some weeks, insanely, are some fucked up superimposition of the two. Those are decidedly least fun of all.

How is it possible that this

was already a full week ago?

That was the day after the evening of Monkey working very hard to keep the secrets of the card she'd already made for JD and of the challah I had stashed in the garage for making french toast in the morning. She pulled that off, and hooray for her. But that was only the beginning-- there was still the matter of the cake we were planning to bake between her early dismissal (most conveniently coinciding Jewish holiday EVAH) and her gymnastics practice.

Cake that involved melting chocolate, separating eggs, beating them separately, and then folding.

Which technique not only makes for pretty pictures, but also works to impress the hell out of a seven year old.

And then... THEN she had to keep the secret of the cake between when JD picked her up after practice and when they got home. Which she did. Can I have some props for my girl?

It turned out incredibly yummy, by the by. We used Splenda baking mix instead of straight sugar, and for the glaze sugar-free (Splenda-sweetened) fake maple syrup, only because I couldn't talk myself into actually voluntarily using corn syrup.

The week before the actual day of the birthday was doing the sand thing. It wasn't just the prep, though that was headache enough, what with Birthday, Extended Edition looming seemingly without end-- family thing, featuring cake, day of; friends over for BBQ next day; hike the day after; and yet-to-happen coming-up-this-Saturday official party (during a camping trip, natch) together with the other Gemini in our close group of friends.

Anyway, the week since has also featured the train, for my favorite superimposed effect. Each day seems long, full of this, that, and a whole bunch of other things, half of which I don't even manage to get to. But the week seems to have sped by, leaving me now staring at yet another weekend.

We did go for a day hike last Saturday, though. Including this guy.

And we found this guy

right in the middle of the trail.

We didn't make it all the way to the top, but we did achieve about a 600ft change in elevation, and made it to where we could see this.

And on the way back down the mountain I tricked Monkey into talking about fractions. Yes, I am a nerd, but in my defense she started it with her talk about how many months have passed since her birthday and how old that makes her, exactly.

I haven't hiked in forever, but I kept up. Which, given my current weight (ridiculously high) and my current shape (round, duh!) is impressive, even if JD was carrying a whole lotta baby there. Oh, and my shoes don't exactly fit like a dream anymore. Though, ironically, I did much more damage to my feet the next day, going for a nice long walk in my flip flops. Trust me-- you don't want to know what they looked like after or what we had to do that evening or the next to improve the situation.

This concludes ~~excuse to post pretty pictures~~ the world's most boring post. I intended to talk about how and why I've been so unsettled the last couple of weeks, but I am thinking it will have to wait-- my pillow is telling me it's feeling lonely and neglected.

Oh, wait-- one last thing. My sister and I saw the man of Bon's dreams in concert last weekend. ZOMFG! That's all.

Quad B strikes again: The Red Tent

2009-05-26T13:23:00.004-04:00

The Baren Bitches Book Brigade is at it again, this time reading The Red Tent by Anita Diamant.

The Red Tent is a novel that gives voices to the voiceless and nearly so. It alters the stories of Genesis, or gives them subtext, or, for nearly all of the second half of the book, ventures into entirely separate territory. I found it really interesting that all the questions submitted for the book club this round dealt with the first part of the book, the one that re-tells a Bible story.

I have a connection to this story that seems to go beyond the story itself. It's not just that two of the very important people in my life (one now estranged and one still very much in it) have names that are derivatives of the main character's name, though I am sure that plays a role. I think it's also that I like women's stories, women's voices. I read voraciously as a child, but now that I think about it, most of the stories I read had a very male point of view. Unsurprising, really. And at the time it suited me fine. I was a tomboy anyway, climbing trees and building slingshots. Playing chess. I had good girl friends growing up, but for the longest time a lot (most?) of my friends were guys.

These days I claim friends of both persuasions, but I have to admit to being closer to women friends. More than that, though, women's stories and voices are something I seek out. Not just on the internets, mind you. The two discs in my CD changer in the car that are not Old Country or kid music are Dar Williams and the Dixie Chicks. I am still not a girly girl, and I find that the stories I gravitate to have markedly little in the way of pink fluff. But they are decidedly women's stories, with decidedly woman perspective. Whether the blogs I read only reflect this transformation or actually contributed to it I can't say, and in the end I think it doesn't matter all that much. This is just where I am.

I was struck by the idea that awareness of the moon controlled women's cycles. I always knew that the moon could MARK women's cycles, but controlling them was a new notion. I first read The Red Tent while going through IF and had some magical thinking that if I just paid attention to the moon each night, that I could regulate my cycles. Have you had any magical thinking about returning to Nature, even as you turned to Science to pursue your baby dreams (assuming you did)?

I actually first read the book when pregnant with Monkey. It was the first English language book to obviously invade my dreams. I had this vivid first trimester dream, where I was either in or watching (couldn't remember when I woke up) the famous meeting of Jacob and Rachel at the well. Can we say hot? And I don't mean the temperature in the desert.

The idea of synchronized cycles didn't entirely freak me out, as I saw it happen on a small scale in my dorm. But I didn't think the moon was involved.

So I was reading this in something like the third months of my second pregnancy, achieved after two years of infertility and a miscarriage. I was 27. I was just shy of 25 when we started. The first half a year was just a giant WTF moment, as following bidding adieu to the pill my body hastily returned to my old pattern of period? What period? We don't need no stinking period. And then I got the diagnosis of PCOS, and read up on it. I read about low carbing, and how it has helped some people restart their cycles. I was 25, and I thought I had time.

Had my life been different, had I only been starting to try now, only getting my diagnosis now, I know I wouldn't feel like that. I know I would be pounding down an RE's door (just as I did when we were trying this last time), and lining up vials on the bathroom counter. But then, then I thought I had time. And more will power than a tank. No, really. I went low carb. And stuck to it. It took about two years from the diagnosis, plus gym, plus some other things, but in the end there it was-- I started ovulating, and eventually I got pregnant, twice by the time I was reading the book.

Had I been less lucky, I think I would've found my way to an RE. Though how long that would've taken, who knows. However, one thing I definitely don't remember engaging in at all was magical thinking. I'm a science girl. First thing I did after getting the diagnosis was read up on the whole hormonal axis involved. When I stumbled on low carb, I read up on why and how that could connect to the hormones in question. It made sense. I gave it a try. I stuck with it because it made me feel better, a lot better, and because of that whole tank thing. So it wasn't about magical thinking, though there was a whole lot of listening to my body going on. In the end, the approach I took then was all about the time I thought I had.

For a time uber-fertile Leah and barren Rachel did not speak to each other. "She could not smile at her sister while her own body remained fruitless." Was there a time in your experience with infertility when you ceased communicating with your fertile friends/relatives. Did something finally bring you together or did you drift apart?

I have been thinking about that time in my life lately, the time of primary infertility. I have no idea how I survived that with virtually no support structure. I think, though, that one big factor was that most of our friends were our age, give or take, and very few were engaged in reproduction. So we weren't constantly slapped in the face with successful and glowing friends and relatives. The one time I had to attend a baby shower, shortly after the diagnosis, I held back until I was needled directly. And then I replied honestly. Compared to what many others have had to deal with, this was a very mild episode, and the one asking the offending question learned from the experience. All very lucky, and probably sanity-saving.

"The Red Tent" vividly describes the ritual Dinah's mother & aunts perform to celebrate her coming of age. Lately, I've been hearing about young girls being presented with cakes & gifts when they get their first periods. This was definitely NOT done when I was growing up! Describe your first period & your family's reaction (if any) -- how old were you, & how was the occasion marked (if at all)?

Originally I wasn't going to answer this question, as my own memory of the event is not exactly great. My mother, whom I told when I found the blood, reacted as it was custom in the Old Country. A strange little custom laced with superstition. She thought I knew that's what it was supposed to be, but I didn't. I was horribly confused and hurt. I remember sitting on the toilet, having no idea what to do and crying. When my mom returned, having gotten some supplies for me (it must've been minutes, but it felt like hours), I was sobbing, and I asked her what did I do that she would react like that? How was this my fault? She hugged me and apologized. She thought I knew. I wonder now what happened when it was my sister's turn. (Adelynne, care to tell the class?)

But the reason I decided to take this question after all is that this is a great reminder that I don't have all that much time until it's Monkey's turn. Very likely we are more than half way there. Funny that when I read the book the first time, I remember being mesmerized by those scenes-- when first Rachel and then Dinah herself are welcomed into womanhood. But I didn't make a connection to our lives today. Even this time around it didn't ring that particular bell. Methinks time to consider a new family tradition...

Dinah is awaited and welcomed by all of Jacob's wives. The one daughter, the one to carry all their stories, all their voices. In the context of the book it is a literary device that allows the author to tell us stories of Jacob's wives from their own perspectives. But what does it speak of to you? In your own life, have you felt, as Dinah does, a carrier of living memory? Do you feel your own voice to be better protected in the age of the blog, or do you see an enduring need for connection across generations?

This is one of my questions. I think the reason it bubbled up for me is that I have been thinking about my own family. My grandmother, her voice now almost entirely unrecognizable, warped by disease. In the last couple of years I tried to get her to write up some of her family history, but it seems I was too late. Or too busy/too overwhelmed by grief-- I considered at one point calling her up every so often with questions and writing down what she said, but I never found the time. What I do have of my grandmother's voice, though, are the recipes I managed to learn over the years. Just like women in the novel, there are recipes in my family that almost define us, define the taste of my lineage, if you will. Some of them have skipped a generation, because my mother and aunt never asked for those recipes, content to consume the finished product at grandma's, but I did. And have now taught my sister. But there are also those that none of us got, and those are likely gone forever. Just like most stories of the generations gone before. That makes me very sad.

And at the same time I wonder about these blogs of ours. Will our children and grandchildren treasure these, or will this be an expected detritus of their lives, generations growing up with cheap electronic storage space as their birthright?

In the book, women's relationships to higher power(s) are complicated. Jacob brings with him the one God, but that is not any of the gods of their childhoods. And it is to the gods of her family that Rachel calls with her simple and desperate ultimatum: "Give me children or I will die." In the context of your own relationship (or lack thereof) to a higher power, do you feel entitled to the same kind of an ultimatum?

And this is my other question. This scene, and the description of Rachel's barren life, unsurprisingly struck a chord both times that I was reading. The role of prayer and relationship to the higher power is something I have been thinking of a lot, particularly since A's death. Though I have to say that my theological foundation was firmly established before, and possibly because of that, it didn't crumble. My personal foundation is that the age of miracles is long behind us.

My feelings as I read that scene are mixed. Wonder is big, for this scene is almost breathtaking to me. The boldness of it. I would never utter a prayer like this, mostly because in my theology it doesn't work like that. Personal requests are not granted. There's no divine intervention. If there was, if I believed that prayer actually works as a means of procuring one's heart's desire, it would be devastating to consider the implications. But, as the rabbi in Monkey's school says, in my theology God doesn't work as a vending machine-- insert prayer, receive outcome. I don't feel singled out for blessings or curses, and I don't feel entitled to think that I am so special (or that I can pray hard enough) that my prayers would be answered.

And yet I don't read this scene as arrogant. I read it as a window into the time of miracles (or the time when people believed was the time of miracles). Rachel asked because she believed she could. After all, her husband's grandfather talked to his God personally. He damn near killed his own son because El told him to (ummm... yeah, ask me some other time what I think of the binding of Isaac, ok? It's a separate discussion, and not a short one either). And, I think, Rachel asked not because she was posing, or overdramatizing, or threatening even. It doesn't mean that had she not had Joseph, she would've died. She might have, as some remarkable women we all know (and sort of like Dinah towards the end of the book), after a lot of hard emotional work found a new way and a new purpose to her life. But at that time, I think, that was her truth, simple and, therefore, devastatingly powerful.

More book club posts can be found at Mel's place. Please go over to follow the links, and to sign up for the next installment of the book club, Mel's own book-- Navigating the Land of IF.

Wordless Wednesday: Fashion show

2009-05-20T13:43:00.001-04:00

This post of comic relief is brought to you by the department of "I was dressed by my father."

Do you like the stylish "back" pocket there? And how about the lovely and fashionable bodysuit closure over the pants?

Personally, I think the man should actually get credit for the fact that in seven plus years of parenting this is only the second piece of photographic evidence of his misadventures in child couture.

Your turn-- fess up to some of the more colorful ensembles you've perpetrated (on self or others) or that have been perpetrated on you.

Glimpses

2009-05-13T18:55:00.002-04:00

Almost by definition you can't get the whole story at a cemetery. All we get is fragments, snapshots. A skewed view. And yet...

Because from her own gravestone I know when she died, and how old she was just then, I also know when the future Mrs. Lucy Willson was born. But not much else, for a while. Because of what else I see on the surrounding stones, I want it to have been that the first 35 years of her life were blissfully happy. I surmise that sometime, presumably prior to 1791, she married one Mr. Solomon Willson. And again, I want the marriage to have been happy and warm.

Because some things I do know. I know that the turn of the century was not kind to Mrs. Willson. Whatever it was that came through her small New England town in late spring of 1800, or maybe something cruelly particular to her household, something in the water maybe, whatever it was though, it took her eight year old at the very end of May. And a week later it, or something else-- who knows,-- took her baby, only months old.

1801 was the year she buried the two infants whose stone caught my eye in the first place. And in January of 1803, another infant. Though perhaps she didn't literally bury that one, since only three days later Mrs. Lucy Willson herself passed from this world. Presumably from complications of childbirth. She was 38.

I wonder whether she knew she was dying. I wonder if at that point it seemed like a welcome relief. Or not. Because I also wonder how many other children was she leaving behind. I want it to have been not zero. Not because I want those children to have been left motherless, or because I want it to have been that she spent years and years of her life pregnant or breastfeeding, or both. And not because I think the ones she would've been leaving behind in that scenario would've made lovely consolation prizes. But because, even two hundred plus years later, I just don't want the five buried next to her to have been it.

Mr. Solomon Willson, by the way? He lived a long and, judging by the thickness and the width of his eventual tombstone-- both significantly greater than Lucy's and the children's,-- and made of a more substantial material too, prosperous life. He remarried, and his second wife is buried with him, having lived a long life herself. Whether the second Mrs. Willson was luckier or unluckier than the first in the childbearing department, that I do not know-- none of her children are buried anywhere nearby. Though maybe all it means is that she didn't ever have any. Either way, if Lucy's surviving children did exist, I want the second Mrs. Willson to have been a good step mother to them.

Glimpses and shadows.

Paaaarty, paaarty, paaarty!

2009-05-04T11:21:00.004-04:00

We have martinis, we have bellinis, and, of course, the ever popular appletinis. Come one, come all-- it's party time. Why party, you ask? Well, it's because the tenacious Tertia of So Close finally has her book (conveniently also titled So Close) out and available for purchase in the US, and Mel, the queen of stirrups, support, and organization is throwing her a book shower. Which reminds me-- we should really have wine, since that's Tertia's poison of choice. There-- white and red, all better. Now-- what can I get you?

And while you are enjoying your beverage of choice (oh, have you tried the cheese?), let me tell you a story. I've had a few of these virtual cocktails myself already (what?-- I had to make sure they were properly mixed; the things I do for you), so if I get weepy and sentimental, blame it on the booze, k?

The story is most on point-- it's about this very book. The one that's only available in the US now, but one that I've owned for over two years. See, just before A died, we had a visiting scholar from South Africa come for a month. Most of which month I was at home licking my physical wounds. I went back to work about three weeks post partum, just in time for a farewell reception for the visiting scholar. Who very sweetly said that if anyone wanted anything from South Africa, she would be happy to find a way to get it to us. Can you say light bulb? I hesitated for maybe two minutes before deciding that even though I wouldn't normally have the guts to ask for a book unrelated to my professional life, this wasn't normally. At all. This was as far away from normally as I was likely to get. So I asked for the book. In fact, I had to ask my boss, who was the one putting together the list of things people were asking about. And I even did that. Woohoo.

A few weeks later an envelope showed up at work. I still remember it-- covered all over with stamps to make up international postage. As I recall it, my hands were shaking as I opened it, and there was a definite knot in my stomach pulling the book from its padded traveling enclosure. I can't tell you how many days it took me to read the book. Time didn't mean a whole lot then. It felt like I devoured it, but I also remember stopping for the day in a place or two. I cried, yes, but I also laughed. Because Tertia also brings teh funny. Most of all, she brings her heart. Completely open, completely exposed. Fully, consciously vulnerable. Breathtaking, really.

One of the things Melissa asked us to do at this shower is to answer one of the questions she posed in preparation, all conversation-like. I am going with a softball-- where do you draw your support?

Duh, say I, conversationally. Here. On the great wide internets. Well, I also have very good friends who started out IRL, you know, off line, and some who started out as electrons, but are now very corporeal. But the thing that popped into my mind when I first read the question was that way back in the prehistoric times, before Monkey, when I was going through primary infertility, I really didn't have anyone except JD. From where I sit now it just sounds strange. For two years we slogged through by ourselves, and a lot of the time it was really just me, by my lonesome. It sounds frankly insane. How did we, how did I, make it? In fact, I think that had we not gotten pregnant so soon after the miscarriage, it might have well done my unsupported head right in. I was in a pretty bad shape back then.

A darkly funny anecdote from that time. About half way through the two year slog, the first of my friends were having a baby. They had been living together for a while, but weren't yet married. In fact at the time, we were the only ones of our friends who were married. So sometime during that shower another friend decided to rib me to the tune of why is it that the only properly married couple is not the one having a baby, relinquishing the honor to one of the in-sin-living people instead. As I was using all I had in me to just be there, I didn't have the energy to laugh it off. So out came something to the effect of "we would if we could, it's not going so great." Hm... more dark than funny, ha? But the good part of this is that the friend in question turned out to be a one-trial learner, and has later told me that that conversation taught her to never ask that kind of question of anyone lest she step where it hurts.

Mmmm... Let's turn back to the subject of the shower. I may be three virtual sheets to the wind, but I still remember my hosting manners. So let me get you talking, dear guests. Tell me, won't you, what are you drinking? And also, have you ever thought of writing a book? Based on your blog? Or who of the as yet unpublished bloggers would you like to see write a book?

And finally, what do you think of the blogging anonymity and its unavoidable end if a blogger writes that book? I was thinking of this one because Tertia never was anonymous, even in the early days of her blog. But Miss Mel, who is also a published author now (everyone-- do a shot in honor of The Land of IF) was, prior to gaining fame and fortune, a semi-anonymous blogger. So tell me, is anonymity important to you? Would you give it up to write a book? Would you give it up for any other reason (like, say, being interviewed in a newspaper)? Would giving it up change the nature of your blog?

And please, don't forget to stop by the party central for more stops on the shower tour.

Now, who wants another drink?

Pouring

2009-05-03T13:02:00.002-04:00

Not literally. Literally it has drizzled here and there, but mostly it's been hot-hot-hot-hot. I just mean everything's been happening, and all at once.

I feel kinda like I've run a marathon, and right as I was about to collapse past the finish line, it turns out there's another half-marathon to go. Which I did know about, but decided to kinda ignore in the interest of finishing the first marathon. Being less cryptic, this means that while JD was away for all but five days of a calendar month, I successfully disregarded the fact that mere days after he was finally home, our nanny (who is the best nanny in the world, and normally watches the Cub four days a week while I am at work) was taking off for three weeks. OUCH!!!!! We are managing, and it's only another week to go, but man, I am flat out exhausted.

Though I think what I need most is a somewhat prolonged period of time, like oh, let's dream big, a whole day, during which I am not the one in charge of Cub's well-being. And I am sure the fact that both he and I were sick last weekend and for the early part of last week, and that I am still not fully recovered, and that he is still coughing all have something to do with this. I've had less work hours, yes, but more than that, I've had like no hours for myself. Well, not entirely true-- this week, including the weekend so far, he's been out of my care for something like five hours during which I wasn't also working. Another week this might've been plenty. But given how long it's been since things were "normal" around here, and how long my to-do list is, I'm feeling about ready to snap.

My mom's surgery went well, and she's now recovering at home. My sister was there for the surgery and a couple of days before and after, which was good for everyone. Mom's still on restricted movement and such, but she's made it up the stairs to sleep in her own bed the night before last-- a major accomplishment. And before that, the milestones, in reverse chronological order, were going home (and, you know, mastery of the number two that is generally one's ticket out), walking, sitting, and talking in own voice. The last one was kinda funny, but more unnerving-- mom couldn't talk on the phone till the day after, and then she sounded nothing like herself. It was the pain relief meds, sure, but it was also her discomfort with how her throat felt after she was intubated for the surgery. I think it was day three or even day four before she had her regular voice back.

And just because major surgery is clearly not enough of a challenge, the degree of difficulty was upped when the one nursing home that my mom and aunt liked offered them a spot for my grandmother. To move in less than a week later. Which was this past Wednesday. So my aunt got to be the one to drive grandma over and to sit there with her all of that first day. My dad and uncle have been dealing with the apartment. In the meantime, it became apparent that grandma's home care workers weren't always giving her all her meds. And by became apparent I mean that the night person told mom on the phone that "somedays she's better if I don't give her all those pills in the morning." Yeah, thanks, lady.

The nursing home adjustment is going in fits and starts. The pharmacist from the pharmacy where all of grandma's meds used to come from faxed over his records without indicating that some dosages of some meds were discontinued in favor of bigger dosages. So the nursing home gave her waaay too much of those particular meds, her blood pressure fell, and so did she. They had to take her to the hospital to get checked out. Her PCP took it from there, both on the looking after her front, and figuring out the dosages with the nursing home front, and she was back at the facility that night. She's had a couple of better days, cognitively. But she's also been wanting to go home. We don't know what she means by home at this point, except that with these better days comes recognition that this place isn't it. Maybe, maybe, maybe, if the good days thing keeps up, she will learn that this is where she is supposed to be. Maybe.

