No Farting in the Mini-Van

The Wisdom of Dying

2016-09-03T18:39:00.001-07:00

i carry your heart with me (I carry it in

my heart) i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing, my darling)

"I can't believe how much food she used to cook in this little oven..." I let the yellow even door close with a snap and stood there for a moment, lost. Then a sob came from deep in my chest and my hands immediately covered face. I stood in the kitchen feeling the weight of the last few months and the tears and thoughts kept coming... nursing homes, Ruth, my cousin and his mother walking away from the grave, my niece's face with tears streaming staring at me from the pews while I told the memory, the baptism sweater, my cat slowing getting up from the grass and his labored walk as he went around the garage and out of sight, and the swan.

My husband sighed and wrapped his arms around me. I'm thankful to be short to his 6 feet when I'm upset because his chest makes an easy crying spot. We were standing my grandmother's kitchen, my favorite kitchen in the whole world. It was cold without her and yet her smell was everywhere. On the kitchen table the local newspaper had sent a subscription reminder. In big print it said, "Where have you gone?". "Yes, where have you gone?" I wondered, walking around the small cape cod. I kept breathing deeply through my nose trying to hang on desperately to the memories that her smell brought... desperately to her.

***

I met Ruth on a Sunday afternoon. The grey winter light filtered through the window blinds illuminating her profile. She talked mostly facing forward in her wheel-chair, very rarely turning to look at me but I still felt her easy familiarity. Listening to her talk made holding the thin hand in my own easier. When she did turn to make eye contact, it was fleeting, almost with a shyness to it.

Ruth talked a lot about her deceased husband and granddaughter. Maybe it's interesting who people don't talk about, I don't know, but you could tell Ruth was proud of her husband and adored her granddaughter who was probably about my age.
"She comes here and does my laundry and brings me things every week." Ruth shared. "We have a little arrangement my granddaughter and I." Ruth looked at me briefly to share her grin. You could see that she enjoyed a little bit of intrigue in her life.
"Oh yeah?" I encouraged her.
"Yes, I pay her a little bit of money every week but we can't let her father know."
"That's a nice arrangement for you two..." a groan distracted me and I looked down and rubbed the hand I was holding. When I looked back up at Ruth new tears were welled in my eyes. Ruth noticed and looked away again to continue the story.
"Once, she and I had lunch together, and she told me that my great-grandson wanted to play ball but she couldn't pay the fee, so I gave her the money. When her father found out he was mad and made her give it back. So, now we have to be careful."

My two little ones stood half in the room, uncomfortable, unsure. My husband stood leaning against the wall in his easy way except that his face wore worry. Warren stood the closest to Ruth and his gaze shifted between the floor and groans from the bed. He was solemn and I knew he would remember this day forever. I was determined not to be afraid for him. I wanted him to learn not be afraid of holding a hand almost a century old, not to be afraid of someone's pain, not to be afraid of age or death, not to be afraid of being human and mortal.

So, I held her hand as Ruth talked. Ruth told me that her husband was a WWII war hero buried in Arlington Cemetery and she was allowed to be buried with him (an extra honor). Every now and then as the groaning interrupted, or there was the erratic shifting and movements, Ruth would stop talking while my attention fell back to the bed and sometimes she would tell me about it.
"She does that a lot in her sleep."
"Does she sleep a lot?"
"Yes. Lately. But, just a few days ago she was angry and sat up on the side of her bed and threw that chair you're sitting in. God, I didn't know she was that strong."
A small smile played on my lips. Yes, she's that strong.

Suddenly, in the middle of her shifting, her eyes opened.
"Look at her." Ruth said. "Look in her eyes, try and talk to her now."
I looked in her face and softly spoke, "Grammy, It's me, Leah."
Her eyes locked into mine briefly and as intense as the look was, it was as if I was looking at her through a veil. In my memory of that moment, her eyes shine golden, though I know her eyes were green. I don't know why the golden... is it my memory playing tricks? Do eyes change in those moments? I'm almost certain she truly saw me and knew my face, but the veil kept her from me, somehow still here and somehow not.

Her eyes closed again and she muttered some unintelligible things and then went quiet. Her breathing was slow and labored. She was very thin and Ruth told me that she had stopped eating a few days ago. I had followed her through 3 nursing homes in the last 2 months since she fell in her kitchen, and she had never looked this way. Soon, my brother and my parents came and I gave up my seat by her bed to them.

We drove home feeling heavy. My two little boys chattered and teased each other like normal, too young to feel the impending finality. Warren quietly gazed out the window at the grey sky.

The next morning the phone rang.
"Leah?" My mother's pain came through the phone and stabbed me like knife.
"Grammy's dead. She died a few minutes ago."
I heard someone sob in the background.
"Mom? Mom?!?"
The phone went dead and so did I inside.

***

There were two other deaths this late winter season. One a few weeks before and the other a few weeks after my Grandmother. The other two deaths were solemn and lonely. They were an Aunt on my Dad's side and an Uncle on my Mother's and both left behind single only children. I went to visit my Aunt in the hospital a week before she died. She didn't know then. She was sitting up in bed and talked about going home and playing cards with her friend. My cousin tended to her, knowing.
When I went to her funeral, and saw my cousin standing alone there beside the casket... alone,sentinel and poised, I cried.

My Uncle left behind my mother's sister, and her son. This death was a slow creep away from life. My Uncle was brilliant and accomplished but his beautiful mind became crippled with early onset dementia. At first he would come to family gatherings and be himself but didn't know who most people were. Then he didn't know where he was or why, but was still his smart and funny self. Then he started to not make sense and his personality was changing. Finally, he couldn't do basic things, and then he fell. He was in a nursing home for a week or two before my Aunt wanted to bring him home.

Every one was worried for her when she did that. How would she manage? In fact she couldn't get him to come out of the car in her driveway and had to call my dad and another Uncle to come help. It was as if he had forgotten how to walk. They physically carried him into the house and laid him in the bed. He slept for a long time. A few nights later, after over 45 years of marriage, my Aunt climbed into their bed beside him for the last time.

All through the funeral, My Aunt leaned heavily into my cousin. The weight of my Uncle's death was heavy on her. He was buried just several yards away from my Grandmother. My hand lingered on her tombstone as we passed and new tears joined the ones I had cried for my Uncle. Monsignor Murphy recited the normal burial prayers over the casket as we all stood circled around it. My Aunt and cousin sat closely together staring at my Uncle's casket. I felt somewhat like an intruder into a private moment... the three of them together for the last time.

Monsignor closed his book and went right into a poem from his memory, his gentle voice carried in the quiet cemetery. I imagined all the dead were listening;

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.

I stood their dumbstruck at the beautiful simplicity of the words and wiped my tear stained face again. But suddenly and abruptly, things were over and my Aunt and cousin were walking back to the car leaving us quickly. My cousin looked back at his father; worried, unsure. Helping his mother walk, yet needing his Father. He looked like a small child looking back out of a car window. My heart jumped into my throat and I was off after them. Imogen bounced in her carrier as I weaved my through people and past tombstones to get to them. "They just can't leave like that.", I thought. Something just didn't feel right. They were already at the limo and had closed the door but the dead encouraged me on... "Hurry!", they whispered wisely.

I made it to the door and knocked on the black tinted window. If I was an intruder now, I didn't care. My Aunt opened the door and I immediately fell on her in a hug. Finally, she cried hard and my cousin joined the hug. "Oh Leah", she sobbed, "We all loved him so much."

***

i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

***

The kids had been fighting about what to name the swan for months. Everyone else's name was stupid and I was so fed up with it, I started to avoid driving past the pond where the swan was. It was big pond in our town with a lone swan that had taken up residence among the geese. Today I had to drive past and the boys started up again. I got angry and yelled at everyone. Warren sat thoughtful for a moment gazing out the window at the grey sky just like he had that other day.
Then I said, "I think we should name the swan Helen."
"Helen?!? Noooooo!" I don't like that name!" said little David on cue with Brody backing him up. Warren locked his eyes into mine in my rear view mirror; always tuned into me, always perceptive. He said, "Shush David. I like that name. We'll name the swan Helen."
David continued to protest while Warren studied my face for any sign of pain.
"David," he said, "It's Grammy's name."
David quieted down, considering that fact and then said, "Ok, we'll name the swan Helen... but what if it's a boy?"
I smiled and Warren grinned back.

In the middle of everything, my cat died. He had been getting sick and skinny and his 16 years of life was wearing very thin on him. I remember the day I last saw him. He was outside with us in the back yard laying down near the kids on the swing set. I watched him slowly heave his body up to standing and moved in his labored walk to the garage and then disappear around the corner. I never saw him again.

I cried a lot about that cat. I don't if it was just too much death in such a short period of time, or the guilt of not seeing him die or finding his body, or just that I was a silly human who loved a cat. But I decided if there is ever a wise creature in death, it's a cat. And if there is ever a stupid creature, it's a human witnessing it.

That same day my mom came and dropped off a box from my grandmother's house. I knew what was in it. It was a knitted Christening outfit that no one could figure out. Who had she knitted it for? She hadn't mentioned it to anyone, but everyone decided that I could have it for Imogen. She, at 6 months old, still hadn't been baptized and it was one more thing to beat myself up about because I had missed my chance to have my Grandmother there. I also wondered if the outfit would even fit. We tend to Baptize pretty tiny babies and I couldn't imagine that my Grandmother had planned on a six month old wearing it.

I took the box upstairs and sat it on my bed. I opened it and folded back the tissue paper and lifted up a perfect little knitted white coat/gown and cap. I brought it to my face and inhaled deeply. It was her... her smell again. I put it back in the box quickly. I wanted to keep her smell as long as possible. When Imogen woke up from her nap, I got it out again and tried it on her. It fit perfectly.

When Imogen was baptized and she was wrapped warmly in my Grandmother's smell, warmly in her memory.

***

here is the deepest secret nobody knows(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

***

The night before my Grandmother died, I googled what death looks like. What I mean is, I wanted to know the signs of impending death in the elderly. What does it look like when someone is at the end of a long life and a natural death is imminent? I came across a hospice website out of Hawaii and the language used had a metaphysical tone. I came to a part regarding food, and how hard it is for loved ones to see food not given in the final stages of life. This is because we equate food with comfort. I thought about how Ruth had told me that my Grandmother had stopped eating a few days ago. But the hospice said this, "It is important to remember that as the physical body is dying, the vital organs are shutting down, and nourishment is no longer required to keep them functioning. This is the wisdom of dying, and the body knows exactly what to do."

The wisdom of dying. The wisdom of dying... those words hung in my brain. And also, "the body knows exactly what to do.". Funny to find that the same words that are used in birth, would be used in death. Wisdom in the body. That we are innately wise.

My mother called to ask if I wanted to say anything at the funeral. I said, yes, though I didn't know why. I felt close to my grandmother, but I knew we all we did. She meant so much to me, but she meant so much to all of us. I knew that I really wasn't any more special to my Grandmother than anyone else in the family, but yet... I felt special. Maybe that was the point. If the roles were reversed, and it had been Ruth dying in her bed with her Granddaughter by her side, there wouldn't have been a single person in my family that my Grandmother wouldn't have talked about.

I knew the memory I wanted to speak about. It was one that so much of my family was in but when I twisted the memory around to their eyes, I knew they didn't see as much as I did from where they were sitting around the table in that favorite kitchen with that little yellow oven. I could see them all there looking at me. My strong yet sensitive uncles with tears in their eyes. My Grandmother's smell everywhere, blessedly taken for granted. Her eyes green, not golden, and full of life and wisdom looking at me through the memory as I walked towards her with my heart beating a million beats per minute.

But as easily as I could slip into that memory, it easily disappeared and instead I was walking towards her pearly-grey casket and up onto the Alter to follow my brother's eulogy. There were quite a few priests there, waiting. One was Monsignor Murphy, who in just two weeks would be reciting that beautiful poem over my Uncle's grave. And there were very many people in the Church including, all the way in the back, my cousin sitting alone with her golden hair against the black and without her mother.

And so I unfolded my paper and dipped myself back into the pensieve and continued with the memory...

I was pregnant with James that day and had just been called into the house by my mother from where I was waiting on the back porch. I was anxious and full of impending doom waiting to be called in after my mom told my Aunts and Uncles and my Grandmother that I was pregnant. You don't think about these things until you're in one of these tough situations, but your Grandmother always turns out to be the hardest person to tell.

But the creaky storm door eventually opened and my mom's face appeared. I could tell she had been crying and I wanted to throw up. But into the house I went and stood in my Grandmother's kitchen facing them all with their teary eyes and kind, worried smiles... except for one person. My Grandmother stood by her little yellow oven, not a tear in her green eyes, and her head held high and facing me. "Come here" She said. I made that walk towards her and into her arms for a brief embrace. She pulled me away and firmly took my face into her hands and looked deeply into my eyes, "It's okay. These things happen."

I could suddenly breath again. My grandmother had taken the weight off of my shoulders and given it up to the world. No more tears because these things happen. No more gray days because these things happen. Keep your head high because these things happen. Everything was going to work out because although I was a pregnant teenager, I was her granddaughter first and these things happen.

It's powerful to be loved so well; it's a perfect love. To my Grandmother, before anyone in my family was anything else, they were hers. Before anything good or bad, or any hurdle or achievement, they were hers... deeply and ultimately hers. Perhaps that last day, when her eyes opened golden, they were golden with beautiful memories from the deepest recesses of her brain. We lived deep in her heart and her mind, and she in ours.

***

When the memories are vivid and great, the death seems equally as vivid and great. It's interesting that deep inside our brain, physically near the center, is where our memories are stored and also where our ability to make new memories lies. On the outside of the brain, in the more vulnerable positions are our sight and speech, motor skills and spatial abilities and even higher cognitive orders. How interesting that memory is chosen as one of our most valuable human assets to tuck away and protect.

Perhaps the wisdom of dying is in the memories. That it evokes in us a sense of awareness of them. That they are valuable and worth protecting and yet... we need continue to make new ones, because our shared experiences as humans is our world's greatest asset big and small. And when our loved ones are dying or losing their memories, we keep vigil for them through our own. We carry them deep our hearts and deep in our memories through our shared experiences. Deep in the most protected spot in in the human mind.

Cry, laugh, be angry, be in love, feel the feelings, make the memories, be timeless and yet embrace your transience... for this is the wisdom of dying and being human and mortal is a beautiful thing to be.

Chasing the Rainbow

2015-11-20T12:36:00.001-08:00

There it was again, that sign about marriage outside my church. I should have remembered. Driving past my Church used to be comforting. I had been baptized there, married there, raised kids there, prayed there, laughed there and cried there. But now I didn't feel like I belonged there. I had been sitting at Sunday mass for weeks staring at the stained glass pictures in the windows, watching a silent faceless Jesus do the Stations of the Cross, the Priests' voices always fading into the background as my thoughts took over and my tears would sting my eyes.

Sometimes the sunlight would catch in a prism and rainbows would dance happily across the church.
"Why are you so happy?" I demanded of the rainbows.
"Where are you taking me? Everything about you is more painful then it should be. Is God's love there? There at the end of the rainbow? Is that where it's hiding?"
They never answered, just kept dancing.

I remember when I was kid, running bare foot through the grass chasing rainbows. I remember running full speed, my arms pumping, my breath fast and excited. I remember stopping every so often to gage if I had gained any distance and then eventually stopping all together in defeat. I didn't give up on rainbows until I was old enough to know better. I should know better now.

