Where I Am Now: Almost 18 Months

I participated in this project a year ago.  I was in a very different place a year ago.  But you know?  It wasn't all that different.  I can reread that post and still feel all those same emotions.  They're just a little softer now.

So maybe time does help.  Right where I am now is one week shy of eighteen months out from the loss of my daughter and 35 weeks pregnant with my second baby.

I was trying to articulate to David the other day exactly how I felt, feeling the Deuce kick and wishing Eliza were here, too.  I read this on another blogger's post (Amelia) and I have been borrowing it in my head ever since.

I am happy about all the things in my life that I can control.

It seems like a pretty accurate way to sum things up right now.

When people ask how I'm feeling, I mostly say "Fine" and I mean it.  Physically, I'm fine.  Emotionally, I think I'm doing as well as can be expected.  I guess I'm fine.  Sometimes I even feel lucky, which I never would have believed as possible.

The idea of happiness is still something I struggle with.  How to be both happy and sad.  How to reconcile the bitter with the sweet.  How much I wish things were different, how glad I am that we've gotten to where we are.

So much of the heaviness has lifted.  Grief isn't suffocating me.  It can still blindside me, tears still come so easily, there is still nothing I wouldn't do to change things and get her back.  But it doesn't hurt to be alive the  way it did for so long.  Ordinary life is enjoyable again, and there was such a long time when I didn't believe that would be possible.  I can't believe that my sense of humor is still intact, that it's possible to have fun again.

The bland, gray world that seemed to be all that was left without Eliza, has sparkle and flavor again.  It's not without darkness and shadows (how could it be, when I miss her so much?), but there are more bright moments than dark ones.  I feel like I am living instead of just going through the motions.  Eliza is still right there with me, but it truly feels more like a presence than an absence.  She's the daughter I love, not just a gaping hole in my life.  I miss her being here, but I also know that she'll never stop being our first baby and a beloved member of our family.  And that brings me comfort instead of just sadness.

I feel recalled to life this summer.  I don't know what I did last summer.  I taught a class.  I sobbed my way through my birthday.  I fled the country to the wonders of Canada for two weeks.  But we didn't go to the farmer's market.  We didn't visit green houses and carefully choose new flowers.  We didn't eat dinner (and breakfast) out on the deck.  We didn't barbecue with friends or invite people to come in town for the weekend.  I thought we were functioning, but it was all we could do to get through the day.  I forgot what it felt like to have energy, to get excited about little things, to relish life and delight in things like sparkling citrus water and strawberry shortcake.

That doesn't mean that I don't wake up at 4am with a grief and fear that weighs so heavy on me that eventually I can't take it anymore and my sobs wake up David and he wraps his arms around me while my tears and snot make a wet puddle on his chest.  Yeah, that still happens.  But those days are few, and far between.  The hardest thing about right now is the conflation of grief about Eliza and fear about the Deuce.  It's hard to separate those emotions, and I feel conflicted about the way they seem to twist together and overlap.

I've said it before and I'll say it again and again:  there are no silver linings.  There is no lesson great enough to justify the loss of the baby we wanted and loved so much.  But I am so appreciative of the gifts we've received because of Eliza, of the people who have reached out to us in kindness and in friendship.  And I feel now like I can try to give something back sometimes.

The biggest difference between now and a year ago may be that eighteen months out is long enough that I can look up from my pain and interact with the world around me.  It's long enough that I can talk about Eliza without crying, and the Deuce has actually made it easier for me to do so.  What I've found is that I'm not the object of pity and wonder that I feared I would be.  Instead, Eliza is a connection I share with anyone who has lost someone they love dearly.  Because of Eliza, I've heard stories of death and loss and sadness that would otherwise have been hidden.  I never expected to enter this world of shared tragedy and empathy and understanding, and I certainly wouldn't have traded my daughter's life to get here.  But I'm honored that people trust me with those stories, that they see me as someone who can listen and understand in a world that wants to ignore grief and sweep it aside. I know that they only do so because of Eliza.  And, surprisingly, it doesn't feel like a burden when someone shares their story with me.  It feels like a gift.

Yesterday we bought a baby swing for the Deuce right before we visited the park where we have a memorial brick for Eliza near the Angel of Hope statue.  The park was gorgeous and blooming, and a cardinal fluttered around us, which always makes us think of David's grandpa.  It was a day of preparing and remembering.  It was happy and sad.  I cried and I laughed.  I felt overwhelmed with love for both my Baby Ducks.

Uncharted Territory

Well, here we are.  Welcome to Week 34, Day 4.

I am surprised at how light I feel.  Happy, even.  Ready to revel in the last few weeks of this pregnancy.  (Not that the fear is gone, but there are so many other emotions filling in the gaps around it.)

I've kept myself busy this week, and also let myself enjoy getting some special treatment because of the belly.

Why yes, young man, I will let you return this cart for me.

Why, thank you, Crazy Target Checkout Guy, for loudly jumping to my defense and telling me I did NOT need to apologize to the woman who was trying to pass through because she could have said excuse me, nevermind the fact that she actually DID say excuse me before I said, "Oh, I'm sorry," and you evidently didn't hear her and now you are kind of causing an awkward scene.

And thanks to you, too, large middle-aged-man-on-a-small-scooter, who not only stopped so I could cross the parking lot to my car, but who also held out your arm to a car that did not want to stop and wait for me and shouted, "No!  Mommies first!" as I waddled to my car.

Thanks again to the hospital worker in scrubs who whispered to me in confidence by the elevators, "You might not feel like it all the time, but you look so cute!"

Thanks to the worker at Qdoba last night who told me that my veggie burrito was on the house because he didn't want me to have to stand and wait while he restarted the cash register computer.

And thanks, a million times over, to everyone who has commented and e-mailed, and to everyone who has included the Deuce and Eliza and me in their thoughts and prayers.  I told the Deuce today after our NST (passed without me in tears--a real success!) that there are so many people out there rooting for us.  It's an amazing feeling.

Yes, there's still a deep, broken place in my heart.  There's still so much regret that we don't have our toddling little girl with wispy blond hair and big blue eyes and that little round nose here with us right now.  As the Deuce passes every NST and my fluid checks continue to be perfect (today the Deuce charmed the nurse doing the fluid check by showing off some adorable kicking action), there is a sad, melancholy voice that will always ask, "Why wasn't it like this last time?  Why couldn't we have Eliza, too?  What the hell happened that we couldn't see?"

But mostly, I'm trying to turn my focus to right now, to this miracle, instead of the one that vanished long before I wanted to let it go.  Here's another amazing thing--this baby--and the fact that there was another baby, and that we loved her and lost her and thought we'd lost ourselves for a while there too, it makes all the difference in the world, and yet it doesn't make this baby any less incredible as a weensy little person unto itself.

One of my favorite poems opens with the line, "Speaking of marvels, I am alive together with you, when I might have been alive with anyone under the sun."  I say this to David, and I say it to the Deuce also.

It is a tragedy of epic proportions in my little life that my first daughter is gone and I'm left to mourn her forever.  But I don't want to lose sight of the fact that it is a breathtaking marvel that the rest of us are alive here together, when life might have gone so many other ways.

I read Jack London's credo today on another blog, and I'm copying it here so that I can remember it and so that I can honor Eliza and everybody else I love by trying to live by it:

I would rather be ashes than dust!
I would rather that my spark should burn out
in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot.
I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom
of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.
The function of man is to live, not to exist.
I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.
I shall use my time.