I feel this just about summs things up: the other day I looked up and it was May 1st. WTF? When did this happen? Where did my April go? I remember April 1st. After that-- blurs. I clearly need a time machine. Or at least waaaaaaaay more coffee.

Also, if you want a good laugh at my expense, check out the opening paragraph of my latest piece on GITW. It's about self-care, and caps off our body shop month. (And if after reading that you want Vicky's number, I may be inclined to share. Particularly if you are inclined to share dark chocolate.)

Mr. Dracula, Jr., for now; and other things, loosely connected

2009-04-18T16:56:00.003-04:00

I've been thinking about time this week, and scale.

Time is essentially meaningless to my grandmother these days, except in the narrowest of senses as she works to get through each day. There are good days, or rather good hours, unexpected by now. Sadly, at this point stumbling onto one of those elicits wonder more than anything else. They are tough to take advantage of, since they come on unpredictably, and leave just the same way. If I am on my way to class and my mom calls to say they just had a good conversation, calling grandma after class probably means she won't know who I am anymore.

And most of the time it's not even close anyway. She is forgetting people, and confusing those few she still remembers. The apartment she's lived in for the past nearly nineteen years is not familiar enough to not confuse her, and the other day she didn't know who my father was. She's known him for nearly thirty seven years now. She's confused my aunt, her younger daughter, for my mom more than a few times. She's erased generations and jumped decades.

Humans, I recently learned, have to make sense of their environment. (I don't mean colloquially-- we kinda all knew that. I mean as a scientifically demonstrable observation, shown by careful and controlled laboratory experiments.) We have an "interpreter" in our brains (located in the left hemisphere, if you care) dedicated to figuring out what's going on, or, lacking sufficient information to do that, making up a somewhat coherent story. These days, it seems, my grandmother's brain lacks sufficient information most of the time. And for some reason, the stories it makes up to compensate are not of the happy and content variety.

Her brain keeps telling her of danger, of people who want to kill her if she should remain alone in the apartment or at an unfamiliar doctor's office. Unfamiliar is terrifying, and a lot of the time even familiar becomes unfamiliar. Sometimes her home care givers are the scary ones. They mess with her medicines, or they want to take her money. She's afraid a lot. So far she always remembers my mother, and that's who she calls when she gets scared. But the things she wants my mom to do about it swing wildly and don't, usually, make a whole lot of sense.

It must be exhausting being her. Being scared so much, her body must be drenched in fight or flight hormones. Her brain must be in overdrive even if in reality it's just spinning wheels in place. I feel like talking to her when she is not all there is kinda cruel-- she can tell she is supposed to know who I am, but she doesn't, so she uses these neutrally-familiar sentences, and she and her brain work to get through the conversation. But I wonder if that doesn't just make things worse, doesn't overtax her, doesn't push her over the edge of what remains of comfort.

I think, I hope that she doesn't understand how sad her existence has become. She can't make any real plans for the future, and so doesn't have much to look forward to. If she has a doctor's appointment, she needs to be told repeatedly, to prepare her for needing to go. But not too far in advance, or she will get confused. The day before and the day of, many-many times. That's what the time has shrunk to for her.

It's not fair that she has to work so hard now, at the end of a life that was filled with loss and hard work from almost the very beginning. One day I will write about her remarkable life, but that's not the point now. I think the point is that I feel like her life, the remarkable part of it at least, is pretty much over. I feel like we are at the "make her as comfortable as possible" stage. And yet, how does one do that when what's making her uncomfortable is her brain, trying to make sense of the world?

My mother is having major surgery next week. I don't even know whether grandma knows or understands. She certainly isn't, can't be what a mother in this situation should be, what she has been most of her life. Instead, it's mom who is worried about what will happen while she is in the hospital and recovering.

We are looking at nursing homes now, in the city where she and my parents live and here, by me, too. The trick is that we need one where there is a critical mass of patients and personal speaking the Old Country language-- what gains she once made in English are long gone. If we are extremely lucky, maybe we can create a new reality for her-- one where the here and now is routine, comforting, and comfortable enough for her brain to rest.

It sucks that this is the best we can even hope for. I feel like time is circling around her, cackling at us. There are so many things I didn't get to ask. I have (and make) her hamantashen recipe, but not her gefilte fish recipe. If you think gefilte fish comes from jars-- PHE! And also HA! You are sadly mistaken. Gefilte fish used to come from my grandmother's kitchen. The best.gefilte.fish.EVAH. I was thinking about it this Passover as I experimented with new variations on her matzabrei recipe (turned out great, btw-- you should've come over for a taste) and, with Monkey and JD enjoying hospitality of a far-away land, ate the gefilte fish straight out of a jar (without bothering to re-stew it for the somewhat significant taste improvement that would've still fallen miles away from the grandma gold standard). More than that, it's the family stories, likely gone now forever.

Time also doesn't mean diddly squat to the Cub, but in a different, much happier, way. His tummy tells him when it's time to eat. He gets cranky when he is tired and needs to sleep. It is nearly always time to smile, laugh, or giggle, and, whenever possible, it is time to grab, reach, or even butt-bounce (or otherwise locomote) over to a place from whence he can reach some objects. In order, of course, to put said objects into his mouth. DUH!

It's not that he is indifferent to people around him. He clearly knows who we are. He pretty much always turns to look at the right person if you ask him where So-and-Such is and he has a particular look of joy for us that is different than the way he looks at other people. It's just that when you are gone, you are gone. He is happy to see me when I get back from work, and, unless he is in the middle of a particularly exciting round of eat-that-toy, he is definitely up for cuddling and catching up. And when Monkey's face appeared above his car seat yesterday, bright and early, as we picked up our world travelers at the airport, the smile that bloomed on his face was of surprise, recognition, delight, and of course adoration. Take two as JD stuck his face into the back seat for his turn. But when they were gone, they were gone. He only knew that he'd missed them when he saw them again.

Time's easy on my boy, and that's a good thing. He turned eight months on Wednesday, and though of his last month JD's been gone all but five days, no adoration, no familiarity, no joy is lost. (To be fair, there were some Skype calls there, but still.)

Here's Mr.Dracula Jr. now, in all his five-toothed glory.

I took this picture last week. Wanted to preserve the effect, as I was afraid that tooth number five, upper center left, would make itself too visible and spoil the symmetry. Turns out I was right, although it's not altogether gone just yet.

But it will be, soon enough. Like the Cub's unwillingness to roll over was gone-- poof-- one sunny morning nearly four weeks ago now, when he woke up, smiled, and rolled. One way and then the other, never losing the giant grin that said-- ha, NOW I get it, this is actually pretty fun. Like his initial resistance to the whole idea of having to open his mouth to let the spoon with the cereal in. Like, I am sure, the last missing skills in the pull self up and crawl skill sets will be, alarmingly soon.

Like his heart murmur. It, too, is gone-gone-gone-gone. The fact that was cheerfully announced at our follow up this week first by the NP and then by the big shot pediatric cardiologist himself. We did all the right things, they said. Which is to say we did nothing medical, played our usual baby gymnastics games, indulged his love of swimming in the big tub, and just watched. (Doesn't seem like much doing, does it? Hence the internally cocked eyebrow and a sarcastic grunt, internal again, at the whole "did" thing.) No future follow up, they said. Not even a need to mention on any future medical form that he ever had a murmur. I nearly burst. I had been preparing myself to hear that we will need to come back in a bit for another follow up, so the unexpectedly definitive verdict packed some serious buoyancy.

And relief. Because while I played it cool, and we played gymnastics games, I had been checking on his breathing when he sleeps more than is strictly reasonable. For a normal person, that is. Before the appointment, in the (few and far between) moments when I'd allowed myself to imagine the outcome that actually came to pass, I'd thought that should we escape, I would be able to cut down on the whole sleep-time vigilance thing. In actuality if I have, it's not been by much. I'm working on it though. I know there are more layers to this, and so I am slogging along.

So I've been thinking about time and scale this week. Two years ago I was writing about being newly bereaved at a grocery store. A year ago I was talking about reverse pain olympics and wearing maternity and obsessing about making it to 20 weeks before delivering, should the baby die. This week I packed away most of the maternity clothes, and took the first flowers of the season to the cemetery. And as I am finishing writing this, I can hear on the monitor that the baby is stirring in his crib. Crazy, isn't it?

Unmatched

2009-04-12T20:25:00.003-04:00

JD is overseas again. This time for pleasure, and with Monkey in tow. They be having a great time. I be less wound up than when solo piloting the craft that included buttload of work deadlines in addition to the usual complement of school drop offs and pickups and the numerous extracurriculars. But I am not what you would call chilled. For one thing I have a crazy long list of things I am trying to get done, what with fewer things I have to do, aka everyone's favorite game-- catch up. For another, and more to the point, it turns out that having no reliable me time, courtesy of the unpredictable schedule of one teething infant, wears you down. Single parents everywhere, can I buy you a drink?

So, the list. I am making progress, slogging through. Many things on it that unquestionably need doing, but only a couple that I look forward to. King of the hill in the latter category is "the reader," as in my Google Reader, the oft-neglected, long-suffering aggregator of the flotation device that is my friends inside the computer.

I read blogs for years before I felt any real need to get me one of 'em too. When I did, completely coincidentally exactly two years ago-- how's that for a nearly missed, entirely forgotten up until this very moment (so much so I just had to click through the archives to check) fortuitously most appropriate piece of trivia,-- it was because I needed to speak. I've been talking a bit, in the comment sections of the few loss blogs I found by then. But I had more to say, to get out, to hold to the light and examine, on my own terms, in my own time. I hoped not to be talking entirely to myself, but I wasn't banking on it. I needed to speak, and so I started speaking.

But at some point there, I wasn't talking to myself. There were others. Suddenly, there was this incredible gift, given to me over and over-- to be heard, to be validated. When I jumped in, I had no idea how much I would need that, how attached I would become to it. This community that listens, embraces, and stands by you through thick and thin, that does not avert its eyes from the scary, the ugly, and the very painful, that knows better than to succumb to platitudes. This community that abides.

This community that is made up of amazing individuals--
generous, warm, unique-- un- matched. Faced with the same realiza- tion one fine and busy work day, incredible Kym conceived of a physical manifestation of this very concept-- the Sock It To Me funky sock exchange. Do you see the genius of the idea? It has it all-- the warmth, the support, the funky personal touch. Damn, but it's good.

And do you see the bounty of colorful goodness that the lovely Katie of The Happy Hours has gifted me with? The label said missmatched. But, forgive the bad pun, it's really should be unmatched. Just like the community from whence the exchange sprang, and to which it testifies. Check the built-in metaphor: we are all funky and unique as these here socks, but we mix, and we match, and we go together. Ok, ok, I'll stop with the metaphor murder now, but if you want to see more (and often way more laconic) tributes to this here community, be sure to visit the Sockeroo headquarters and have a click around. That sounds vaguely dirty. But you know what I mean, don't you?

(Psst... Katie is, these days, counting down to her beta. So, if you are so inclined, please go over, admire the funky socks she is sporting, and keep her company while she waits.)

As the weekend runs away from me in the (admittedly relaxed-like, but still) haze of various and necessary tasks, I keep looking forward to the soul food that is beginning to catch up on my reader. My plan, by the way, for when the catching up is fully accomplished, is to add more blogs to teh old reader. I have a list of those I've been meaning to check on more regularly, or to begin reading altogether. Fittingly, Katie, the giver of the unmatched socks, admitted, in a lovely card she sent with (decorated with sock stickers-- kid you not!) to having been a lurker around these parts.

So to wind this post down in style, and because I also, in my typically lame fashion, missed that delurking day when, apparently, it's acceptable to pester one's readers to come out of their individual bloggy closets, I thought I'd do it now. Hence-- for my blogoversary present, pretty please, with sprinkles on top, tell me who you are. The reader doesn't grow itself, you know.

Plans, best-laid (as usual)

2009-04-07T23:41:00.002-04:00

Last time I wrote here was the day after JD left for the very far away place. And now it's something like day four after he got back. And a day shy of three weeks since my last post. Oy!

I definitely didn't mean to go this long between posts. In fact, for a while there I was going to write one titled "Just in time." It was going to mention a few coincidences, chief among them the fact that not three days after I finally took that picture of my neighbors' pink commode on the curb, it disappeared. I was going to talk about how nice it was of the aforementioned neighbors to have waited for weeks and weeks until I got my act together enough to take a picture, before losing hope of garbage men taking a hint, and the commode with it, and hauling the thing off, presumably to a commode farm, themselves. It was going to be an uplifting tale, leaving not a dry eye in the house. Until I realized, this past Saturday (or two weeks after I first noticed the absence of the pink elephant and conceived of a post titled "Just in time") that the commode is not gone. It has just been pulled back off the curb and to the side of the house. Make of this what you will.

A few things ate the time since my last post. That thing in the picture up top? The cover? It took a giant chunk of it, and the cake. Teething didn't help any. Like at all. Finally finding a use for rolling over was a neat trick, and certainly worth bonus mama paranoia points for getting on with it while sporting a nose nicely stuffed and frequently leaking (on account of that whole teething thing).

I keep thinking, as every weekend shows up on the horizon, that this is when I will find the time to do X, Y, and Z, and that the week after doesn't look too bad either. And then the weekend is here, and over before I have a chance to exhale.

Pesah starts tomorrow. Luckily, I am not hosting a seder this year. Hopefully that means I will have the time to tell you about the funky socks I got for the Sock It To Me exchange. And maybe that I will finally get the time to do X, Y, and Z. Definitely Z.

(Not Exactly) Wordless Wednesday

2009-03-18T22:27:00.002-04:00

I need me drip coffee. No, wait, that's something else. Caffeine drip! Yes, that's it. I need a caffeine drip.

Paragraphs are hard. So are full sentences. So, yeah... bullets?

Miss you
Send chocolate?
Kidding-- bought a bunch. Cause? These days it's not just an essential food group. It may just be the thin thread by which my sanity hangs.
Final version of exam sent off minutes ago. Whew! Could be tough. But very fair. Here's to the students agreeing with the last statement.
Can cross take picture of commode off my list.
Finally. Took me close to five weeks. And starting now I no longer care if the garbage men do haul it away one of these Mondays. Except in the fascinated how long can this possibly sit there? way. At some point it's a landmark, no?
Husband currently continents and oceans away. Will stay that way for more than two weeks yet. It's ok, really. As long as the chocolate and the caffeine continue uninterrupted. I think.
Spring break at work next week. I will totally catch up. On everything. Stop!laughing!
Send quotes, please. Not mushy. Or not overly. Something on identity, generations, roots, going forth, or any combination thereof. English or Old Country language.
Above is to inscribe for Monkey. Ceremony in school Friday morning. Before that must make personalized cover for the prayer book the school is presenting first graders with. I have kick ass drawings. I have fabric. I am about to begin the part where a physical object is created. And yes, most other parents have turned theirs in already, why do you ask? Need coffee.
In my defense-- the time they gave us to make these would've been enough if it didn't come at the worst possible crazy-busy-meet-grief-slammed time.
Speaking of. I wrote a post on GITW last week. All about crowded and seasonally affected. In case, you know, you care.
I should post already and attend to the cover.
Oh, also the course I designed and teach solo started this week.
Next week is break. Next week is break. Next week is break.
Ok, this time it's for real-- over and out.
Send quotes, please!

Baren Bitches Book Brigade: Never Let Me Go

2009-03-09T13:59:00.000-04:00

Welcome to another installment of the quad-B. (I just made it up. Like it?) On the agenda for today is Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro.

Warning: If you haven't read the book, but may want to, slowly point your mouse towards the browser's back button, click away, and nobody gets hurt. Because this here post? Chock full of spoilers. It's a spoiler stew, so to speak. And as Mel correctly warned when suggesting the book for the book club, you are much better off not knowing a damn thing, not a tiny little thing about the book before you start reading. No, really. But if you are the sort to read the book even if you know how it all shakes out (or if you are in the habit of peeking at the last page) or if you are not going to read it anyway, but want to see what all the fuss is about, then by all means, read on.

I found the book to be engrossing. The week I had last week, and the weekend I was heading into, and this week again, I really had no business throwing book reading in there. I thought I'd start, and read a few pages here and there, and then maybe I would be far enough along to be able to read along with the book club today. Maybe even comment. But the book sucked me in, and so I sacrificed sleep-- the only thing with any sort of give in my days-- to finish it in just over two days. But here's the thing. I loved the start of the book. I got into the characters, the settings, the relationships, the big picture. But the closer it got to resolution, the less I was staying with it. It didn't hold charge for me at the end, it didn't ring true. Less individual characters than the overall structure that circumscribes their existence. But the way society turns out to function just didn't work for me, and falsified some of the character development with which I was originally fully on board. But more about that later. First, some thoughts and reflections.

One theme in the book that I kept returning to was that of parallel worlds. Students/carers/donors seem to live in a separate world from the rest of society. They seem allowed to interact and we know that they are taught about the ways of the ordinary people (for Hailsham students in particular, possibly in a way that would enable them to "pass" for an ordinary person-- for example in the instruction on having sex), but they don't seem to do it to any appreciable degree. That made me wonder, in such a context, which world is "real"? In the case of the world of the book, we don't really get a good idea of what the students think of "ordinary" people or their world. Media is not depicted, and current events are referred to only briefly. Other countries are mentioned in passing, but whether they have similar clone set ups are not articulated. (Likewise, we get only glimpses of what the people in the regular society think of the clones, but that's a bit of a separate topic.)

But thinking about this also brought to mind the topic not infrequently raised on the internets, the topic of whether we are living in a separate world, here. In the world of bereaved parents in particular (and in the world of infertility too) it is often the case that we begin to feel that most of the people in our real lives, our physical worlds, do not really understand us, that the world where we don't have to explain ourselves is the one in the computer. Ethereal world of electrons and words, but as real to us, and some days more real, than the one that includes our next door neighbors.

Another thing I kept picking up to consider was the way clone infertility is presented in the book. As a plot device it was a natural (pardon the pun) choice-- if there is no possibility of the clones having children themselves, there is less to handle logistically and there is (slightly) less of an ethical mess-- no need to consider whether a mother of a young child can be slated for donor status, or a father, or any of the other very messy questions one might come up with. But as far as making sense in the world, it is not really explored. Students are told at some point that they are infertile, and eventually it is tied to their forming views on sex. But we don't know whether the clones are infertile as a side effect of the way they are created, by design, or made so very early in life. Does it matter? Does it matter to you, the reader? To them? Should they want to know? To me it feels different if they are infertile as a result of the process that creates them than if they are sterilized as infants. One is an inescapable side-effect of the process, albeit one that the system freely exploits. The other is yet another decision, another action, that takes yet more away from these beings.

And that brings me straight to the Miss Emily vs. Miss Lucy debate. Should the clones be told their place in the world piecemeal, presumably preserving their happy childhoods or should they be told the whole stark truth from the beginning, allowing them to make what they will of it? I would like to postulate that maybe the difference here is not altogether academic and applicable only to the world of the novel. I would like to postulate that the difference is one between pity and empathy. Miss Emily sees her moral obligation in providing for the clones, even as she later admits to being revolted by them. Miss Lucy, on the other hand, seems genuinely respectful of their humanity, of them as individuals. Miss Emily sees the students only as other, while Miss Lucy sees them as equally human to herself. And isn't this a theme familiar to most infertiles and bereaved parents alike-- do the people around us pity us or give us empathy? Do they treat us as other, scary and possibly contagious, or as an equal, even if in pain or in need? We rarely want pity. But empathy, understanding that preserves our dignity? Many of us are thirsty for it, and not in the least because it seems to be in such short supply.

Ok, so this next point might solidify my standing as a politics geek. Eh-- what else is new, right? This point is about language and framing in the book. See, in the book, students are special, unlike say ordinary people. Donors are kindly providing for others, rather than are being taken apart, piece by piece, for the benefit of unseen privileged class. Carers care (duh), rather than make it more palatable for the same privileged class to dismember other human beings while still alive. And, of course, donors complete, rather than... well, we don't even know whether they die or become vegetables connected to machines while the rest of their organs are harvested. There are so many places to go from here. There is the whole transfer vs. implant media thing, for one. There is the fictitious and purposefully-named partial birth abortion (it doesn't exist! a bunch of medical procedures are clumped together under this colloquial umbrella). There is accountability in education, which really only means more standardized testing, which happens to be only peripherally related to actual student learning. And there is any number of euphemistically named political phenomena. Let me leave those alone for right now, except to say that language is important. And in the case of the students in the book, being raised from infancy for the role they are scripted into, language is also formative-- it imprints their view of themselves and their role.

Finally, towards the end of the book, Kathy finds herself separated from Tommy by the carer/donor divide. She is saddened and angered by all the talk of "you would see if you were a donor." What struck me is that the way she bristles at that is rather similar to the way many of us react (or used to react) to the glorification of parenthood and demarcation of certain truths to be only accessible to one who has crossed the threshold.

And now the questions.

At what point did you realize what the book was about and did it change the way you viewed the main characters?

Honestly, I had an inkling from about page 2, and I consider it to be a very nice setup. My very first thought about what a donor was donating was "organs." And it seemed clear that Kathy wasn't expected to just retire to a cottage in the country upon being done with her carer role at the end of the year. Gradually, more is revealed, and, sadly, not always in a satisfactory way. I would say that at the beginning I bought the premise, but by the end, had to, regretfully, take it back for a refund. There are many reasons for it, and I will try to run through them briefly.

First, what is the societal set-up? Is there legislation governing clone conduct and interactions with the wider world? It seemed a lot more congruous while I thought this whole thing was more of a hush-hush operation, and even then it was shaky, but once we hear Miss Emily's explanation, very little of it makes sense. (As an aside, if it was fully official and known, I highly doubt regular people would be called ordinary. Because don't we all know how nobody wants to think of themselves as ordinary [cue American Beauty soundtrack]. Unless, that is, one finds oneself in the land of Shit Out of Luck, a place from which ordinary looks divine and unattainable). I am going to elaborate on that a bit more below, but the short of it is that to me, the dystopia setup here doesn't hold water, unlike, say, the one from The Handmaid's Tale.