How much is a mother's soul worth anyway? Would you give up a heavenly paradise to love your child so completely and beautifully on earth? Would a perfect human love be redeeming like in fairy tales where perfect love changes beasts into princes and saves mermaids from evil witches? Would God open his gates to the soul of mother who was willing to give up everything to love her child perfectly, to value his life on earth so completely and to want everything that is good and human and fulfilling for him. Or in the end is that not enough...

Earlier this week I went with my oldest to his college freshman orientation day. They split up the kids and parents and I'm sure this was relieving because who wants to do college orientation with their very pregnant mother. So, I wondered alone through a fair of information tables set up for the parents. Everyone enjoys commenting on the woman with children born 18 years apart and I politely smiled and faked laughed my way through well-meant jokes and comments. I went in order of the tables and eventually came to a table that didn't seem to be getting a lot of parent visitors. I looked at the pins, pens, and brochures until a woman manning the table approached me.

"Hi, this is the LGBTQ organization table." She said as if to make sure I knew where I was.
"I know.", I said matter-of-factly.
"Ok, well my name is Cathy. I help run our campus LGBTQ community. We have weekly meetings and..." She continued to tell me about all the events and community support the group did. We talked a bit. I saw her eyes switch over from all business with a parent to appreciation of the mother standing in front of her and I left the table with a good amount of brochures and continued on to learn about residence halls.

Nothing ever means much until it's in your life. You can be sympathetic, sure...an ally, why not. But to truly feel the ins and outs of something a person is, let it be your own child. Suddenly everything feels different. You're not just a friend of a community, you are a parent of the community, you gave birth to the community, you can feel the community because the community is your child, your love, your pain and happiness. Imagine everything that's happening in a situation is happening to your child. That the things they are saying are about him, that he will hear and see these things on social media and feel pain. Imagine your child in pain feeling like the world thinks these things of him.

I wonder if that's how Mary felt watching her son walk a long road, with a large cross, people jeering at him, insulting him, not understanding his full and complete goodness and worth. But I can't even relate to religion right now, and that's painful on it's own because I love religion. But it's really not God's fault, it's His humans. I keep hearing about what God wants through them. But it can't be this way. God knows humanity, he created it, and he created my son.

"Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you." God knew my son before he was in my womb because he created him. He gave him a divine spark created in His very own image. And God's image is shown in James. He has a soul to strive for heaven and humanity to love and experience all that is good and earthly. And in that "good and earthly" is love...

***

I started writing that 5 months ago, but those feelings consumed my summer and fall. I talked often about my anger with my neuropsych. He self disclosed that he was Catholic and had a gay child. My husband asked if the neuro was allowed to tell me that. I said, "Yes. As long as he thinks that it will help the therapeutic relationship."

Therapeutic relationship... I wish we had more of those that we didn't have to pay for. Instead I felt like every turn of a corner or scroll down social media was filled with emotional terrorists. That's what they are after all. It's bigger than emotional abuse because it's widespread causing pain and distress. I'm just some mom, enjoying FB in her quiet moments and BAM some random person from hundreds or thousands of miles away just smacks me with pain so deep that I'm left reeling the rest of the day. My heart would race and my head would pound from huge stress headaches amplified by my post concussive syndrome from a car accident.

A lot of it is a need to be right... to prove that they know what God wants. Because if they know that, then there is comfort about life. But righteous comfort is in itself some sort of narcissistic sin. To think that anyone could even come so close to understanding God that they could feel that sort of comfort doesn't sit well with me. Maybe that's why I'm so painfully uncomfortable, because human uncertainty is my constant companion.

I'm not a fundamentalist and either is my religion. Yes, the Bible is from God, but we were taught that it was written through "inspiration". That the writers were inspired by God, especially the Old Testament. Writers from an ancient world so very foreign to us today and influenced by surroundings so vastly different. What would that same inspiration look like today?

I'm not a theologian though, just a mother. I used to buy into the "Being gay isn't a sin, but homosexual acts are." That's like saying "Being gay isn't a sin, but having a fulfilling human life is." See, when it's your child you are rarely thinking about "acts" whether it's same-sex or not. When you envision a future for child, you imagine love... beautiful, romantic, life-long love. You imagine them bringing home someone "special" one day. That person that starts coming on holidays and holding your child's hand. That person that you will see, in a quiet moment at dinner or sitting on your couch, catch your child's eyes in their own. That person that you will see at their wedding and proudly hand them off to. That person that gives you comfort that your child will live a happy, fulfilling, love filled life well after you are gone.

Now imagine people are telling you that your child can't have that. That God doesn't want that.

No. God made my son in his image and God's image is too spectacular to limit the good possibilities of life... too fantastic to restrict what kind of love he can have... too blindingly brilliant for you to ever feel any kind of righteous comfort...

"Mommy!"

I look up from writing this. It's my four year standing next to me, a freshly drawn picture in his hand.

"What did you draw, Davey?" I ask, trying to erase the pain from my face and adding an extra dose of fake happiness to my voice.
"I drew our family at the end of the rainbow. There's James and you holding Imogen, and that's me and Daddy and Warren and Brody."

Oh, what a tricky, smart God we have. There's my righteous comfort after all... my family, my children, my son... God's love at the end of the rainbow, it was there all along.

The Secret Life of Imogen Anastasia

2015-10-21T18:00:00.001-07:00

Hernando: Well, what was it Walter? A Unicorn? Sasquatch?
Walter: the negative?
Hernando: Yeah!
Walter: I didn't look.

This past January, almost exactly 9 months ago I blew out the candles on my 35th birthday cake. I wished for a daughter and the wish was so real I remember the candles blurring in my teary eyes and the emotions rolling up into my throat. I swallowed them back down quick enough and got on with my life. Later that evening I sat down with my husband who, for my birthday, promised to watch Joy Luck Club with me. That movie is a great reminder that mother-daughter relationships are hardly sunshine and rainbows, but I love them anyway. Maybe great movies and novels would be the only way I would feel that beautiful pain?

About two weeks later I found out that I was pregnant with my fifth child. I made a decision after my 4th child was born out-of-hospital with midwives, to completely immerse any future pregnancy in midwifery and never look back. So, for the first 8 weeks I enjoyed the quiet secret knowledge of a new pregnancy before I called my midwife to schedule my first appointment. I was excited to call them again. I actually missed them. I never had that feeling about any of the characters in the parade of obstetricians I had seen.

My first appointment was at twelve weeks. I went to the appointment with several questions because this was the first time I would be seen by home birth midwives from start to finish. During my last pregnancy I switched to them at the beginning of the third trimester so I had no experience with first and second trimester care there. I wanted to know about genetic testing and ultrasounds. I was leaning heavily towards eschewing both. The midwives were able to provide/outsource both but the decision was ultimately mine. Because they worked with a heavily Amish population, my midwives were experienced and capable of working with a technologically "blind" pregnancy.

That was ultimately my decision. I decided that I wanted a completely "old-fashioned" and medically hands-off pregnancy. I mean, pregnancy only recently became highly medical. This decision isn't for everyone, but I had been developing some philosophical and somewhat political views of pregnancy and most importantly, it just felt right for me.

So, I talked to the midwives about what would happen later in pregnancy or at delivery if I had a tricky placenta or a child with genetic or birth defects. The discussions we had were amazing. The information they have collected over years of working blind is a treasure I fear no one but other midwives will seek. I really compare it to a blind person, who because of lack of sight, has developed heightened senses. These midwives, because they are technologically blind, have paid attention and learned things about pregnancy and delivery that others don't have to because they rely on tests, ultrasounds, and monitors.

Personality-wise I'm not a planner and I have a strong internal locus of control. So, I really have no need to try and control things around myself. It's much more comfortable for my personality, to take on problems as they occur, and until then, not stress much. This is me. It might not be you, and that's okay.

The other angle of this decision was the gender card. I have found out the sex of every baby at the 20 week ultrasound. This time, something was calling me to secrecy from myself. It was going to be my last pregnancy and wanted to experience it like pregnancy used to be. I also wanted to have the daughter dream as long as possible. At the 20 week ultra-sounds, I had experienced various degrees of gender disappointment. Then, like mothers do, I beat myself up with guilt for being disappointed. And finally, after that nonsense, at every delivery when a son was born, all was forgotten and I was as happy in-love as ever. So, why do all that to myself if I was just going to fall in love at first sight anyway? I decided that this would be secret life... from me and from the world.

Sean O'Connell: Number 25 is my best ever, the quintessence of life, I think. I trust you'll get it where it needs to go, you always do.

People in the birth world say, "trust birth" a lot. I say, "trust women". My midwife is a religious woman and would say, "trust God", but in a round about way she's also saying, "trust women" because she believes that God made womens' bodies strong and perfect and their wisdom over and about their own bodies is mandated by Him and absolute. Don't interfere with that shit.

We shot ourselves in the foot with technology in pregnancy. For the thousands of years before ultrasounds, the woman was the primary and most important patient. She was the only one who had a relationship with the pregnancy, and everyone else had a relationship with her. The woman, as the patient, was the one you could see. She was the one you knew. She was the one that would have ripple effects She was valuable to her husband and children. You didn't want to loose her, and as cold as this seems now in our highly fetal-sensitive culture, she could almost always have another child.

I also think our early pregnancy testing and ultrasounds have contributed to an increase in mental health issues surrounding reproduction and just a lot of straight-up situational anguish for women. Ignorance is bliss as the saying goes, and when women and society knew less about early pregnancies, when it was a secret from everyone, those early losses weren't as hard to take and a lot probably went unknown. You may have been labeled "infertile" for a period or a lifetime, and as hard as that may have been to take personally and socially, you didn't have the anguish of thinking your body was constantly loosing "babies" and Google-ing to see eye lids and finger-buds.

My husband trusted me. I told/asked him, "I'm not going to get any ultrasounds or testing because ______. How do you feel about that?" "I'm fine with that." Now, I don't want to assume to know how he feels, so I texted him quick.

Me: When it comes to us personally and childbirth which is the most true/important for you. A) I trust my wife. B) I trust birth/the process C) I trust our midwives.
Him: A. Which then leads to the other two in no particular order.

Trust women.

Walter Mitty: When are you going to take it?
Sean O'Connell: Sometimes I don't. If I like a moment, for me, personally, I don't like to have the distraction of the camera. I just want to stay in it.
Walter Mitty: Stay in it?
Sean O'Connell: Yeah. Right there. Right here.

So, I stayed right there. Right in resolute secrecy. I didn't feel movement until about 19 or 20 weeks so the only evidence of this secret life was the VERY occasional prenatal where I would hear the mysterious heart beat and obviously my stomach was growing. This did worry me a little but I wasn't sure what would be done anyway. It was best, I decided, to just stay in this moment. Right there. Right here... to follow the secret to completion no matter what that was. I believed in the secret life wholeheartedly and found a lot of comfort and peace in it.

After about five months the secret life started to move or I started to feel it move, I should say. We don't know what secrets are doing before they reveal themselves after all. The outside couldn't feel the secret yet, only me, and a small bond formed. I have to say something that may make people a little uncomfortable. I really didn't feel a connection to the secret until then. I hadn't seen that little peanut with arm and leg buds on an early ultrasound and I hadn't looked at chambers of the heart at 20 weeks. I had had maybe 2 or 3 prenatals by that point so hearing the heart beat for that few seconds was far and few between.

I didn't connect until the secret revealed it's presence in a very physical way. I was well into the second trimester and almost to the point of viability. Is that the natural, healthy point for a woman to connect? Have we snooped and spied into the secret territory of God and/or mother nature? Are we forcing women to connect too early now? Maybe.

In a few weeks the secret made itself known to dad's hands as well and since I didn't have ultrasound pictures to frame or put on Facebook, the secret life was really only known to our family.

We entered the summer and one day I was sitting on bleachers at Warren's baseball game. A mom friend of mine asked me if I felt any way about the gender. I didn't. I honestly had no clue or innate "feeling" about it. I don't really operate that way anyway, but if I based the pregnancy on the four boy pregnancies I had, I would say it felt like a boy because everything felt the same again. I told her that, and she responded that she had been thinking about me randomly and really hoped that I had a girl because she felt that I would be a "really great mother to a daughter". I teared up immediately. One of my biggest fears/insecurities (and it has been played upon when people want to hurt me) was that I was given sons because I wasn't built to be a good mother to girls.

I felt an interesting connection to this mom for the rest of my pregnancy, like God was watching me through her eyes. In fact, the very hour that I began active labor she woke up from sleep and wondered about me and said a prayer.

Another interesting thing is that my mom didn't dream about the gender. For EVERY one of my previous pregnancies, my mom had a dream about the baby were the gender was revealed in the dream and she was always right. This time she hadn't said anything so I asked, "Did you have a dream about the baby yet?" "Yep," she said. "Well, what is it? Did you learn the gender?" "Nope." Weird. Even a secret in dreams.

So, the summer plugged on. People were interested left and right in the lady with four sons who had a secret fifth pregnancy. Family, friends, acquaintances, and even strangers where invested for me to have a girl. It felt great. I don't mind the gender questions, "Are you hoping for a girl?" "Absolutely!" "Well, I be thinking about you! I really hope you have a girl!" I am 100% secure in my love for my sons. I love them as fully and completely and as painfully unconditionally as I can. So, I have no insecurity or guilt about wanting a daughter. None.

Sean O'Connell: They call the snow leopard the ghost cat. Never lets itself be seen.
Walter Mitty: Ghost cat.
Sean O'Connell: Beautiful things don't ask for attention.

I even had the Amish rooting for me. Often, I am the only English (non-Amish for youse outside of Amish country) woman in the waiting room at my midwife's office. The Amish ladies almost always come in pairs and groups and always seem to know all the other Amish ladies there. So, they mostly talk amongst themselves in plat-deutsch. One day in July I sat down next to an Amish woman who was very unusually curious about me. She wanted to know where I was from, how many kids did I have, what did I have (boys or girls), etc. When she found out that I had 4 sons and wanted a daughter, she smiled with understanding and I noticed that the chatter of the waiting room had died down and when I looked, the other Amish ladies where smiling too.

The Amish value a quality called, Gelassenheit. It's often translated as "submission" or "letting-be" and some English synonyms would be - calmness, composure, or letting go. Gelassenheit is at odds with our strong American value of "individualism". The Amish submit to the will of Jesus and community and a lot of their cultural norms and religious doctrine and values come from this. It's also in their was of "being". I see it in these women I would encounter in the waiting room and I hear of it in their pregnancy styles.

That's what I wanted for the secret life, Gelassenheit. So, when my two friends, both pregnant and due within a week of me, faced various issues, Gelassenheit kept me calm and steady. Gelassenheit let me hear of a new baby's death with sorrow yet without fear. Gelassenheit kept me joyful and stress-free about my pregnancy until the very end. I kept steady with the secret life.

Walter: Todd, I have to go. I have to make oxygen choices here.

So, when I first felt some sporadic contractions early Sunday morning I kept calm and watchful. I calmly told my husband that things might be starting. The contractions didn't really seem to be coming together into an active labor pattern, so David and I did normal things, laundry, shopping, cooking with an air of "waiting" about us. We both knew that the secret was coming.

Then around 4 am on Tuesday morning, things came together. My contractions were consistently 10 min apart. At 6 am I woke David and told him that it was time. That we would have to start heading to the midwife after we took Warren to school. He got right out of bed and into the shower. He packed the car and helped me get the kids ready. After we took Warren to school, we took David Jr. and Brody to my parents house. Then we headed out.