The time I had with Eliza was a gift.  This time--this new post-34-weeks-and-3-days time that I have with the Deuce, it's a gift that I will never take for granted.  I shall use my time.

Nature, Red in Tooth and Claw

Oh, you guys.

Yesterday was a rough day.  I was tense and on edge from the moment I woke up.  Writing it out and reading your comments helped enormously, but there's no sigh of relief at this point.  We're still playing the waiting game (and I, for one, am tired of it).

The title of this post is a line from Tennyson's In Memoriam, which is a beautiful poem about suffering and trying to reconcile the loss of a loved one with one's faith in God (plot spoiler:  It's not easy.  For Tennyson or anyone.).  But it came to mind yesterday when we lost the newest member of our family (and NO I DO NOT MEAN THE DEUCE--the baby and I are both fine and I DO have a good sense of perspective about that, thank you very much).

We lost our little Dixie.

I know, I know.  The Urban Farm thing seemed so sweet and idyllic.  A place where flowers bloom and birds sing and the sun is always shining and the garden is always ready to harvest and dogs lie down with chickens.

Except our dogs do not lie down with chickens.  Quite the opposite, in fact.

I got home from work in time to have a quick lunch before heading to the hospital for monitoring.  I let Cooper out in the backyard to enjoy the beautiful day while I ate.  No more than thirty minutes later, I called him to come in because I needed to leave.  He did not come when I called him.

He has been fascinated by the chickens, but we've mostly ignored him, hoping he would lose interest once he realized they were here to stay.  We let him see them through the pen (supervised) Sunday afternoon.

fascinated

Then we ended up moving them out to their coop permanently when David caught Loretta up on the side of the tub in the garage, ready to hop over the edge.  They are still so small that they just stay in the coop and have not ventured out into their pen on their own, although during the day we leave the ramp open so they could go outside if they wanted to.  Cooper couldn't see them at all, just hear them (and smell them), so he was pretty intrigued by the whole thing, but we didn't think much of it.  He spent a lot of Sunday evening hanging out near the coop, but he couldn't actually get to them, and he wasn't barking at them or anything.  We planned to introduce them when the chickens were bigger, making sure that Cooper understood he wasn't to lunge at them, and figuring that once they had wings and claws they would be intimidating enough that he would leave them alone (as he does the chickens at our parents' houses).

But when I went outside yesterday to see why he was not responding, I found a fox in the hen house.

And by fox, I mean puggle.

And by henhouse, I mean that he had clawed his way into the pen by separating the chicken wire from the entry way where David had nailed it in place.

Cooper was in the wire pen.  The chicks had been left in the coop.  But the door between the two was open.

I screamed--the kind of blood-curdling scream that probably should have made my neighbors come running.

I leaped across the deck to the chicken coop and threw open the roof, convinced I was about to see a horror-movie style scene of blood and gore.

Instead, I saw two chickens, hanging out together in the corner, as far away from the door leading out to the pen as they could get.  Wynona and Loretta were there.  But Dixie was no where to be found.  The pine chips near the door were moved out of the way, as though there had been a scuffle at the top of the ramp.

Cooper was out in the pen, next to the ramp, staring at the chickens, and then at me as I started crying.  He tried to come over to me when I called him again (my voice edged with hysteria) but he seemed to be afraid of the ramp, and I couldn't reach him.  I also couldn't lift the big lid to the pen and reach in and lift him out because (1) he's freaking heavy and (2) my belly is freaking huge.

I was looking everywhere for Dixie, but there was absolutely no sign of her.  I knelt down in front of the little door to the yard, opened it, knocked the ramp out of the way, and dragged Cooper out of the pen by his collar.  By this point, I was sobbing.

Dixie was gone.

And my sweet, precious, unbelievably cute, most lovable dog in the entire world had MURDERED her.

I haz chikn?

I couldn't bear to look at Cooper.  I KNOW that he's part beagle and his instincts are to hunt, but I felt like he was a secret sociopath, lurking in our midst, waiting to slaughter the innocent.

It didn't help that Dixie was the smallest and sweetest and my favorite of our chickens.

It also didn't help that I was now late for my non-stress test.

I got Cooper in the house, Loretta and Wynona safe in their coop.  I hurried around the yard, hoping against hope that somehow Dixie had escaped the pen through the hole Cooper had created and was hiding somewhere.

I knew it wasn't true, but I wanted to find her so much.  I was still crying, and knew I had to pull myself together and get to my appointment, but it felt like I was the one who had let Dixie die.  I had let Cooper out in the yard unsupervised.  I had failed to protect a defenseless little baby bird.  I had allowed her to be attacked and eaten by a big, bad wolf (evidently in one gigantic gulp).  It was so horrifying.  I'd already become attached to those chickens, especially to Dixie, and I still didn't want to accept the fact that my sweet, cuddly, snuggle-buddy Cooper was a vicious and bloodthirsty predator.  I mean, he is a freaking PUGGLE!  It's a novelty mixed-breed!  He should be DOMESTICATED!  He should not be a merciless KILLER of innocents!

I called David and managed to say, "The baby is okay, I'm okay" before I burst into tears and started wailing.

David thought I had been in a car accident and totaled the car.  He kept asking me to repeat myself.  Finally, the third time, I managed to take a deep breath and say, "COOPER.  ATE.  DIXIE!"

Honestly, I think David was as sad as I was.

So you can imagine the sort of mood I was in by the time I got to the hospital for my appointment.

The NST started and the Deuce was apparently napping, perhaps worn out from all of the excitement of my horror-filled afternoon?  I watched the machine print out a graph that showed no accelerations and I started to feel panicky.

This was it.  This was what happened to my babies at 34 weeks and 1 day.  This is where everything starts to go wrong.  I was preparing myself for the worst.  I needed to get David there.  I was starting to convince myself that they were going to admit me, there was going to be an emergency c-section, the Deuce would be in the NICU, there would be danger of brain damage and cerebral palsy and other risks associated with prematurity... and... and... (because when you start worrying, why not go WHOLE HOG, you know?).

The nurse came in and said, "Your baby is sleepy!" and I burst into tears.  I said I was worried.  I told her I'd eaten lunch and a cookie and I was drinking ice water and I was afraid something was wrong.  I told her that 34 weeks was when we'd lost our first baby.

The nurse went to get me an apple juice and I texted David and told him that no one but me was concerned, but I needed him to get up to the hospital as soon as possible.

Then I chugged my apple juice, David texted me that he was on his way, and about fifteen minutes later, the Deuce had passed the NST with multiple accelerations and I was on my way to have my fluid level checked via ultrasound (it was normal).

I called David on my way from the testing center to my OB's office to ask him where he was.  Traffic was crawling, so I told him not to bother coming to the hospital--he probably wouldn't make it there before I was heading home.

He got home shortly before I did.

I was still weepy and only somewhat convinced by my OB's reassuring hug that everything was going to be okay.

Dixie was still gone.

We were both so sad.

Cooper did not go anywhere near the chicken coop.  David said he'd gotten "in big trouble."  I asked if he spanked Cooper (we don't spank the dogs as a general rule).  David just repeated, "He got in big trouble."  I was glad I wasn't there, but honestly I'm even more glad that he is afraid to go over by the chicken coop.

I think we're going to get one more baby chick while Loretta and Wynona are still small, and try to keep our number at three this time.  I also think that I am not really cut out for the realities of life and death on a farm.