There are plenty of places where I could put this particular question, but let's put it here, under the not holding water heading-- how is it possible that the students are reading so much, and none of them has ever stumbled onto, for example, A Modest Proposal? They have, by Kathy's own reckoning, discovered irony at some point. How have they not ever read anything suggestive of their treatment not being morally defensible? Oh, forget books. They have TV. They watch American sitcoms. Do they not also watch movies? Nothing? Really?

This part has been bugging me since I figured out it won't be answered for us-- who is Kathy speaking to? She is very deliberate, saying on more than one occasion things like "I want to now speak of X." It is an outsider, since it is not a character in the story, not even a peripheral one, since she's had to explain everything. But neither is it a person entirely unfamiliar with the topic-- right on page one or two she talks about the person she is addressing no doubt knowing some aspects of the carer establishment. Is this a reporter? A government official? A (new) lover? An ordinary person of some other description?

Speaking of, why haven't there been a reporter? Seemingly, not a single one? Ever? Nobody is interested in speaking to these children/adults? Do we really believe that no newspaper editor wants to publish a series? Do we really believe that, as Miss Emily will have us believe, the whole society in its infinite homogeneity doesn't want to know where the cures come from, doesn't want to humanize the clones? Have none of the reporters ever read A Modest Proposal either?

How are the clones produced? Is a human womb required? Who is used? Do women volunteer? Are they conscripted? Has not one of them ever wanted to keep the clone baby she just carried for nine months?

Through most of the book I kept thinking there was a one to one correspondence between clones and their intended organ recipients. I kept thinking these were clones of privileged people, setting themselves up for organ replacement later in life to prolong theirs. I think this was both for scientific reasons (thinking about organ rejection) and for social, in terms of how society would work if everyone was complicit. I thought it made less sense the way it turns out to work. But upon doing some more thinking, I no longer think it matters all that much-- as I say, society piece of this doesn't work for me in very many ways.

One thing that struck me while reading the book is that the characters seem very passive. Although certain knowledge is withheld from them along the way, and they do have questions, they do not really rebel or protest their fate, or try to escape. They seem quite accepting of the future that has been laid out for them. Why do you think this is so?

I think we are meant to see the students as accultured to not questioning their fate. The most they seem able to do is look for a deferral. And I do know that propaganda is a strong and powerful force. But I can't entirely buy that they would remain passive after leaving school for the transitional setups. They have this limited freedom. They interact with the ordinary people. They are even allowed to have sex with the ordinary people. Has not one of them ever done so? Enough to form an emotional connection? Enough to want to not go into the carer/donor world?

It is interesting that when looking for deferrals, clones only think in terms of the authorities of their world. Never does it occur to them to petition regular courts, to seek protection from human rights organizations. I mean, they can read newspapers, though we almost never see them do it. They can watch TV. I don't think it's a coincidence that education is considered a very dangerous thing in societies where people are subjugated. To be able to read-- slaves had been punished, killed for that. Canonical act of rebellion. And the clones read. They study art and literature. And still nothing?

At the end of Never Let Me Go, they mentioned “designer babies” had turned people against the whole clone issue. Now, ABC news featured a story tonight (3/3/09) about parents being able to build their baby http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=6998135&page=1 (a bit of reality reflecting art). How does this make you feel? Do you think PGD should only be used to avoid health issues and genetic defects? Is it ok to use it to have a baby who can save your current child’s life through marrow transplant? Is it ok to pick hair type and eye color?

I think this is a fine line. If you were planning on having another child anyway, and the question is whether you could use technology to make sure that kid would be able to save an older sibling's life, I would say that's ethical. Because if you had several children already, and one of them matched the sick one, it would be ok to have that kid help. If you are having a child for the sole purpose of saving the sick one, that's dicey.

Avoiding fatal genetic defects-- yes. Yes. Because I don't want anyone else to grieve a child, if they can avoid it.

Eye color? Hair color? I just threw up a little in my mouth.

If you were a student a Hailsham, would you have wanted to know your ultimate destiny as a Donor? Why or why not? How do you think knowing at that point in your life would have affected you? Does this desire to know your outcome apply to your own real life? In what situations do you find knowledge helpful? At what times can it be detrimental?

I think the complicating thing is that the kids are so small when they first arrive at the school. But there is an age when I think it's better to know. I actually think that what Miss Lucy was trying to tell Tommy was that just like if he didn't want to be artistic he didn't need to be, he didn't have to donate if he didn't want to. Not an option anyone else ever presented them.

Hop along to another stop on this blog tour by visiting the main list at Stirrup Queens. You can also sign up for the next book on this online book club: The Red Tent by Anita Diamant.

Stories

2009-03-07T17:25:00.005-05:00

I live and work in an amazing place, a nexus. Two institutions with which I have been associated in the last nearly seventeen years are chock full of brilliant people doing incredible things. And I've seen it up close. I've taken classes taught by Nobel Laureates. I've worked with people who by rights should be (are you listening, Stockholm?).

And everywhere you turn, there are stories, extraordinary stories. Stories of inspiration and persistence. Stories of tiny molecules responsible for big things. Molecules that interact with other molecules. These interactions are the stuff of life-- how things work or how disease happens,-- a change that causes a change, that causes a change. Some of these stories are old enough to be in textbooks, some so new they are under embargo pending publication, and some incomplete, still in progress. I go to class or to talks to hear the stories, or I stumble upon them as I dig through the literature.

I've admired these stories, for substance, but also for elegance. I've been impressed with the insight needed to ask the question in just that way, or with the enormous progress a person or a group can make in just a few years (ahem... rarely... more often, it's a long and torturous road). But not until last week did I feel personally affected by one of these stories.

As I walked back to my office across the darkened and subdued campus last week, the story I just heard kept reverberating in me. Not intellectually, or, rather, not only intellectually. Don't get me wrong-- the story's nothing to sneeze at, intellectually speaking. It's got balls, for it took giant intellectual balls to ask that particular question. It's got insight, for it took a boatload of that to pick the particular approach that ended up paying out so generously, plus another boatload to choose where to look. It's got elegance, for there was that in reconciling the new, beautiful data with the old, seemingly contradictory, results. And the resulting model,-- dayyyymn, but it's elegant.

But that wasn't what was rocking my boat the other night. I was surprised to find that I was literally buoyed, high as a kite on vapors of a promise. It occurred to me that if this story keeps unfolding as it seems poised to do, by the time it's my daughter's turn to worry about pregnancy and childbirth, one of the big bad things of today will likely become no more than "oh, that? They've got a pill for that now." A promise of less heartache, less hurt, less pain. A promise of a better world. A promise of a monster, a true honest to goodness monster, a killer, tamed. Put out of business. Caged.

I walked along, thinking. Thinking that unlike all these other stories, this one might affect my daughter, likely will. Her or one of her many friends. (Which, because she is Monkey, would also deeply affect her.) I had this feeling that one day it will be relevant. And for the first time in all these years I realized that one day I will be able to tell my children "You know, I heard the guy speak before they worked out the whole thing, but when they already knew X and Y."

And then I imagined how I will tell them about how bad it was, you know, before. Which brought me right the fuck down to earth, in a hurry. Because that before is now. Because the big bad is still out there, hurting or killing women and babies. And it will keep doing that even as all these researchers are working double time to get from X and Y all the way to "we've got a pill for that." More than that, I could suddenly see, feel even, that when the after is here, the women hurt by the big bad in the before will still be hurt. For them, there will not be much comfort in the fortune of others. For them that fortune might even sting, because really, why did it not come in time for them? Why the fuck not?

And I realized that, as in so many things, the after really can't come soon enough.

Fortunate

2009-02-27T22:33:00.006-05:00

Some weeks at work are worse then others. The weeks when things are due are busy, and the weeks when multiple things are due? Oh yeah-- those are fun. This week was in fact one of the fun weeks, and next one is promising to be only marginally better. I am not exactly whining here, because I actually do like what I do, and daymn if it's not one fine-looking assignment we put out today,-- more like explaining why it only fully registered with me that the President was giving the speech that any other year would be called the State of the Union on the actual day of the speech, but more importantly why it's taken me since Tuesday to write of the thing that has been burning me since that night. (And why I am still behind on my blogs-- really hoping to fix that over the weekend.)

The thing bugging me? Predictably perhaps it was the Republican response, delivered by Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana. Perhaps less predictable is why. Oh, sure I bristled at a lot of it, seeing as I prefer my logic left to do its thing rather than twisted into a pretzel and baked, whatever seasonings are involved. But believe it or not, I only yelled at the TV once during the speech. It was early on, in the section of the speech probably designated in the draft stage as "setting the mood." And let me tell you-- my mood was set, to fuming. As I still haven't simmered down (and as more professional people than I have pulled apart the meat of the speech, and as the good Governor was today forced to retract his personal involvement in the central anecdote of the speech), you get to read about my take on Governor Jindal's field of vision. Aren't you lucky? (Cue maniacal laughter.)

Here, without further ado, is Governor Jindal's birth story, in his own words:

Like the president's father, my own parents came to this country from a distant land. When they arrived in Baton Rouge, my mother was already 4-½-months pregnant. I was what folks in the insurance industry now call a "pre-existing condition." To find work, my dad picked up the yellow pages and started calling local businesses. Even after landing a job, he could still not afford to pay for my delivery, so he worked out an installment plan with the doctor. Fortunately for me, he never missed a payment.

Governor Jindal is without a doubt a very fortunate man. So fortunate, in fact, that he doesn't even begin to know where his fortune lies. His father never missing a payment wasn't his lucky break. That was perseverance, responsibility, determination. But determination and perseverance only carry you this far, and, sometimes, they don't carry you at all. A funneling cervix doesn't give a crap how determined you are not to have the baby until you reach full term. Curiously enough, pre-eclampsia doesn't seem moved by anyone's tale of perseverance, though it has been known to negotiate with magnesium on occasion. Pre-term labor happens, no matter how responsible you've been in your pregnancy, no matter how wanted the baby. You see where I am going now, don't you?

It's not his father meeting his fiscal obligations that was fortunate for Mr. Jindal. It was his mother not developing pre-eclampsia, not having an incompetent cervix, not going into pre-term labor, not having her membranes rupture prematurely, not having placenta previa, complete with a hospital bed rest and a c-section, or even just not needing any old regular c-section. Now that-- THAT was all extremely fortunate for the future Governor. As was not being born prematurely or with any condition that would've required developing a close relationship with a team of specialists. Or heck, not developing anything as minor and usually completely devoid of long-term consequences, but still requiring a short NICU stay, as, say, transient tachypnea of the newborn.

The funny thing is that the Governor is a poster child for the veil of ignorance concept, but he's been too fortunate in his life to realize that. I have to admit that because I was not a philosophy or government major, the first I heard of this concept was on The West Wing. Having now spent some time googling around for a concise explanation, I still like the one from the show better. "Imagine before you're born you don't know anything about who you'll be, your abilities, or your position. Now design a tax system."* Substitute health care for tax above, and you get my feelings exactly.

Health care is a human right. It just is.

The Cub started out in NICU. He was there for less than eight days, a short stay as these things go. And yet, if we had to pay out of pocket, I am not sure we would still have our home now, installment plan or not. We didn't, because we have great insurance. Shouldn't that be enough of an argument? Shouldn't we, as a matter of conscience, decide that no parent should ever worry both about their child's health and about how to pay for it? Shouldn't we decide that no child should ever worry about being a burden on the family, that no child should ever have to worry about the cost of their medication, or about whether the family can afford their trip to the ER?

I think we should. And I think that Governor Jindal would do well to try that veil on for size. He might just see how truly fortunate he has been.

*If you care, this is Season 4, episode 17, Red Haven's on Fire, and the scene comes almost at the end, where Will and his speech-writing interns finally click.

Show and Tell: Season Opener

2009-02-22T18:19:00.001-05:00

I was going to show and tell something else, something that is six Sundays late now. But it will have to wait one more-- the pictures of it are on Monkey's camera, and the camera is with Monkey, and Monkey is off skiing with JD. Yup, call it Monkey and JD's excellent school vacation or speed demons' paradise, but the upshot is that they took off Thursday and won't be back until mid day tomorrow. Which left the Cub and me in the house that suddenly seems humongous.

We've lazied around, we've cuddled, we've laughed. At least one of us has been out of pajamas every day.

And yesterday, because the sun was shining and it wasn't outrageously cold, I had my the first coffee-on-the-deck of the season. And pst... I was the one in pajamas. What? They were warm pajamas. And I wore fluffy slippers I almost never wear otherwise.

The Cub kept me company. And what delightful company he is!

On the wall by the staircase leading up to the second floor we have this picture of Monkey barely younger than the Cub is now, sitting in this same pram, making faces at her grandfather. The Cub's been sitting unassisted for a bit now, so you can see how I just had to take a picture. And who can take just one?

Certainly not me. I have no self-control when it comes to my trusty SLR sidekick. And also chocolate. I have very little self-control left when chocolate is involved. And Trader Joe's was out of my low carb dark chocolate Friday. So it is their fault that I bought their store brand (which is decidedly not low carb), and that there is barely any of it left.

I was intending to have my coffee and read my blogs*, but I didn't make it through the whole cup out there. I took so long with the pictures that when the wind suddenly started both the Cub and I were already in the cool territory, and so it wasn't long until the Cub's nose was fit to enter a baby Rudolph contest. But I made it through more that half that huge cup there. I left the deck door open while we were out so that some of the fresh air percolated in, and it was nice to come back inside anyway. And may I report that the wind made the Cub laugh even more? I am guessing that the speed demons ski team might have a new member in a couple of years.

Today, by the way, it was raining. And there is talk of snow this week. It's ok. I can take it. In fact, I am not sure I am ready for it to be spring yet. Yeah, I know, my head is a mess-- winter is the mourning season, the hardest season, and yet I am not sure I am ready to have it go. Whatever-- we don't need no stinking logic.

Want more showing and telling? Stop by Miss Mel's classroom.

*And umm... nevermind the ugly stains on my laptop screen. They've been cleaned up now, I swear.

Wordless Wednesday

2009-02-18T12:31:00.002-05:00

Still here. Still trying to dig up from a mountain of work and a mountain of posts in my reader. Back with words soon, I hope.

Thaw

2009-02-14T23:39:00.008-05:00

I haven't actually been mute for two weeks.

The demarcation line through my silence, with no words on one side and no time on the other (seriously, this past week at work was effing insane), runs through the day that brought, despite whatever it was that the world's most respected groundhog saw one fine sunny morning nearly a week before, a thaw so profound that it was simply beyond my ability to resist conscripting it for a metaphor, however glaringly obvious.

I went outside to photograph the patterns in the melting snow without bothering to put anything over the tanktop I was wearing in the house. It was just a bit chilly. And later that day, before we left for the dinner our friends put together by way of saying they were sorry for not calling us on the anniversary, yes, even before that dinner, I felt released. I felt that I could, once again, write.

The week I was mute felt like I was walking through molasses, energy sucked out of me by every.single.thing. But maybe, to go with the newly conscripted metaphor, I was frozen.

Everything that week was ordinary, unremarkable when my internal clock insisted that it should be, you know, most remarkable. And at the same time it was all a little off kilter. Starting with my house turning into stomach bug central, with JD out of it for most of the 31st, and my sister and brother-in-law both succumbing to the yuckies and not making it over for the dinner I planned to cook. So the dinner got scaled down, what with barely any stomachs fit for duty. But Monkey and I did make brownies. From scratch*.

She changed her mind. It used to be the cupcakes she wanted to make, but it switched to brownies some time in January. She couldn't really explain why, except for something about not wanting to make frosting. If I was to offer a guess as to the reason for the change, it would likely delve into the implications of having something that looks like an actual birthday cake for someone who is not here to partake. That's the thing that made me think last year that we are not a birthday cake kind of a bereaved family. I was pretty sure we are not. Until Monkey told me, sometime late spring-ish, that we should have cupcakes for A's next birthday. It came up a few more times since, and she was rather attached to that plan. But when, with a few weeks still to go, I asked her about what kind we should make, she changed it. Of course now she wants to make these very same brownies for one of her own several upcoming birthday parties. I guess it remains to be seen whether she insists on frosting then.

My mom was visiting for the weekend. Which was great for Monkey and the Cub, but, at times, too much for me-- I really felt the need to cut out the random chatter. (My mom mostly gets it. It's just that sometimes she doesn't get that even if not discussing something NOW means that we won't get to for a while, or in person, one must still let it go, for the sake of my headspace. But we also ended up having a good conversation about that, so it's all pretty much ok.)

Our friends didn't call. That was a twofer-- not only did it hurt, it also contributed greatly to that just an ordinary day feeling that was so maddeningly surreal. They all had different reasons-- one lost track of the dates, several didn't remember the dates anymore, just the general area of the dates, and one remembered, but couldn't figure out what to say,-- but I spent a good deal of the next week telling them all (individually) how hurtful it was. And whooo boy, was that ever draining. I think that for a good while there it was having these conversations that kept my blog mute button firmly pressed-- I only had energy for one or the other. To be fair to the friends in question, they rallied, albeit late, with an apology and a dinner for us, which is how people from the Old Country show contrition and make amends.

The day before the dinner, last Shabbat, was A's yahrtzeit-- anniversary by the Hebrew calendar. Because that calendar is lunar, the dates shift around a lot from year to year with respect to the Gregorian one we are used to. Last year the yahrtzeit was nearly two weeks before. This year-- a week later. Next year-- only days before. Yeah, I am sure that's going to be fun.

We went to synagogue, and we went up to the Torah, and the Rabbi did his shpiel, which was very nice. He talked about memory, and inspiration it brings, and the Cub was in the sling on my chest, and Monkey stood with us too, holding at first my hand, and then Cub's.

The next day the snow started to melt, and our friends put together a dinner for us, and somewhere between those two things I realized that I could write again, and breathe. If only that silly work thing didn't get in the way...

It's funny, I think, what sticks with you. Two years later I am not nearly as shellshocked as I was. I still don't think there is a cosmic reason, or that one good enough could possibly exist. But I am willing to examine my remodeled heart.

The day after A's birthday this year (check that out-- I can say birthday now; couldn't for the life of me last year) was insanely busy. It was the day I was to cook dinner for one hundred-- Monkey's school was having it's annual social action day, with community dinner to follow.

When I first volunteered, I thought it would be good to have something big to do the day after, that it would be just the thing to pull me through the anniversary. In the end, due to the all-mighty mission creep, it was a lot more work than I was thinking I was signing up for. Start with the shopping and the coordination beforehand, add the couple of hours of cooking I already put in Friday, cap it off with the whole stomach bug-induced lack of helpers for a good part of the day, and you can see how I was a bit spent by the end. That, and damn near bursting-- I brought the pump with me, but never had a chance to pump. That's right-- couldn't find twenty minutes in the nearly ten hours I spent at the school that day.

I cooked that dinner in A's memory and honor. I cooked it in a way that was never accomplished at the school before-- the dinner accommodated every single known food allergy at the school. A real community dinner.

The funny thing is that before Monkey started school food allergies were not at all on my radar, not even a little bit-- not a part of our lives, and not really at the forefront for anyone else we knew. And yet, slightly more than a year later I was volunteering to cook the dinner in large part so that I could demonstrate that with just a little thoughtful planning we don't have to leave anyone out.

Do you think bereavement changes us, or do you think that underneath we are still who we are? I know I've participated in this discussion before. And I know I've rallied against the silly notion that we shouldn't let our dead children change us. Why the hell not? Aren't we supposed to be forever changed by having a child? Doesn't it follow that having a dead child might change you just as much?

But maybe, as my friend Aite has said from the beginning, maybe we are the same us that people know, only now with a very shitty thing to have happened to us. I am beginning to see the wisdom of this view as I interrogate and disentangle my thoughts and emotions. And as it turns out, this issue is connected to A for me in the oddest of ways.

I have always had a sense of justice, and I have gotten myself in trouble more times than I care to admit due to this seriously inconvenient trait. (This is also, by the by, why I have such strong dislike for the people seeking to inject religion into science curriculum-- given how hard it is to correct misconceptions, these people are literally limiting kids' life potential, making them that much less likely to become doctors, scientists, even engineers. Ughhhh....) So by last summer it burned my hide that the Parent Association wouldn't change the format of their summer events to make sure that all families could attend (in the summer food gets on everything, so yeah, a serious reworking of the format would've been necessary), and by fall I was no longer willing to just hope they get it right. In the interest of full disclosure it is a friend's family who is most often affected by lack of accommodation, but even before she was a friend, I minded not at all any of the measures that the school and the classroom were taking to ensure safety without putting kids with issues into a you're not like everyone else box.

It took a good deal of digging around in my head for me to figure out why I am reacting this strongly. The way I have been able to articulate it to myself, it goes like this: my son never had a chance. It was an accident, unforeseen and unpredictable, that took away from him and from us every other chance he would've ever had in life. So it bothers me a great deal when people, be it through carelessness and thoughtlessness or with actual malice, limit a child's horizon.

I can't do much about it. But for one afternoon I could make it so that kids with allergies could sit at any which table and eat what everyone else was eating. (And maybe that other parents, the ones for whom allergies are not a part of their daily lives, see that inclusiveness is not that hard to achieve and, you know, decide to give it a try too...)

*They were raspberry truffle kind. We cut the sugar in half as suggested in the reviews, and we used Splenda baking blend, which has half the volume of sugar. So in total we reduced the volume of the sweetener by 3/4. All the better for the remaining volume to become one with the chocolate. Oh, and it turns out they are even better the next day, after the chips have the time to return to their self-contained ways.

Two Years

2009-01-31T12:33:00.002-05:00

I don't have many words. I barely have any.

As these days loomed, I somehow imagined that there would be a natural separateness to them, a setting apart. Cocooning, maybe. But they are just days like any other, with potential for warmth and closeness. But also for distance and hurt. And, just like two years ago, the world,-- with a few marked exceptions, and how grateful am I for those exceptions-- doesn't stop for us and our pain.