"How fast do you want me to drive?" David asked. "Just drive normally." I answered. The ride went smoothly. I labored in the car well and went through male saints names on my phone with my husband because we hadn't completed a boys name. We picked a middle name and then suddenly switched the name around because we liked the middle name so much we made it the first name. We finished and fist-bumped on it 2 miles from the midwife.

We checked in with everyone and this time we were given a huge room in the B&B with a private bath and huge sunk-in tub. The midwives wanted to listen to the baby and get my vitals, then they asked if I wanted to be checked. I actually did want to be checked. With the prodromal labor I had I was curious. So we found out that I was 4 cm, 100% effaced, bulging bag of waters, and baby was at 0 station. I felt great about that and wanted to go outside and walk around since it was such a warm fall day.

David and I walked around the B&B gardens and then even wandered down the road to a farmers market. I would stop and lean into him during contractions and he would rub my lower back. When we got back to the B&B it was 2pm and we were both hungry. David searched for somewhere that I could get a turkey sandwich and off we went in the car. I labored smoothly again during the ride and enjoyed the sunshine and beautiful farms everywhere. We sat down at a table at the restaurant and I was glad the hostess sat us away from people. I gripped the table during contractions and chatted and ate in between them like nothing was going on. As we were finishing I noticed that they were harder and getting closer so I told him we should get back. The ride back to the B&B was definitely harder. I had to have the window down and when the car took turns it was pretty awful.

It was 4pm when we got back to the B&B and I sat on the birth ball while David snoozed on the bed. I took a picture of him and sent it to friends saying, "My view while laboring". I got sleepy and tried to lay down next time him when my water broke with a huge pop and it totally freaked me out for a second. I woke David up and he got the midwives. They changed the sheets and helped me into dry clothes. Then I sat on the ball and labored a little longer. With each contraction, more amniotic fluid came spilling out and I decided that the tub would be better.

The midwives filled the tub and I got in. The warm water felt great at first, but then I was hot and uncomfortable and my contraction were so intense and right on top of each other. I felt myself pushing and told them I needed to get out of the tub. They had the birth stool there in a flash and I sat down on it with David behind me, just like when we had Brody and I started to push. I was checked and I was 10 cm and baby was +2 station. My pushing felt out of control and I felt like mentally I wasn't handling it as well as before. But after a couple of pushes the midwife told me to feel my baby's head. I couldn't do it. I couldn't move my hands from where they were gripping the birth stool.

But as intense as it was, in just 4 minutes of pushing, at 7:17 pm, the secret life was born. After a simple, calm, free pregnancy and a relaxed, secure labor and delivery, I had a baby in my arms. But what was it? There was towel on the baby hiding the sex and I was already in love like I knew I'd be... but what was it? I didn't care right away. I was looking into those alert little eyes and marveling at what a fantastic secret it had been. I eventually wanted to look and with David looking over my shoulder, I pulled back the towel.

And Imogen Anastasia was a secret no more...

The Last of the Mohicans

2014-12-05T07:46:00.002-08:00

I’m a yeller. While Teddy Roosevelt "speaks softly and carries a big stick", I, "Yell loudly and carry a passionate heart." I recently got in a fight with my parents. I can’t tell you what it’s about. It’s a heavy topic about myself that I keep locked in my heart with other people’s heavy secrets that have been confided in me. But I will tell you this: Most of the time, I keep secrets to not hurt others but every once in awhile, when I'm seriously provoked, they explode out like a bullet. These secrets I keep are heavy on my heart. They sit there like a heavy drum with a slow beat sometimes messing up the natural rhythm of my heart. I don’t think some people can handle it like I can, that's why keep it private. Not everyone can handle a heavy drum beat. Some hearts might completely stop with something messing with its rhythm. Mine goes on, I know it will, and sometimes I am resentful of the hearts I protect.

A few years ago, when I was pregnant with my third child and I had a paying job, I went on a business trip to Salt Lake City. I hadn’t told anyone at work I was pregnant yet. In Salt Lake, I met Erica, a colleague that I had previously only had contact with via phone and email. But we liked each other and had talked enough to already have a small friendship. I knew Erica’s real passion was her “inner-eye”. She was a self-proclaimed mystic and I thought she was neat.

When we were alone in a conference room she said, “I will tell you your secret and then tell you mine.”

“Uh… ok?” I replied, confused.

“You have two auras right now” Erica said, “Have you told anyone at work yet?”

I was floored. She knew I was pregnant! I was only 8-10 weeks and not showing at all. “Holy shit! No, I haven’t!”

“I won’t say anything. Do you want to know? Do you want to know the sex?”

“You can see that?”

“Yes. Do you want me to tell you?”

I couldn’t help it. I had to know what she would say.

“It’s a boy." She continued, "The second aura is male.”

About 7 months later I left work to take care of my third baby boy. Erica left to become a professional seer.

However, before we both left the boring world of intellectual property law, we met up one more time when she came to the home office. This time, Erica asked me if I wanted to do a past-life hypnosis with her. “A what?” I asked. Basically she would hypnotize me and take me back through my memories all the way to birth and “beyond” to see if there were any memories from before. Let me stop you here to let you know what my teenage son said with a knowing twinkle in his eye when he heard this, “That doesn’t sound very Catholic, mom.” Nope. No it doesn’t.

Anyway, I said yes. She made it sound very non-threatening for me. I didn't have to believe in it. I didn't have to think it was real. I could just think it was dreams or made up stuff in my mind, but if I learned something interesting it was worth it for both of us. That sounded fine to me.

I sat on the couch with my eyes closed at another coworkers house who was also game. Erica starting speaking and telling me to picture a light a follow it. She directed me to picture various stages of my life and continue to follow the light through time. Her voice started to fade and memories came into and out of focus. It was peaceful and chaotic at the same time. I was still following the light. Erica's far away voice told me to picture my birth. All I saw was brightness and then darkness and then the light again. I was still following the light and there were no more memories but I felt like I was moving fast. It was like driving at high speed through a dark tunnel that I had never driven through before.

The tunnel ended, the light disappeared, and Erica's voice was gone. All there was was trees. Trees were everywhere. It was warm and woodsy and I felt at home and comfortable. I was walking through the forest, light- footed and happy. My feet were calloused inside my leathery shoes, my skin tone was different and my hair long and dark. But it was all mine, the body felt comfortable.

I felt like I had spent most of the day alone in the woods and was walking home. I didn't know where that was but I knew we were going there. I was weirdly both passenger and driver and I just went with it. Suddenly there were people. Everyone vaguely looked the same. They were all busy working but I was still light-footed and happy. No one talked to me. Some people looked up and smiled at me as I passed, some looked at me and were stern. I didn't care either way. I had such a free heart, it was as light as my feet. I saw a man in the distance eating and looking out towards me. Even though he was older and sitting I could see his large stature and stately dress. I knew him and I picked up my pace to get to him.

But before I got there, before I could even see his face clearly, the memories shifted and I was laying down on a bed. It was dark with an orangey glow inside a round structure filled with faces looking at me. They were the same kind of faces from before, all vaguely similar like a huge extended family; men, women, children, I knew them all. I was aware that I was old... and dying. Some of the faces were weeping, some looked anxious, some wore a stoic face, some were confused. I felt fine, kind of content and at peace, a little sorry to go and a little looking forward to it. I smiled at the people around me, and I could feel my weathered face crinkling and was aware of how tiring it was to even do that.

There was a drum beat. It was strong and rhythmic and outside my heart. I became aware that this woman had a heavy heart as well, filled with secrets she was taking to with her. I listened to the drum and could feel her concentrating on it while she looked at the people gathered around her. She could feel the beat in her body and as she let it take over, her heart got lighter until she felt like she was walking, carefree and light-footed again. The secrets stayed behind, lost in the beat.

The rhythmic drum ended and I could feel the couch beneath me again. I sat for a bit before I opened my eyes. When I did, there was Erica casually watching me. She smiled at me knowingly and I felt a little exposed. "What did you see?" she asked. I told her about the Native American woman, the village, the stately man, and the death scene. I started out apprehensively, kind of like I was telling a crazy story. But Erica listened like it was perfectly normal, "It sounds like you were someone important to that tribe, like a Chief's daughter." "I know." I replied, "But there is no way I'm going home and telling my husband that I saw myself as an Indian Princess in a past life. I will never hear the end of it. 'OH! (dripping with sarcasm) Your an Indian Princess now?!?! No wonder you think you don't have to do any housework!'"

When I got to the death scene Erica leaned in a little closer. She said people don't usually see deaths in past-life memories and she had a lot of questions for me. I told it her it wasn't a dramatic death. It was the death we all hope for... old and well-lived and surrounded by people who love us. I had the impression that she had had many children, and thus many grandchildren and maybe great-children. There were husbands of daughters and wives of sons, all present and all knew her well. Her own husband was long gone and she had done everything expected of a well-born woman in the tribe. She had lived long and strong and justly. She had known all the greats... great pain and great love, great happiness and great sorrow, great decisions and great fate. And I knew at that moment, watching this woman die, that these are the things that make a life "great".

I thought about this experience for a long time after and I still think about it today. It's difficult for me because I don't really believe in this stuff and as my son pointed out, it's not very Catholic. So, I've kind of married the two in my brain. That somehow God had taken my hand and led me on this journey and showed me a woman with whom I could see human strength in a pretty basic and uncomplicated life. That pain and secrets and heavy hearts are part of the human condition and that when it's over you leave it behind. And even though these people were not monotheistic, God was still there. He was in that spiritual drum beat comforting this woman and welcoming her to walk happy and light-footed to Him.

I was thinking about this woman and my secrets as I stared out the window of the garage while my car was getting it's oil changed. David and Brody were running around playing. I was lost in thought and not paying attention as usual. One of them knocked over a small tire display and I was brought back to my reality. I quickly switched gears and gently reprimanded them while we put the tires back. Then I sat and played with them. We smiled and laughed. I let them get drinks from the water cooler a hundred time because they think the handle spout is fun.

Brody spilled water on the floor while I was doing something with David. The garage manager, Ricci came over with paper towels and was already quietly cleaning up the water when finally saw him. "Oh, jeez. I'm sorry. I didn't even know. You don't have to clean it up, I can do it." "I know you can, Mami", replied Ricci, "But I wanted to do it for you. Come on over with me, your car is done and the bill is ready. Let's get you out of here."

I followed him over and he continued to talk. "You remind me of my mom back in Puerto Rico, and the other moms there when we were all kids. They would laugh and smile and play but if you caught one in a quiet moment, when they thought no one was looking, you could see the seriousness of them. They were always keeping something, protecting someone even if no one really needed protection. But they always knew how to live, how to enjoy life, how to show everyone it's ok to have joy and sadness, ya' know?" "Yeah, Ricci, I know what you mean." I had brought my car to him for years, but this was the first time I had really seen him, yet I got the impression he had been seeing me for a while.

"People aren't strong like that anymore." He continued. "They don't have good examples of how people are. I try to remember my mom when I have heavy stuff to think about and I have a lot of that. You do too, I know." "Yes." I said simply, still looking at him deeply. He continued, "People get consumed with hard stuff too quickly. You can't let that shit happen. You have to keep living life. People like you and me, Leah, we're like the last of the Mohicans." I smiled at him and thought, "More than you know, Ricci, more than you know..."

Happiness is a Warm Gun

2014-09-26T11:17:00.000-07:00

He was looking at me with his gray eyes while I was driving, his little head on the arm rest, eyes gazing as usual. I was trying not to look back at him too much. Instead I had one hand lingering on his furry body, playing with his ears, rumpling his head, or just resting it on his torso.  "He was such a good car dog.", I thought, but then caught myself, "He IS a good car dog. He will being enjoying car rides for long time."

Two months prior, I had picked up this little 5 week old puppy. He was skinny and covered in ringworm. I remember how I placed him gingerly on a towel on the passenger seat and when I drove away from the vet's office, he did everything his tiny body could to get to me. He ended up in a ball on my lap with his head resting against my stomach, gazing up at me. For the short time of his life with me, in any quiet moment he would gaze at me. It was like he was always watching my face trying know what my meaning was to him.

He had been dumped with 2 litter-mates at a vet's office and I volunteered to foster him thru a local pit bull rescue group. As he gained weight and his fur grew back into the bald ring-worm patches, he became the shiny coated "blue-nose" pit bull puppy that would get a lot of attention. He was all gray except for a white chest, white socks, and a little white stripe on his nose, and he was all puppy.

Even though he had a formal adoption name, I defaulted to calling him "Poocher". It was a vague and kind of detached name, yet still cute for a puppy. Poocher was work. I swear I went through a 12 pack of paper towels every week. I was constantly cleaning up pee and poop and I kept a spray bottle of cleaner everywhere. He seemed to have developed an amazing ability to pee under his crate from inside of it. I wouldn't even know it was there until hours later when it would dry and stink to high hell. The dog rescue hooked Poocher up with a dog food so fancy and nutritious it was probably healthier than most things my kids ate. But god it made his crap smell. An entire city block would smell after this dog pooped one of his incredibly healthy and expensive poops.

We came to find out that Poocher loves shoes. Shoes are everywhere in this house. It must have been heaven for Poocher. Shoes of every shape and size all are all over the place... and interesting ones too! Fireman rainboots, cowboy boots, moon boots, velcro sneakers that light-up, Nike's with neon shoelaces, Toms, sandals, flip-flops, heels, Robeez... everything. I was constantly on shoe patrol.

Our resident family dog, Petey, had a lot of fun with Poocher...except in the mornings. Petey isn't a morning dog. The whole house is moving in the morning except for Pete who snoozes the morning away. Poocher, on the other hand, couldn't wait for the sun to peak over the horizon. I would let him out of his crate and he would bee-line to Petey's bed, like an annoying little brother, and jump all over him. Petey would lie still and let out a low growl. So, I added "keeping Poocher alive" to my morning routine.

Poocher also added some family stress. My husband was tolerant but slightly annoyed with another of my "do-gooder" projects, and was almost completely hands off about helping with the Puppy. The little kids started out extremely excited to have a puppy in the house, but over the weeks as Poocher grew, they went from fighting over who got to hold him to yelling, "Get this puppy away from me!!!!!" My teenager got so annoyed with dog pee, that at one point he got angry/serious and lectured me saying, "I don't think bringing home a foster puppy was good for our family right now."

In the middle of all this, I ran across this John Lennon quote on FB:

When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy.’ They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.

People seem to love this quote. I don't. I think they're the words of a self-indulgent person. (I love the Beatles. I can sing every Beatles song by heart, but let's call a spade a spade) Happiness is the key to life? Get the eff out of here. Is happiness really the meaning of our existence? Is that what we should all be striving for in life? Happiness is of course important in life, but the KEY? I can't think that that should be true. What vapid meaningless creatures we must be.

Why the hell did I take this foster puppy? It sure didn't make me happy a lot of the time. It was hard and frustrating and at the end of the day it wouldn't be my dog to show for it. I would put in this time and energy and off he would go. And this car ride that Poocher and I were doing right now, God it was hard. I know I wasn't going to feel happy when we got our destination. And it wouldn't end there, afterwards there was going to be some anxiety, some painful worrying. What a freaking mess.

Poocher shifted in his seat and sat up alert, like he could feel my anxiousness. He took his eyes off of me and faced forward like a brave little soldier, just accepting that being around me was good, that whatever we were doing was okay, because I was doing it with him. I had been his care-taker for almost all of his short life so far and being with me was all he knew.