Cooper wanted to snuggle as usual on my lap last night.  I was horrified and angry with him, but I also knew that he did not understand why.

Why no luv?

So I, reluctantly, allowed him to sit with me.  He sighed contentedly and rested his head on my belly.

 My ever-loyal and loving companion.  And killer of chickens. 

Life is fragile and fleeting.  The laws of nature are mysterious.  And I am so freaking ready for this week to be over already.

Week 34

This is it.

We are 34 weeks in.

We lost Eliza at 34 weeks 3 days.

It's not like I've ever lost track of where I am in this pregnancy.  But for the past few days, the timeline is all I can think about.

My coping method has been to keep busy-busy-busy, and then anytime I have a spare moment (or I've worn myself completely out) and I sit down, I whip out the cell phone and do a kick count for reassurance.

Over the weekend, we cleaned out the shed, reorganized our closet, mostly emptied the guest room closet, reorganized wrapping paper storage, ruthlessly gathered a zillion things to donate to charity (including seven pairs of my shoes AND some books, both of which I find very difficult to part with), watched four episodes of Game of Thrones, planted flowers, moved the chickens from their tub in the garage to their coop, walked the dogs at the park, and made a run to Target specifically to purchase gelato.  I finished reading a novel (Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca--I can't believe I waited this long to read it.  I totally loved it) and immediately started another one (I'm rereading A Room With a View).

I also did about a dozen kick counts, and burst into tears at least five times.

There are so many things that are reassuring about The Deuce and this pregnancy.  Lots of activity, including some kicks and movements that are so intense, especially up by my ribs, that they cross that weird line where tickling becomes painful but still makes you laugh.  I have a non-stress test scheduled for this afternoon and another on Thursday.  Every NST has been reactive since we hit 32 weeks.  My amniotic fluid level has been well within the normal range every time.  The Deuce has never failed to give me ten kicks in an hour, and most of the time it takes less than 10 minutes to get ten kicks.  So even though I am hyperaware of everything that could go wrong, my vigilance always meets with reassurance.

And so I wonder why I wasn't more vigilant last time.  I wonder why I can't remember the way Eliza moved.  I wonder what signs were there that I should have seen.

Why wasn't I doing kick counts with Eliza that last weekend?

Why wasn't her movement the last thing I thought about before I fell asleep and the first thing I thought about when I woke up?

How could she have slipped away without me paying attention?

It makes me feel like such a failure.  Worse than that, like I failed her.  I let her down.  I was distracted, oblivious, naive.  I thought I was smart and well-read and highly informed.  But in the worst kind of irony, as I was trying to read and absorb everything I needed to know about pregnancy and birth and having a new baby, I missed some crucial sign that something was wrong with my baby.

My OB tells me that this is a new chapter.  But I can't stop flipping back in time and wondering what I missed, what I should have known.  It's the worst part of not knowing what happened to her, of not having answers.  Because maybe there was nothing I could have done.

But maybe there was something.  And I just didn't do it.

So in between my various household projects, I'm paying attention to every kick, every hiccup, every movement.  I know my doctors are watching these tests carefully.  I know that I can call my OB or our doula anytime I'm worried.  But that doesn't change the fact that I have to make the call, I have to be the one who realizes that the Deuce needs help.  It sounds melodramatic, but it honestly feels like the only thing standing between where we are now and losing the Deuce this week is my vigilance.

It's an exhausting and terrifying responsibility, to try to guard a child that I can't see or hear or touch.  To make judgment calls based on physical sensations that I am constantly second guessing.  To have to trust my intuition when it's that intuition precisely that failed me last time.  We are so close and the stakes are so high.  We've reached the point where everything depends on me knowing whether something feels wrong.

And we all know what a great job I did with that responsibility last time.

When I  had a huge meltdown about this over the weekend, David kept telling me, "We're in this together."  And I know that's true.  I know that he worries about and loves this baby as much as I do.  After all that we've been through, I absolutely know that I can count on having him next to me no matter what.

But it's not quite the same level of responsibility, you know?  Because if something goes wrong, I let him down, too.  Again.

He can sit with his hands on my belly and feel the Deuce kick (in righteous indignation at how horrible King Joffrey is on Game of Thrones), but he's  not in a position to potentially save this baby by realizing that something is wrong, that the movement has slowed, that there are signs of pre-term labor.  I'm the only one who can do that.

And I am really scared that I'm going to miss something.

Again.

Urban Farm

Quick photo update:  Since a few people have asked, our DSLR is a Canon t2i, in a bundle with two lenses and a camera bag.  As for why we chose Canon over Nikon, it was seriously a toss-up and David carefully weighed prices, consumer reports, various online ratings, and word of mouth recommendations from family and friends.  I seriously think we could have gone either way, but I'm happy with what we got (or I will be, you know, as soon as I figure out all the fancy features).  I used it to take the pictures for this post, too.

Now, let me introduce you to our newest family members:

Meet Dixie, Loretta, and Wynona

Yes, friends.  THEM ARE CHICKENS!  Well, they are cute baby chicks that will eventually be big, sassy, egg-laying chickens.  

At least, we hope they lay eggs.  That's kind of the idea.  In the meantime, they are adorable balls of fluff that live in a big rubbermaid container in our garage.

We had a lot of fun coming up with names.  I was really pushing for Madonna, Beyonce, and Gaga, but David was not on board.  He says they are country girls.  My mom suggested Dixie, and I chose Loretta.  I also suggested Dolly, but David though that Loretta would be left out if the other two were D names.  So he named the other one Wynona.  Wynona is the biggest and the sassiest of the bunch.

Dixie is the one with the dark spot on her head (back, right).  She is the sweetest of the bunch.

Having a girls-only pow-wow in the corner.

Fluff ball!  I think this is Loretta.  She has a little black spot on her head, not as much as Dixie.  

Chowing down on chicken feed.  Loretta, Dixie, Wynona.

I still can't quite believe that we have backyard chickens.  Even though I grew up in a small town, I'm kind of, well... I'm not a tomboy and I don't really like things that smell bad (Cooper is occasionally the exception to this rule).  I've never thought of myself as the backyard chicken kind of girl.  My mom has two chickens, and they kind of make me nervous with their eyes and their beaks and their grody legs.  I really have no experience with chickens other than the chicks we hatched in my third-grade classroom.

But I love the idea of fresh eggs with low cholesterol and lots of omega-3's!  My parents have had much success with their backyard chickens (one terribly sad incident with a hawk notwithstanding).  And the more we researched it, the more do-able it seemed.  So we decided to go for it.  I'm still a little nervous about the whole thing (and it was really not cool of Dixie to poop IN MY HAND yesterday) but my husband seems to have morphed into Farmer Duckworth these days, with his gardening and chickens.  So overall, I'm pretty excited about this little project.  I fully expect that I will grow to love Dixie, Loretta, and Wynona, just as I grew to love Little Mac.

OMG DID U SAY CHIKN?

WUT?  I LUV CHIKN!!!

No, we have not introduced the dogs to the chickens.  The wee baby chicks are still so tiny and skittish and the mere idea makes me nervous.  When they get big enough to move into their coop and pen, and defend themselves from nosy dogs, then we'll make introductions.  Mac and Coop have been around chickens at my parents' house and at David's dad's house, and they actually haven't demonstrated much interest in them.  That may be different now that the chickens have moved in to our yard, but we shall see.