The days are a little too ordinary, a little too crowded for me. Though I imagine I might find that to be the case no matter what was happening around me. But there've been moments.

The sky over the cemetery yesterday.

Our new* onyx candlesticks for the kid Shabbat candles. I feel funny saying "a present" or "a gift," even if I say "to us" or "to myself." Maybe just "something to mark the occasion."

*The very first time we lit a candle for each of our children in addition to the regular Shabbat candles, we burned down the one wooden candlestick we used because we didn't have three matching ones of any kind. After that we lit tealights for a while, in little IKEA colored tealight holders. And so Monkey wanted us to keep doing that-- to have the kid candles be tealights, and shorter than the main candles.

And we're off

2009-01-29T23:59:00.002-05:00

Two years ago I was just a pregnant woman.

In the Old Country the decorated tree for a winter holiday is called, and is, a New Year tree. It is entirely nondenominational, and equally as defining of my childhood memories. And so we put one up every year, but not until after Christmas. When we decorate it, the way one decorates a New Year's tree if one is from the Old Country-- lots of lights, deep in the tree, then ornaments, then the shiny, culminating with copious amounts of icicles-- it looks nothing like any Christmas tree I've ever seen.

Two years ago we didn't take ours down until less than two weeks before A died. My dad took it down, actually, one day when he was not painting the nursery. Monkey didn't remember the date her brother died. But somewhere in her brain the whole thing got sequenced as "after we took down the tree."

I know that because last year she kept talking about helping JD put the decorations away, and then she ran off to her room, discombobulated and rather upset, before the first two shiny balls made it into their storage container. I don't think she remembers it consciously, but it is a strong association nonetheless. This year she stood on principle against letting us take the thing down. Finally, while JD was away I extracted a promise from her that we can undecorate and get rid of the tree after Daddy gets home. She claimed to want to help.

In the end, JD did a big chunk of it himself, and the World's Best Nanny finished the job. The tree only made it out of the house and onto the deck this week. I wonder how long it will be until it gets kicked (or thrown, whichever) off the deck...

Two years ago I was-- still-- just a pregnant woman.

Approach

2009-01-26T23:58:00.002-05:00

There are flowers in my house, just like two years ago, and for the same reason-- Monkey had her piano recital this past Saturday. Bringing flowers for the performer is a very Old Country thing. Two years ago my parents were in town the weekend of the recital, and so there were flowers from us, them, my sister, and, I think, even her beloved Nanny. So many flowers, all over the house. When the deadbaby flowers started to come eleven days later some of the recital flowers were still standing. I remember making sure to keep them for as long as they held out.

Two years ago it was her first recital. Sunday, January 21st. Wednesday before that my parents arrived-- my mom had a business trip in the area, and dad, who works from home, came with her to get the baby's room painted. Tuesday after the recital, one week exactly before A died, his room was fully painted. Yellow and blue this time, a change from yellow and purple of Monkey's babyhood, a brighter yellow this time too. Next day, Wednesday, they left. A week later, Wednesday the 31st, they flew back.

I was irritable and irritated the week they were here. The couch didn't help. Not the couch on which I spent a whole lot of time, but the one that was evicted from the soon-to-again-be-baby's room but not yet installed in my office because that's where the parents were sleeping, on the queen size inflatable mattress. And so the couch, in two pieces, sat in the not particularly big entry-walk space on the first floor. I had to walk on the tippy toes every time I walked by it-- me and the belly didn't fit otherwise.

I don't remember what exactly I was doing on January 26, 2007. But it was a Friday, and so we must've had a Shabbat dinner. Maybe my sister came. Or maybe she didn't, begging off on account of having been to the house entirely too many times while the parents were here. Monkey must've said "Shabbat Shalom, little brother" into my belly. For what turned out to have been the last time. I don't remember because it was, by then, so ordinary. And after the helpful but crazy that was my house the weekend before and the surrounding days, I must've been looking forward to the weekend. I don't remember much of that weekend either.

That the flowers are here now is an accident of nature-- recital this year was rescheduled from way back in December, a victim of a snow storm that had itself passed but left a complete parking ban for the neighborhood of the recital hall (a very nice room in a public library) in its wake. That when we got home the flowers spent a good long time parked on the dining room table before I finally put them in vases after Monkey was asleep, hours after we came home, that I don't think was an accident. Avoidance strategy perhaps?

Heart, string, hand

2009-01-23T23:51:00.004-05:00

I've never had any dead baby jewlery. I am nowhere near talented enough to have designed my own, and I never saw anything that spoke to me. Until, that is, I saw the Waiting Heart, designed and made by Chance.

In introducing the hearts, Chance talks about them representing our "shared, yet singular experiences". And that is what I suddenly wanted-- her vision, for herself and all of us, on the front, singular experience of my heart on the back.

Thank you, Chance! It has meant more than I can express to wear the heart, to have my younger son grab and pull at it, to trace the words, on the front and on the back, with my fingertips.

Today is Chance's birthday. Today was also the transfer day for two perfect embryos from Chance and Apollo's first surrogate cycle with the Amazing Kym, who is always happy to put the business end of her very own superheroine cape to good use. Tonight, I imagine, that use was likely a combination blanket/napkin dealie-- after all Frank the Incredible was in charge of the feast-ivities.

Happy Birthday, Chance! I wish you nothing out of the ordinary. Just that in a year's time you will be able to share with us pictures not unlike these.

Chance and Kym, for what it's worth, I am holding my breath for you through these next slightly less than two weeks, and, hopefully, beyond.

P.S. I am also over at Glow in the Woods today, talking about dreams.

Baren Bitches Book Brigade: An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination

2009-01-20T16:53:00.004-05:00

How did I first hear about this book? It seemed like it came out of nowhere, all at once. I saw or heard a very short review of it somewhere, a review that now that I've read the book, did it no justice at all. The next day a friend mentioned seeing it at a bookstore and thinking of me, and not knowing whether to get it for me. I told her no, on the mix of that review and my reaction, clearly colored by the review, to the title of the book. For some reason I let myself believe the book was about the rainbows and unicorns, or, you know, peaceful zen side of dead baby life. Could I have been more wrong? Don't think so.

But then the bloggers I like started reading it, and saying poignant things about it. Some even liked the title. I came to understand that I was wrong about the unicorns, and that I will read it. I just wasn't sure when. And then Tash got to interview Elizabeth at GITW. In a curious way that interview made me put off reading the book for longer-- it became absolutely clear that this was a book that deserved all of me, that I couldn't just read with half my brain or half my soul. Of course then it was on the book club list, and that I couldn't pass up.

Things conspired to keep me from reading well in advance of the tour date, but I finally started last week. At first, along with being pulled in, I was annoyed with myself. For putting it off for so long. I wanted to sit with each little chapter, with so many sentences. And that was even before I got to the much-quoted "closure is bullshit" line (which I love-- can I have a t-shirt with that in bold print? Or one of those rubber bracelets? In pomegranate, of course.).

I thought of the dwarfs of grief and black humor in general. And, as proof of both my infinite geekiness and that very same black humor acting much like a gas (see, there's the geekiness again) in expanding to occupy any and all volume available to it, I immediately thought "These are not the dwarfs you're looking for." And I swear, it went around and around in my head like that. For hours. Cheerful, I know.

Happiest story with the saddest ending. For the rest of my life, I think, plurals will confuse me. A sudden harmless moratorium on babies being born. I wanted to sit with each of these, and so many more. I wanted to think and feel and be. Until, that is, I couldn't stop myself. I wasn't reading anymore-- I was drinking, inhaling, mainlining. And yet, reading each and every word, feeling the impact of each and every word. And, towards the end, anticipating.

Knowing what was coming, I was both crouching and standing tall. I knew the force of the impact to come. I didn't want it to come (hence: crouching), but I knew it had to. It had to because it already did. Warning: mush ahead, might want to skip. But here's the honest truth, truth that also applies to many a blogger for me-- by the time I've walked all the way to the final chapters with Elizabeth, I felt like I was standing on that precipice with her. To turn away now would be cowardly. And so I would do it, the calamity, I would do him, Pudding, the honor of meeting it, meeting him, standing up. He deserves no less. Each and every one of our children deserve no less.

And what of the title that was such a big hangup for me early on? I remember wondering some way through the book when we might find out what it refers to, but only in a very fleeting way. Curiously, by the time I got to where the title is actually explained (and what an explanation it is!), I was startled to find it-- I'd forgotten all about it. Funny, ha?

Now, on to the book club questions.

I understand the author's need to let us know at the beginning of the book that she had another (live) child. Generally, I liked her matter of fact tone and writing style. However, I sometimes felt like I was missing some of her raw emotions about the loss. She rushed over the first few months after the loss and hurried towards the second pregnancy, writing about the affect that the loss had on their lives through that second pregnancy. This could be because she did not want to dwell on it, or because she did get pregnant again so fast (within a year). I wondered what it would have been like to read the book not knowing about her successful second pregnancy (if that was even possible to separate out from the loss). Did you find that it took something away from the way you took her loss or took her book as a whole?

I did not find that the new baby took anything away. In fact (surprise-surprise) this is a bit of a sore spot for me these days as I find myself concerned that others might consider the Cub our fix or a replacement of some sort. I know exactly what Elizabeth means when she says "The love for the first magnifies the love for the second, and vice versa." And I couldn't agree more. I am not asking for a grief medal of any kind, for her or for myself. Nor am I saying that I am in any way worse off than a woman with no subsequent children. I am only asking for the respect individual missing babies surely deserve, as, you know, individuals, loved fiercely and missed equally, regardless of the number of subsequent children their parents had, or the timing of the arrival of the same.

I also disagree with the very premise of this question. I do not find any of the emotions missing. I recognize the raw, even if it is expressed without the use of exclamation points. More so for the lack of exclamation points, possibly. I recognize the suffocating open air flea market, even if my own trigger was never this. I recognize the drinking, and the black humor, and the movies, and the horrible unreality of having dinner with people who won't talk about the only thing echoing through your brain.

But the thing, I think, is that without the distance the year and the second baby afforded Elizabeth, all there would be is that raw pain. And while that is honest and necessary, it isn't easy or even always possible to articulate gracefully while you are right in the middle of it. A year and some weeks (and a live baby) later Elizabeth's truth is different. Her new truth, contained in the final three sentences of the book, is also mine these days. And one I wish for every bereaved parent everywhere.

I don't think you necessarily need a live baby to get there, though I can't deny that having a live baby helps immensely. As, of course, does having an older child. I think that losing a child does change some things about our world fundamentally, one of them being the parameters of happiness. But I do wish happiness within this new definition, with the undercurrent of love and loss, to everyone who isn't there yet. And I wish I could fast forward it for you to where you get there. But I also know the trick is that I can't.

Early in the book Elizabeth talks about her second son as definitively not a "Miracle Baby" and of leaving behind her belief in luck and minor superstitions. How have your ideas of luck, prayer, miracles and superstitions changed as a result of your experiences of infertility and/or child loss? If your ideas changed, how militant are you about your new views? Do you see the changes as casualties, another thing(s) lost? Or do you perceive them as perspective gained, part of the evolving you?

This is actually my question, and I was moved to pose it both by the book and by the conversation in the interview at Glow. And so the core of my own answer comes from the comment I left there.

I am now sort of obnoxiously deliberate about confronting a great many superstitions (as well as some of the people who hold on to them, to my mother's great chagrin). I think of it as being consistent in my world view-- if nobody "up there" made the decision to take my son, than there is no ground to the superstitions either. Perhaps more to the point, conversely, if I succumb to the superstitions, it's like allowing that there is a possibility that there was a decision picking us in particular for this fate. And I just can't go there in my mind.

I also don't view this change as a loss. It's actually kinda freeing.

If you had gone through what Elizabeth McCracken had gone through, would you have wanted a picture? Why or why not?

Thinking about my reaction to the book, I found that it is not that I deal with A's death in exactly the same way that Elizabeth deals with Pudding's. In many places her sentiments are mine exactly, and in others-- not at all. Like with the pictures. Pictures are now emerging for me as the one regret about how we did things. We took our own with the high resolution camera on my blackbery. We had a better camera at home, but not by much. We didn't bring it, and we didn't ask my sister to bring hers. Now I think we took too few. But that's now, and that was then. Then we did things right, for us, then. I will talk more about the pictures soon, but for now that's not the point.

The point is that we could make a big huge table where columns are events, feelings, experiences of baby loss, and rows are people (see?-- geek again). We could find people who come close to matching our little pattern of yays and nays in the table, but that doesn't mean we would only understand them, and not someone with a polar opposite pattern. In the end, I think, we recognize each other's grief, and we honor each other and the child(ren) we each grieve. And that's enough, however we need to grieve them.

On page 94 Elizabeth McCracken writes, "I've never gotten over my discomfort at other people's discomfort" also "I don't even know what I would have wanted someone to say", and I am wondering how you have handled that discomfort when something terrible happened to you (suicide, miscarriage, failed cycle, etc.) Is it better for another person to say something cliche that makes you feel awful or is it better for them to ignore the topic all together?

Option c: it is better for the other person to think of the bereaved rather than of how the other person will look or come across. Say something thoughtful and honest, don't try to fix things, don't tell us how to feel. Don't try to say something profound-- that is about you trying to look good, not about helping us. Given how many people choose options a and b, just not making things worse is a huge accomplishment. Just say you are sorry. Try it-- it's not that hard, I promise.

Hop around to other stops on this blog tour by visiting the main list at Stirrup Queens. You can also sign up for the next book on this online book club: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro.

Catching up

2009-01-19T23:49:00.002-05:00

JD is on a business trip slash skiing in the Alps with friends thing. My aunt was visiting this weekend, but is by now long back in her own house, plane flight and all. Plus we had another lovely snowstorm or rather two, in rapid succession. All of this conspiring to explain why I am waaaaay behind on blogging (and other things, but we won't mention those). Again. This includes me now pushing a show and tell post to next week for the second Sunday running. Better not find another excuse next week...

On the plus side, while my aunt was here and two glasses of wine to the wind, she told me a story about my mother from their childhood that was so hilarious and simultaneously embarrassing in the you are SO busted way that it merited a phone call to the party in question to convey the same sentiment, all without stopping the laughter. Because, you know, it was just.not.possible. This morning my sister stopped by, and we told her the story, and all of us laughed till we cried again, the rapidly cooling lattes be damned. And we called mom again because this was just too rich for one round. We laughed a lot while my aunt was here, which was not necessarily to have been expected. We also ribbed, joked and talked a lot, and generally had a good time.

Except for the whole way behind on everything thing, it was a great long weekend. Oh, and Monkey, while the rest of us were still asleep courtesy of the Cub's generosity, cut a portion of her bangs. Really-really short. Do I need to point out that she didn't, prior to cutting her hair less than 48 hours ago, have bangs? Didn't think so. At least she cut them in a fairly straight line and fairly evenly centered. In case you are wondering, trying to extract the story from her only resulted in more laughter. This shit's funny, yo!

So in ~~celebration of slacking~~ the spirit of catching up, I offer these two shots I took way back in September. I like these a lot (if I do say so myself) even if I didn't get around to posting them in anything resembling a reasonable timeframe.

And one from today, by way of illustrating the snow thing we've got going on.

Straight and narrow

2009-01-15T23:01:00.002-05:00

The Cub met the approximate hour of his five months birthday by doing what he has taken to doing in the early hours of the morning these last couple of weeks-- nursing. He did that a couple more times before seven o'clock when he gave a significant portion of it back-- I am pretty sure the kid overate.

We met and dispatched the day by doing nothing in particular, and certainly nothing remarkable. My mom called to say happy five months to him and us, and I said thank you. We mentioned it again at dinner, and JD said "wow, Monkey, can you believe the Cub's been living with us for five whole months now?" And she corrected him by saying that no, he hasn't been at home for that long-- remember that whole week he had to be in the hospital. "Yes, but still with us," JD persisted. Of course, always with us.

For a little over a month now we have been able to make him laugh. Predictably sometimes (by doing particular things, and I certainly do take the opportunity whenever I can), and randomly at other times. He has the infectious laugh of a happy infant, and the unmistakable features of my father's line when he does laugh. And he is in love with his sister. As well he should be. She's been in love from, you know, many many months back. She tells us he is getting heavy (he is), but she doesn't think much of the "so you don't have to pick him up" solution.

And yet, as I've recently told Tash, the Cub exists on a completely different plain inside my heart than his brother. The glorious everyday-ness of his existence is no match for January, for me missing his brother in the particularly intense way that demands that I stop, every so often, in the middle of my day to name the well above the ambient dull ache-- I miss my son. I only say it to myself, inside my head. But I want to scream it on the street as I walk to buy the lunch I didn't have the time to pack that morning-- I miss my son. I still miss my son. More today, these days, than at other times. But I think I will always miss my son.

I've been at this long enough to know that with the significant dates, with the anniversaries, the bark seems to always be worse than the bite. The dates will come whatever I do, and when they are here, we will do what we need to do to get through them. But the days before the days... those seem long, torturously long, stretching towards the last two days of January. But they also seem short, like they will fly and then I won't be ready.

I've been more or less (much more than less) unproductive at work the last couple of days, almost a week. Which is silly because the new semester won't wait for me to be ready. I have to get ready, and in time to help other people get ready too. That the new semester starts in the middle of the last week of January is, I would say, incredibly inconsiderate of it.

I think I have been dragging towards today. From here on out it's A anniversary express-- all aboard! Nothing but build-up, anniversaries of dates and events edged in my memory. And yet, just as there is palpable joy and beauty and gratitude in my every moment with the Cub, I know there is fragile and quiet tribute in the days that lead me to the days. The joy, of course, is plainer to notice, more obvious. Not to mention more pleasant to sit with.

But I will do my best to not wish these days away, to not stomp through them. I will endeavor instead to walk them with the attention and care they deserve. Endeavor, that's all. No promises as to how well I'll do at it.

Bewildered

2009-01-13T15:08:00.002-05:00

I had to cancel on my sister for tonight. Because I forgot we had other plans, forgetting stemming from my continued inability to synchronize the days of the week with the days of the month in my head. January is messing with me. Ugh...

The thing I canceled, likely moved to tomorrow actually, is our monthly sisterly date. So ok, it hasn't been every month, but we have done well. Usually we go out. This time we are supposed to stay in and mess with the me-s on our new Wii Fit (pooled New Year present from said wonderful sister and BIL and our wonderful parents-- see, blogging can be profitable; um, no, parentals don't read, sister does). Stay tuned for my "actual" age. I am kinda not looking forward to learning what it assigns me. Or exactly how round it makes my me. Can we say embarrassing?

Anyway, I was thinking today of how the sisterly date thing started. My first period after A was weird. [Warning: avert your eyes and scroll for a few if you are not interested in exactly how weird it was.] It took longer to come than the literature says. It sort of started, then disappeared, then started for real. And then on day three of for real got much heavier. Which never happened to me before (or since). [Ok, you can stop averting now.]

I made a mistake of mentioning the weirdness to my mom, who promptly decided that SOMETHING WAS WRONG, and commenced pestering both me and my sister that I should go be seen. Knowing that sometimes the price of peace is doing what she asks, I called. And was told to go to maternity triage. The same triage where I learned that my son had died. Exactly eight weeks before that day. Um-hu.

Luckily, my sister came with. While they ran blood tests, we talked, we snarked, we trash-talked about the long arms of ~~the law~~ mom that caused us to be there in the first place. We laughed, bitterly and sarcastically, but we laughed. And afterwards we went to dinner. And resolved to do that again, once a month or so. Minus the trip to triage, if possible.

I wonder if we looked weird, not two months later, laughing in that place. I wonder what the nurses and midwives who staff that room thought. If they thought our (my, really) reaction strange they never said a word. The one nurse gave us a look after one of our very dark humored jokes, but she rolled with it. And was nice to us.

In the many visits to triage I ended up making in my pregnancy with the Cub I never got anything but kindness from them. Even when I knew I was probably overreacting to this symptom or that, they assured me that they had absolutely nothing better to do, that whatever I needed to do was fine, that they weren't tired of seeing me. (I think, actually, the next time after the visit with my sister that I walked into triage was the time that Dr. Friend and his wonderful ultrasound machine on wheels saved my sanity.)

The reason I am seemingly unable to let go of the memory of us on that triage visit, it having been called up by the sister date thing, the reason I am wondering how we looked... Hey, I know we are judged everywhere. Are we grieving appropriately? Healthy? Or what is it, are we grieving still? Everyone's a critic, I know. It just that it still blows my mind, though I know it shouldn't, how sure some people are of their own infallibility. And how close to the bone they can cut. And how there are some quarters we just don't expect it from. It must be nice to live your life that sure though. Must be simple. Prosecutor, judge, jury, all rolled into one, no defense attorney necessary.

It didn't happen to me this time, but to a friend. But it comes on the heals of another friend getting gobsmacked with a similarly ridiculous and unexpected weirdness, though in another realm altogether. And I stand here, squinting as if at a bright light. Really? Really? The world, is it this fucked up? Still?

So tell me your stories, please. Desensitizing therapy, I suppose. Tell me of how you were stabbed in the back. Or tell me of how it was for you going to the maternity floor, after. Or how you think it might be, whenever you get to go.

Here

2009-01-08T08:00:00.004-05:00

When she started her blog I was still pregnant with A. But not for long. When we exchanged our first emails, I was still so newly grieving I didn't even realize I was still newly grieving. That was on A's due date-- twenty two months less a day ago. And this morning Niobe's baby son was born safely into this world.

I keep trying to express how happy I am for her, and no words seem adequate... For once I am so happy I am nearly mute.

One less

2009-01-06T17:40:00.001-05:00

People have been telling me that I look good. What they mean, because I, at nearly 200 pounds on my five-one-and-a-half frame and often with no real time to pay mind to my appearance most decidedly do not look good, is that I look lighter. The other lighter, the less encumbered one rather than the less hefty.