It wasn't all I knew though. I was human. I was blessed and cursed with great intellect and deep oceans of feelings. I could see it all for this puppy and me and I refused to allow the key to my life be happiness. The key to my life is and always will be, goodness.

Happiness can be a by-product of doing good but not always. It's an extra in human existence. Just a sweet, sweet icing on the cake but certainly not the "key". I can't imagine how terrible our world would be if everyone went around seeking happiness as the "key" to their lives. It's already a problem. I guarantee it's one of the reasons we have more anxiety, depression, and addiction. Everyone thinks they need to be seeking happiness all of the time and when they do stuff and it doesn't bring happiness it drives them deeper into self despair.

Like parenting... how many people out there distress themselves about being happy with their kids? Like - I'm not happy enough, my kids aren't happy enough, parenting isn't making me happy enough, I must be a bad parent since I'm not happy enough. Let my tell you something, and this is the real key to life - You aren't meant to be happy all of the time, it's okay not to be happy all of the time, your meaning on this planet is not based on your happiness. Now, go be free... go be free to find goodness. That's where you are going to find the "key" to life, happiness or not.

In those moments when you are not happy in life, it will okay if you have goodness because even without happiness there is substance there. And when your cake gets iced with happiness, it will exceed your wildest dreams when using the correct key to life. Take the happiness key off your key chain. It's the wrong key. Open the door with goodness and happiness will come. Not every door you open will have happiness behind it, but if you open it with the right key, it will be okay.

Now, Don't get me wrong. There's nothing wrong with doing things that make you happy just for happiness sake. Those times are like taking a breather. They are good for us. My beef is with happiness being the KEY to life.

If you run around with your happiness key, you will only be opening the same door to constantly get to happiness. At best life will be selfish, empty, indulgent and at worst it will be a tragedy. People using this key will say, "I really need to work on myself and my happiness."  "I can't worry about other people right now, I need worry about what makes me happy." John Lennon used the happiness key a lot and I'm sure his first son would have a lot to say about what it meant to have a parent fixated on being happy. And what if you suffer from depression or anxiety and you keep trying to use your happy key to open that same old door, and happiness doesn't come? What then? Tragedy.

I reached over and put my hand on Poocher's back. We were nearing our destination. He felt the comfort of my touch and turned toward me again, his little whip of a pit bull tail wagging. We came to a stop light and I finally looked at him. Having my eye contact only made Poocher's tail wag faster and my heart feel heavier. God I wasn't happy. Maybe I should concentrate on my own happiness more. Wouldn't life be easier without all this noise? Easier? Is that what I really want?

Maybe John Lennon had a teacher who didn't want an easy answer. When they asked that question, maybe they wanted answer that showed depth and concern for the world around him. Maybe they wanted an answer that was some form of "I want to do good in this world!" Maybe that's why they pressed him for a better answer. Maybe someone wanted him to think, be challenged, be uncomfortable. But instead he probably went home to a mother who said, "Oh Johnny! I want you to be happy! You deserve to be happy! That's all that's really important in life, my love, your happiness!"

I parked along a tree lined street in front of a big lovely house with a big green lawn. I knew who was in there... a family of 3 and another dopey fun-loving pit bull. I sat in my car with Poocher. I dared to look at him again and fought tears. I patted my lap, the signal he was waiting for, and he leaped across the center console onto me. He was everywhere... in my hair, nipping my ears, licking my face and in return I wrapped my arms around him and covered him in the closest hug I could. My little ward could never get enough affection and he ate it all up completely oblivious that this was our last real moment.

Two tears had managed to escape and I wiped them with the sleeve of my shirt. This was the plan. I was never going to keep this dog. I spent weeks telling him, "You don't belong to me, you know" while I half-grinned at his puppy affection for me. I have a 100 pictures of him on my phone that I knew I was going to run across from time to time and feel regret. At night he would sit with me on the couch while my husband worked late and when the kids played too rough he run to me and hide between my legs. And the quiet gazing, "Who are you?" "I'm nobody, little creature, I'm just a rest stop on your path to happiness."

I picked him up and got out of the car holding him.  I set him on the sidewalk and when I stood up, there was his family on the porch waiting for him. They waved at me, beaming. God they looked happy and I was envious of the feeling. Poocher noticed them and happily trotted all of the way up the path to say hello.  I followed reluctantly at the other end of his leash, two beings juxtaposed with each other. I definitely was out of place in the middle of all this blatant happiness.

When it was over, I gave him one last hug and let him nip my ears a little. Then I walked back to my car. I didn't want to look back but I did, and there he was at the end of his leash pulled in my direction gazing again at me intently, "Where are you going?" I turned away and put my sunglasses on before anyone would see the tears that were blinding me. "Go little creature" I thought, "Go forget about me and be happy. Make your life about being happy. That is a luxury you can afford and that's why for me, this will have been good."

***

If you would like to make a donation to help dogs like Poocher find their paths to happiness, please click here http://www.sunrayspitbulls.org/

The Psychic

2014-07-21T17:04:00.004-07:00

"Oh my God!" my husband yelled. In the split second before my head continued at 45 miles an hour into the back of my husbands seat, I saw bright head-lights and then heard the seemingly deafening sound of metal and glass crashing. Then it was quiet, a few moments of weird quietness before the kids starting crying and my husband started yelling to us, "Is everyone ok!?!?!" My eyes drifted to the rear-view mirror and I locked eyes with myself. "No! I'm not ok! I need to go to the hospital!" My husband and James looked at me. James immediately started dialing 911 and I looked one last time at the blood running down my face and the grotesque lump that was growing at a weird rate on my left temple.

Neighbors around the accident came running out to help. A women with a pretty and pleasant face (so pleasant, that concern didn't quite look right on it) appeared and opened my door urging me to get out of the car. I couldn't. I just couldn't move. The pain was crazy. And when I say crazy, it was the worst pain I have every felt. This is coming from someone who has had med-free child birth, 2 C-section recoveries and fought gall-bladder attacks for 5 years. The pain paralyzed me with fear and I was shaking all over. The pleasant women stayed with me until the EMT's arrived and had me in the truck. While we waited, she talked to me like we were meeting for coffee... how many kids did I have? Ages? Schools? Etc. I don't like small talk, and it seemed weird and foggy at the time. I wasn't even sure she was real, like, who has small talk with someone with a busted, bleeding face? But now I figure that she was just trying to keep me coherent and calm.

In the Ambulance the 2 EMT's were like good-cop and bad-cop. Good cop was a handsome black man, with kind eyes and long pretty dread-locks pulled back from his face, bad-cop was an angry white women with short blonde hair. Good-cop hovered over me and asked me questions and then bad cop wanted to insert a heploc. I told her "no", that I hated needles and IV's. She was adamant that I get one. I asked if we could just wait until we got to the hospital and see if I needed one or not. We went back and forth. Good-cop followed her with his eyes while he gently wiped the blood out of my eye. She was getting annoyed, I was getting nauseous... she won.

When we got to the ER and they got me out of the truck and handed me off to the hospital staff, I quietly, through the pain and nausea said, "Thanks guys." Bad-cop smiled and said, "Your welcome." All was forgiven.

A month and a half later, I followed Warren out the kitchen side door into the brilliant summer sunshine and I immediately flinched. I am currently doing concussion therapy 4 times a week and sunshine is like battery on my eyes. The air was cool for mid-July and it felt good. Warren, with his closely cropped, platinum blonde summer hair and deep brown tan (I mean honestly, the kid couldn't be any blonder or any tanner), raced to the front of the house where our neighbor Ben was having a yard sale. Warren loves yard sales. He had a Ziploc sandwich bag full of change and he quickly buzzed from table to table like a little honey bee. I paged through a thick book of herbs and asked how much it was when I noticed the big sign, "Psychic Readings $10"

Ben's girlfriend sat in front of the sign in a red sundress across from an empty chair. I don't know if it was the wad of bills stuck in her bra-strap, or the boldness of anyone with wild ginger curls and milky white skin to wear red, but I plopped myself down in the empty chair and asked, "So how does this work?" "Well" She began, "I am going to ask you to close you eyes and I will have you picture certain things in your mind and then ask questions about it." "Ok, Let's do it.", I was game.

"Okay", she began, "Close your eyes. Now imagine you're walking down a road..." Immediately into my dark mind, a road appeared. It was a dirt "wagon-wheel" road surrounded by meadow. "Are you with anyone or are you alone?" I'm alone. My hand reached out and I let the tall grass tickle my open palm. Insects buzzed, and although it was sunny, I could look everywhere clearly. The road was relatively straight but went up and down in little hills every now and then, but nothing so big that I couldn't see over it and into the distance beyond.

"Now imagine you are walking along this road and you come across a key. Where is the key? What does it look like? I find a key. It's a boring brassy little house key just floating in midair, kind of Harry Potter-ish. "What do you do with it?" I immediately reach out and take it my hand. I see it in my palm and put it in my pocket.

"Now keep walking. Next you come across a cup. What does it look like? What's inside of it? What do you do with it?" I keep walking and come across a glass of water. The glass is crystal clear, cleaner than any glass my family has ever owned. The water sparkles in the sunshine. I am suddenly very thirsty and want to pick it up and drink it.

"Now you come across a tree. Describe the tree." My tree appears along the road. It's alone and beautiful. Like a pretty story book tree with hole in it. The wood is rough and grayish and the leaves a brilliant green. I stop and look at it. I like the contrast of the rough bark against the smooth leaves. I let my hand touch the rough bark and I briefly let a leaf slide between my fingers, but I don't dare take it. I hate pulling leaves off of trees. Then I keep walking.

"Next you come across a wall. The wall goes as a high as you can see and stretches across to the right and left completely. A giant stone wall appears. Even though it is looming and infinite, it doesn't feel foreboding. I know the stone is cool without even touching it, but I do. I feel the cool grey stones and let my fingers curl into the mortar between them. I look up into the nothingness. "What do you do?" I decide to walk alongside the wall, letting my left hand drift and drag along it. "But what if you can't find an end? What then?" I stop. I decide to turn around and find the path and head back the way I came.

So, what becomes of all of this? Well, the road has been my view of life so far, the key is how I perceive the future, the cup is my definition of love and relationships (both romantic and friendly), the tree is how I view sex and attraction, and the wall... the wall is death. She explains all of this to me and goes over what my answers mean. I actually really enjoyed it. It didn't seem as much psychic as psychological. I asked her what she did as her day job. "I'm an insurance agent" Is that what you've always done? "No, I majored in psychology."

Two themes seemed to stick out the most, simplicity and transparency. She talked about how much I hate being lied to. And yeah, everyone hates being lied to, but basically once I label someone as a liar they are as good as dead. I told her that there was no big lie told in my life but I did hate liars, and I had literally just been lied to that week. Nothing big. I mean, A friend showed a picture I posted on FB to someone. It was basically a picture of this other mom on the team being a finish judge in a skimpy bikini top and little cut-off jean shorts and drinking beer on the job. I know, I know... classy! It was a distance shot, so you couldn't see her face. She literally looked like a random wax figure of Barbie's older sister.

After the picture was shown, I was technically criminally assaulted by a 6ft tall Amazon women (I'm 5"3, I literally look like a hobbit next to her). She was in my face, tripping over Brody in his stroller and I was flooded with the smell of Corona while she screamed, "I'm going to fuck you up!" and that I should, "watch my back." (it turned out that Barbie's sister was so drunk she had to leave her car there. Who get's wasted at a children's swim meet? I mean, I know they're boring and all, but just bring a book or something) And then I asked my friend straight-out if she showed the picture and she answered "no" when she really had. This was like a back-stabber friend type lie. Those feel like you are just driving along in your car, and someone makes a random left hand turn into you and you plow right into them. It's all so very unexpected and you sit there for a minute in a dizzy fog thinking, "Did that just happen?".

I didn't want to be driven anywhere after the accident. I was scared to be a passenger. Once or twice I got so scared and anxious I cried. It was easier to be the driver, but even that was hard. I forced myself to be a passenger though. I couldn't let my anxiety grow and get out of control, so I immediately started "flooding" myself. It worked pretty well. My anxiety reached it's peak a few times and then came back down and It started to get easier.

I have a pretty strong internal locus of control, and that was shaken up a bit by the fact that you can't control what other people do and therefor your destiny isn't completely within your control. Like, for reals! There was nothing we could have done to prevent that accident. And there's nothing you can do to prevent some people from turning on you. If they are gonna turn they just will, whether they are making a left turn or making a lie.

So, I'll just continue to walk my simple path with the small hills, key in my pocket, and looking for a drink of crystal clear water in a clean glass cup.

Flags Flapping

2014-03-29T08:09:00.001-07:00

Two monks were arguing about a flag. "The flag is flapping," said one. "No," said the other, "the wind is flapping." The argument went back and forth. The Master happened to be passing by. He told them: "Not the wind, not the flag; your minds are flapping."

"Let me hold the baby for you while you do your homework.". I looked up from reading this little metaphor in my textbook. My mom was standing over me, hands outstretched. "Sure. Thanks!"
I said as she was already lifting a smiley Brody off my lap. It was more of a statement than a question anyway. Gosh that question. I had first heard it 16 years ago, when I was finishing high school with a new baby. "Let me hold the baby for you while you do your homework." My mom had said it many times. It made me smile to hear it again at 34.

I've been getting burn-out on motherhood lately. Not my own, just everyone else's. Sometimes I just want to lock myself in my house, turn off all the social media, and relish in the crazy natural survival-ness that is my family. There is too much over-analyzing and second guessing and just pure agonizing out there. A little bit of this is good and natural I think. It keeps you on your toes in your vocation as Mother or Parent. It's kind of Adlerian - Alfred Adler, one of the most important psychodynamic theorists of our time believed that humans were motivated by inferiority. He would have a field day with mothers today! But when it get's out of hand, it's just exhausting for you... and for me and I don't have time to be any extra exhausted. I have survival exhaustion and I don't need any neurotic exhaustion.

There is also a lot of extremism out there and with it comes a lot of anger and depression. A lot of words like this.... must, best, preferred. A lot of people standing around with different opinions of what makes the flag flap or what way to make it flap best. Or even just people wrestling with their own opinion and keeping up with it. I actually had to take a break from some FB groups like this.

Now some of this comes from perspective that I have and I will share with you. I have four flag poles in my front yard with 4 lovely, different and richly colored flags flapping at different speeds and with varying levels of ferocity. The first pole was set up when I was 17 and James was born. At that young age I hoisted his flag. It was plainer than it is now and closer to the ground on the pole. I could only hoist it so far and as time went on the flag went higher and became more colorful. Now there's only a little bit of line for me to hoist before it's all the way to the top. But God is that flag colorful and flapping proudly and I often revel in it's beauty.

I can't believe how beautiful it is in fact! How could that be? I didn't spend a lot of time analyzing what was making the flag flap... I couldn't! My parent's had barely finished hoisting my own flag and yet there I was with a new flag of my own. I was very much in survival mode when James was born and I had a young, care-free mind. I did the best I could at being a mother and a lot of that time was spent surviving and laughing. Somehow this kid grew quite excellently in both body and mind. I didn't stress much about what he ate, what he was learning, what he was watching, what his grades were. I just didn't. It wasn't because I didn't care. I cared very much, but I was so young that I didn't know what little things to care about. I didn't know to stand there and wonder what was making the flag flap, it just was. You know the old saying, "ignorance is bliss"? It's true. I was offered the ability through my youth and ignorance to just experience how much flags color and flap on their own. All I had to do was be there to hoist it and marvel at it.