Here's a view of their coop and their pen:

We bought the coop from a local farm supply store, way out in the county.  David built their little pen himself.  They will have full access to the pen all the time, and we'll let them out in the backyard when we can be there to supervise them (and scare away hawks, cats, etc.).  I think I'm going to paint the coop to match our house.  Won't that be the cutest?

back of our house - this picture was taken standing just in front of the garden

This view better shows the position of the coop and their pen.  Tucked away to the side, but easily accessible from the concrete slab that meets up with our deck.  I think it's awkward to have the grill so close to the coop, considering we occasionally grill chicken, but David just stared at me like I was a lunatic when I mentioned this concern, so the grill stays.  FYI...  The big blue things are actually a barrel that David cut in half and uses for planters.  The gray cabinet houses a radio and other yard/deck/bbq supplies.

I've been amazed at how many of our friends have been SO excited about the idea of backyard chickens.  It's like trendy these days.  Of course, one friend called us "hippies," but I think he'll be singing another tune when we're living off the grid, post-zombie apocalypse.  AM.I.RITE?

In just a few months, we should have plenty of eggs and a shitload of fertilizer for our garden!

the garden

So there you have it.  Our little urban farm.

The only thing missing is a clothes line with cloth diapers flapping in the breeze.  Hopefully we'll be installing that in July.

Photo Op: First Edition

Yes, we're totally that couple.  We'd planned to buy a digital SLR camera right before Eliza came along.  She was due in January, so we were hoping to get a good deal with some after Christmas sales and gift cards, which was the only reason we continued to put it off.

And then there was nothing to take pictures of.

I'm not buying things to prepare for the Deuce, but somehow I could handle the idea of buying a new camera.  It's not quite the same as pastel colored baby clothes, you know?  So David did his research, comparing prices and camera reviews and even interviewing the photographer who came to his school to take pictures of the kids to see what kind of camera he would recommend.

And we finally decided on a camera and spent almost the equivalent of a mortgage payment on it.

So in the last couple of weeks, we've been trying to figure out how to use it.  It came with a DVD that is 86 minutes long.  However, it took us almost an hour to get through the first little bit of it because I kept having to pause and rewind so we could figure out what the hell the cheerful guy in the coral button-down shirt was talking about.  Where is that button?  How do I move from one selection to the next?  Should we have read the manual first?  


(Answer to that last question is yes.)

Mostly we know that it will take a lot of trial and error, so I've ordered a book that my cousin recommended, and for now we're just trying to use the camera as much as we can.  We've pretty well mastered the different auto-settings, so really it's just a matter of figuring out the manual settings.

Anyway, as part of our figure-out-how-the-hell-to-use-this-thing project (and to make ourselves take pictures with something besides our cell phones), we decided to each do this 30 Day Gratitude project from Pinterest.

And yes!  I will be posting this every once in a while over the next month!  Because there's nothing more exciting than looking at some newbie's amateur photography attempts!  (Except perhaps hearing about their Couch to 5K progress, which I assure you, should I ever decide to undertake, will NEVER get mentioned on the blog, no offense to anyone who is progressing from the couch to a 5K--it's a worthy goal, it's just not one I'm interested in reading or writing about).

This post is the First Edition of Photo Op.  Please note that none of these pictures will be edited or Photoshopped because OMG people that's a whole 'nother class/book/effort that I have not yet undertaken.  So you're getting them straight from the memory card.  Do not expect them to demonstrate photo skillz, either.  The fact that we're just using a camera again is really a big step for us.

One thing I've discovered in this project is that there's some pleasure in documenting these little things, and I try to choose things I really do feel grateful for each day.

1. Favorite(ish) Food

Sugar Snap Peas:  BEFORE (they are the vines growing along the back and right side of the garden)

Sugar Snap Peas: AFTER

OK, this one is kind of a lie because although I do really enjoy sugar snap peas, I definitely would not say they are my favorite food (not when compared to popcorn, salted caramel gelato, caprese salad, etc.).  But they are a food.  And we are eating a shit ton of them, because we are growing a shit ton of them.  In fact, judging by the number of sugar snap peas in our garden, you would think that we were feeding the Duggars instead of the two of us.  But I'm glad we have a garden growing so many fresh veggies, and I'm even more grateful to have a husband who prepares dinner each night.

2. Smile(s).

D's smile (and the neighbor's hydrangea bush)

Cooper's smile (anticipating a chew)

3. Happiness.

Is there anything happier than a dog rolling in something nasty?  I don't think so.  This is Cooper in gleeful ecstasy.

4. Leaves.

Specifically, mint leaves.  Mimosas, Mojitos, anyone?

Not sure if honeysuckle counts as leaves, but David took this photo and I was impressed.

5. Morning sky.  Favorite Athlete.

David in action on the mound.

6. Books.

I looked at the Gratitude Photo Project  on day 6 (it hangs on our fridge because we are nerds like that) and groaned to David, "We'll never be able to do today's photo!  We just don't have the material for it!"  Because I am the world's most hilarious wife.  Then I took this picture.

HP FTW

7. Something funny.

That is Cooper's butt.  He is head-first in the middle of our compost bin.  Which obviously needs some repair.  Naughty dog.  I knew he was into trouble when I called him to get a treat and he didn't come running.  He didn't even hear me sneak up on him.

Almost

Last night I got a text.  It was from someone in David's family.  It read:

Happy almost mommy's day!  Hope David is spoiling u.  How are you feeling?


I read those words and I felt like someone punched me in the gut.

Almost mommy's day?

Are you fucking kidding me?

I wanted to cry.  I wanted to throw something.  I wanted to puke.  I wanted to scream the f-word a million more times.  I wanted to grab this person and shake her and make her understand that that no matter how nice her intentions might be, she seems to be utterly lacking in empathy.  I wanted to tell that nothing could be more inconsiderate than implying that I am not yet a mother.  I wanted to scream at her that I will not deny my daughter's existence, that it does not make me feel better to pretend she did not exist, that I am a mother just as much as she is, and that Eliza still matters--that her life still makes all the difference in the world to mine.

I took a deep breath.  I had to do something.  I didn't want to react in anger, only because I knew that would be counterproductive.  But there was no way I could let this go.

I wrote back:

This is my third mother's day since we found out I was pregnant with Eliza in 2010.  Hard to believe. Emotional day.  We're really missing our girl.


I got no reply.

I didn't expect to.

But it needed to be said.  How dare she imply that I am not already a mom?  How she could POSSIBLY suggest that after what I've been through, I'm "almost" a mommy?  I've now endured my second mother's day without my baby girl.  I have lived through what I would have sworn was unsurvivable.  I will not pretend that my daughter never existed, and I don't give a shit if that makes some people uncomfortable.  Almost mommy's day my ass.

Every day it hurts that I was robbed of the opportunity to continue to parent my daughter.  Every day I am struck by how unfair it is that we never lived through the everyday joys and struggles of bringing home a newborn and watching her grow.  I think about this member of David's family, and I try to make excuses for her (they have a long family history of dysfunction and denial, and, after all, she's the only one in his family who even acknowledged me on mother's day, so I guess you could say she made an effort?).  But mostly, I feel really hurt and really pissed off.

ALMOST?  I wondered what her definition of motherhood is, and what it would take for me not to fall short of it.

I am as certain of being Eliza's mom as I have ever been certain of anything in my life.  But I realize that I was never given the opportunity to do so many of the things I had dreamed of doing, that I had always associated with motherhood.  So when did it happen, exactly?  At what point did I actually become a mom?