One mom in Monkey's class even went so far as to observe, not two weeks ago, that I go have a new baby and suddenly look better. It's supposed to be the other way around, she said. She didn't remember that she saw me pregnant with A, and I can't really blame her for the very human fuzziness of her memory-- we were only looking at the school then, both of us there for one of the Open Houses. I reminded her, and sometime in the next bit of the conversation came "ah, that explains, then, why you always looked so unhappy." Heh. Good to know, I guess...

Which is to say I knew I looked like hell. I just didn't know I looked that obviously or that consistently like hell. Grief, anxiety, responsibility-- it's a heady cocktail I was living on. Not FDA approved or recommended. I'm just sayin'.

I told JD sometime in the fall that it annoyed me when close friends told me I looked good. Not because I didn't want to look good, but because I didn't. And because them saying I did implied that they could no longer remember back to when I wore sizes in single digits and didn't have to strategically plot my movements around my own house lest the squeaky knee let me know exactly what it thinks of me, my ass, and the stairs. Good, as it applies to me among the people who have hung in apparently means jaw no longer in lockdown mode, smelling baby head with a drunk on love look in the eyes. And I know that's a lot, I do. It's everything, in fact. But it's not looking good, it's looking lighter.

I feel lighter, too. I felt it from the very moment the Cub exited my body. The push that propelled him into the world felt like it took off fifty pounds, or a hundred instead of the less than seven it actually did. It's not that I haven't been flattened with a strategically dumped ton of grief, or driven to deep sadness or profound anger over things that might seem insignificant to anyone else. It's just that it's not all the time now, and that, mostly, the stuff of daily living is not hard.

JD felt terrible that his very important and rather fun business trip left me to fend for myself with two sick kids, and the ever wise Tash reminded me that it's not like I do not have a right to complain. And G-d knows I am not one to suggest that a dead baby mama in possession of a new baby is not allowed to complain about the daily grind because she "got what she wanted." Never. It's just that it didn't feel like there was anything to complain about.

I am not a saint, people, nor do I play one on the internets. There are things I will complain about. Like the seemingly complete lack of sleep now two nights running-- alas I no longer possess the stamina of my undergraduate years and I do not do well on no sleep. I do not even do ok, if you get my meaning. There are even things I will take a certain amount of enjoyment in complaining about, said enjoyment located mainly in crafting the story for maximal effect. It's just that many things that should trigger the desire to complain (see: sick kids, husband away) simply don't. Or not so simply.

We had a gathering for the parents of the kids in Monkey's class a few months ago. I overheard a conversation there, and it's been worming its way inside my head since then. A father of four was telling a mother of three that just that weekend one of his kids had an unexpected sleepover, and suddenly they were able to get so.much.done. I am sure you know how it is, he said, when you temporarily find yourself with just one less than you are used to-- there is all this time you normally spend dealing with the kid who is off at a friend's, and you can now put that time towards a ton of little things that you wouldn't otherwise get to.

Maybe that's just it-- I always have one less. And no, I wasn't used to caring for three, and this is not temporary. Nevertheless, this feels a lot like a key to understanding the source of the very bearable lightness of my being these days-- most troubles are temporary, but I always have one less. Oh, and the troubles that look like they could possibly be non-temporary? Those still freak me right out.

P.S. Somehow this seems apropos here: I noticed that I have trouble saying "both kids". I can do it without the "kids," if, for example, in a previous clause I have identified them individually, e.g. Monkey wants an apple, the Cub could use his toy from the kitchen counter, and they both need baths tonight. But I feel like without the setup it's the wrong word to use for the two when the one in the middle is missing. I noticed that I am having the same issue in both languages. Anyone else with me, or am I overthinking the heck out of this?

Lights out

2008-12-31T22:42:00.003-05:00

I lit this candle the night of the day the big wave overtook me. By the time it was ready to go out, shortly after some of you lit your candles on the second Sunday in December, I was through the worst of that particular round.

The last of the last candle of the last Shabbat of the year. And if you are quick on the uptake, you realize that the fact that I took this picture proves that I am decidedly not Orthodox.

Hanukkah is also finished. Sigh. I love the candles every night.

A's name means "the father of the candle (or of the light)." Honestly not until I submitted my portrait for the Glow contributors page did I make the connection with how much comfort I drew from the candles I have lit in the last 23 months. I am slow like that. But I also don't think it's any kind of a sign-- we picked the name after he died, but it was the name at the top of a very short list. And I have always loved watching candles. And bonfires.

Today is 23 months. It's a Wednesday again, only the second time this has happened so far. And in an hour it will be a new year where we are.

2008 was good to us, even if it was hard. But I will take good and hard over terrible and hard, any day. And now it must end. Just like every candle ever lit must go out.

I wish you all a good year, a better year than you dare wish for yourself. See you on the other side.

Ebb and flow

2008-12-30T23:49:00.001-05:00

When I first started this post, some two and a half weeks ago now, its title was "Fuuuuuuuck." It was an apt description of the wave of grief that had slammed into me, unexpected in its full-throttled intensity. Those days the missing was intense. Physical. Heavy.

I don't really know why. It came on just as Monkey and the Cub were each recovering from a major case of non-overlapping sickies (though I think it started for each of them with a common, in both senses of the word, cold) and JD slightly more than half way through his business trip to half a word away.

While they were sick, clingy and miserable I hugged, comforted, took temperatures, dispensed medications, and even ran to work for a couple of hours each of the three days the nanny was at our house. My work suffered, but I regarded the ever-growing pile of brick wall deadlines being bulldozed towards the winter break with resigned calm. I had zen.

I was also acutely aware that one of my children was missing. Is missing. Will always be missing. But that is sort of an everyday background hum kind of awareness. It's there, and it colors, but it does not encroach, it does not overwhelm. It is an awareness of sitting on the couch, holding the baby to me with one arm, and the first grader with another, both of them sick and in need of the mommy fix, knowing that as a result that coffee fix I need is a long way off, and yet feeling decidedly uncrowded. Feeling in my bones the outline of the one I never did, never will get to comfort, feeling, with my body and my soul, exactly where he would fit.

I learned to swim when I was little. I remember going to my swim class at six, and I was pretty good by then, so the lessons must've started at five or so. Before that I know that my dad taught me. I have pieces here and there, but no coherent memories of learning piece by piece. But I also watched and helped him teach my sister a couple of years later, and that is why I know that it had to be him who taught me to lie on the water. I remember him telling Adelynne to trust it, telling her that the ocean will support her body if she just relaxes and nixes the flailing. I remember him explaining to me why this is such an important thing to learn.

If I may be so bold as to speak for my sister, it has served us well, that skill. Once you learn how to make like a starfish and float, among other things, you have a resting place on any beach. It even comes with built in earmuffs (natch). And if you can do that face down and are not opposed to the feel of snorkel in your mouth, many an underwater wonder are yours for the looking. Relax, don't fight it, it will carry you. It works great even with a mild wave going-- you just get rocked a little and carried gently.

That's what that everyday feeling is like-- the ocean under me. I am aware of, but not generally bothered by it. And it's a long way from the rather opposite one that overtook me just as it became clear that both sickies were in retreat-- the feeling of being picked up by a wave only to be violently thrown against a seawall. Complete, of course, with a rinse and a repeat. I felt like I was drowning in grief.

I don't know why it happened just then. I am wondering if it wasn't that doing as much as they needed for the two children who are here underscored just how little, nothing really, I get to do for the one who is not. But ultimately it doesn't matter why. It happened, like it has happened a number of times before, like I am sure it will happen time and time again in the future.

[I hasten to add here that of course my life with the Cub is better than it was before him. Of course. Richer, more colorful, more joyous, more tender, filled once more with wonder. But he is not a bandaid, nor a fancy laser surgery even. This is not about him.]

This fall has been full of subtle and not very much reminders of two years ago. The trapeze. When I first saw it, it looked both intimidating and enticing in its otherness. I wanted to try it, but I couldn't-- I was pregnant with A. JD talking about a conference he was forgoing this year causing me to remember going there with him two years before, right after the big ultrasound, trying to get used to the idea that the baby was a boy, trying not to freak out about it.

This year I wore flip flops on December 1st, just as I did two years before. Then it was because my feet had swelled, and it was very warm out. This year it was because it wasn't terribly cold, and because due to thyroid weirdshit (it's a term of art-- look it up) I can tolerate cold even better than my normal abnormally high tolerance. Last year on December 1st we were pretty well snowed under, and I was reminding JD where we were the year before.

I wonder if the slowroll of memories isn't because last fall was all about being stuck, waiting, waiting some more, and a whole lot of RE trouble. But it doesn't matter, does it? It just is.

The December we are having is some kind of a weird mix of the two before it-- less snowed under than last year, and with a thorough thaw following the storms that left our deck buried, but much better endowed in the snow department than two years back. Monkey remembers that, by the way-- she remembers that it didn't snow much the winter her brother died.

My December, too, has been mixed. By the time JD was back from his trip I was doing better. I could breathe, for one. I've had a bad day or three since, and more bad hours thrown into otherwise fine days. I know that part of it is about today and tomorrow marking not just the end of the calendar year, but also our 23 monthaversary, the gateway into the final month of the second year. The second anniversary is looming. Not as intimidating as the first, but clearly not a day at the park. I can already feel the kind of hard that January will be. I will have a lot to say, if the words don't get stuck in my throat.

What's your poison?

2008-12-22T23:28:00.004-05:00

Today over at Glow in the woods I spin a long tale of whence my latte habit comes from. And I ask for your personal get through the day without losing your mind techniques. Please share with the class-- I for one am always on the lookout for more and better ~~vices~~ ways to deal.

Happy Hanukkah

2008-12-21T22:33:00.002-05:00

We've had three straight days of snow.

The deep fryer has fried its first batch of latkes for the season. And there is new light in this house.

I wish much the same to all of you, with types and levels of precipitation, as well as identities and methods of preparation of season-specific goodies set to your individual desired values.

Time

2008-12-14T13:40:00.002-05:00

A year ago it was my grandmother's 80th birthday. The day before, I flew to see her and my parents, sitting on tarmac for hours on end, one of the last planes to make it out of my city before the airport closed. The next day, a year ago today, I got up at insane o'clock in the morning, showered, grabbed the keys to mom's car, and drove two hours kinda-north. I stopped at a plaza to make phone calls and grab a tote of bagels to share with the people I was going to see.

A year ago today, in the early hours of the morning, on my grandmother's 80th birthday, my friend Beruriah had her second son. I met Baby Man on his birthday, his actual honest to goodness birth day. I met him before any of his grandparents. A big, lovely, gorgeous, living baby. I also met Kate and got to hang with her boys, M and T that day.

It felt good to be there, to drink from the well of happy conclusions to some journeys. The new baby did not take away the pain of his brother's death, nor did anyone there expect him to. But it was a glorious thing to celebrate-- a child who made it, for dear friends, for one of us. So today I want to say Happy Birthday, my dear Baby Man! And many-many more!

We here all know that, sadly, our best days are bound to be someone's worst. We've thought and written about it an awful lot. We've learned to make room in our happiness for the pain of others, as we would hope others would do for us. The day I drank from the well, the day Baby Man entered the world was also the day CLC's world came crashing down. Beautiful Hannah was born as I made my way two hours south-ish, back to my parents' house. Please stop by to remember and celebrate Hannah with her loving parents.

Fit-ness: a sob story and a shameless plea

2008-12-12T22:45:00.003-05:00

Raise your hand if way back in school you were the kind to get to work on a given piece of graded material at the last possible minute? I certainly was. And tonight I am again. The incomparable Magpie is giving away a Wii Fit literally for a song. Ok, not so much a song as a story. About fitness. And sweet dreams featuring a Wii Fit. Told to her no later than 11:59pm tonight (see above re: last minute). Terms and restrictions apply.

The genre is left wide open. I choose sob story. The kind that usually ends with a shameless plug, plea, or good old fashioned begging. I won't disappoint.

So once upon a time there lived a little girl. Well, before that, the Earth cooled and then the dinosaurs came, but that's not important right now. Point is, I used to be fit. I used to be a competitive swimmer, even. Last summer I surprised myself with what I could still do.

But at some point (puberty, ok, it was puberty), PCOS, though I didn't then know this evil being's proper name, showed up, kicked off its shoes and decided to stay. The fucker even moved across continents with us. Couldn't shake that bastard. I kicked its ass a few times. Got my weight down, some, a time or three. Two years into a big giant fight got my body to ovulate. But the fucker loves to have the last laugh. I carry, now, the weight of all my pregnancies. I started the one with Monkey 40+lbs less than where I sit tonight. I started the one before her, the one that ended in a miscarriage at more like 45 or more less.

I didn't realize just how bad it had gotten until I was standing in line for the trapeze, and realized that people are looking at me funny. Kinda the I can't believe she is gonna do this kind of a look. I looked around, and realized that everyone else was in much better shape. Much better. I didn't care. I was there to do something CAAAAAREYZZZZZZEEEEEEEEE. But damn if that ladder didn't kinda shake under me. And damn if my poor arms didn't feel the entire weight of the giant sac of potatoes that is me when I stepped off that platform. And tripple damn if the pictures didn't all look kinda sad. I posted the best one here, and you can still tell my ass is lobbying for its own zipcode.

I denied things for a while, wearing maternity and rationalizing it as soon to be replaced by my regular clothing. But recently I broke down and bought, in two installments of 2 pairs each, 4 pairs of pants in size humongous. I'd like to give them away someday, and not because I need something bigger.

It's not a vanity issue with me. Believe me, I have very little vanity left. But my knee hurts from carrying the extra weight. It stinking hurts every time I go down the stairs, and every other time when I go up. Bending over to wash the tub so kids could take a bath? Ginormous effort. Not to mention I kinda want to see that old hag AF again some day, and last year's experience shows that the traitor runs and hides at weight fifteen pounds below where I am now.

I am not dumping on my body. I know it's doing the best it can given PCOS, and my new friend thyroid issues (which may have just become more complicated than anyone expected-- back onto beta blockers with me, but that is a story for another day). But it needs help. Industrial strength help. Shiny new Fit type of help would be just what the doctor ordered, methinks. PCOS isn't fighting fair, so why should I?

And if my sob story doesn't convince, think of the children. One child in particular-- Monkey. Scoring a Fit (as opposed to pitching one) might just be what I need to pull out a win in that coveted coolest mom in the house category. And because I am good at paranoia, I can also tell myself that the Fit would serve as an insurance policy against that fucker PCOS grabbing the bottom bunk in her room. Because, you know, her three hours of gymnastics a week is clearly not enough. Think of the childrens!!!!

Life after: the short version

2008-12-09T22:51:00.002-05:00

Outfits thoroughly soaked in curdling milk are Cub's specialty. As I was changing him out of one of those tonight he looked at me with a bit of mischief in his giant blue eyes, and a thought, a question, a wondering entered my mind. It had to do with his sister who still adores formerly-her-and-now-his nanny, and who finds it bearable to be sick and out of school on the days the nanny is here because duh-- she gets to spend time with her. So the wondering, it was about how he might feel about the nanny five years hence, whether he might be as open about his adoration as his sister is, or whether he might play it cool.

"You will grow up" I said, starting to trail mid way through grow, my brain putting the brakes on before I got to articulating what might happen at that time. And then "Will you grow up? Will you grow up?"*

*I was actually speaking the Old Country language, which happens to have one word that means all of "will grow up," meaning the difference between the first part and the second was only the inflection. But this is a close enough translation.

Family Circus

2008-12-07T14:29:00.005-05:00

The first time Monkey saw this thing, erected on the lawn in front of the entrance to the apple-picking-train-and-pony-riding-goat-petting-hay-climbing-llama-camel-ostrich-andwhothehellrememberswhatelse-watching-ridiculously-overpriced farm she was four and a half and fierce. She said she wanted to fly, and we paid for the lesson. She went on the little practice trapeze, and decided the big one was too scary. Then, after watching for a while, and, admittedly not without some gentle maternal nudging (because I can never pass up an opportunity to help her plow through another risk aversion block), she undecided about the scary and started climbing the ladder.

Ever since she was a tiny baby, with every stage of her development she seemed to me so grown, and very soon so independent. So mature. Grown up. At four and a half she seemed big, you know? Grown kid. She still seems that way to me, again and again with every milestone. You'd think I'd learn sometime, but I just don't seem to. Except once in a while, when the world stops for a second and I see just how little she is. Her climbing that long-long ladder was one of those times. The ladder illustrated to me, with the help of physical distance and laws of geometry how tiny she was, and how high she had to climb.

It was all perfectly safe-- harnessed from A to Z, even on the ladder, someone holding a safety line. I watched, so proud of my little girl, holding my breath just a little. I think they had to hold her up to the trapeze, I don't think she had the height then to stand on the platform and hold on to the trapeze at the same time. And then they let her go, and she flew.

We had to go back week after week that year. Before too long, maybe even the very next time, thanks to her love of gymnastics, she was doing knee hangs. Soon after it was upside down splits, and then all kinds of combinations. The girl was in love. She vowed to be back next fall.

(pst.. this pic is from this year, but you get the idea)

Between the vow and next fall her brother died. By the time fall rolled around I was somewhat functional, sometimes. We went back to the farm, but the contraption wasn't there. Eventually we heard where it was hanging out, and we tried to go, once, but it was closed just then, and I never got my act together to try again.

So this year, literally the day before the Cub was born, a friend forwarded an email about how the very people who taught Monkey to fly had a camp in a new location near us. And because the camp was undersubscribed, they were letting in first and second graders. So one thing to another, and Monkey and one of her classmates spent a week learning circus arts. At the end there was a concert. And because we are not right now talking about the concert, all I will say about it is that next year Monkey is going to this camp for two weeks, and the thing is worth every penny.

After the concert there was a trapeze demonstration. And Monkey said she wanted to try a catch. What's a catch, you ask? Well, let's start with the other side of the trapeze thingie, shall we? It looks like this:

See those swing-looking thing there, and no ladder to get to them? Yeah. So a catcher sits there, and swings at the same time as the trapeze flyer, who lets go of the bar completely, and aims for the hands of the catcher. Like so:

I caught my breath, and JD caught the shot. The Cub slept through the whole thing, being two weeks old and all.

We went back for lessons a few more times before the trapeze people packed up and went home to warmer climes, promising to come back when our average daily temperature was back to reliable short sleeves range.

Sometime in there I realized that my body hasn't been mine in too long. It wasn't still, but I could do some things now. Swim was my first thought, but seeing as I was still at the time a public health hazard, that was out of the question. But more to the point, I wanted to do something completely and utterly crazy. Something I absolutely positively couldn't do as a pregnant woman. You know where that's going, don't you? Yup.

This post is my return to Mel's weekly Show and Tell. For more showing and telling, click right over.

You know you are too tired when...

2008-12-04T17:55:00.003-05:00

...you hold it together the whole day by promising yourself a good long cry when you have done everything you need to do, only to fall asleep half way into the second sob of that cry.

And, of course, the way you figure that out is by waking up with a distinctly dissatisfied feeling, and working your way back to only remembering winding up for the second sob of your long-awaited cry. Which, of course, means that you have no choice but to start a new day with the same promise to self. Who wants to guess how that's going to go?

Feel free to add your own concluding sentiments for the title of this post. I have a feeling this time of year everyone's got a few.

Zero

2008-12-02T23:38:00.002-05:00

I did it. The number of unread posts in my reader as I start writing this is 0. Down from damn near a thousand only two weeks ago.

I know exactly when my reader exploded. The evening of August 14th I was reading and commenting as I watched my TiVoed Olympic swimming, anticipating following it with my women's all-around Olympic gymnastics. I think I had that reader down to single digits, or teens at the most. And then the Cub was born. And then I got swallowed by the new baby tired craziness. And the reader exploded.

89. I remember 89. I thought it was a lot, and I hoped to get some time over the weekend to read and comment. Then it was 200+. 500+. 800+.

I felt horrid. You all have been there for me. And now there I was, having snagged the biggest lucky break ever, a real live take home baby, there I was not being there for you. I wanted to be. I wanted to read, to witness your every word. Because how could I not? Because how would I have survived to where I was if you, collective you, flowing and changing you, weren't there for me through it all? Not well, that's how.

I made a concerted push in early October, and got down to like 400-some-odd. And then I got swamped again. Work (I am working half time this term, which is a lot harder than it was in my imagination; back to full time in January) and life, and just some overwhelming craziness interfered, and I was back to 800+. So two weeks ago I decided that I can't have this hanging over my head anymore. And so I read, and read, and read. Drinking your words like water, pretty much every word I missed. Which means that I read a lot more than 800 posts, because for some I was catching up starting from that night when I didn't get to see women's all around (and the reader only counts the last calendar month of posts as new). I started at the top of the list in my reader and worked my way down, but making sure to keep reading new posts from those I have caught up on. That was my mistake in October-- allowing the new posts to accumulate again, until it was all a jungle again.

So now I am all caught up on everyone in my reader. And I can finally add the new blogs I have been meaning to add. Yay, hallelujah!

But here's the thing-- I read all your words, I witnessed them all. But in large part I was too late. I wasn't there when you really needed support. I wasn't there when maybe an experience I could've shared might've actually been of use. I understand now that I should've declared bankruptcy at some point, marked all as read, and started over. I would've missed things, sure. But I would've been present from then on, instead of the ghost I was in the last two weeks, catching up. The funny thing is that I realized this somewhere around a half way through the exercise, but felt bad doing an all clear then. It wouldn't have been fair to the bloggers whose digs are listed in the bottom half of my reader. Stupid, I know.

So I did it. But I did it wrong.

===========================

An odd request perhaps, after that confession, but please help the girl out. If I am not reading you but I should, or if I left comments some time ago but not in a long while (probably because I didn't add you to the reader right then, and then, you know, see above), please leave me a comment so I can remedy the situation. My blogroll on the right is but a fraction of my reader, so don't go by that. Someday I might get a free second to update the blogroll, but not soon, I think.