Now that I'm a "normal" aged mother, I do pay more attention to more things because I know more. But when I mess up, or life get's too busy to care about raw milk that week or washing cloth diapers, I just don't beat myself up about it. Sometimes I may give the wrong explanation for something to a child or spend too much time on my phone that day, sometimes I let me kids eat birthday cake for breakfast and micro-waved chicken nuggets for lunch. Their rooms get messier than they should be and when I watch them play sports it's all taken with a grain of salt. But I care about everyone of these things. I know it's not healthy to eat cake in the morning or pink sludge for lunch. I know it's good for kids to keep their space organized.

It's just that, if I'm off on any of this and more, I know it will be ok. Theses flags are more amazing than we give them credit for. I might be having a bad day, week, month, year.... I might stop caring about organic food in 2015 and care again 2016. One kid might be in his crib at 4 months and then next might be co-sleeping to 4 years. James was only breastfeed to 6 months, while Warren was allowed the opportunity to nurse until he was tugging on my shirt in the supermarket asking for "milky time". A lot of the time I think about that first flag and tell myself, "It's ok. You did it when you were 17 and knew nothing about what makes flags flap and at the end of the day, this one will be flapping too."

I was walking with a friend the other day. She asked me, "How did you make the decision to go back to school with four kids?". I answered, "I don't know. I just did it. I've always been that way, ever since James. When I was young and pregnant I said to myself, 'Ok. You are just going to do this.' and that's been my perspective for any major decisions. I don't spend a lot of time analyzing and that probably drives my husband a little nuts, but if I stand there too long my mind will start flapping.".

Don't spend too much time wondering what's making your flags flap or your mind will start flapping. Don't wonder if your flag is flapping fast enough or if it seems too fast. Make sure your worries and decisions are back dropped by a dose of wonder about the naturalness of flapping flags and let it BE a wonder. You aren't supposed to be everything, know everything, decide everything, perfect everything, and try everything. Marvel at the colors your flags become, let your heart beat to the natural rhythmic tempo of their flapping, and be waiting calmly, sometimes excitedly, sometimes with a drop reminiscent sadness, to hoist when needed.

When you pull up on that last little bit of line, and walk a little distance away you will want it to be a piece of living art, flapping organically, and you will want to say, "That is so cool. I just love how it flaps."

The Confessional

2014-01-29T14:19:00.001-08:00

Today I pulled the mini-van up to the Wendy's drive-thru window. The glass slid open and a women about the same age as I am appeared. "Hi Hon, you're total is $8.27. Are you off from work today?" I felt worried about my answer. I defiantly didn't look like a woman on her lunch break. My hair was doing some weird Jared Leto pony-bun thing and my sloppy t-shirt under my jacket was a dead give-away that I was not coming from, nor going to a paying job that day. I am on my second week of classes and briefly thought about saying that I was a "graduate student" or that I am "working on my masters". But who can take that seriously when Kids Place Live is playing in your mini-van. No, I was just there because I am out of my tub of Wegman's organic spring mix salad and I really love Wendy's salads. I was going to have a gem of a moment where two kids are asleep in the car and I was going to sit and eat my salad and listen to the radio.

My mom worked when I was a kid, and her mom before her, and the one before that was from "the old country" and probably racked up some good hours of farm work. Why I couldn't get the tall beautiful model Eastern European genes instead of the short, strong, babushka wearing Eastern European genes is a crying shame. But I certainly have a lot of natural energy passed down from those working women, and I am very thankful for that.

My maternal grandmother, Helen, left school after 9th grade to work. She told me that she was tired of being poor and wanted "nice things". She was a factory worker - silk mill and donut factory are two places that I know of. My mother complains of being a chubby teenager because of all the donuts my grandmother would bring home. Helen got married at 18 to my first grandfather and had a toddler and a newborn when she lost him in WWII. She was then a young, single, working mother until she met my second grandfather several years later, got married, and had my two uncles. Two husbands, four kids, ten grandkids, and fifteen great-grandkids later, Helen is now almost 91 and going quite strong for her nine decades of life.

My mother graduated high school and entered the "white-collar" world as a secretary where she met father when he came to fix her type-writer (I know, how cute is that?). Mom and Dad married young at 20, and my father finished college with 3 young kids and went on to be a successful electrical engineer. My mother had me later, at age 36, when my siblings were almost all teenagers. She worked when I went to school. I was then a "latch key" kid. Came home, got my hidden key from the magnetic box my dad put on the water meter, and spent about 1-2 hours alone until my mom got home from work. In the summers, she would drop me off at the pool for swim practice before 9 am with my cooler packed with lunch and I would stay all day there doing tennis lessons, swimming, and running around with other kids until 4:30 when she would pick me up. Sound dangerous? No way! It was the 80's! Those were the best summers ever...

Anyway, I don't remember missing my mom. Not because I didn't want her around, just because I was too busy having an awesome summer full of memories. That's because I had a mom that left me every morning feeling so loved and cared for that all had to do was think about having fun. And then she would pick me up and take me home and make sure I was fed and clean and rested for my next day of awesomeness. She loved me so much and I knew that. It was a blanket of confidence that followed me my entire childhood, when she was home and when she wasn't.

I handed the woman a ten and answered, "No, I stay home with the kids".
She raised her eyebrows, "Well, then you aren't off at all are you?"
"No, I guess not" I answered with a meek smile.
"How old are your children?"
"16, 7, almost 3, and 5 months... all boys"
"Wow! I have two daughters 8 and 9. They look like twins, you should see them! My oldest was in the NICU for a while and her sister caught up fast. I also have a 4 month old son, I am so thankful for him because I lost twin boys in a still birth..."

She went on to tell me that her new baby was colicky. He was colicky the minute she couldn't pump anymore and switched him to formula. I felt like I was lost I time with this woman, telling me about her sweet little son. She had slid open the doors to a mom to mom confessional with me and the working mom guilt oozed out of every pore of her being. The nervous way she fiddled and just wanted to talk about her kids for a few minutes. The earnest look in her eyes when she told me how thankful she was to have this little man to love. And love she did. God, I could tell she loved her kids.

I knew how much she agonized about leaving that baby to go to work. I wanted to tell her that it would be ok, that if I could feel how much love she has in her heart, her kids could feel it 100 fold. I wanted to tell her that her yearning and second guessing and guilt was real and justified and that's what good moms do. I wanted to tell her that her kids were going to grow up so loved and secure that they wouldn't ever remember missing her, they would just remember love and fun and mom coming home. Because that's what kids remember and need and thrive on most, the feeling that their mother loves them. Their mother loves them while they are the cashier at Wendy's for eight hour shifts or while they are just in the next room folding laundry. Your kids will remember that you loved them.

But then a car pulled up to the order point, our moment in time was abruptly broken, and she had to go back to work. "Enjoy your day" she said, "You too." I replied. The confessional window closed and I drove away. I wish I could have said what I wanted to her, but nothing I say will make a good mom like that stop feeling guilty. I was just glad I was able to let her talk about her kids for 5 minutes. And I know she'll clock out and rush home and squeeze that baby and try to soothe his colic, help her daughters with homework and dinner and put everyone to bed maybe a little bit later than she should just to spend a little extra time with them. And her kids will wake up the next day cloaked in powerful, unconditional love that will last a lifetime.

Dear good moms everywhere who are doing whatever with your life, Just remember that loving your kids is the most important thing. Because when you do everything with love in your heart, you really are doing your best. And that guilt you feel for whatever reason, that heartache is your love pushing against the boundaries of your heart, because no physical thing can really contain the love of a good mother.

My Village

2014-01-28T06:48:00.001-08:00

I'm sitting alone in a movie theater. Don't judge, it's been a long week. I'm Ok with it. I'm introverted and there is probably no one better at going to the movies alone than an introvert. Buy your ticket, sit in the dark theater, pull your snacks and cans of soda out of your big bag (that part's not introverted, just cheap), and relax and be entertained in a room full of people where everyone agrees that talking to each other is annoying. Introvert paradise! I did try to do the socially acceptable thing and get a friend to go but she, like my husband, was working. James had a swim team party and he thought the first Hunger Games movie was boring anyway. That's what I wanted to see, Catching Fire. I've wanted to see it since November when in came out, but none of these dudes I live with have taken me. So, alone I went before it's out of theaters.

The movie was entertaining enough that I almost didn't miss my husband... almost. It's been an interesting week with him and I've poured myself into my little village of friends. I have always thought that a group of friends like "sex in the city" would be super cool and fun. But when you think about it, each one of those women are more extroverted and they thrive and do well in a group. I have friends that I see one at a time, mostly. Each one is a mirror of something like about myself or fills in something that's missing. So, this week I went around the village and knocked on doors and went in for a bit to decompress in different ways with each one.

The cans are back. Earlier this week the dog was barking in the kitchen. He barks sometimes throughout the day, like a "woof!" here and there, but this was real barking. I went down to the kitchen and there he was, one eye on the back door and one eye looking down the hallway for me. I slowed down as I approached and cautiously entered the kitchen and looked towards the back door. There was a man on our porch. His back was turned to the door and we was stooped over. I went over with Pete (the dog) by my side, and opened the door but kept the glass storm door closed. I rolled down the window a little and knocked to get the man's attention. "Excuse me Sir?", I said. He stood straight and turned. I immediately saw that he was homeless. He had multiple layers of worn clothing, no teeth, food smeared in his beard, and a filthy, rugged, red face from the -15 wind chill. He was also holding a big empty dog food bag and had been filling it with the soda cans from our recycling bin. "I'm sorry, Mamn." He said, "Do you mind if I take your cans? I'm doing really bad right now and these will help a little." "Sure." I said, "But next time could you wait until the cans are out at the curb instead of coming up on the property? It makes the dog nervous and he doesn't like strangers." That's a I lie. I'm the one that doesn't like strangers... or small talk, or Wegman's shoppers... and between my pit bull and me, I'm the one more likely to bite.

He said that was no problem and I closed up everything and called my husband. "David! I'm so sorry! A homeless man was on our porch and he took all your cans! I wasn't going to stop him.... Oh no! He's going down the back steps! What should I do? Wait! Now he has two of your big black garbage bags of empty soda cans from below the porch!" That homeless man had hit the jackpot at our house. And then the longer I thought about it all, the angrier I got. It was scary having a strange man on our porch. And granted he was nice and polite, but he did help himself to bags of cans that I didn't authorize. And I had asked him not to come on the property and instead he continued further onto our property to look around. No, No, I wasn't angry at the homeless man. I was getting angry at my husband! What if that man hadn't been nice? I mean, I am alone all day and he's attracting homeless people with his stupid can collecting! And this can hording was supposed to stop. He promised me he wouldn't bring home (he brings home cans from work!) or keep any more cans that would fit in one garbage bin. If that bin got full he had to take the cans to the metal recycling place before he continued collecting more cans. Well that promise went out the window a long time ago and now I'm scared our house has been marked. I mean, homeless people talk! What if that guy tells his friends about the aluminum at the end of the rainbow at 1289 Elm St.? (that's not our real address, don't try to find me) And what if I have strangers on the property all the time, and what if cans aren't enough? What if they look in the windows! And this guy, THIS GUY, had yelled at me for leaving an old wooden kitchen broom on the back porch. He said that someone would steal it, and it would bring someone onto the property. A BROOM! Gosh I was mad!

Later that night I picked up James from swimming. I told him the story about the homeless man and when we got home he went to investigate. "Mom, where did those chairs come from?" "What chairs?" "The chairs down by the basement door." Oh no. I went out and looked. There, by the basement door where 4 ugly kitchen table chairs. I went back inside and called my husband. "David, where did the chairs by the basement door come from?" I could hear the change in his voice, it sounds like someone who knows they got caught. "I brought them home the other night. Just look at them and give them a fair chance." "Ok, But if I look at them, and I think they are ugly, can I put them out with the garbage?" "I will get rid of them, but you can't get rid of them." Do you see this hoarding logic? Anyway, I agreed. I didn't tell him that I already thought they were ugly. Instead I decided to give them another shot in the morning, in the daylight. Maybe my fairy godmother would come over night and change them into a magical horse drawn carriage and take me on a night out, and give me fabulous shoes and would baby-sit while I went and danced. I don't need the prince part. Despite all of this nonsense, I am happily married, and even the most happily married woman will tell you that one man is more than enough. Plus, I already found my Prince Charming and he collects cans.

The next morning I went and looked again. Still ugly. If for some odd reason, I actually needed 4 kitchen chairs, these would never be it. I knew I had to approach this delicately. My husband is very protective of the treasure he finds. "David" I began calmly. "I did look at those chairs just now and I honestly think they are ugly. It would frustrate me if they stayed." KA-BOOM! My husband quickly threw up his offensive line. "Well, you know what frustrates ME?!? It frustrates me when the you don't pay bills on time! And it frustrates me when the house is a mess! And it frustrates me when..." You get the point. It didn't go well.

I left the house in a tearful huff and drove to my Catholic Mother's Group. I was actually supposed to lead the group that morning in prayer and discussion. I was coming off of that argument with my husband and that's all I could think of, so that was my topic. I basically unloaded this frustration on them and wanted to know how they balance frustration like this with respect and love for their spouse. Lillian said, that sometimes she thinks of the saying, "The greatest give of love is to lay down one's life for a friend." And when she is having a disagreement with her husband she thinks of that and "lays it down", like lays down her own issue for her spouse. Naomi offered that I could pray to St. Joseph and the Blessed Mother because they are truly experts at marriage and family, and I could ask them for help. A lot of good advice was offered and I didn't feel so alone. So, I texted my husband right then and there and told him to not worry about the cans or the chairs, it was all fine. He txt's back, "What did you do with the bag of cans I brought home from work last night?" OMG. Can't he see that Jesus, Mary, Joseph and I are trying to forgive him! I had a homeless man on our porch and that very night he brings home more cans! I shared the recent txt with the other woman. "Yeah... I'd say it's now time to put your foot down.", Naomi says.

Next, I went to visit Tracy. I picked up Pizza and drove to her house. It's the first time I'd seen her since before she had her baby on New Years Day. The last time I saw her was she had been 39 weeks along and I met her at night in the Wegman's parking lot. I stood there as she rolled up in her big dark SUV and I dealt her some herbal labor tea through her window in a paper bag. Now she met me on her drive-way and gave me a long hug that brought tears to my eyes. Tracy is my good deed for 2013. She was pregnant with her fifth baby and found herself with very limited birth options because of her pre-term classical (the King of all Scars, as I call it) C-section from her last pregnancy. I "counseled" and "advised" her through out her pregnancy and brought her from - I want a C-section, in a hospital, at full term... to having a water birth vbac with a midwife. I can't claim full credit, we can also thank the OB's and hospital for trying to box her into an undesirable corner instead of working with her wishes. And It takes a special person to listen to what I did with my birth and go and consider it. Her 9 lb vbac baby is a healthy little bundle and we sat and enjoyed lunch together. She shared some intimate moments about her birth that brought tears to my eyes and it felt so good to sit and talk about babies being born. It really cleared my mind and warmed my soul.

Then, I had to meet my friend Lori at Warren's school for pick-up time. She is St. Lori to me. Her son, Charlie, and Warren are in the same the class and it seems like they are becoming best friends. Lori is such a good baker. I brought baked goods home from her house once, and my husband told Warren, "You have to always be friends with Charlie." Warren asks why. "Because this is the best icing I've ever tasted." Lori was babysitting Warren and David for me while I went to James's swim meet. And let me tell you, anyone who would babysit those two, is a true friend indeed! We packed them into her car and she waved me goodbye, "Have fun living the life with one child!" Little baby Brody and I went to James's swim meet. It was so nice. I watched races I would have never gotten too before. I mentally critiqued starts and turns (I was a swimmer all the way through college) and even watched the men's and women's 500 free. It was such a treat. Thank God for Lori, it's good to have a friend who is empathetic enough to take your kids so that doing something is just a little more pleasant.