Was it the Sunday morning in May of 2010, when I saw those two pink lines on the pregnancy test and felt the giddy rush of realizing that it had really happened--I was really pregnant?  Was that the moment I became a mom?

Was it a month later, when we first heard the baby's heartbeat at the doctor's office--wow-wow-wow-wow-wow?

Was it seeing our baby duck on the ultrasound for the first time?  Hearing the sonographer exclaim, "There's your little peanut!" and feeling the biggest smile of my life spread across my face as I squeezed David's hand?

Was it when I started researching and reading everything related to pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, and parenting a new baby?

Was it when we mailed out our pregnancy announcements, so thrilled to share our news with family and friends?

Was it the first time I felt the flutter of her in my belly as I sat watching David's ballgame on a sultry August evening, when it was all I could do not to stand up and shout out to the pitcher's mound that I felt the baby kicking?

Was it the day we had her twenty-week ultrasound?  When she was declared perfectly healthy and right on track for growth?

Was it later that evening when we sat outside, blissfully unconcerned about the gathering storm clouds, and opened an envelope full of sonogram pictures that confirmed my intuition--our baby duck was a girl?

Was it when we celebrated her and surprised our friends with the gender reveal at our "Donald or Daisy" party?

Was it the moment we picked out her nursery furniture?  Her car seat?  Her stroller?  Her clothes?

Was it every time David took a picture of my growing belly?

Was it when we started attending childbirth classes?

Was it each time I prayed that she would be healthy and happy?

Was it at my first baby shower, laughing with my best friends from high school, college, and graduate school, hoping that Eliza would grow up to have friends like these?

Was it at my second baby shower, surrounded by all the women in my family, knowing that Eliza would be so loved?

Was it the night I started having contractions and we headed for the hospital without even packing a bag, never believing for a second that something might go wrong?

Was it the moment that the doctor said she was sorry but our baby had died?

Was it right after that, when the room got dark and then bright and then I vomited off the side of the bed?

Was it when I saw the pain and fear in David's eyes?

Was it when I gave the final push and knew in that instant that the physical discomfort was over but the real hell was just beginning?

Was it when the nurse picked her up and said that we had a beautiful baby girl, and the hospital room echoed with silence?

Was it the moment that I held her in my arms and marveled at her perfect hands and perfect feet and then saw that her little nose was bleeding?

Was it when the blanket shifted and I thought I saw her hand move and I caught my breath and abandoned all reason and rationality to hope that this had all been a terrible mistake even though I could feel that her skin was so terribly cold?

Was it when David took her from me and held her and rocked her and tears ran down my face and I thought my heart would just burst from loving the both of them so much?

Was it when I sobbed in his arms as we listened to the faint cries of other people's babies in other labor and delivery rooms?

Was it when she was dedicated to God by a minister and we filled out the little form with her name and ours?

Was it when I cradled her tiny, perfect body in my arms and told her over and over again that I was so sorry and we loved her so much?

Was it the moment I wished with all my might that it had been my heart instead of hers that stopped beating?


The truth is, I don't know exactly when it was that I become a mother.  Eliza's short life was filled with so much joy, followed with the greatest pain I have ever experienced.  Having a baby was nothing like I imagined it would be.  Becoming her mom was exactly what I had hoped for eight months of pregnancy, and then it was absolutely a nightmare that I couldn't escape.

But none of that changes the fact that she was my baby and I loved her for every moment of her life.  She is my baby and I love her still and I miss her more than I can say.

I think back to my pregnancy, and her birth, and the dark hours that followed it, and I can't pinpoint the moment that I knew with unmistakable certainty that this was it, that I was a mom.  

But I can tell you this:  there is no almost about it.

The Meaning of Mother's Day

Last year, Mother's Day was too painful for words.  It was a day I wanted to skip, to ignore, to avoid.  I truly appreciated every card and text and e-mail that I received, but there was no comfort for this mother who was without her baby.  I deleted advertising e-mails, fastforwarded commercials, avoided shopping, trashed junk mail without opening.  The last thing I needed was one more cruel reminder that it was Mother's Day when my baby was dead.

There were kind friends and a loving husband, and golf, and beer, and denial of the calendar date, but there was mostly a desperate ache for a baby girl I wanted to hold in my arms.

This year, the hurt is not quite so raw, but I still plan to handle the day by ignoring it.  We're going to a baseball game, where there will undoubtedly be adorable, toddling girls in little Cardinal outfits who will shred my heart with their drooly smiles.  But I think I'll be able to handle it in a way I couldn't before.  It helps that I can squeeze David's hand and he always knows exactly what I mean (kind of like when we were at Target the other day and this extremely large woman was pushing her cart toward us, except she was bent over it so that her extremely large bosom was occupying the entire seat-part at the front of the cart so she had essentially turned it into a boob-rest, and her boobs totally filled it and I looked at David to see if he'd noticed and David squeezed my hand and I could tell he was trying not to make a weird face so we avoided eye contact until we past her and then we both giggled in the deodorant aisle).  So anyway.  I feel like I can handle Mother's Day this year, even though I'm not gonna like it.

Sometimes I let myself feel a little bitter and angry about the whole thing...  Why do we need a stupid day for smug people who had living babies and now demand breakfast in bed and jewelry and gift certificates on top of it.  Really?  Because your LIVE baby isn't enough?  You want PRESENTS also, you selfish wench?

(I mean, sure, I would have wanted presents and breakfast in bed if Eliza were here.  But she's not.  And SO THIS ENTIRE STUPID DAY IS EVIL.)

At some point--a while back--I happened to come across an article about the history of Mother's Day.  Did you know that it emerged as a national holiday in the aftermath of the Civil War?  Mother's Day originally wasn't about presents and breakfast in bed.  It was about grief, and war, and politics, and feminism.  It was an outcry against the pain and horror of the Civil War, from mothers who desperately wanted to ensure that another generation of sons wouldn't be slaughtered on the battlefield.  It wasn't really about celebrating mothers, it was about recognizing the heartbreak and sorrow that comes from having your family torn apart.

Here is Julia Ward Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation from 1870:

Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts,
Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly:
"We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says: "Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace,
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God.



In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And at the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

I love that this call goes out not just to women who are actively parenting children, but to "all women who have hearts, whether our baptism be of water or tears!"  I guess the nineteenth century knew all too well that motherhood can be a baptism of tears, that not everyone who has a baby gets to bring that baby home.

She calls for an end to senseless violence, an end to war, and an opportunity to meet as women "to bewail and commemorate the dead."  She's talking about Civil War soldiers, of course, but the purpose of the day is to honor mothers who are grieving the loss of a child.

We do this because we are all part of the great human family, and in "in the name of womanhood and humanity" we deserve a day dedicated to taking account of what has been lost and ensuring that we take good care of what has been left.

It's a call for women to be proactive, well-informed, agents of their own destinies:  "We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies."  In a world where so much is out of our control, women are called to come forward, to tell their stories, to leave their mark, to mourn their children.

That's more than a Hallmark holiday.  It's a Mother's Day with great meaning for all of us, whether our children are living or dead.

We won't do anything special for Mother's Day this year.  I don't have the heart for it.  It's too hard.  I still want things to go back to the way they were supposed to be.  I still want Eliza here, and I don't WANT to celebrate Mother's Day without her.  But I know I needed the reminder that I'm not the only mother who ever mourned the loss of her child.  I'm certainly not the only person who cringes at this date on the calendar.