I know better now. I will use the mark all as read button if I have to. But when I can, whenever I can, I will be here, reading and commenting in real time. Present, in real time.

P.S. I have a lot of posts that need to come out. On some level I didn't feel entitled to write so much while my reader overflowed, but I was also swamped. I am still swamped, but I also feel the need to write. So, you know... maybe...more posts soon.

Pretty sentences

2008-11-25T18:47:00.004-05:00

Friday before last the Cub ended up spending a night at Children's. See? Not that hard to type. In the end wasn't even that hard to deal with. Not even anything to worry about. A blip, really. But for some reason I couldn't bring myself to post about it. In fact, as is glaringly obvious from the absence of you know, posts, I couldn't bring myself to post about anything.

We were only in the hospital for 25 hours, gone from home for 28 or so. And yet nearly nine times as much time has passed since we got home before I was able to start this post. (Yes, I calculated that. Cause I am geek, which I do believe I have confessed to before.)

I think I know why. While it ended up not being scary, it didn't start out that way. It started out with me on a Friday morning standing over Cub's crib thinking I must be too sleep-deprived to see straight because what I was seeing wasn't computing. I was seeing the area above the Cub's upper lip, that little triangle of flesh that points to the nose, go blue. So I picked him up, and watched the color return. I carried him to our bedroom, and then proceeded to watch him for a bit. He did that a bunch more times, and I decided that what I had in front of me was a certifiable sick day.

Our pediatrician was out of town, which I knew sort of by accident. But that meant I was prepared when I called his number and got forwarded to a covering physician. Who told me she would see us at 10:45. Sometime in the course of the morning there was a time when he was oh so sleepy, and he was going blue again, and for a split second there I thought he looked like he was slipping, checking out. I blew on his face, and rocked him, and patted his back and his chest, and it was over, probably in under two seconds altogether-- breathing regularly and all pink, though still sleepy.

So here's the part where I have to admit that there was an extra reason I was so freaked out. See, they heard a faint murmur while the Cub was in NICU. But based on his oxygen saturation, and a couple other tests, they concluded that he was not in any danger or need of additional tests. They thought the sound would most likely go away as he grew. But the murmur was still there at our two months appointment, and so our pediatrician referred us to Children's to a big shot cardiologist. The appointment with Dr.Heart? It was scheduled for the Monday after the weekend in question. So wheeee.... I am sure you can follow my mind down the particular rabbit hole it went upon seeing blue, yes?

So long story short, we saw the covering doc, who said she didn't hear anything respiratory, tried to get us seen by the cardiologists right then, was told no dice and to go to Children's ER. We did, told them the whole story, they listened, to us, then to the Cub, then said bronchiolitis. Bronchio-what now? Inflammation of the bronchioles, tiny air passages in the lungs, usually caused by a viral infection. They thought RSV, but later tests said no, so likely a sneaky cold virus that got where it wasn't supposed to go. Of course, if I haven't bored you to tears yet, and you were following along, you might wonder how come that pediatrician said she didn't hear anything respiratory. If you do, you wouldn't be alone-- in fact JD is still sputtering mad about that part. I am just baffled, but whatever. Moving right along.

Children's is efficient, and so on top of things. The Cub got his tests, which all confirmed the diagnosis, and the little bit of treatment there is to give for this thing. They heard some wheezing, so if he keeps doing that we will have to at some point talk about the A word, asthma. He was obviously sick, but also incredibly amused. All the new people, with their smiles and their shiny name tags that swing when they bend over him-- priceless, I tell you. He charmed them with smiles and with his newly-acquired skill-- getting his fingers where they need to go so that he can suck on them. He did drop his oxygen saturation once, but he recovered on his own. They kept us overnight mostly as a precaution, because he had pneumonia as a newborn. Insult to the lungs and all.

We had a mostly quiet night, with a couple of drops in oxygen saturation, but he always recovered on his own. In the meantime I learned that it is not uncommon for babies to go blue around the mouth, and that the one to really worry about is blue lips and/or tissues in the mouth. In the morning the doctors listened to the Cub, declared him sounding better than the day before, and therefore clear to go home. Which we did, happily.

Of course between then and the cardiology appointment, I was still in my tightly wound "what was that?" mode. The appointment, first thing Monday morning, went great. Dr.Heart still hears the murmur, though it was hard to hear, what with the freight train in his chest cavity that is bronchiolitis in retreat. The doctor thinks there are a couple of possibilities, one more likely in his mind than the rest. In any case nothing needs to be done for now. We need to come back in three months for a follow up which should hopefully give a clearer picture. But even the worst possible diagnosis given his current condition likely means nothing needs to be done until he is at least four years old. Thus, I am now pretty relaxed about his heart.

See? In the end, not scary at all. So why couldn't I make myself write about it? It's not like I haven't been online in the interim. I have been reading and commenting like a woman possessed, trying to catch up on everyone. I have made a nice thorough dent in what was a scarily big number of posts in my reader. But I haven't written. Why?

I think I figured it out.

Last week on Glow Tash published her interview with Elizabeth McCracken about her memoir An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination. It's a great interview. More like a conversation, actually. Reading it is like listening to two smart, thoughtful women talk. The subject just happens to be dead babies and how we talk about them.

So somewhere in the interview Elizabeth says that writing pretty sentences is a form of therapy for her. And I thought "heh, me too." And read on. But then, days later, as I was trying to figure out why I fell so silent on my own blog, it occurred to me that maybe, somehow, having decided to write about the stay at Children's, I was now stumbling over my need to write of it in pretty sentences. Now I am almost sure that was it.

What I am not so sure about is why do I try for those pretty sentences. It's not just a dead baby thing for me, but it is an especially dead baby thing. Why do I dote on these sentences more than other sentences? It's not, I think, to pretty the subject matter up. I don't think dead baby mamas in general and I in particular try to make our stories more palatable with language. In fact we often search for words and sentences to express just how raw and overwhelming this bereavement thing is.

So it may be, I am thinking, that we (I, really-- I can only speak for myself) seek to make them more captivating, if that's the word. To make our stories, our voices, our children matter. Wild theory, that. Don't even know how much I believe it myself.

The other explanation I came up with sounds perhaps a bit more grounded. Writing is unhurried, if we are willing to give it the time and space it needs. Writing, unlike talking, gives us a chance to see whether we actually said what we meant to say, and to adjust if we didn't, tinker with it until it's a perfect way to express this one particular thought. And that's, I think, why it works-- finding a way to express a thought occasionally allows us an opportunity to let go of all the thinking and struggling we did with this particular subject. Writing, then, is like graduation for thoughts and emotions.

And yet, neither of these really explains why, as the days wore on, I still wasn't writing about the Cub's adventures at Children's. This I think is a whole separate beast. This is me twisting myself into a pretzel to make it sound all along like it was just a virus. It wasn't like that in real time. In real time it was scary for a while. I think I found yet another fucked up thing about my new dead baby normal-- I react to possible issues like the sky is falling because, once, it did. But when it turns out to have been less scary, I downplay it, with pretty sentences, and humor, and deflection because it wasn't, you know, the sky. Falling.

So how do you write? Why do you write?

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

2008-11-12T12:49:00.001-05:00

We were not neglecting our yard...

We were allowing for the possibility of some found art creating itself...

Yeah, that's it!

Well, that's my story anyway, and I am sticking to it.

This and that

2008-11-07T23:08:00.003-05:00

Thank you, all, so much for your kind comments on my last post. That was hard to write, but necessary. It helps that it was met with such gentle kindness. Thank you.

********************

Twelve weeks ago yesterday my sister told JD that she thought it was kinda funny that she was hoping we would have the baby already, so that she could start getting more sleep, and we could start getting less. The her getting more part was because she stayed up every evening waiting for the call in case she needed to come over and stay with Monkey while we headed for the hospital. The us getting less part... well, that's pretty obvious. For some reason neither Adelynne nor I got, JD didn't think it was funny, or even kinda funny. Me? Since that Thursday was something like the fourth consecutive evening of contractions until wee hours of the morning (with a non-negligible number of nonconsecutive days in the weeks prior) I a) thought the joke was hi-effing-larious, and b) didn't think it was possible for me personally to get any less sleep than I was getting at that point.

Of course my sister got her wish mere hours after voicing it. Which, I thought, was an excellent deal for all involved. As a bonus, it turns out that I was right in the predictions department too-- I am not getting any less sleep now than I was getting that week. Except now that it has been over thirteen weeks of that much (ha-ha!) sleep I can say with some authority that the sleep deficit thingy really does accumulate. Drats.

********************

As we say in the Old Country language, these days only a lazy person is not writing about the election. Not that I don't have thoughts, but I (see above) am having some difficulty rubbing neurons together to produce complete sentences. Except this tidbit affords me an opportunity to both rant (mini-rant, honest; I promise-- mini) and brag. How could I possibly pass on that? I am only human, you know. So here goes.

After the 2004 election I noticed that a lot of conservative pundits acquired a new favorite line-- "And this is why you lost,"-- deployed, it seemed, any time a representative of the other side of the spectrum expressed an opinion about the state of the electorate or the tactics used to drive turnout or to "assist" voters in making up their minds. Used to drive me bonkers.

So in the spirit of joyful reciprocity I would absolutely love to say that the reason R's lost so thoroughly this week is that the country is no longer buying their divide and conquer, us against (and better than) them politics. I would love to be able to say that the Republican presidential campaign jumped the shark the moment Sarah Palin declared that she loves to visit real America, the pro-America America, implying, of course, that there exists, outside of those there fine small towns, fake America, consisting of the not pro-America parts of America. I would love to be able to say that that was why they lost.

I am realistic enough to know that that wasn't why, though I maintain that a country where it would absolutely have been the why would be an incredible place to live. And I persist in my belief that this country can one day be that country.

Meanwhile here in the fake America Monkey's class has been learning about the American flag. They learned all kinds of good things about where it came from and how you show respect to one. And, in preparation for the school's election day assembly, they learned a song.

P.S. This poster, that, of course, is still hanging on the board, was a completely spontaneous and independent project. Weird, don't you think, given, you know, that we are centrally located in the beautiful downtown, fake America?

P.P.S. We keep forgetting how well Monkey can read these days. We were watching the news the night the story of that quote broke, and when Monkey walked into the room, we paused (long live TiVo!) the news right as they were playing that quote while they also showed the transcript of it on the screen. She read the quote right off the screen, and she got offended. The stick your tongue out at the screen, and do a high kick in that screen's general direction kind of offended. So we talked about how these feelings are understandable, but how the real way we fight back against that kind of rhetoric is by voting and volunteering.

In the meantime I keep marveling at the amount of stuff (in areas of citizenship and dead baby studies just to name a few) that my six year old gets instinctively that some so called adults completely fail to grasp.

*******************

Speaking of jumping the shark, I do not appreciate it when the shows I make time to watch regularly do the jumping. Have you guys seen the episode of House from last week?

Um... seriously? First of all, lactose intolerance and milk allergies are different and distinct, and the terms may not be used interchangeably. A much bigger deal? No adoptive parent worth their salt (or past a good agency's approval process) would ever try to talk a birth mother out of her new decision to parent. Like, NEVER. Ugh...

*******************

I need tips for not forgetting medication. My thyroid is on its regularly scheduled post-childbirth adventure, providing me with an array of fun symptoms the worst of which is tachycardia. Which means heart medication, for symptomatic relief. Beta blockers, yum!

I am on the kind that is compatible with breastfeeding, but which needs to be taken three times a day. And there is my problem-- I have, in the last week, forgotten at least one pill a day more times than I care to admit, and yesterday I forgot two in a row. I am trying to take them after a feeding, to be extra careful. But I tend to need to do X, Y, and Z right after a feeding, plus, as I mentioned above, I am freaking exhausted, which, in my experience, does not help with keeping to the mental to-do list. Hence, unsurpringly, I sometimes end up forgetting to take a pill. So what do I do to avoid forgetting? Other than hiring a personal assistant to keep track of such things, I mean.

Names and faces

2008-10-31T22:42:00.003-04:00

Monkey has great many nicknames. One that is older than most, acquired in fact just about the day she came home from the hospital, is kitten. Trite, yes, but she looked it-- tiny, content, very snugly-- perfect (biased? who, me?). At the time, and for a while after, even though I freely used the salutation, I thought it was in all honesty a cheat. I mean, don't all babies fit the bill? Turns out, not exactly.

We tried out a few nicknames while still in NICU. Nothing in particular was sticking. For one thing, he did not look like a kitten. It's not that he was particularly big. He was smaller than Monkey was when she came home, but a kitten he was not. Small and cuddly-- check, snugly too. Just not a kitten. Not entirely un-catlike, you understand, but decidedly not a kitten. And then, a day or two after we came home, I picked him up just so, and his head went kinda like that, and we got it-- a small kitten of a very large cat. Lion Cub, or the Cub for short. And that is what we will call him around here too, from now on. But first, today, there are other names to name.

The Cub, he is 11 weeks old today, two and a half months. Which makes this post two months late, give or take (I know-- shoot me). His birth day, the 15th, is as far away on the calendar as a day can get from his brother's birth day, the 31st, without being closer again on the other side.

It's twenty one months today, a year and nine months. A year ago today the nine months thing was kicking my ass, and I was just relieved to survive Halloween at the same location I spent it a year prior, visibly pregnant and waddling. Ironically, stab for stab, today might have been harder-- the Cub, in his stroller, and then in the sling, underscoring that neither of them was here last year, and that one of them never will be. My dead son's would-be best friend calling JD by name today, for the first time ever, and to his mother's obvious surprise and delight, underscoring that we will never hear one of our children say anything for the first time.

I can't be any more clear in my own mind that my boys are different people, one not a consolation prize for the other. I am so clear on it in fact, that I needed to voice it for all to hear, lest anyone be tempted to say or imply otherwise. And yet to me they are undeniably connected, both in their similarities and their differences.

While the Cub was still in utero we knew he had his brother's nose. That kinda freaked me out because I didn't recognize that nose. Where did it come from, and why do both of them have it? After the Cub was born my mom mentioned, all matter-of-factly, that the nose was my paternal grandmother's. Smack forehead. Of course-- DUH!!!! How did I not see that? Weirder still was the relief I felt at that recognition-- the part, it turns out, was from the Standard Family Catalog of Parts. What does it matter, JD asked. They still have eight great-grandparents, the same exact gene pool, and this was still the same part for both of them, fished out, as it were, of that pool. I know, I know. And yet it seems less freaky now that it has a back reference than it did when I thought it a product of a random re-mix of the two families' genetic makeups.

The Cub looked a lot like A when he was first born. And now he doesn't, most of the time. I'll have you know that never take pictures of sleeping babies, didn't even in the time before thanks to an Old Country superstition, but I did take one of the Cub a few weeks ago. Because sleeping as he did just then, he looked so much like A.

He is very substantial, my younger son. There is substance to his whole being. Right down to the little fingers. Long, like his brother's, but... well, let's just say that to look at his hands, you'll never mistake him for a poor eater. He chows down on those fingers too, goes at them with gusto. I can't blame him-- they are positively delicious looking, and I wouldn't mind a nibble myself.

He grabs our fingers when we offer those to him. Most of the time I am right there in the moment, but every so often I am also back in that hospital room feeling my heart break because A's beautiful fingers won't ever grab anything. It sucks so much that I am the only one who knows, has a physical memory of, how strong he was, and how vital. The Cub holds his head pretty much without needing support, has for a while-- an impressive feat among the 0-3 months crowd. People tend to comment on that. Every once in a while I want to tell them that his brother was big and strong too. I never do.

They are separate people, without a doubt. But the fact is that you are here reading about the Cub because his brother died. Because his brother died, and I needed to write. I read blogs for years before then, but never needed one of my own, until. And for some reason that cries out to me for some kind of fairness-- fairness to them, to you, or to myself, I am not sure. For some reason it compels me to give voice to their proper names, just this once,* for some kind of record. So here they are, my boys.

A\/n.er G1de0n, A

and

L.i0r S0l0m0n, the Cub.

And finally this, the last bit of what I wrote the night before Cub's bris, a brief note that came surprisingly easy to the fingers, but much harder to the lips, when it was time for me to read it outloud:

We did not set out to find a name for this son that would connect with and honor the son who came before him. Naming our babies has traditionally been a difficult process for us, replete with complicated sets of requirements and aesthetic preferences. So when we discovered that both of us liked the name L.i0r, and that it fit our criteria, that alone was a reason for celebration. But the fact that this name shares a common theme with the name we gave our first son was more than a little significant to us.

Our two sons will never get to play together, or to cause trouble for each other or their big sister. They are, for us, connected by the family bond, and by their uncanny resemblance. And now they are also connected through their first names. A\/n.er means the father of light (or of the candle). L.i0r means my light.

P.S. Last Halloween was the day for the lovely C. Please stop by and remember with her as she marks her one year anniversary and Callum's first birthday.

*...even if I am still using funny characters to minimize the likelihood of being found via a search... I am not that brave.

Obligatory

2008-10-20T23:40:00.001-04:00

It's in the fine print, this obligation. You know, the part you click "Agree" under without actually reading it, because if you don't agree, you will just have to go looking for a different blog platform to sign up with, and then where will you be? Reading another agreement, in a different small font, that's where. And if my hunch is correct, it will be there too.

It of course is the provision, located I believe right next to the "the blogger shall, when the opportunity presents itself, bake apple pie. Further, the blogger shall expound on the experience in a long and winding post, prominently featuring mom" provision, that requires the very selfsame blogger to, from time to time, post pictures of fall foliage. Waxing poetic, melancholic, thoughtful, or enigmatic is optional.

The enigmatically poetic, thoughtful, and at times melancholic Niobe has, of course, already fulfilled her contractual obligation. With one picture and with but a title word. Because that's how she rolls. But honestly, with a picture like that who needs words?

It seems that, in stark contrast, I have already run my fingers off with rather a few words. So how about I stop and present to you a few shots of the fall in a battleground state near me.

Oh, what the hell... One parting bit of waxing, cause I can't resist:

It appears that while the grass is rarely greener somewhere else, the sky certainly seemed bluer on that side of the border.

So what has this fall been like for you so far?

Light

2008-10-15T23:07:00.001-04:00

Today was the Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. I wasn't home at 7pm, to hit the wave of light part, but I figured my time zone was likely well represented.

For me, from the very beginning right alongside my own pain was this realization, this dull knowledge, that every day there is more of us, that the number can only go up, and that it does so all too fast. The ever growing chain of babies and families who miss them. Last December Tash brought the names of many of the blogosphere's lost babies with her to a memorial service, to share and lighten the load. If she was to do that today, there would be so many more... The chain has grown. The chain is growing.

And so I did my lighting later, finally putting to use the long candleholder we've had since the New Year (I find that Yankee swaps are a lovely way to update home decor, don't you?).

There are twelve candles burning over my fireplace tonight. Twelve candles to remember so many more.

Subtle

2008-10-07T23:24:00.001-04:00

It is not uncommon, nor, I believe, unexpected for bereaved parents to go about their day with a subsequent baby while a second thought-track plays on. Would he have snuggled like so too? Would he have had more patience? Would he have insert any one of a million little things here? It is a new way of missing, sort of a granulation of the missing. All those things we never got to know about the baby who died now playing out with this new baby. And we wonder.

It is subtly different to watch that new baby, as it happens with me from time to time, and as it happened tonight while I was getting him ready for bed, and realize that he didn't have to be here either. There are no guarantees, remember? Anything could've gone differently at any point, and then we wouldn't know any of these things we already know about him.

Breathtaking thought, that. And it takes me to a place other than my usual duuuuude, but we got ridiculously lucky this time.

In the early days and weeks I unknowingly worried that I loved A less, and was greatly relieved to realize that it wasn't the case. So suddenly tonight I am thinking of that very common way parents talk about their babies, the "I am falling more in love with her/him every day." Suddenly tonight I am thinking about how that implies change over time, and not just in the speaker. Babies change so fast, they grow so much. From one day to the next there is a million ways a baby could change. That saying above seems to indicate that the more they develop and change, the more you get to know them, the more you love them. That bothers me. It bothers me because if that's how it goes, then, logic dictates, we love our dead babies less. But I am sure that I am not the only one who doesn't.

So I think it's like this-- the love, it's already there. And it's deep and infinite, as always. What happens with a live baby, I think, is that as we get to know them, we get to see that love reflected differently, anew, in each new day and each new thing. If you think about it, though, it happens with the dead ones too-- something in our world strikes us anew, makes us miss them anew, shows us this new to us facet of our loss, of our love.

So much in this post can probably be labeled semantics. Seems tonight, just like the day I started this blog, semantics are important to me.

Shana Tova

2008-10-01T23:09:00.002-04:00

"So this is the time of year for getting there, eventually." So said the chief rabbi of my congregation in his Rosh Hashana sermon yesterday, about two sentences after I finally made it to services. The pause, right before "eventually" was measured and delivered for maximum effect--lightening the mood mixed in equal measure with The Whole Point of the Sermon, or so I deduced not having heard most of the thing. He used to be a litigator, you know, so he is on top of this dramatic pause business.

You know you are reeeeaaaaly late to services when you get there for the tail end of the sermon. But, you know, as the man said, we got there, eventually. We went home after. But an hour and a half later we were back, in time not just for the community Tashlich ceremony, but for the walk from the synagogue to the pond. Tashlich is a ceremony where we throw breadstuffs into living waters, a focal point, a way to acknowledge the things you want to do better on, to name them to yourself, and to begin the long hard slog of actually doing better.

Well, this is what it's supposed to be. Watching the kids gleefully lob chunks of chalah into the pond yesterday, it was hard to believe they were up to such lofty self-examination. On the walk back to our car I asked Monkey what she was thinking of as she did the lobbing. And holy crap-- the child actually had a list, a reasonable list of things she wants to do better on. I tried to act like I fully expected her to say that, but really? Wow.