The next day, I went to my friend Michele's house for a play date. It's supposed to be a play date for our 2 and 3 yr olds, but mostly we just drink coffee, bullshit, and referee two year old fights over toys. It started to snow that morning and Michele doesn't like snow driving. I said I would come to her and when I got there I told her, "Your 're going to see me today whether you like it or not!" I needed some more friend therapy. Now I can really talk about anything with Michele. She is also smart as a whip and kind of cutthroat in her discernment of my issues. We talked about our Christmases and family issues. She's the one, unfortunately for her, that I unload all my extended family agony on. Michele is a hard-ass with this stuff and gives me a hard-ass perspective, which I do enjoy. I left feeling more confident and tough.

Fast forward to the day after the movie... I met with Sara, Sara from A Special Purpose, she took me out for dinner for my birthday and we laughed about how odd numbers always sound older than even numbers... like 33 sounds so much older than 32, you know what I mean. I turned 34 this year so it doesn't sound THAT much older than 33, right? I was happy to have someone to laugh with. My husband didn't have a lot of time to celebrate with me other than a kiss on the cheek before he left for work. He went to a game and then worked all weekend. It left no time to spend with me, hence me alone in a movie theater on a Sunday afternoon. I talked to Sara about my feelings surrounding some recent events. Sara has such a soft, good heart. Her perspective towards goodness in people was inspiring. On the way out Sara noticed that the place was having a DJ contest that Friday and she signed up. She got in and I was totally stoked to see her compete.

During the week, I thought of things Sara had said and reached out to try to make things better with some issues. It didn't work out and by Friday night I ended up covered in word vomit. Word vomit is what people spew all over you when they are so angry that they don't even make sense and are literally just out to hurt you. I got word vomit via text. Buckets and buckets of nasty, smelly word vomit. I actually even have an email inbox folder where I send emails that I am fairly sure contain word vomit. I don't even open them. I mean, I used to open them and then hated spending a week cleaning the vomit off of my clothes out of my hair. Now I just send them right to the "word vomit" folder.

It was about an hour before I was supposed to leave to see Sara DJ when I got vomited on. I skimmed the txt's, trying not to take them to heart. A lot of it was about this blog. People really do not like blogs! Most of it was so ridiculous, it was easy to joke in my head. Some of it was purposefully hurtful and most of it was so crazy, it didn't even warrant a response. It's like a person with anger management problems calling you crazy, and you're like how could I possible spend time proving that I'm not crazy to a angry, crazed person? They are just going to get angrier and crazier.

I unhooked the baby from my boob and handed him to my husband. Then I quickly combed my hair and threw on a black shirt and jeans (you can't go wrong with black, right? Especially if you have no time for make-up!) I left to see Sara covered in word vomit. I didn't burden her with helping me clean it all off. It was her night and I was there to support her. Another friend, Carrie, came too and we enjoyed some beers and danced and laughed a lot. I was still getting a few crazed text messages. The last one told me that if I even showed up in certain places that the sender would "personally escort me out". Carrie asked me what my phone was blowing up about and I shared the message with her. Carrie looked thoughtful for a moment and then grinned, "You know?" she said, "That's actually really nice, that she will personally escort you!" I choked on my beer mid-swallow. Carrie continued, "I mean instead of calling the police or grabbing a baseball bat, I think that's really nice!" I barely could set my beer down before my knees got weak from laughing, "That is really nice, isn't it?". The stink of the word vomit started to dissipate into the night.

Thank God for all these great friends that I have made. And thank God the can man always ends up being my Fairy Godmother and watches the kids for me so I can get out. Sitting alone in a movie theater is great every so often, but sometimes, it's good to let others into your space to give you a new, different energy. Because when you are alone in a movie theater, this definitely doesn't happen, and you'd be sorry to miss it...

The Snow Day

2014-01-03T19:50:00.002-08:00

2013 was quite a year! If you have been following my little stories you know that I was very busy and life was all over the place. I had two great triumphs. I navigated the wierd waters of family court with my oldest son and Boo Radley has disappeared as quickly and mysteriously as he came. Maybe he left Judy Scheindlin at home to flat iron her hair and met with a real attorney who told him it was a lost cause, or maybe he's run across my blog and become seriously embarassed. I don't know. Either of those situations would be deliciously fun. On the other end of the spectrum, I had my 4th little boy in 2013. That was quite a journey as I searched for and found the best birth for him and myself. I found a great midwife and was able to have "my painfull vaginal birth" as my wry friend Lynsey calls it. My husband now transforms into the Incredible Hulk of homebirth/midwifery advocacy at the drop of the word "hospital", "intervention", or "risky". Watch out!

So, 2013 was very busy, and from time to time I felt like I wasn't doing enough with my kids. I'm with them all day, but I don't feel like I'm filling up an adventure book with them. And I'm busy with dumb stuff too, boring stuff, day to day stuff. I mean I just feel busy, but not really. I tell people I feel like I do everything and nothing. It's like you do stuff all day but really get nowhere. It's just shit you have to do, busy-work... drive the kids everywhere, laundry, dishes, pick-up toys, cook meals, and when the day is over, you don't really feel like you've accomplished anything, but yet, you were busy all day!

And now with this new baby, who is nursing and growing like a champ thank you very much, I sit and nurse. If you have ever nursed a young baby, you know what I mean. You are held hostage a lot of the day in cars, restaurants, your house, wherever just sitting and nursing. It takes me 2 times, 3 times as long to get anything done or go anywhere. As convenient as whipping your boob out at your baby's whim is, you do have to spend time doing it.

So, I've been feeling like a totally un-fun mom alot. I just feel like I don't have enough adventures and projects and events with my older kids, and it bums me out. It's too much mundane, everyday busy work around here. And it's cold here where we live so it's a lot of in house play and mess in the winter. I hear a lot of, "Mommy, play with me!" "Mommy can you help me with this?" "Mommy, can you do this with me?" And I wish I would or could indulge them more. I wish I could take them on fun trips and activities more. Just be fun more and make amazing memories!

Then, there's the larger family factor and the fact that I am keenly aware that if I had less kids there would be less mess, less to do, and more time to spend with and amongst less kids. I would probably know more stuff and be on top of them more. For example, Brody had his four month well visit this month. The doctor asked me questions...

"Has he rolled over?"

Jeeze, I don't know?

"How often does he nurse and for how long?"

Do normal people really keep track of that?

"Are you doing tummy time?"

Oh, crap, I totally forgot about that.

"What time does he go down at night?"

Um. After the others go to bed, so anytime between 8-11.

She eyes me up, "And... Are you nursing him to sleep?"

You bet'cha.

The doctor smiles at me, amused. I say, "I know I look like the worst mom you've seen all day." "No" she replies, "You have four kids. I'm just impressed you are even coming for well visits." Even the doctor's expectations of me have dropped.

After the appointment, I drove another 20 miles on top of the 20 miles I already drive to this doctor. I of course have to drive to find a doctor who will put up with all my quirky health stuff. When I showed up a few months ago with my new baby and happily handed over notes from my midwife on his farmhouse birth and proudly wrote "vaginal" on the line where birth type is asked, the doctor came in, grinned at me and said, "Homebirth vbac after two sections? You are a brave one!" You better believe it buddy, and the actual birth was the easy part! But anyway, then I drove another 20 miles south to the only Walmart I could find that carried Zoomer the robot dog in stock. I breathed a sigh of relief at the "in store pick-up" desk as zoomer made his way into my hands and then darted out of the store and headed the 40 miles home.

I ran around doing a lot of Christmas prep all December. But in doing so, I felt like even more of a schlub of a mother. I realize that I was preparing for my children to have another amazing Christmas, and amazing memories of that day, but in the mean time I wished we were making more meaningful memories EVERY day.

Then it snowed. We had our first snow of the 2013-2014 winter season and the kids all had off from school. James went out to shovel and along with our house he shovels for our neighbors, Ed and John. Ed is recovering from cancer. When James was younger he used to pay James to do it, just so the kid could make a few bucks. Now Ed really needs the help because he's tired alot and John... well, I'll let Ed say it - "Shoveling's not John's thing. He's better at staying inside making sandwiches."

James finishes shoveling and comes inside. A few hours later, there is a knock at the kitchen door. I see that it's Ed and feel immediately embarassed. It's past noon and my kids are still in pajamas. The kitchen is a wreck and I mean a real wreck. Not the kind of wreck when you show up at someone's house and they say, "I'm so sorry my kitchen is so messy!" And you're like, "Really? This is messy?" And you fight the urge to grab a gleaming hanging frying pan and smack them. No, if you came to my kitchen on any regular day, and I said, "I'm sorry my kitchen is so messy!" You'd be like, "Are you all ok in here?"

So, there's Ed, smiling at me in his familiar way thru the kitchen door window. I know he's come fresh from his own beautiful kitchen. I know it's georgous. Their whole house is beautiful with impeciable furnishings and perfect paint colors. I have often gazed enviously at their kitchen through their window, espcially at night when their perfect orangey-brown paint looks the best and the copper back-splash shines. They do such a good job, Ed and John. In fact I'm pretty sure their cat, Mickey, is better cared for than any of my four children.

I let Ed in and he's immediately stormed by my bad-mannered dog and excited little boys yelling, "Ed! Ed!" Like they haven't had human contact in years. David immediately tries to show Ed all of his Buzz Lightyear gear and Warren wants too see his huge cancer surgery scar again. Ed patiently humors them and I start the appologizing, "Ed, I'm so sorry this house is such a wreck. They all have off from school and the kitchen get's crazy from them in here all day." Ed rises from his knees where he had dropped to be eye level with my busy-body two year old. His eyes survey the room briefly and I see something in his face that I can't quite make out. Then he looks at me and smiles again, "This place is great. It reminds me of my kitchen when I was a kid. You are probablly making lots of memories here." Ed says good bye to the kids and I, and leaves James's snow shoveling money on the counter. I close the door behind him and watch his slim figure walk back to his house where John probablly has sandwhiches waiting for him in their beautiful kitchen.

Have you seen "Up!"? The movie with Mr. Fredrickson, Russel, and the floating house? Mr. Fredrickson is so upset with himself because he feels like he didn't give his wife, Ellie, any adventures before she died. Then, while he's trying to float a whole house to South America to make it up to her, Ellie's "Adventure Book" falls out of the closet and hits him on the head and in it he's surprised to see that she filled it with pictures of the two of them doing ordinary, quiet things. At the end she's written him a note that says, "Thanks for the adventure!" Then there's another scene where Russel talks about missing his dad and that he really liked when the two of them would sit and eat ice-cream and watch cars. Russell finishes, "I know it sounds boring, but I think the boring stuff is the stuff I remember the most!"

I'm pretty sure that Ed looked around my kitchen that day and saw all the boring stuff and ordinary things he cherished doing in his childhood home. And I think that if he hadn't made it through his fight with cancer, and John opened a closet one day and an Adventure Book fell on his head, it would have been full of messy childhood kitchens, and eating really great sandwhiches with John.

One day my kids will laugh about how we spent Brody's first Christmas at a Chinese Buffet and how funny that was. And remember the gingerbread cookies mommy let us "paint" with colored icing every year? Remember the awesome summers at the pool when Mom would grill hotdogs and Dad would meet us after work. And remember playing lazer tag in the house with dad and our silly dog getting upset? Remember all the milkshakes mommy made? All our trips to Cold-Stone with Dad? Our 2 for 20 family dinners at Applebees? Remember when we drove to Disney and our weeks at Delaware beaches? Remember when Mom used to let us "clean" the windows and the ugly seasonal window stickers she always let us put up?

Gosh there will be a lot to remember. I hope one day these boys will look around someone's messy kitchen, or be so lucky to have one of their own, and remember their frazzled mother making sloppy milkshakes and leaving out a messy blender and ice-cream all over the counter to help them start water color paintings. No need to fly a house to South America my friends, you could fill up a whole book with ordinary things done in love and when you got to the end, you'd feel like your life had been a real adventure.

A Very Scarey Halloween

2013-11-04T08:55:00.000-08:00

The other night I pulled the minivan up to the Starbucks drive-thru window. Crap. I couldn't find my wallet. "Hi!" I said to the 20-something "barista" at the window. "I can't find my wallet and no one is behind me so I'm going to get out and look around the van." "Oh... ok." She said in that dull, nasaly voice that so many young women are afflicted with. My kids were fighting in the van and the noise was permeating the tranquil setting of 6:30 pm Starbucks through the window. It was like a scream-o punk garage band had taken up residence outside and was overtaking the softly played indie rock. She closed the window. I got out, and after a few minutes found it on the floor by the new baby's car seat and close to the sliding van door. I got back in my seat and the woman asked, "So, where was it?" She was actually interested about where this lady had left her wallet. I told her. "Oh, that's scarey." she said. "That's how I roll." I replied.

I internally rolled my eyes as I drove away. I misplace my wallet on average about once a week. I say "misplace" because my husband says "lose" and I argue with him that when you lose something, it's no longer in your possession. I say misplace because it's always in my car, or diaper bag, or closet, so it's never really lost, just misplaced. Sometimes I don't bother looking for it because it's useless untill it just turns up. But, I needed it at Starbucks. I was in serioius need of caffeine to get me through the evening, so I had to look. The next day was going to be craaaazy. It was October 31st and Warren's school Halloween party and parade, plus a boyscout activity at night. As "class mom", I was supposed to be there. I was in charge of the story, game prizes, and a snack. But, I couldn't be at the party. I had to replace it with something equally stressfull...

Halloween morning I found myself wandering around a college campus. My big purse was filled with a notebook, folders, and pens instead of diapers and toys. My overly responsible teenager had printed out a campus map for me, bless his heart, it was exceedingly usefull. I knew he pictured me taking too much time to calmly apply mascara in the car and then running around campus in a frantic spree trying to find the building and room I was supposed to be in.

I found the buildling and ran into what happened to be a department professor who walked with me to the room. I was so proud to be 10 min early untill I saw the whole room was filled with overly prompt people. I was one of the last ones to arrive and took one of the last seats in the back. The department professors introduced themselves and I eagerly paid attention for the ones who would be teaching in my field of study. Every professor I run into seems to have an intimidating resume... Phd's, journal publications, books, research projects, national association of overly educated people membership, etc... This crew was no different. My attention was briefly caught by the UPS man outside. He was wearing a rainbow clown wig and clown nose for Halloween. I suddenly wished I was interviewing for clown school and not graduate school.

Next we were broken into small groups by program and taken into small rooms to do group interviews. I HATE group interviews. When you are alone being interviewed you don't know if other people did better or worse, but in a group you stress about everyone elses answers and get annoyed at the people who try too hard to be memorable. The first question was, "Why did you choose a Masters in Mental Health Counseling?" 2 or 3 people talked about already working in the mental health field. One girl, fresh out of college, had a very dreamy general answer about helping people. I talked about wanting to work with women with birth trauma and other women's related trauma... sexual assult, abuse, post-abortion, adoption, miscarriage, or stillbirth. Then the man across from me answered. He talked about being in Afganistan and seeing his friends die. The man's eyes whelled up as he talked about wanting to help military people cope with PTSD. Then, even worse, next to him was a tall, beautifull gay woman in men's wear. I kid you not when I say that she could be a model. She starts talking about her interest in the LGBT community and would like to dedicate her counseling to guiding people through their sexuality and issues realting to it.