When Julia Ward Howe asked the government to put Mother's Day on the calendar, she saw it as something very different from what it has become, and frankly, I like her version of it.  I can relate to it.

Happy Mother's Day to every mother out there, and all women who have hearts, broken or not.  Whether you celebrate the living, or bewail and commemorate the dead, (or both), may we all work toward the great and general interests of peace.  And may this year be the start of better things to come for all of us.

Ducks and Dogs and the Deuce

When I was pregnant with Eliza, I posted here about shopping on Etsy for art for her nursery.  I was so excited to decorate it, and I wanted to special-order something just for her.

This painted canvas was perfect for my Baby Duck.

We planned to hang this above one end of her crib.

When the worst happened, and we never got to bring our Baby Duck home, we packed away all of her little things, but that canvas remained out on a shelf in the guest bedroom.  A quiet little reminder of the baby we miss so much, and maybe of our hope that one day that room would become a nursery again.

When I got home from our first successful nonstress test on Monday, I found an unexpected package in our mailbox.  It was postmarked from Australia, and the name on the return address looked familiar, but I couldn't quite place it.

Inside, there was a letter from the Etsy artist who painted Eliza's baby duck canvas, almost a year and a half ago.

She said in her letter that that after I posted about this painting, way back in October of 2010, my blog generated some traffic for her Etsy shop, so she checked the blog periodically.  She was so sad to learn in December that our baby never got to see the painting we had specially ordered just for her.  (In fact, the painting arrived just a few days before we lost Eliza.)

Recently, she checked the blog again and learned that I was pregnant with the Deuce.  She said that she knew she wanted to create something special, just for this baby.  Her Etsy shop has expanded, and she's no longer commissioning paintings; however, she now does custom nursery prints.

As a special gift for the Deuce, she took two of the doggie prints that she sells in her shop, and personalized them to look like Cooper and Little Mac.  And then she packaged them up and mailed them all the way to St. Louis.  Just for the Deuce!

By the time I got to the end of her letter, I was bawling my eyes out.  I was just so incredibly touched that a stranger in another country would want to reach out to us with such kindness.  David came in to check on me and all I could do was hand him her letter--I hadn't even had a chance to look at the adorable prints yet!

Cooper counts to 12!

Little Mac sings the alphabet!

Are those the cutest things you ever seen or what?  I love them!

We are still waiting to set up the Deuce's nursery, but I can assure you that I can't wait to frame these and display them.  I want to put them up near the corner with the rocking chair, so I can sit there and tell the Deuce that there's a nice lady on the other side of the world who painted the baby duck picture for Eliza and then made these pictures--just for Deuce.  Just another sweet way that our two babies are linked by love.

Special thanks to Kylie, for her talent and generosity.  If you're interested, you can view all of the adorable nursery prints that are available in Kylie's Etsy shop if you click here.  And if you don't have pets of your own, you can probably request Cooper and Little Mac to be featured in your prints as well.  Because, I mean, look at them--we are talking professional model material here.  AM I RIGHT?

I Don't Want to Brag, But...

The Deuce passed his/her non stress test for the first time today!  With flying colors!  The nurse came in after 10 minutes and said we'd made it but we needed to be on there for 20 minutes as protocol.  The doctor looked at the little graph that prints out showing the baby's heartrate and declared it "beautiful."

David and I are very proud parents.

And most importantly, the Deuce is still kicking around in there.  32 weeks down.  Hang in there, Deucers.

Spring Sorting

It's the first weekend before summer break officially begins (and I don't have any papers to grade) so I've been keeping myself busy.

Friday night I went thrift store shopping with a friend and then indulged in a Downton Abbey season two marathon at long last.  I loved the way it ended, but I'm still wondering about Patrick Crawley...  Thoughts on this?

Today I bustled around the house doing the usual laundry and picking up routine.  Our peonies are blooming, so I cut off the ones that were drooping to the ground or hidden in the fence and filled a vase with them.  I love them so much and they smell so good that it's totally worth the little black ants that inevitably come inside with them.

I haven't tackled the bathroom yet, or my closet (bathroom's on the agenda for tomorrow), but I did do a little spring cleaning/sorting on the computer.  It's not quite as satisfying, but I went through my pictures and organized them all by date and subject label.  I'd been putting this off because I knew there would be some heartache since my "2011 photos" folder is not filled with countless files labeled "Eliza's first ___" and "Eliza meets ____" but instead things like "Florida," "Dogs," and "More Dogs."

Thank goodness for those dogs, though.  For a while there, they were the only things that could make me smile.

Cooper likes to put the corner of his bed in his mouth.  It's like a pacifier.

Little Mac "hides" in David's shirts.

Astonished that we found her in her hiding spot.

Skeptically waiting for the treat I promised.

Cooper surfs the web unsupervised.

Anyway, I put all the pictures on an external hard drive, which we store in a fireproof box with our important paperwork, passports, and a couple of precious keepsakes of Eliza's (plaster molds of her hands and feet, her little hat).  It felt good to get that taken care of.

I also cleaned up the desktop, deleting a bunch of files I no longer need.  I should continue to sort through My Documents and get rid of things, but instead I sat out on the deck in a rocking chair and read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society for the third time.  I absolutely love that book, and it makes my heart itch every time.  If you haven't read it, it's a (fictional) collection of letters--an epistolary novel--describing the lives and experiences of people who lived on Guernsey Island while it was occupied by Germans during World War II.  There's a lot of terrible things in there (I don't suppose you can write about any war without the terribleness coming into it) but a lot of hopeful and funny things, too.

This passage especially struck a chord with me today--it's from a letter written by a woman whose son died in the war:

...visitors offering their condolences, thinking to comfort me, said "Life goes on."  What nonsense, I thought, of course it doesn't.  It's death that goes on; [he] is dead now and will be dead tomorrow and next year and forever.  There's no end to that.  But perhaps there will be an end to the sorrow of it.  Sorrow has rushed over the world like the waters of the Deluge, and it will take time to recede.  But already, there are small islands of--hope?  Happiness?  Something like them, at any rate.

I made some brownies with a secret special ingredient:  black beans.  Really the whole recipe is just brownie mix, pureed can of black beans (undrained) and 1/4 cup water.

Confession:  I don't care for them.  I don't know if it's because I know they have black beans in them and I can't get past it (even though I love black beans), or if it's because they have a fudgy texture while I prefer cake-like brownies, or if they were slightly underdone because David took them out of the oven too early (I was wrapped up in my photo organization but should have gotten off the couch to check them myself).  Anyway, they are worth a try but I don't think I'll be repeating this Secret Ingredient Brownie recipe.

We went out to look at the moon tonight.  It was big and beautiful, but it wasn't long before I was chased back inside by vicious mosquitoes who managed to bite me more than half a dozen times. I said a prayer and made a wish and came inside to do a kick count.

Countdown

Today was my last official teaching day of the semester.  (I put on a good show for discussion of Hemingway's In Our Time.)  Tomorrow I give an assessment test, next week I give final exams and collect final papers.

The academic calendars aren't lining up exactly, but they are close enough to freak me out.  Eliza died and was born on the Monday of my last week of classes before winter break in December of 2010.  I was 34 weeks and three days pregnant.  This last Monday was the Monday of my last week of classes before summer break and I was 31 weeks pregnant.