For my part, I was thinking almost exclusively of my good and dear friend procrastination. I have always procrastinated, as far back as those elementary school papers and projects. I have also had periods of great productivity in my life, some brief, and some much more prolonged. In the wake of A's death, though, I somehow found procrastination to be mostly a warm, familiar blanket. When you have a lot to get done, there is a lot to think about, and procrastinating on all of it keeps all of it available for thinking about. Not exactly the same magnitude as the black hole in the middle of your soul, you understand, but we take what we can get.

The trouble with procrastinating, of course, is that the shit piles up. At work, and most certainly at home, I have projects galore. In other words, I need to get my rear in gear. I don't expect to magically get on top of things and stay there forever and ever, amen. But I am going to take a stab at it. This new resolve comes at a good time. I think in fact it has been bubbling up to the surface for a little while now-- last week I started making those to-do lists that have been the staple of nearly all of my productive periods, and have even crossed some stuff off already.

Not that you do or should care about my new found resolve, except that I have also been procrastinating here, in my electronic home, to an unfortunately large degree. My younger son is now almost seven weeks old, and for five of those weeks I have been trying to write a post of proper introduction. Layout, some sentences, and even small passages of it are in my head, but, so far, no electrons have been harmed in the making of that post. It's a big one, that post, and committing it to writing is, judging by how long I am taking, a big deal. It's on my list though, with the title and everything.

My brother in law proposed a toast yesterday in which he said that this past Jewish year, as far as our immediate family goes, would be hard to beat. On paper, he is absolutely right-- they got married, we had a live baby. Unfortunately, this was also the year our cousin got his heart broken, stomped on, and fed to the dogs. And this is the year when our grandmother's Alzheimer's stepped up from difficult to profoundly disabling. But here's the thing-- even for those of us with the shining and brilliant outcomes the road has not been easy. It may be that my sister and brother in law have managed to exhale that great big clusterfuck to the chupah that was planning their wedding, but I don't think I can honestly say that I have exhaled my past year, yet. (Though today's services helped. I cried. That's probably all you need to know.)

So it's been a hard, but a very good year. Which certainly beats the pants off a hard and bad year any day. And in the end, at the very end, this was the year that I flew.

But that is a story for another day. Soon. For now, though, have a happy and sweet new year, everyone, Jewish, academic, or arbitrary.

Since we are talking...

2008-09-21T23:14:00.001-04:00

Time melts around here. I blink, and it's the next day. Or the next. Usually evening, and I am wondering, again where the time went.* We are in a prolonged, waxing and waning growth spurt, complete, as it turns out with Baby's First Thrush. Mommy's too. Ouch.

Given the cause of my sleepless existence, just about the only truly regrettable thing about the whole deal is my apparently complete inability to keep up with the blogging world. My reader has began counting backwards (which means that it now contains posts too old to be considered new) and currently stands at 865. And here, in my very own digs, I abandon hotly contested conversations I myself start, and promptly disappear. Yes, ladies (and gents?), I am a sucky host these days. I mean, I appreciate every single comment, and I very much like that even while disagreeing mightily we can still all remain respectful, AND I did finally reply, but by the time I did, I am guessing at most two and a half people still cared. Oh well.

So in the comments to that very post Christa brings up the question that I actually think could use some discussing (especially in light of the 2-3 Supreme Court Justices the next President is likely to appoint)-- the question of abortion and our views on it as affected by particular life experiences. By discussing, interestingly, I do not mean what passes for the same on the talking heads shows-- each side lobbing zingers and cliches at the firmly entrenched other. I think the issue deserves a much richer treatment then that, so I am going to give it a try. BTW, did I mention how much I liked that the comments on the last post remained respectful and all topic-at-hand oriented? I believe I did. But I am mentioning it again so that I can ask everyone to please do that again here. This is a somewhat hotter issue, I realize, but I have faith in our collective ability to stay on topic and not go the name calling route. Help me keep my faith, mmmmmkey?

So Christa asks: ...has infertility and/or the loss of a child at any stage of development changed your view of abortion?

First, Christa, I need to say that I am very sorry about your miscarriages. It's not a small or insignificant loss. I am truly sorry.

Now, short answer: infertility, miscarriage, and child loss have all made me a lot more thoughtfully pro-choice, pro-choice in a more examined way. By which I mean that before I was pro-choice sort of on general principle, for reasons many people easily site. Now I have a much more nuanced understanding even of those reasons, and I have acquired others. Long answer involves a number of components that I am going to try to summarize (briefly-- I am still not the master of my own time-management-related destiny, and the shorter this is, the more likely I am to actually finish it) below. So here goes.

Personal/Religious

My first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage at 6 weeks, the day after we saw the heart beating on the ultrasound. Three days after that I had to run a quick errand to a supermarket. It was around 7am on Saturday. The supermarket is near the local Planned Parenthood clinic. As I walked towards the store, I could see the lone protester near the clinic, holding a sign and a doll. The sign said something about killing babies and something about God's attitude towards it. I walked very quickly by her and into the store. And then spent the entirety of my time in the store mentally mapping out ripping the protester woman a new one. She was gone when I came out. Probably a good thing. What I wanted to ask her, then, was how come, if her God was so opposed to killing fetuses, how come her God just killed mine?

For the record, I do not think that G-d, hers or anyone else's, is really micromanaging this. For one thing, if G-d supervises chromosome replication, errors in which are one of the big ones among the causes of miscarriage, well then let me be the first to say that G-d needs a hobby. Seven plus years on from that encounter, though, the thing I would ask the lady, if I could, would actually be about how she can be so sure of G-d attitude on this. There is not so much text on abortion in the Bible (though if you want your brains to explode, try Exodus 21:22), but there is plenty on treating people nicely. And it could just be me, but the last thing I would call accosting a girl or a woman on her way in to a procedure that is already likely to be traumatic is "nice."

See, that's the thing, I think. I have this inherent trust in women. I believe that an overwhelming majority of those who have had to make this decision made it after a thorough and deliberate consideration. The conceptual artist with unfortunate lack of understanding of the female reproductive system notwithstanding, I have yet to hear of a woman who woke up one morning, looked at her bucket list, smacked herself on the forehead for forgetting to do that, and ran off to get herself knocked up just so she could finally have that abortion she always wanted. C'mon! Do we really want to, as a society, to think so low of half of the population as to believe that women are incapable of grasping the implications? Or that we can't make these decisions responsibly?

But what of my own miscarriage? I mourned it. I was devastated. It was my first pregnancy, finally achieved after two years of IF, PCOS diagnosis, and a whole lot of hoop jumping that did in the end result in spontaneous ovulation. We saw a heartbeat. After the non-doubling betas, the heartbeat, we were told, was reassuring. We had one good day after that before the blood came. I barely made it through Mother's Day that snuck up on me only weeks later. But see, that was all because that pregnancy meant things to me. I imbued it with meaning, with hope. It was supposed to grow to be our child.

But here's the thing-- I would never presume to think that everyone is supposed to feel the same way about their pregnancies. For an obvious example, I can see how a 15 year old, accidentally pregnant girl might be mostly relieved to have miscarried at six weeks. That goes both ways, of course. I can honestly say that though the miscarriage was devastating at the time, it is not now. But I know there are people who mourn their six week miscarriages very deeply, and I would never deny them that.

I think that to some people stillborn babies are also mostly constructs. Obviously not to me. To me, my son was a very real baby, a very real person. And yet, as I think about the grief that his death brought, I also think that no-one should be made to feel that pain under duress, so to speak. If abortion is outlawed, there will be bereaved parents who didn't even mean to become parents in the first place. Would you want to be them?

Imagine, if you will, a young woman who finds herself unexpectedly pregnant. The pregnancy messes up all of her life plans, but since she lives in Sarah Palin's America, she can't get an abortion. Gradually, she makes her peace with the pregnancy, makes preparations for the baby, and is even starting to look forward to the arrival. Only the baby dies. What is your estimate for how much time it will take her to do a dive, head first, into a giant vat of magical thinking and self-blame, to become convinced that the baby is dead because she didn't want him/her right away? My money is on two seconds flat.

Medical/Health

This should be a very short paragraph. Some abortions are done to save the life of the mother. I like mothers. I think they should live. Again, I trust women and their doctors to make the best decision for the woman and her family. The end.

Oh, wait-- a caveat, I guess, but really a furtherance of the argument: I think every individual woman has the right to decide to prolong her pregnancy in order to try to reach viability even if it is threatening her life. What I think shouldn't happen is the government telling all of us that we must. I do not want to be considered only as important or as useful as my uterus. In fact, I don't think one has to be suffering delusions of grandeur to appreciate that one is important to at least a few people in this world. Helping Monkey make sense of her world after A died was not the easiest of jobs. The mind boggles at considering the job of the surviving parent in a family that would lose a mother. The decision to risk this particular outcome can't belong to anyone but the family, can it? And I haven't even touched on all the other interested parties-- parents, siblings, friends.

Health. Which certainly includes mental health (I am looking at you, Senator Obama). Much like it shouldn't be up to anyone but my family and my doctor whether to put my life at risk, the decision on how much my health is risked is also nobody else's business. There are severe conditions that show up or are aggravated in pregnancy, and I think those pretty much move over to the life argument above. But there are smaller but still significant issues, and I gained first hand appreciation for these lately.

The last two pregnancies have not been easy on me. Aside from the psychological, there is the sheer physical part. I get episodes of post-partum thyroiditis after each delivery. The one I had last year was sever enough to require medication. Heart medication. Temporary, but still. I have PCOS, and it is getting worse with each pregnancy. I have started monitoring my blood sugars again because I am afraid my glucose tolerance is still impaired, five weeks plus after giving birth. There is other stuff too, but this should be enough to make my point. Which is that pregnancy is not guaranteed to be a walk in the park, and it can lead to/exacerbate long-term health challenges, and that nobody should be forced to assume these.

Pregnancy should not be a punishment. Not for being young and stupid, not for being subjected to the abstinence only sex education, not for your birth control failing, and certainly not for being raped. This last one deserves a bit of a special mention, in light of the Republican platform this year and their Vice Presidential nominee's views (both are against abortion for rape victims).

Being pro-choice doesn't mean that if you are faced with this choice you automatically make the decision to abort. And, in fact, for myself, with my fairly comfortable economic situation and my proximity to the highest quality medical care, something very serious would have to be at play to point me towards choosing termination. One thing that absolutely without a doubt would have me making an appointment would be getting pregnant as a result of being raped. Not only would I not like to experience all of the physical issues to bring into the world a constant reminder of being violated, but I wouldn't want to put my family through watching me do that.

Hell, yes, mental health is important. I would argue that this part is important not just for the mother, but also for the immediate family. This was an extreme example, but there are others. In short, I'd say that ideally family planning should mean not just the process of planning when to try to add to the family, but also to the consideration paid to existing members of the family and their needs.

Public Policy/Morality

I hate the phrase value voter. I believe that it is misleading because it limits the things that can be considered values, and, more importantly, because almost all of us vote for or on our values. My values just happen to include less legislating one's particular brand of morality and more being your brother's keeper.

During Republican convention, I happened to catch a radio program where Phyllis Schlafly, responding to a caller's question on what the Republican machine would react to a Democratic candidate for office going back to work only days after giving birth to a special needs child and having a 17 year old unwed pregnant daughter said that "If Sarah Palin were a Democrat, she would have aborted the baby. That’s the difference between the Republicans and the Democrats." Is anybody here surprised that this snippet had me hopping mad for the rest of the day?

I know Mrs. Schlafly was going for the shock value, and I know she was using that shock value to deflect the actual question posed to her, but I was just knocked over by the boldness and brutality of this willful misrepresentation. Let's try this one more time, slowly, for Mrs. Schlafly. What one would choose in a given situation for oneself is a distinct question from whether one would like others to have the ability to choose for themselves in a similar situation. It is, again, down to trusting or not trusting people to make their own decision.

Being pro-choice absolutely means supporting women who are making the decision to continue the pregnancy. It may also mean that you yourself are far more likely to choose this option. Being a Democrat on the other hand, likely means that you think every baby (and every adult) should have health insurance, and that other structures should be in place to help the child reach their potential. Interesting how if these things are implemented, it would become a lot less scary to choose to continue the pregnancy. And funny, not ha-ha funny, but you know what I mean, how being Republican doesn't seem to mean anything about the child once it is no longer a fetus.

And if we are talking about morality, let me tell you what I believe is immoral. Not providing education that would help limit the unwanted pregnancies in teenagers is immoral. Yes, I am talking about the ginormous failure that is the abstinence only sex education. I am talking, again, about my deeply held belief that pregnancy should not be punishment. No matter how it came about, it shouldn't be punishment. The other hugely immoral thing is to not provide the services the presence of which might make it a lot less scary/impossible to choose to continue the pregnancy.

So this is where I get... what do you call it? Pissy? Uppity? Oh, let's go with uncompromising and hard-line. Here's my categorical statement: if your personal solution for reducing abortions in this country does not include these here components-- paid maternity leave, universal health care, affordable child care, and affordable housing-- if your solution doesn't include these, then you are not pro-life. You are pro-birth. End of story.

I think this is it, though I might still be missing some aspects. Have a go at it, but remember to play nice. OK?

*I wrote that part six (holy crap! six!!!!) days ago. As I was saying...

Of celestial bodies and strong emotions

2008-09-06T23:37:00.000-04:00

We interrupt our regularly scheduled inability to find words for that Big Post to bring you this post of inability to contain the rant. I have been trying since Wednesday night, and I have failed. So here comes.

One explanation I have heard time and again for the often sorry state of some of our interpersonal relationships is that while men are from Mars, women trace their ancestry from an entirely different body in the Solar System. As reasonable as that explanation seems some days, at least every two years, and certainly every four, it should become apparent to anyone with a habit of cursory perusal of print and TV news, let alone of the political blogosphere, that the gold standard for complete lack of ability to perceive another worldview as valid is the political process in our entrenched two party system. Of course, since I firmly belong to one of the parties (and have a sticker on my car to prove it), I do think that we are (mostly) right, and the other guys are (mostly) wrong. But that doesn't stop me from frequently despairing at the depth of the chasm.

This week was worse than most. I will spare you most of the really?ies that passed my lips this week as I watched Republican Party's quadrennial it wasn't us, it's all the other guy's fault routine, but as I am still bursting at the seams to address what for my money was the biggest indecency of Sarah Palin's speech, you are stuck with it. Not really-- you can always click away, but you know what I mean.

As the Dems collected a cool 10 million smackaroos in the 24 hours after the Governor's speech, many seem to have their favorite moment in the running for that title. Or maybe it's that there were so many, and of such outstanding quality, that for some it is simply too hard to choose. But for me there was never any contest. Perhaps I am cheating here, since mine isn't really a moment, but a more of a series of unfortunate events. No, I am not talking about the tone she used to deliver her speech, the tone of that one teacher in your middle or high school who was just sure that she was the best educator for miles around, and who wasn't ever going to let anyone forget it or question it, and, consequently, always spoke to the students in this most condescending of tones. Nope, not that.

In college, I spent a fair bit of time doing theater or a mix of standup and theater. So I know a lot about enunciating and projecting, a good deal about referring to current events in your script in a way that includes a punch line the audience will still be talking about when they get home, a fair bit about set design, costumes, and props, a respectable amount about sound, and even something about lighting. So I feel qualified to say that the people who worked on all these aspects of Governor's speech were, clearly, professionals. Sometimes very mean-spirited professionals, but professionals nonetheless.

And that is also why I feel that the Governor should have summoned some of her fabled moral fortitude complete with some of that unfailing politeness and used the "thanks, but no, thanks" line every time set designers, prop masters, or writers brought to her yet another way to exploit her children. Though it's not like this was new hat for the Governor-- she started the week by announcing her daughter's pregnancy in order, as the campaign said, to defend her against the big mean bloggers saying things about her last pregnancy. Right, because there is no better way to save your hide than by throwing your child out there instead.

So let me ask you, Governor. When they told you to exploit your son's imminent departure, possibly doing something illegal, and certainly ill-advised in the process, did you try telling them it didn't seem right to you?

Of course, since no reporter is allowed to subject her to the unthinkable scrutiny of, you know, asking her a question these days, I don't expect she would answer one of mine either. But I am going to pose a few more anyway.

What I really want to know is why did they bring the baby to the speech. It seems like in any time zone the shindig was way past his bedtime. I don't suppose the answer is that they couldn't find a qualified and properly vetted babysitter on such a short notice. No, I get a sinking feeling that it was so that they could show him off, to say "look, this is the baby with Down Syndrome I decided to keep" without saying it, without bringing up the unfortunate fact that in deciding to keep this baby Sarah Palin exercised the very freedom to make a choice that she would take away from the women of America.

"And children with special needs inspire a special love" Sarah Palin says, and I, predictably, bristle. Because what, my children only inspire the stale, unspecial kind of love? Actually and more importantly, Governor, can you explain to me how exactly is your love for your youngest son special? Because there was that pause in your speech, right around when you uttered this particular phrase, where the way you were triumphantly looking around, I could've sworn you were expecting your medal (for being so awesome and keeping the baby) to arrive at any moment.

And it irks me, a lot. Maybe it's because I believe that I had my children for a very selfish reason-- I thought that my life would be better if I had them, and so I went for it. Whatever happened along the way, I don't think I deserve any accolades. And I don't think Governor Palin does either. See, he is either a child to you or proof of her pro-life credentials. And if he is a child first then all of this is unseemly. IMHO, of course.

But, of course, this wasn't the extent of the little Trig's star turn as a prop. Did you see the Palin family make their way into the VIP box a speech or so before she spoke? I did, and let me tell you, I thought it was unfortunate. Not only was Bristol, Palin's pregnant 17 year old daughter carrying Trig, but suddenly the boyfriend (whose MySpace page explicitly states that he doesn't want children) was by her side, and there was rather a few empty seats around the young couple. Made for TV, anyone? Look how good we look with a baby. Aren't we just fit to be on the cover of some magazine or other?

You know what I realize? The campaign asked everyone to respect family's privacy. I realize that I would love to. As soon as the candidate herself starts to do the same.

Show and Tell (with bonus Show and Tell)

2008-08-31T16:14:00.001-04:00

Ahem... didn't mean to go MIA, really didn't. The intro post is a bear, but one I will hopefully kill sometime this week. Meanwhile, will the double dose of Show and Tell* do?

Show and Tell the First: Let there be light

Torah (Old Testament for those of you not familiar with the original name :)) commands us to keep and remember Shabbat. Or to remember and keep, depending on which version of the commanding you are reading. So the rabbis told us that lighting two candles for Shabbat was a good idea. You know, to keep and remember, or to remember and keep. Some Jews also light a separate candle for each of their children. I have never done it before, but have been mulling it over for a while.

Last Friday we got home from the NICU only a few hours before sunset. A bit later my sister and brother in law showed up with a feast. Not a virtual feast, a real one. Soup to ice cream kind of feast, where even the ice cream was homemade. And then we made Shabbat.

Show and Tell the Second: American girl

This was Monkey yesterday morning, waiting for her playdate with a classmate. The book is from another classmate, and has had her in stitches for a few days now. A particular favorite, believe it or not, was the "emergency meeting of the Society to Get Rid of Slimy Girls."

*Mel's Show and Tell is the weekly chance to bring out a camera, or a scanner, whatever the case may be. Go see what the cool kids are sharing this week.

When

2008-08-23T13:29:00.003-04:00

Life is so hard when you are a baby. You want to eat, but you want to sleep. It's enough to make you cry. And then there all these contraptions they put you in. Sigh.

Thursday's bili test was borderline, and thus bought us one more day under the lights (since they, understandably, didn't want to see us back for a re-admit). Friday middle of the night test showed a clear improvement, and the one they drew 12 hours after the lights went off was even better. There was also a carseat challenge test, which underscored just how tiny this baby is (though I do realize that he was likely the biggest patient in NICU at the time).

And now we are home. Things still are a little hectic, and I still need a ~~lot~~ little sleep. But we are home. We are home.

The view from here

2008-08-20T22:35:00.001-04:00

And there was evening...

(and late evening...)

and there was morning...

The sixth* day. And this really is the view from our NICU window.
The view on the inside isn't bad either, most days.

Yes, he is still a bit yellowish, and he is in for a bili draw in the morning, along with the CBC. The results of these should tell us when we might be able to spring him from his very plush accommodations and back to our humble abode.

I have thought, when I had the time and the inclination to think about such things, which is to say fleetingly, that I seem to be doing a little too well. My physical recovery has been the easiest of the three labors. And if emotionally I have been walking in circles on top of a rather large powder keg, I have also been able to mostly ignore the stuff under my feet. So you know I was due for a meltdown.

It came last night, prompted by a crazy-making encounter with a nurse who is likely very good, but was just all wrong for me. I came apart in a quiet way where I just couldn't stop the tears for a few hours while madly typing in chat windows. My heartfelt thanks to two people who helped talk me down. You know who you are.

Things were much calmer and much better today, aided as they were by our very own hit parade of most excellent nurses (night, day, and now night shift again). I am OK, though more keenly aware that there are things to deal with, to exhale, to confront. Just not now. Later.

*I cheated-- the pictures are from different days. Sue me.

Moving day

2008-08-17T22:17:00.003-04:00

Thank you a million times for your wonderful comments. I have read every single one, and am planning on reading them at least a few more times. They have been great support as we are learning from experience that things in NICU can be unpredictable.

In the Old Country there is a saying that roughly translates to "do not yell hurrah until you land the jump." It occurs to me now that in declaring that we had nothing to worry about health-wise I had violated that very wise injunction. It's all much-much better now. But yesterday was scary. Well, half of yesterday was scary.

On Friday we were so thrilled with his progress off CPAP that we sort of put the question of the other thing he was being treated for-- increased level of white blood cells, indicating a possible infection-- on the back burner. Partially because he was getting antibiotics already, and partially because that whole breathing difficulty thing seemed a little more pressing and serious. And when they called me in the middle of the night to say that he was alert, seemed hungry, and could try breastfeeding, and we went down, and lo, he breastfed, well, that just didn't seem like a sick baby, you know?