Sigh. I have no hope. Later, when telling these answers to my husband, he said, "Your's is the best."
"Mine is the best ?!?! I can't compete against crying army man who wants to help with PSTD or beautiful lesbian who wants to help the LGBT community!! I'm SAHM lady! I can't compete."
"No, no." He replies, "Those other answers are so cliche."
"But David, the Army man CRIED!"
James cuts in, "Are these people trying to be counselors or do they need counseling?"
Hmmmmmm... good question, because the interview goes on...

I realize I am also in a room with 2 recovered addicts and some very angry hospital workers who take turns making small, thinly veiled jabs at my answers.
Question: "Why did you choose this Univeristy?"
My answer: "Well, to be honest, you offered my program of interest and I have 4 four kids, so I need something close and affordable."
Hospital worker #1 begins her answer: "Well, I'm not here for convienience. Although that can be a factor for some people..."
Question: Many of you probably work full time. How do you plan on handeling this?
My Answer: "Well, I am currently a SAHM, which probablly has good and bad points for going back to school, but I definately think that if i'm going back to school, now is the time to do it. Because then, when my kids don't need me as much, I can begin a career that I am interested in."

Hosptal Worker #2 Answer: "Well, I have kids, but I can't afford to be home with them, so this will be a struggle for me..."

Then, out of left field, beautiful lesbian in men's wear comes to my rescue. "I am currently at home with our two small children, while my fiance is the bread-winner. My staying home is definately a sacrifice for us financially and is what I consider, our luxury, while others enjoy different luxuries..." I almost winked and did the friendly gun finger motion at her.

But the interview left me feeling a little shaken and kind of un-confident, which is a feeling I don't feel often. Not because I'm this super confident women, but because I'm an introvert and don't usually put myself out on display. I'm super comfortable in my own mind and with my own thoughts. But not so comfortable being open with strangers in person. On the way home the "baby anxiety" set in and I started to wonder if I'm doing this too soon anyway. I mean Brody is only 2 1/2 months old, maybe I should just wait for next year.

I didn't have too much time to dwell on it all, I had to grab the little two from my mom and rush off to make it to Warren's Halloween parade at school. I got there and listened to a mom friend talk about how Halloween is the worst day of her life. She has four kids in school and Halloween means getting 4 kids in and out of costumes at various times for various school parties, also making or getting snacks and volunteer time in at everyones events. I'm pretty sure I got pale just listening to her. How was I going to handle all of this?

Then while leaving the parade, I ran into another friend who asked how my interview went. I told her basically everything that I told you. But then, I started to tell her more about why I was doing it. How I feel the pain of women I meet, and want to help them. I know what it's like to feel pain and not be taken seriously. I know someone who told my husband that I need to "stop being a victim." Honestly, I'm only the tip of the iceberg. I see women sobbing about their c-sections. That their body is broken, that they can't connect with the baby, that every year on their child's birthday, instead of feeling joy they have panic attacks. Fortunately my husband get's it. But when it came to birth issues, very few people got it. I get it, and I want to be a real resource for women with birth trauma and other traumas.

And this mom friend, who is in a counseling field herself, and has had a section, a vbac, and some angel babies waiting for her in heaven, loved it. And it all reminded me that I need to do something that I'm passionate about. I'm passionate about being a SAHM and when that's over, I need to keep being passionate because I am a terrible worker bee. Sometimes passion is scarey and thats ok. Loosing my wallet doesn't scare me but my own passion does.

Later that night, I took Warren trick-or-treating through a local college campus. On one dormitory floor, the stale smell of booze and beer hit us like a brick wall. One happy child said, "It smells like candy in here!" Warren responds in his blase fashion, "That's not candy, it's liqour." Now, THAT'S scarey.

There and Back Again

2013-08-15T09:44:00.001-07:00

The Hopeless Wanderer

I almost wrote a "retraction piece"a few months ago. I giggle typing that, like my writing is some important article in The Times. I wrote my vbac blog post, Intellect and Eve, feeling very strong and empowered. Then something happened. My op report came in on my previous sections and in the large print it said "primary classical" in the small print, it dictated almost every move the delivering doctor made, which was basically this... "low transverse cut was made with a knife, then a low vertical cut was made which was extended superiorly with the bandage scissors." WTF. He basically cut across my uterus (normal) then when he couldn't get Warren out (which I've been told multiple times now by multiple birth professionals, is idiotic) He cut upward from the middle of the horizontal line. When that still didn't work, he extended the cut... how much is in question, but he labeled it "classical" and that's where my hopes and dreams seemed to die.

My doctor (one of two in the most VBAC friendly practice in my area) said, "so we won't be talking about vbac's anymore". Then she went back to looking at her stupid lap-top and was talking to me about other things which I barely heard until she said this, "I'd like to deliver at 36 weeks." Alarms went off in my head. Uh, no. I had already been through this... I had fought and clawed for 38 weeks with my third (post special scar baby) and no one was ripping this kid out of my womb at 36 weeks. I said, "Dr. G-C, 36 weeks really makes me uncomfortable. That is just way too early for me. Even my baby sectioned at 38 weeks ended up in the NICU for a week because he wasn't ready." She suddenly looked up from her lap-top as if remembering that there was an actual person there and said, "Well, we will play it by ear and see if we can get you to 38."

I went to my car, called my husband and cried again. Then I told myself to get rid of Eve and use some intellect. I kept telling myself that all week. But something weird was happening. My intellect kept telling me to listen to Eve. By the end of one week I had decided that I wasn't going to schedule a section. I would wait for labor, labor at home as long as possible and then go in and either have a section (if that's what I felt was needed) or have my husband block the door and VBAC this kid. I almost wanted the hospital to get rowdy, call the police, call social services... I wanted to fight them all. Fight them for every women like me and take all their big insurance checks.

I told my husband what I was thinking. "Ok." he said, "But, I thought you wanted to do some research on your scar before making this decision. You know... get your old scar ultra-sound, talk to the perinatoligist that told you that your scar was strong and thick, see if he knows if it really is a classical."
"You know what?," I answered, "I don't even think I care what kind of scar I have or how long it is."
"Oh, I didn't know you felt that way about it."
"I didn't either."
Then, I thought I lost him. I thought my partner in crime had jumped on his horse and high-tailed it out of there.

But when he came home that night (or the next, or the one after that... he works so much I don't know when I see him). He was still on board. He is such a all-star. He still got it, got me, got the importance of all of this.

The next thing I did was tell a few (a very, very few) number of friends my plans. One of them, told me about her homebirth midwife, Laurice, and that I should meet with her. And we did. Outside her office David and I once again got into a domestic disturbance over my terrible parallel parking but inside he was again my champion. I remember listening to him speak to the midwife thinking, "Didn't we almost have the police called on us over my parking spot?". But regardless I just didn't click with Laurice and when it came down to it, she just didn't seem supportive of a homebirth with me. Instead she kept steering me towards an OB she works with, Dr. K, and kept telling me that my C-section would go best with him. In my head, I wanted to scream, "I'm not looking for a good C-section surgeon! All of these clowns are proficient with a knife! I am looking for someone who is not scared of BIRTH!" And so we left, with the name of a new OB and not much else.

I did go meet with Dr. K, and he (as I suspected) was not vbac supportive for me, but I wasn't vbac supportive for him either. He was completely weird and I wouldn't trust him with a vaginal swab. But, the guy did say he was comfortable waiting until labor to do the C-section, which is all I really needed from a doctor at that point anyway. Since I was going to labor at home as long as possible and try to show up at the hospital so far along that either 1) they would just let me proceed with a vbac or 2) I would have to fight but it wouldn't be as long of a fight. A doctor who would wait until labor provided me with the opportunity to try this as opposed to the ones who would schedule waaaaaay before labor had a chance to begin.

I shared my plans on a FB support group that I belong to. It's called "special scars - special women". It's basically a group of C-section moms who have weird scars on their uteruses which gives insurance companies and hospitals and excuse to phase them out of the medical model for vbac'ing. There something life-changing happened. I was starting to ask the group about "unassisted birth". You see, if I was going to labor at home, what if I did so well the baby just came out? But before I could completely fall down that vortex, Sarah, a member from Indiana, contacted me and told me that she knew of a highly experienced homebirth midwife that had done vbac's on all kind of scars. She was not located in my city, however, but I was still interested. Sarah gave me her name and number and I was excited to call her and scared at the same time. Hearing "no" so often was not a fun thing.

But I called. The next morning around 10 am, with shaky hands and a shaky voice, I called the number. The phone rang... "Hello, this is Anne!" a voice said. I was a little shocked to be immediately in contact and it derailed my thought process a bit. "Uhh hh, Hi! My name is Leah..." I began. I felt like I was sending out a signal, like - "Help me Obi One Kanobi, your my only hope!." Then the words started to come. I told her that I was looking for someone to help me birth and I had three things against me. #1 I was already 32 weeks pregnant, due August 1st, and she may not be able to fit me into her calendar. Her answer - Let me check my schedule... Ok, we are busy but we can make it work. #2 I am in a different city and I don't know if it is too far away? Her answer - We have some options that you could stay in to birth #3 Ok, This is the tricky one that has thrown me out of every place possible... I have had one vaginal birth and 2 C-sections. One of the sections is a t-scar with a possible classical extension. Would you be willing to work with that? I just need someone who can see that I can do this and help me do it. Her answer, and one of the most important answers of my life - There is a lot of fear surrounding vbac's, but when I started delivering babies, classical section vbac's were all I saw. I have a lot of experience and we fully believe in the body's ability to heal...

Then she started to tell me more about herself and I suddenly felt like she was reassuring me instead of me trying to reassure every other doctor or midwife I had met. On the phone she exuded confidence without sounding rash or cocky. She told me that she new her limitations and that we would know if something wasn't going right. My biggest impression from her on the phone... no fear.

She made a consultation appointment for me the following week. We hung up, some tears of relief rolled down my cheeks, and I called my husband. He was busy at work but excited for us. I told him my appointment was next Wednesday at 3, and would he be able to come? He said absolutely and I knew we were finally on our way somewhere.

June 5, 2013 - Meeting The Midwife

Wednesday, we packed the kids in the car, except for James because he had final exams, and started the trip to Anne. It took us about 1.5 hours with some traffic. Not too bad. We pulled into the parking lot at Anne's office and to my kid's delight, an Amish horse and buggy pulled right in. We all got out of the car and walked up the path. I noticed the Amish and Mennonite husbands sitting outside or sleeping in cars, so I told my husband to wait outside with the kids while I checked in. I went inside and there were 2 or 3 Amish women already waiting. I checked in with the women at the desk. She said that they were running behind so I went back outside and told my husband to keep playing with the kids and I'd call him in when Anne was ready for us.

Back inside and looking around the waiting room, I was fascinated by the posters about natural herbs and cloth diapers. There was antique wooden furniture and pictures of happy little Amish kids. There was also a collection of antique medical equipment. As I looked around, I locked eyes with an Amish women about my age. She was pretty and plain, and as she smiled a shy but warm smile at me, her peaches and cream complexion was completely broken by a set of horrible teeth. But there we were smiling at each other, crossing the boundaries of community and culture, looking into each other's eyes and being present with each other. We were both there for some undeniable commonalities: our births, our babies, and our womanhood.

The woman behind the desk, and the other women working there were not plain people. They did, for the most part, have an earthiness about them that I found fun. Then Anne came out and I almost fell off my chair. The women looked like an attorney... stylish clothing, smart glasses. She's going to have a damn lap-top, I thought. I called my husband and kids in and we went back to an "exam room" that was more like a living room with a random exam table against one wall. There were really cool wooden toys that my kids immediately took to, and in the world of angry birds and Nintendo DS, this amazed me. My husband, Anne, and another midwife, Greta all took chairs while I sat center stage on the table.

They sat expectantly, allowing me to speak first. I told them my birth history, I told them the ease of James's vaginal birth and also the realized disappointment of it. That the doctor was irritated with a teenage girl giving birth, that they just railroaded me into meds, and at the end had no patience or input for my pain or inexperience during pushing and cut a nasty episiotomy to get him out faster. Then came Warren and David's births, the cesarean sections. The breech they wouldn't let me birth and cut a T scar when he was so descended he got stuck in the section. Then the rcs I had when I thought I had no option. The nicu stays, the sick newborns struggling to nurse, my own sadness and anger over it all. The midwives listened and understood, and when I said I could do it they believed me and easily took me on as a patient.

We left Anne's office and before we even got to the car the tears were coming agian. David pulled me into his arms and said, "I know, I know, she was awesome."

June - August 2013 - The Waiting

I had prenatal appointments with Anne every two weeks at this point. I loved driving down to see her and the other midwives and assistants. It was such a comforting, calm place and I would leave feeling more and more normal and confident every time. Anne would often ask me, "How are you feeling about your vbac?" I told her honestly, "I feel... comfortable." I wasn't overly confident but I didn't have much fear, I honestly just felt comfortable, like everything fit. Anne said that that was a perfect feeling.

At the end of June, we went to the beach for a week and Anne gave me a bunch of books to read from her library. I loved them. I sat on the beach in the early mornings reading about greek Chronos and Kairos, staring at the open ocean and feeling the timelessness of my baby in my womb.

on the beach...

When we got home, it was early July and I was 36 weeks pregnant, the time I would have been sectioned. It was such a scary thought. I realized that I thought sectioning at 36 weeks sounded crazier and more dangerous than driving 1.5 hrs to deliver with a midwife. I felt strong and very much at peace.

The weeks went on and I kept busy with regular appointments with Anne and weekly appointments with a prenatal chiropractor. I also kept busy with my kids... swimming, parks, movies, whatever I could do. I had been seeing a close "shadow care" OB for emergency convenience and dropped him at 38 weeks feeling he was just an annoyance.

40 weeks came and went, and I started to get the annoying post-date comments and questions. David got a txt from his sister (childless of course) asking what was up with me and informing him that inductions are supposed to happen at 41 weeks. Oi Vey! If you are going to spout off where you don't belong at least have the correct info. I mean even Kate Middleton had just gone a week late in her very famous pregnancy. I saw Anne for a regular appointment at 40 weeks 3 days. I told her about all the stupid comments and questions. She casually and happily said, "You go as long as it takes!" I smiled at her.

August 12th - The Birthday

At 1 am, at 41 weeks and 1 day, I woke up with a contraction. David was next to me in bed watching TV and after the second contraction, I let him know that it might be time. We timed contractions for an hour and they were 10 min apart and about 50 seconds long. I called Anne around 2 am, and she told us to start heading down. I took a quick shower while David packed the car, then we woke up James and told him we were leaving. We gave him instructions to call his grandparents in the morning to come get him and his brothers. Then we headed out.

We passed the hospital that I would have delivered at only 3 blocks from our house. David joked sarcastically, "There's the hospital! We could just pull in. It would be a lot easier!" I laughed, "It might be closer, but it's definately not easier!". We grinned at each other and the big bright hospital faded in the distance.

On the way down we stopped at Walmart for snacks and drinks so we arrived at our place around 5 am. There we were met by Tessa, one of the midwife apprentices, she showed us to our room and helped me unpack. She listened to the baby and checked my cervix.  Baby sounded happy but my cervix was too high to even feel! Tessa emphasized to me that I was very soft and that was good.