It's not the same.  But it's scary.

You think it's an accident that my NSTs are scheduled for Mondays?  It was also one more reason that I needed my mom to go with me since David was out of town.  I didn't talk about with the last-week-of-classes things with anybody because I didn't want to say it out loud.  But it floated there, in the back of my mind.  I needed distraction and kick counts over the weekend, and lots of reassurance on Monday that things were still ok for the Deuce.

My MFM gave me a little pep talk yesterday about trusting myself.  I get the feeling my MFM finds me uninteresting.  Not as a person (necessarily) but as a patient.  I have nothing weird going on.  I appear to be having another perfectly normal pregnancy.  She emphasizes the safety net that she's put around me due to the mystery of what happened to Eliza, but it makes me a little crazy that there's nothing specific to watch out for, no particular risk we can analyze (except for EVERYTHING, right?).  She said she wasn't worried about me because she knew I'd present myself immediately if I thought there were any symptoms that something was wrong.  She's right of course--I absolutely will not be shy about marching right up to the hospital if I'm afraid that something is wrong.

But... what if something goes wrong and somehow I don't realize it?

I'm so hypervigilant that it's hard to believe I could start having even the mildest of contractions or stop feeling the baby move and simply be oblivious.  Surely I'll know, right?

So even more than asking "What if?" I'm frequently thinking, "How could I not have known before?"

I think back to where I was on December 6th of 2010 (I remember in vivid detail the outfit I wore that day, although I threw away those clothes because I couldn't bear to look at them).  I try to recall everything I can about the weekend of December 4th and 5th.  I try to remember if there were signs I might have missed, if there was something I did that I could conscientiously avoid doing this time.

I can't come up with anything.  Except grading papers, which I'd love to avoid, but which I don't actually believe killed my baby (although sometimes it feels like persistent grammatical errors kill my soul).

And so I redirect my thoughts (I've gotten lots of practice at that) and focus on something I can do, something I can control.  I do kick counts (wondering why I didn't do them regularly for Eliza--oh, that's right.  Because I didn't think it mattered.  I didn't think anything could go wrong.  Redirect.  Redirect.).  I take long walks and I take deep breaths and I eat organic grapes.  This is now.  This is different.  We are watching the Deuce closely.  A problem is not going to sneak past us.

I'm actually relieved the semester is over.  I was afraid the free time might just give me more time to be anxious, but work makes me TIRED, people, and I'm ready to get started on summer break.  I'm supposed to keep showing up at my office until the end of May, which I'm actually really looking forward to.  Quiet hours in my office with its nice big windows (nevermind that I only have a view of the roof of the next building over).  I'm going to finish writing my article, and I'm going to get all my papers filed neatly (thank you, label maker!), and I'm going to get myself super organized for teaching next spring (I keep a running list of things I want to change for next year--I'm breaking up with Milton, I think.  It was just too painful this semester).

I also have a list of projects I'm going to tackle at home.  Cleaning out every drawer and cabinet in the bathroom (I will probably detail this for you on the blog because aren't we all wondering what's in other people's bathroom cabinets?).  Laundering things that rarely get laundered (like the guest bed duvet cover and the curtains in the back room).

I've also decided that I'm going to go ahead and sort through all of Eliza's bins that we've stored in the attic of the garage.  My mom went through a few of them and gave me a list of contents, but I want to move some things around and know exactly what is where.  Initially I thought I'd never want to do this before the Deuce gets here, but it's occurred to me that the process will still be hard and I will still miss Eliza even when we bring home the Deuce.  So I might as well do it now so I don't have to worry about it when I am (hopefully) worrying about caring for a newborn.

I'm still not planning to bring anything inside or set up anything prematurely, but I will make sure it's all easily accessible.

And I've decided that once I hit 35 weeks, I'm going to buy a few things specifically for the Deuce.  We have all the basics covered, but I'm ready to show a little faith that this baby will come home with us.  I think I need to.

I pinned this on Pinterest the other day, and it's something I mutter to myself occasionally (because I am a crazy person who mutters to herself, obviously):

So there we are.  One more official day of classes.  Two days of final exams.  Summer break starts.  And then the countdown really begins.

Catching Up and Breaking Down

Catching Up:  Just a quick (and thankfully, boring) update to say that the Deuce's non-stress test went okay today.  He/she didn't have the accelerations they were looking for (again), but I was better prepared to handle that.  Plus, we came very close (the nurse thought the doctor might let us slide, but I appreciate that he was cautious).  Bio-physical profile took a while (again) but movement and tone were great, fluid was fine, and eventually Deuce got around to showing off his/her breathing skillz (right about the time I was asking the nurse if I'd have to come back tomorrow because I was sure we were looking at score of 6/10).  So we ended up scoring at 8 on the report card, and I left feeling reassured.

Breaking Down:  I got home tonight and heard some news that shattered any sense of complacency I might have had (we all know there wasn't much of that), and--more significantly--left me breathless, speechless, and brokenhearted.  Another bereaved mother, whose first baby died around the same time Eliza did, just lost her second child--a baby girl born at 36 weeks.

All that bullshit about lightning not striking twice...  All that bullshit about everything happening for a reason...  I swear I will punch anyone who dares utter those words out loud in my presence.

We who have journeyed to hell and back with the loss of a baby say that we could never survive another loss.  I think, there's no way I could handle it.  But you know what?  I thought that first time, too.

Now I know that the worst thing about it is that you do survive.  You do wake up the next morning and you find that eventually you have to brush your teeth and put on clothes and eat something and try to remember what it means to be alive when your baby is dead.  It takes months to find your way back to the point where you can stand to exist in your own skin again.  It staggers me to know that an ordinary couple who just wanted to have a baby is enduring that level of pain for the second time.

Profoundly fucking unfair doesn't even begin to cover it.

Sparkle

I posted a long time ago about the jewelry that I put on everyday.  Reminders of my family and friends, symbols of my marriage and my baby, little sparkly chains and charms that made me feel like I could make it through the day.

A few months ago, I was at Target and I spotted this necklace.  The card it was attached to said, "Be Brave."  I think I took a closer look because it was in the early weeks of this pregnancy and I was feeling very not-brave.

As I held up the charm so I could read the inscription, my heart skipped a beat.

I am always with you.  Be brave, have courage, and love life.

I had seen this message on a larger necklace and charm that I admired elsewhere, but when it was suddenly staring me in the face at Target (for less than $20), I couldn't pass it by.

I have a few simple, sentimental necklaces that I wear in rotation--one has a silver disc with Eliza's name on one side and her birthdate on the other that some of my best friends gave me for Eliza's birthday last year.  One is a heart inscribed with "Have Hope" that my mom bought me in a little jewelry shop on Granville Island last summer--that trip to Canada was, I think, the first time I really took a deep breath after losing Eliza.  I have a little gold coin I bought as a souvenir in Italy that still reminds me of Tuscan sunshine and gelato and walking through the streets of Florence at night.

I still wear Eliza's bracelet every single day, while I switch out other jewelry depending on what I'm in the mood for or what goes with the clothes I'm wearing.  I remember being afraid to wear her bracelet in the early days of my loss because what if someone asked me about it?  I couldn't respond without crying.  Fortunately, no one ever did.  But that's something else I love about this necklace--I know exactly what it means, and how much it means to me, but it's also kind of a private message.  Just between me and Eliza.  It's exactly what I would have wanted her to know if it had been me who died instead.