Yesterday morning he ate again, and was alert, if a bit pissy. The kid's got a set of pipes on him, let me tell you. So there we were, getting contact high from him doing so well when they tell us that his CBC was a lot worse, and they would like to do a lumbar puncture to see whether the infection they presume he has has gotten into the cerebral spinal fluid. Right, then.

I asked about how they manage to ensure that babies don't move during the procedure, and the answer was in various ways, including, if they absolutely have to, and in very small doses, morphine. We couldn't be in the room while they did it, and when they called us about how it went the story was that they got enough for the main tests they wanted to run, but not for the quick look-sees, and that they did end up having to give him the morphine.

The scary part(s) came after we got back to see him. For one, he wasn't interested in waking up or eating. At all. For another, a bit later he started having episodes of bradycardia (significantly slowed heart rate) and real, honest to goodness apnea. Neither of these things is good. Both can indicate infection. Or they could both indicate that he was waaay tired from an active morning and resisting the procedure (apparently he put up a rather serious fuss) and/or that he was having a reaction to morphine.

So the evening featured JD quietly freaking out in the chair as I tried very hard to remain analytical as I had a conversation with the pediatrician that felt like an episode of House, only much less cool, seeing as it was my kid we were talking about. The maddening thing is that none of the cultures are growing anything. In the land of microorganisms, as, I hear, is the case in any warfare, knowing your enemy is very important. If we knew what this infection was or where, we could tailor the treatment. As is, he is getting the antibiotics cocktail that covers the most common sources of infection in newborns, and we hope that it does its thing.

At one point I asked the pediatrician whether this thing could get away from us. Not the easiest question to ask, and perhaps worse to answer. She said that she can never say no, because she can never say that to anyone (appreciate the honesty, I do), but that we are doing everything appropriate to the situation. We went over the tricks still up their sleeves, and the situations in which it makes sense to go to those. In the end I had to agree that there was nothing to do but wait out the night and see what the morning tests showed.

Waiting out the night got a lot easier when he woke up with his late evening diaper change. Not turn on the disco it's party time woke up, but enough to indicate that he was hungry, and to go to town on both breasts plus two syringes of previously pumped colostrum. Good stuff, that.

Still, I could see both the doctor and the nurse were still worried. So it was nice to see them smiling as they greeted us at 5am this morning-- white cell count was down slightly from yesterday, and the differential was much better. Meaning we seemed to have caught up with whatever this thing is, wherever it is hiding. And there hadn't been any apneas through the night. The only snag was that his bilirubin levels went up sharply (thought the absolute value was still a non-threatening 10), and so he bought himself some time under the lights.

Today, as I said, has been much-much better overall. He spent a good deal of time sleeping contentedly in his isolette-cum-tanning booth, but he woke up for all the feedings and he ate with determination and appreciation. Every lactation consultant's wet (diaper) dream. His color is improving, so we may be done with the lights as early as tomorrow. Antibiotics are staying for seven days altogether, and, consequently, so are we. We are, again, waiting for morning test numbers, thought with a lot less trepidation than last night.

Nominally I was discharged from the hospital today. In reality, I moved down three floors. I am bunking with my son, in his NICU room. Because it's huge and has a couch that is meant for parents. I have never seen such a thing, nor heard of it before. A NICU where all rooms are private, large, and designed so that it is possible for a parent to be with the baby all the time. And the visiting hours here are 24/7. A pump can also be rolled right into the room, and my attachments for it stay here, right next to the sink that is next to the couch on which I am about to fall asleep for the night.

With this level of care for the whole family built into our experience here, I can't help but think of all of my internet friends who have had no more than a curtain for privacy when sitting by their baby's isolette, who have had to make the drive, back and forth, a couple of times a day, who were limited to a small set of visiting hours. I know this is an expensive set up they have here, and I know not everyone is fortunate enough to have a dedicated donor family like the one that made this facility possible with their gift and now has a fancy plaque out in the lounge to show for it, but damn if not everybody should.

Three weeks ago, when I was in the hospital for PTL, I told JD that if the baby came then (which meant he would be in NICU for at least a week), there would be two hard things. One, when they would take the baby from the room and we would be left there by ourselves, again. Two, when we would have to get into a car and go home without our baby, again.

When the first of these came to pass in the early hours of Friday morning, I think it helped that we were still disoriented from the avalanche labor. Today would've been the day for the second. Instead, thanks to this NICU, I was spared the need to find out how I would handle it. It was rather enough, I believe, to have triggered physical memories of last year with a simple trip to the bathroom, thank you very much.

Only one parent can really room in here, though it doesn't have to be the same one all the time (and both can stay all day), so JD went home. He called me to say that he was uneasy not being with us, and he stopped by again later. But I think me not having to go too cut down on the deja vu factor for him. It's amazing how much a little chunk of well thought out real estate can do for people.

P.S. I am still working on a blog nickname for the new arrival, so a post with proper introductions is to follow.

4:11am

2008-08-15T23:26:00.004-04:00

I expected labor to go fast. I didn't expect it to go this fast. We left the house at 2am, arrived on the maternity floor around 2:25. Got the first cervical check at 2:45-- 4cm, 80%, bag ruptured. Delivered at 4:11. Seconds later-- a cry. Righteously pissed off baby, the dream that dared not speak its name, that didn't even dare to paint a self-portrait in my mind's eye, he was suddenly very corporeally here.

He punked out after that. Turns out you really should get all of the liquid out of the lungs if you are planning on using them for breathing. Who knew?

NICU, CPAP-- it all sounds a lot worse than it is. In reality, he had been trying to get the CPAP out for hours, and succeeded finally towards the evening, so now they are just watching. By which I mean measuring and recording. He is on IV sugar solution, but when he keeps his respiratory rate where they want it, I get to try breastfeeding. I have been pumping in the meantime, and feeling my uterus contract but good (all hail motrin! with a side order of per.coset!).

I didn't sleep last night, and only a couple of short naps today. I am in need of a solid sleep, and am failing pretty bad at keeping it at bay in order to keep writing. So I will wrap up now, and hope that putting together complete sentences comes easier in the morning.

Yes, he is still in NICU. But it's a warm and fuzzy NICU, the version where we don't really need to worry about his life, or even his health in the long run. He may have to stay there for a few days more, or he may get to come up to the Special Care nursery that is literally next door to my room on the antepartum floor, but it seems that even I am talking all about the when of going home, rather than the if.

Thank you, all, for being here through my long journey to when. It has meant more than I can express, especially in my current sleep-deprived state. But you can be sure that I will try to, another day.

Oh, and Monkey had been by.

And what the hell is this?

2008-08-12T21:45:00.003-04:00

Only a few short weeks ago I couldn't even process the idea of a live baby. Yes, while I was vigilantly noting every twinge and every kick in the effort to not have a dead one. Logic-shmogic. It says nowhere that I have to be consistent. Oh, I did the bare minimum-- I talked to my boss about the logistics of the maternity leave and I arranged for our wonderful nanny to come back for the days I will have to be at work. If, I kept saying, if.

Beyond that? Nothing. Blank. Couldn't go there. Wouldn't go there. Figured I didn't really have to go there. Oh, wait. One other thing. We talked about the room, about how we won't repaint it. I said I need to change something in there, but not much. It came to me-- the floor. The carpets upstairs are as old as the house-- almost 12 years old. Time to pull and change to fake hardwood. You know, laminate. But my dad said he can do it in a day, while I am still in the hospital. Seeing as he was the one who painted that room for A, finishing it exactly a week before A died, I think he gets to do this any way that works for him. Yes, I could've hired someone to do it, but I am pretty sure dad wants at it, but only after. If, I mean if.

So here's the thing. These days I can, sort of, once in a while, for short periods of time shhhh.... imagine the live baby thing. It started, strangely enough, the week before I ended up in the hospital in PTL. It started with me thinking that at some point I should think about what I want to have with me if I have to be admitted. I came up with three things-- my good camera, my little puppy that I bought in the early days because he reminded me of A somehow, and the doughnut pillow they gave me after Monkey. Shut up. I totally needed it, and I expect to need it again.

Turns out thinking you will deliver in the next couple of days really does a number on you. When that happens while you are hooked up to that lovely heart rate monitor, you might even begin to believe the whole deliver a live baby thing. Well, I did. Started to.

And then we went home. And I was calm for a few days. And then not so much, again. Though most days now I am calmer than I was before the hospital. (Only most-- I can still work myself up but good when something starts to seem fishy.) And suddenly, in these short little intervals when I think in terms of when rather than if, things began to come to me. Like the fact that finding my nursing bras may be a good idea (a long tale of trivial pursuit is skipped here, because I love you and don't want to bore you, but I do have them now, washed and packed), or that I may need to think of clothes. You know, for the baby. To come home in. Right.

I made Monkey's coming home outfit. It was a one piece with snaps down the front and on the legs, plus a fleece one piece with velcro closures for the vulgarities of the spring that is really still winter. Both are in her baby box now. I have said before that I don't do guilt, and as far as general statements go, this one is pretty accurate. But turns out I do it a little bit when it comes to things I do for my kids(TM).

I never made anything for A-- I thought I still had time. And I am pretty sure sewing baby clothes is not in vogue in that nice place that is not just a river in Egypt where I was spending the bulk of my time until just then. In fact, I am thinking this baby clothes thing gets me an automatic eviction notice. Suddenly, though, I found myself thinking that with the reprieve and the whole being at home all day thing I really should make him something.

My doom arrived in the form of Monkey looking through her baby book and box for the first time in a couple of years. She forgot about the clothes I made for her, and upon hearing what they were immediately wanted to give them to baby brother. Ummmm... waaaay out of season, kid. Plus, they are yours, to keep. But you have successfully accomplished your first mommy guilt trip, and on behalf of your unborn baby brother no less. Impressive, yes. But don't go getting used it, is all I am saying.

Here's why this is a big deal-- dead Jewish babies don't need any clothes. All they need is a shroud. Taking up this project meant creating a tangible, physical record of that bitch hope sneaking into my house.

So yeah, she's been hanging around. Oy.

That's my A puppy. Here for size comparison. And because he is cute.

I think the pants came out huge. It was supposed to be 1 month size (from this pattern). Well, might be good for comic relief.

This may not be a good idea...

2008-08-05T23:39:00.003-04:00

...but I am going to do it anyway. I am going to touch the third rail of polite discussion. Right here, right now. I am going to talk about religion. Or, rather, theology. I am going to try, very hard, to not flame, but discuss. And I am going to ask you, very politely, to please help me out. Preferably also without flaming.

See, I keep running into this one particular view of G-d's involvement in people's lives that is so foreign to me as to make me say, quite honestly, that I just do not get how one can live in the world we all live in and hold this view. And so I hope that maybe someone can explain it to me.

Here is the piece that prompted this particular round of head shaking. I was looking for a quick explanation of the Jewish custom of saying "B'sha'ah tovah," or "may it happen for you in good time" upon hearing of someone's pregnancy. This is the words I myself use because I feel that this avoids the presumption inherent in any form of congratulations. Congratulations, I feel are for when the baby is born alive. For the duration there is only the wishes for that outcome.

So I start reading this woman's story of how she came to appreciate the wisdom of b'sha'ah tovah, but I do not get very far before I trip and fall, and faceplant right into concrete. "Why is G-d doing this to me as I'm trying to bring a Jewish child into the world?" she asks about her difficult pregnancy, and I am starting to see red. Wait, I want to ask, so you think if you were trying to bring some heathen life into the world, it would be totally cool of G-d to do this to you?

But the part that is really bugging me, predictably, is the one about G-d doing this to her. Things get even more dicey, by which I mean completely incomprehensible to me, when, after relating the story of the pregnancy riddled with a number of problems, the author declares all of them to have been no more than a means to an end-- G-d's clever and miraculous way of assuring that her baby was monitored, and thus, saved just in a nick of time by an emergency c-section. The real problem, you see, was the unbeknown to anyone clotting disorder she had. Clotting disorder that would've killed the baby in only a few more hours. And, according to the author, all the other complications she experienced in the pregnancy were nothing but G-d's way of saving the baby.

Like I said, I don't get this at all. First, if G-d was getting involved, this seems like a bass ackwards way of doing it. Presumably, G-d could just fix the problem, or, you know, cause someone to run a clotting panel such that the actual problem was recognized before or early on in pregnancy, and the baby gestated uneventfully to full term and with no need for the somewhat traumatic early birth and NICU stay.

Second, and this is where I get really stuck, this sure looks like a lot of care to expand on this one baby and family. And it seems to me that if one is to accept that the supreme being did expand this much care to this particular baby, one would have to also note that an appreciable number of babies, Jewish and otherwise, were not granted the same level of care. And then one would have to ask what makes them less worthy? What makes their parents less worthy?

I never asked "why?" or "why us?" after A's death. Because to me it seemed like "why not us?" was an equally reasonable question. Bad things happen in the world, in every generation. Catastrophes for countries, peoples, and families. Holocaust was not that long ago. The concept of a G-d who decided to bring that down on each individual person who perished, everyone who was maimed or displaced, everyone who survived only to bear the scars, mental and physical, for the rest of their lives, that concept is not sitting well with me. Never had. On the flip side, ever since Monkey was born, I have maintained that there is no way to deserve to have a child, that nothing we could do would be enough to earn that happiness.

And so I never pray for tangible things, or for events I am hoping for-- I consider that futile. I only ever ask for peace and strength (and maybe wisdom, but that's borderline). I find myself firmly in the camp of "the age of miracles is long past" theology. But, more importantly for what I am talking about here, I find myself unable to understand people who claim personal attention/intervention from on high. Because to me that thought can not exist without a thought for what if? Or for the families where what if actually happened.

I can't understand how the author of this piece wouldn't see that by claiming divine intervention for her child, she is simultaneously saying that others weren't deemed worthy of it. Yes, I am saying that I do not understand how it is possible to not extend (or invert, whatever the case may be) one's thoughts on the matter. And once this thought is considered, the thought that for someone else the baby didn't make it, and there was no miraculous long-term plan in place to avoid that tragedy, well, once that's in one's head, I can't see how one would avoid asking what makes them so freaking special? And maybe I am wrong, but for myself I just wouldn't have an answer. Nothing about me is so exceptional that I can see getting a break of this magnitude, or any magnitude for that matter, while someone else did not.

I also feel, and this is perhaps a little tangential to this discussion, that her insistence on the divine source of her son being alive cheapens the professionalism and care exhibited by her doctors. If they were nothing but G-d's instrument, than it could've been any doctor there, any warm body with a medical degree. To me it is so much more inspiring to think that these were professionals who cared and did their job. And saved her baby's life, and her, from ever knowing things I know.

And yet, I know that hers is theology espoused often and by many. If you share it, or understand it, please explain it to me. Particularly, what I want to know is how is it possible to be a thinking person living in the world we live in and have this theology. I really want to understand. I feel like I must be missing something, some major clue, but I don't know what it is, or where to look for it.

I promise I won't bite, but if you feel more comfortable commenting anonymously, go right ahead.

Every day

2008-07-31T23:31:00.002-04:00

When I first installed a stat counter, I used to check it obsessively. This is how I knew, one day last year, that someone made their way here by looking for how to stop lactation after stillbirth.

I don't check all the time anymore. I don't even check every day. But every time that I do check, I see that several people end up here, on the post I wrote in response to that first search last year, by searching for various versions of lactation, stopping lactation, milk, stopping milk production, or any of the above with the addition of after miscarriage, or after stillbirth. A barrel of laughs, I tell you.

It's not that I don't know that babies die every day. I even know that in this country alone on an average day, more than one baby will die. But it's one thing to know that, abstractly. It is a whole other thing to have proof, even if only via the internet searches, that somewhere, for someone, it happened again. On a sunny day, or a cloudy one. During rush hour, or in the dead of night. Someone's world stopped. And they are one of us now.

That was one of the things I was thinking about Friday night, after I made the phone calls, but before either JD or my sister made it to the hospital. I thought I might end up having the baby that day or the next. I was hoping I could hold out for 48 hours, but not much beyond that. And what I was thinking about was the encouraging stuff the neonatalogist was saying, the encouraging statistics I knew for myself. I was thinking that this isn't likely to be a bad day for me, not likely to become a mine on my calendar. Not on mine. But on someone's, somewhere.

Earlier that very day there was a comment on the lactation post from a newly bereaved mom who had lost her baby just three days before. It was almost a compunction, when I first read the comment, to think back on what I was doing three days prior, to see it anew as the day someone else's life broke into the before and after.

Even more jarringly, as I walked from the garage to the hospital that day, enveloped in my own worry, something caught my eye. It took me a moment to process it, and by the time I did, the woman holding it was already past me. A memory box. She was holding a memory box. The same exact color they gave me for A.

I stopped. I was both glued in place and wanting to run to her. Only I wasn't sure which one she was-- there were four women walking together, friends or family I couldn't really tell. One held the memory box, another-- one of those plastic hospital bags they give you to move your possessions. Before they passed me I wasn't paying enough attention to know which one was still wearing maternity.

I stood there for a while trying to decide what to do. I wanted to go to her, to say what, I do not know. Certainly not that it would all be ok. Maybe just that I know, and I am sorry.

It honestly took a good bit of time for me to remember that I am pregnant, that I am visibly pregnant (or that I am at the hospital because of that very fact), and that, therefore, I might just be the very last person this mother would want to see right then.

It was somebody else's terrible day. Each day is somebody else's terrible day.

****************************************

Today is the day, gestational age at which A died. Today is also eighteen months since he was born. I was thinking about both of those things all day. But I also knew, kept repeating to myself, that it was a day like any other, that my body and cord accidents do not know about calendars. It doesn't have to become my terrible day, anew. It didn't.

Except I am sure that it did. For someone else, somewhere.

PS. A few days ago, Tash wrote about this very topic-- the intersection of someone's happy and someone else's devastated. It's a beautiful post. Go read it.

On a somewhat related topic, I have a new post up at Glow in the Woods. It is also a bit about the time and space of grief.

Home

2008-07-28T19:23:00.003-04:00

I am home. On my couch, in my own clothes, having taken a shower in my own bathroom and a loooong nap in my own bed. Oh, and I had some real food. It is a bit surreal-- on Friday night I sort of bid this mental farewell to exiting the hospital or being at home again still pregnant.

I have to say a huge thank you to all of you funny and warm people-- your words made me feel much less alone, and much less confined. Which is saying something when I have barely left the bed for two and a half days.

The last of the mag was done around 5am. I woke up a few times through the night, but was up for good slightly before 7, when a certain occupant of my uterus, having also been freed from the muscle-relaxing properties of magnesium, went on a long wiggling streak. It was plenty painful, but it was very nice to feel that. He had been moving even on the mag, but not as much, and certainly not with the same force.

There were a few mildish contractions through the morning, but they seemed to quiet down with time. We waited for the cervix check until noon, and when that showed no changes, we were released. Dr.Best called me in my room a bit earlier, and said that he would actually prefer that I skip tomorrow's NST (on account of what amounts to a very extensive one we had over the weekend) in favor of limiting the amount of time I would spend moving or being moved. He also wants me to have that "very low threshold for calling and coming back in." No problem there, doc.

I am actually feeling pretty calm for now. Not having had any significant contractions since coming home helps, as does the moving baby. I particularly appreciated the dance party that began not a minute after I woke up from my nap. Of course I know not to expect this to last indefinitely-- the evening is coming, and this is the week. But I am trying to draw on the reserves that got refilled by those two and a half days of hearing the heart rate monitor thump over my ear.

Complete

2008-07-27T22:58:00.001-04:00

I have been beta-complete for 27 minutes now. That is to say, I am 27 minutes past the 48 hours for steroids to take full effect. The mag has been turned down to half the dose I have been on since yesterday afternoon or one third the dose I started with. It should go away entirely sometime overnight.

The state of my cervix will be assessed in the morning, and further decisions made. Based on limited contractions in the last day or so, the doctors seem fairly confident that there is a sojourn of as-yet unidentified length for me on the antepartum floor, and there is even talk of me being sent home. As this is the gestational week at which A died, I am a bit jumpy about that course of action. But I expect that Dr. Best will be by sometime in the morning to heavily influence the decision-making process.

Oh, and when the mag makes itself entirely scarce, I get to have solid food. There is a large plastic container of blueberries in my room, farm-picked by friends and already pre-washed, waiting to be attacked. The hospital, as hospitals are wont to do, tried to convince me earlier today that the bowl of chemically offensive yellow liquid was chicken soup, which I was allowed to have as per clear liquids ruling.

Ha! I am a Jew from the Old Country-- I know from chicken soup, and that was no chicken soup. Let me tell you about chicken soup. Chicken soup is made from, wait for it... chicken. With onion, carrot, bay leaves, salt, and pepper. And that's exactly the soup I did have today, courtesy first of my friend Natalie, and then my sister. My sister takes the prize for consideration in looking after the convalescent, as her and my brother-in-law (dudes, I have a brother-in-law... still weird to say that... they've been married for five weeks now. When does it stop being weird?) replaced the by-then-empty carafe of tea they brought yesterday with two, count them two carafes-- one of tea and one of chicken soup. Labeled for my convenience and everything.

Also? I have the best nurse tonight again. She was on last night, and is on again tonight. She is kind, cheerful efficient, goes way out of her way to make your and your partner's life a bit easier. And she gives massages. All my nurses have been very good (well, except for a lunch replacement today who tried to convince me babies don't die in utero in minutes... aha, I will be sure to pass that along to the pathologist who said otherwise, k?), but Nurse L. really is the grand prize in the nurse lottery.

And finally, as it is still Sunday, I thought I'd multitask and jump back into Mel's Sunday Show and Tell.

This is what I saw yesterday morning in my hospital room-- the mag and the IV fluids bathed in the rays of the very early morning sun.

P.S. Dear Teacher, Please excuse the late posting on the picture-- ~~contractions ate my homework~~ the camera made it to the hospital on Friday night, but the USB cord took until today. It's all better now.