My jewelry consists mostly of inexpensive costume jewelry, but I do have a few "nice" pieces I've received as gifts that still are most meaningful to me because of their sentimental value.  Most days, thought, I bypass everything in my jewelry box to wear this inexpensive necklace from Target.  I think I turn to this necklace more and more often because I want so desperately to believe what it says.  I'm trying to be brave.  I know that courage doesn't mean not be scared; it means moving forward in spite of fear.  I want to love life (and there are more and more days when I think that I do).  And, above all, I want to hold on to the thought that Eliza is always with me.  I carry her in my heart, of course, but I like to think that in my best moments, she sparkles on the outside, too.



P.S.  I'm not sure if it's still available in stores, but if you're interested, you can order it through the website here.

Thoughts on Tickets and Tears

As the belly gets bigger, I'm noticing the way people are nice to me.  Waving me across the street when I'm walking, letting me go ahead of them in line at the pharmacy, telling me I look cute.  (You might wonder if these things happen to me when I'm NOT pregnant, but I assure you that I had to gain 25 pounds and have a beach ball belly in order to get unsolicited attention from strangers).  In light of Infertility Awareness Week, (and I think in response to a couple of essays that I've assigned my students--at least someone is getting something out of my class!), I've been analyzing this behavior instead of taking it for granted.  Rather than accepting it as common decency or a form of chivalry or basic politeness, I've been looking at it with jaded eyes, and seeing this extra-nice treatment as more evidence of our culture's obsession with fertility, of continuing to value women based on the children they produce rather than the work they do.  To tell you the truth, I've been feeling kind of self-righteous and scornful of the preferential treatment, continually telling myself that I am making a kind of feminist statement by NOT taking advantage of it.  I will not use my pregnancy as an excuse or a handicap or a reason to complain.

And then I got pulled over for speeding.

Oh, how the self-righteous will fall.

{I just want to interject that this is only the second time in my LIFE I have ever gotten pulled over.  I set my cruise control on my commute and I don't typically speed (well, more than 5-7 miles over the speed limit, which totally doesn't count, right?).  I was on my way home from work, so I was driving in Illinois, getting ready to cross the river into Missouri.  I got pulled over on a section of road coming into the city where the highway speed limit changes from 60 mph to 45 mph to 35 mph.  I had hit the brakes to cancel my cruise control of 65, but I was letting the car sort of coast to 45 mph, rather than continuing to apply pressure to brakes.  I was SLOWING DOWN, but I was on a downhill slope, so, technically, yes, I was going too fast.}

I sat in my car and watched the police officer in the review mirror as he radioed in my plates.  (Fortunately, I was not driving a stolen vehicle.)

I pulled out my driver's licence and waited for him to come up to my window.  He told me he'd pulled me over for speeding (60 in a 45, ugh) and asked for my license and proof of insurance.

I flipped open the glove compartment and pulled out the little folder that holds an outdated map of Missouri and our insurance cards.  The insurance card in that folder had expired in May of 2011.  Oops.  So then I pulled out all of the other folders, envelopes, and pamphlets in the glove compartment.  Also two tampons.  (I was a Girl Scout.  Our motto is Be Prepared.)

I flipped through all the paperwork.  The officer waited patiently.  No insurance card.  I started to feel panicky.  Here's the receipt from my last oil change!  Here's my parking permit from two years ago!  Here's my owner's manual!  Here's the paperwork from getting our windshield fixed!  OMG here's a pantyliner to go with that tampon!  (See previous paragraph for Girl Scout motto.)

But I had NO insurance card that was not expired.  I gave him the expired card and asked if he could look at that because I still have the same insurance and I don't know where the card could be because I'm supposed to have one in my glove compartment and one in my wallet but neither one are there.

He said, very sternly, in like a super mean voice, "It is Illinois state law that you provide current proof of insurance."

It dawned on me that I was going to get not one, but TWO tickets.  That David was going to sigh and lecture me on driving safely, precious cargo, blah blah blah.  That we were going to have to spend a considerable chunk of money to pay these two tickets, AND that it could affect my insurance rate.  I felt like an irresponsible driver and terrible mother, (and I was annoyed because EVERYONE speeds in that little section but of course I'm the one who gets a ticket).

Also, I realized I was going to be seriously late for my hair appointment.

And so I did what any strong, independent, self-respecting feminist would do in that situation.

I started crying.

I didn't want to cry, but there I was, my voice cracking and my eyes filling with tears as I apologized (and felt like an idiot).

You know when you're a kid and you really want your tears to have a dramatic effect on your parents?  You hope that your outpouring of emotion will make them totally relent and let you out of whatever punishment it was that they were about to inflict upon you?  Only it NEVER works (at least not with my parents)?

Well, my tears TOTALLY worked.  

Suddenly Officer Mean Voice was all, "Calm down, now, this isn't a life or death situation.  I'm not going to haul you off to jail or anything."  He seemed surprised that I was crying, and a little nervous about it.

I said, "I know, I just feel so disorganized and I don't know why that insurance card isn't there, and I'm sorry, I'm just such a mess."  *sniffle, sniffle, wipe tears*

The officer glances at my belly and says, "Don't get upset.  I see that you're pregnant, and I really don't want to deliver any babies today."

(And now let's all just take a moment to collectively pray that this baby--as well as any future baby ducks--is NOT delivered by a police officer on the side of the road in East St. Louis.)

That idea kind of made me laugh and he said, "OK, good.  So we're laughing now."  I wiped my eyes and apologized again.

Then he said that that he was feeling especially good-natured, and taller than usual (?), so he was going to let me go with a verbal warning instead of TWO citations.  I nodded my appreciation.  He handed back my license and expired insurance card.  I was in the midst of thanking him profusely when we were interrupted by his radio telling him there was debris on the highway that was causing people to swerve dangerously, so he patted my car door and said, "Just go."

And so I went.

I know I got out of that ticket because I was pregnant.  And crying.  And also, probably because I was a white girl in a part of the city that is predominantly African American and known for high crime rates, unemployment, drive-by shootings, and the sort of neighborhoods where there are no grocery stores but a dozen liquor stores.

I've been having my students read essays about people who transform public spaces--a black man writes about the way he whistles classical music to help put people at ease when he walks alone at night, a wheelchair bound teenager writes about how he takes advantage of people's sympathy as a way to "even-up" the score since he's paralyzed.  It was not lost on me that my physical appearance had very specific consequences in this case.  In fact, I felt guilty about the way my pregnancy had so obviously shaped that encounter.  I currently happen to occupy a privileged position--white, pregnant, female--a position that is unobtainable for many, and a position for which a great number of people are willing to make excuses and give free passes.

My tears were genuine--hormonal, perhaps, frustrated and embarrassed, for sure.  But his response to me was predicated on a cultural mythology about pregnant women being crazy and emotional.  And I totally took advantage of that.

I am uncomfortable with the way my gender, race, and pregnancy manipulated that situation to my favor.

I am also really freaking glad that I got out of that ticket.

I'm not saying that if I had to go back and do it again that I'd do anything differently.  But I am really (uncomfortably) aware of WHY things went down the way they did.  And now I continue over-analyze the situation because I'm an academic and and this is what we do.

Have you ever gotten out of a speeding ticket?  With tears?  Or a clever excuse?  Or failed to get out of a ticket, in spite of crying?  Have you ever used a pregnancy to avoid something unpleasant?  Or resented people who did so?  Do tell.