Tessa told us to try and get some sleep, so David and I climbed into bed. I couldn't sleep well through the contractions so I got up and sat on the sofa. Tessa sat with me and kept me company while David caught some zzzzz's. As time past she noticed that my contractions were getting tougher for me and spaced closer together, so she started to rub my back during them. Around 10 am she checked me again and told me again that I was very soft, but didn't offer a dilation number. I knew that must mean I wasn't very dilated but they only wanted to offer me positive information unless I asked for more, which I didn't. I wasn't at a hospital, so I wasn't worried about being on anyone's timeline. As long as the baby and I were doing well, I knew they would allow my body to do what it needed.

Around the same time as my 2nd cervical check, David woke up and took over rubbing my back during contractions which were becoming increasingly more painful and closer together. I tried a couple of positions to labor in which definitely helped keep my mind sane. At one point I was laboring laying down on my left side because I was tired from little sleep. Tessa checked his heart rate (which she was doing every 30 min at this point) and said it sounded a little slow and that he probably didn't like the position I was in. So she got me up and sitting on a birthing ball. His heart beat immediately went back up. "Amazing", I thought. What if I was in a hospital, lying there with an epidural and his heart beat dropped? No one would causally say, "Oh, jeeze, he's not digging this laying down stuff you're doing. Let's get up and get on a ball." They can't get you up on a damn ball or really up at all! What would they be left to do but start talking about sections!

At noon I told David to go out and get some lunch. He was reluctant but I told him better now than later. He left and by that time Greta (Anne's 2nd in command) was there. She had brought in another mother in labor. That mom was put in a room somewhere upstairs but they told me that she was Amish, having her first baby, and the baby was breech. I thought about this mystery woman many times during my labor, like a kindred soul. After all, my first section, and special scar section, was a breech baby.

Of course, as soon as David left, my labor felt even worse... then around 1 pm Greta checked me. Again I wasn't offered a number but only given encouraging facts. She suggested I get into the birthing tub to help with my labor as it may give me a chance to rest. I said sure and Tessa filled up the tub. As I was undressing I heard Greta tell Tessa that I was dilated 1/2 cm. Got that? After 12 solid hours of labor I was only 1/2 cm.  But, for some reason I didn't care, I just got in the tub. I ended up hating the birthing tub. This was so weird because for years I have been jealous of women who have been able to use them. Plus I was a swimmer! This should have totally been my thing. But it wasn't... I was uncomfortable and for some reason my labor pains felt worse. David was back and he tried to help me thru it in the tub, but it was awkward. Suddenly I was moaning with the pain. Up until that point I had been a quiet laborer... just breathing away thru my contractions. Now I was moaning and groaning. Then I started to throw-up. David, with his lightning fast reflexes grabbed a trash can and held it for me. I puked, and the midwives said I should be checked again. I wasn't excited to be checked. I knew that throwing up was a sign of transition, but I was only a 1/2 cm last time and I didn't think there was anyway I could be transitioning.

Now it was 2pm and when Greta pulled her fingers out of me she said, "You are 5-6 cm". My spirits totally lifted. Literally 40 min after I had heard that I was 1/2 cm, I was 5-6! I was getting somewhere!   And that somewhere started to come fast. Suddenly over the next hour my labor was out of control, and at one point blood leaked down my leg sending my husband into a panic. He yelled for Tessa. She came and calmly told us it was just "bloody show" and that because I was a vbac we should expect to see a bit more blood that usual. Again, in some small sane part of my brain, I remembered women who had attempted vbac's in hospitals and had ended up with repeat sections because nurses and doctors has scared them saying that there was "too much blood coming out of them." I was so glad I was where I was.
The contractions were coming fast and crazy hard. I preferred sitting on the birth ball and around 3:15, during a contraction my body pushed a little and it felt a little good.  I told David, "Tell Tessa I'm feeling 'pushy'". He went and got her. She asked, "Are you feeling like you want to push?" I said, "I did push a little during that last one and I think that's what I want to do now." I can't say that I felt a strong urge to push, like you hear about... it was more like that my body just started showing me that that was what was supposed to happen.

Tessa asked me an amazing question. "How did you picture yourself giving birth?" I knew the answer like I knew my name. I had dreamed it, envisioned it, even drawn it. The answer had been with me a long time. It was in the dead stare I gave doctors, it was in my anger that I lashed like a whip at unsupportive people, it stared at me in the bright lights of the OR rooms, it surrounded me in the nicu, it lived in the happy heart of my young self, and it came with me when I was born. The answer had been waiting a long time.

I answered, "Squatting with my husband supporting me" "Ok, let's get you going with that." She said. Now, somewhere during the last hour, Ally, another apprentice midwife had arrived. Tessa turned to Ally and said, "Call Anne and tell her she's ready". Ally made the call and then assisted Tessa with positioning David and I for pushing. I asked Tessa, "What do I do? Do I push now?" She said, "If that's what you feel like you should do." "Ok, I said."

During my first push, Tessa felt my cervix and said "You are at 10 and baby is right there."   I barely cared what they were saying at this point. I felt like my body was on auto-pilot and was just following along. I kept pushing with the contractions and moaning. The midwives kept trying to redirect my moaning to low sounds and I tried the best I could with that. I honestly didn't feel like I was pushing very much, but they kept telling me how awesome I was doing, and that baby was moving down. I remember pushing with James (my oldest child) and how hard I worked, but I was in a hospital, pushing on my back with an epidural. I think squatting and being so aware of my body and the pain made all the difference.

David was awesome during this. At first I was holding onto his waist and my knees were digging into his calves as I pushed. He joked, "We don't need a hospital to birth but we might end up there later after she breaks my legs!"  Anne saved David by walking into the room with her "birthing stool". It looks like a little foot stool with a padded toilette seat shaped sitting thing on top. I got down on it and it was immediately relieving to most of my body and I could push in a squatting position without loosing my legs. David was behind me with a pillow that I could lean back into and he rubbed my arms and back as needed.

I kept pushing with the contractions and I was getting better at it. I could feel my moaning connect to the push and the efficiency of it all. My water still hadn't broke and Tessa told my that my sack was really tough but then suddenly during a push I felt it break and the fluid came out. It was a little green, but I was expecting that with a 41 + weeker. Tessa asked Ally to get a mirror and I knew that was a good sign. After the next pushing session they put the mirror under me and angled it up. "Look at your babies head" Tessa said. David and I looked and there it was... a dark head of hair. That was it, that's all I needed. The next contraction started and I connected my moan with my push and suddenly I felt him slide out. Everything next was a whirlwind. Tessa caught him and Ally and Anne were telling me "He's here! He's here! Look at your baby! You did it!" They put him right into my arms and I was crying with joy and amazement. David cried along with me. I kept telling Brody (my new baby boy) how beautiful he was and telling everyone else, "I can't believe I did it!" The midwives kept saying things like, "You did amazing! You trusted your body and your body knew what to do." I did, didn't I? I thought.

Brody born at 3:37 pm and over 5 weeks past his would-be csection date immediately started sucking at the skin on my breast so I redirected him to my nipple and there, with his cord still attached and connected to his placenta, he latched on an nursed. It was surreal. I was still in shock that was sitting there, still on the birthing stool, baby in arms still connected to my body, no IV's in my arm, no drugs in body, no wounds to be stitched up. The midwives looked so happy for me and yet so calm at the same time. It was like I was at the end of what they knew I could do all along and were happy to see me realize it.

I had been on the birthing stool for a while at that point and the midwives wanted to get me off and in bed. The had been working with me trying to pass the placenta but I was having a hard time finding the energy. The cord had stopped pulsing so they clamped it and had David cut it. I gave the baby to him while the midwives helped me up and into bed. There Anne and Tessa sat and worked with me on the placenta while Ally did Brody's newborn exam on the bed right next to me. His first apgar score was a 9, literally the healthiest newborn I had ever birthed and his newborn exam showed him to be in perfect condition. Then they put him on the scale and did his measurements. He weighed in at 8 lbs, 10 ounces, 21 inches long and head circumference was 14.25 inches. Again another amazement! My vba2c baby was my biggest baby in every way and I didn't even tear my perineum pushing him out!

They gave the baby back to me and left us to bond. So, we nursed and had skin to skin and happily chatted with the very proud new Dad. I was so nice not to have nurses running in and out. No one was trying to take my baby to a nursery or for baths or whatever unnecessary nonsense.   My new little Brody and I just laid in bed, both naked and sweaty and a little dirty and just smelled each other, listened to each other, and became secure that our bond would continue outside the womb.

Skin to skin...

The midwives did come in every so often to check my uterus, bleeding, and blood pressure. All was normal and by 7 pm we were "discharged" and moved to a Bed and Breakfast down the road. The plan was to stay the night because Anne wanted us around at least 24 hours so that she could check me and the baby the next day before we made the trip home. Plus we needed to do the state "newborn blood screen" and I am Rh- so we needed to wait for the baby's cord blood sample to come back from the lab.

The B&B we stayed in was great. The owners daughter had worked for Anne and came back when it was time to birth her first child. Betty, the owner, swears her daughter would have had a section in the hospital because her daughter's long labor would have been labeled as "failure to progress". I feel like everywhere I turn I run into someone who is eager to tell me that they had been victimized by or saved from a bad hospital birth experience. I know I am sadly not alone and that the overwhelming support I get comes from places of enlightenment instead of the fear and ignorance I get from detractors. My husband sent out a birth announcement email to people that night in the B&B and along with some "Congrats!", got responses like, "You are lucky." (as in you are lucky to be alive) and "Glad the baby is ok." (have you ever said that to someone who just had a good birth and a healthy baby?) and some usual dramatic nonsense involving dead grandmothers that often get's thrown around. I don't know what disappoints dead grandmothers more - natural vaginal birth or grandkids throwing their name in people's faces every time there's an issue.

Breakfast!

The next morning Betty brought us homemade, organic, farm fresh breakfast and I ate like a champ. Anne came in the late afternoon to do our check-ups. Brody and I are were both doing excellent and the only bad news I got was that Brody is A+ blood type and I had to get that damn Rhogam shot. After 13 hrs. of natural labor and delivery, I closed my eyes and whimpered like a little girl while the Rhogam shot was administered. Then 27 hours after giving birth, we hugged and kissed our birth savior Anne, got in the mini-van and headed home.

Besides the midwives and attendants, there are a lot of people to thank on this journey. Some, I've known for years and some I have just met in this pregnancy. Some people I was in regular contact with and others were a kind, informative soul in passing. You all know who you are and I thank you deeply and with much love. I would like to give a special shout out to my parents for their support and understanding of my birth choices even if they were a little worried and for always being willing to watch my kids during appointments 1.5 hrs away with Anne and for keeping them while I delivered. I also want to thank the "Special Scars - Special Women" organization and the women in the support group. I honestly would not have done this without all of their collective knowledge and support. I thank my kids for just being themselves and my oldest, James, for trusting his parents and helping with the little ones.

But mostly, I would like to thank my husband, David. He was my rock, my research assistant, my mouth piece when I didn't know the words, my protector, my birth partner, and my biggest supporter. You are a man that is one in a million and I am happy and proud to call you mine.

I wish the world happy and safe birthing, after all - "Childbirth should be your greatest achievement not your greatest fear." (Jane Weideman)

Making Outlaws

2013-06-18T10:15:00.000-07:00

Let's say I was out to a family dinner with my parents, brothers and their wives. My brother kept asking people for their food and trying to give it to his 2 year. My sister-in-law, on the other hand, was annoyed by it because she had ordered food for the baby and it was on it's way. Let's say I grabbed a bunch of French fries (I wouldn't have... I would have already been in tune to my SIL's annoyance and there is no way I would take my brother's side, even though he is an excellent father, on anything having to do with their children.) and started to pass it down to the table to the 2 year old, and my SIL said, "No, Leah, he really doesn't need any more French fries." My hand would have stopped. I would have said, "Ok, no problem." The French fries would go back where they came from and I would have gone on with my dinner.

This is not what would have happened. I wouldn't have given her a weird look back. And when she firmly held my gaze, I would not have dared to open my big mouth and say, "Well, is he starving?" No, He isn't starving. He is a well fed child. "Well, my brother is worried about it!" Then when all she was left to do was roll her eyes in exasperation at 12 years of pushy in-law interfence, I wouldn't have started talking fast about her "rolling her eyes and that everyone is uncomfortable." Seriously, none of this would have happened because I know my place as a SIL and would have stayed in it. The French fry debate would have remained a cute, funny issue between my brother and his wife because that's where it belongs, with that couple over their child.  It's not a debate for brother, wife, and SIL.  It's my job as a SIL to stay out of it.  My job is to not add more French fries to the fire and it's certainly not my job to talk back to the mother of that child. My job is to continue eating and act like I don't even know what's going on because I would appreciate the same if the table was turned.

Now, to be honest, I have a lot of experience at being an in-law to people. My sister got married when I was 7, my first brother got married when I was 16, and my 2nd brother got married when I was 21. I am used to my siblings bringing new and different personalities, view-points, and parenting styles into my family and by now I have been around these additions for a long time. In fact, they aren't considered additions anymore, they are my true-blue family.

How does this work? How does one be a good in-law to someone? Here is my basic premise: Whenever you have the feeling that you are accepting someone into your family it is your job to make them comfortable in their new situation. It's not a new situation for you. You have been in your family for your entire life. All you have to deal with is this new person, they have to deal with a whole situation. And you do this on an individual basis, and if everyone does their part, a good relationship with the new person is established. I have a good relationship with my brother's wife because I made it my job to make her feel safe around me.

She is safe in talking to me, confiding in me, that I won't be critical or judgmental, that I won't talk about her to other family members or tell what she says, safe in knowing that I basically know my place in her and my brother's life. And that place is a far second, third, fourth, 20th, to her and her relationship with my brother and their children.

And this extends beyond confrontational meetings over dinner. When I call their house or email them, I almost always ask to talk to her about things relating to their family or schedule. I don't get involved in things about my brother that are he and/or his wife's job, like pestering him about health decisions, what clothing he needs, what suit color he should buy, how much sleep he gets, or his nutrition. At family functions or dinners I spend more time talking to SIL.   This is very natural now... we laugh and joke and share secrets, and her children see that Aunt Leah has a good, kind, loving relationship with their mother. That is a huge point in all of this.

If my nieces and nephews were to see their mother feeling uncomfortable, stressed, and sad around me, that would be terrible. They would grow up knowing that Aunt Leah makes Mommy sad and Daddy annoyed and that would greatly hinder my relationship with them. What kid feels comfortable around someone hurting their mother? None. So, also for those kids sake, I make it my job to have a good relationship with BOTH of their parents.

My other SIL is an ex-SIL now. Her marriage to my brother only lasted about six years, but that's ok. It was still a very real and important relationship and I have a niece from it. This SIL was a little more difficult for me. She was very different from me and I had a much harder time relating to her. Still, I tried my best. I made it my job to know what she did and didn't like, what made her stressed, what would upset her, etc. I didn't write her off as a "nut" and just walk around like my shit doesn't stink. Or throw down a bunch of cosmo's (or whatever lame, fake martini thing) and get confrontational. No fucking way. She was my brother's wife and niece's mother and that alone garnered my respect and patience, and basically my mouth remaining closed... a lot. It was really no skin off my back. I didn't see her that often... a day here or there on holidays or family gatherings. I could eat my words and be friendly during that time and pay attention that I wasn't upsetting her. It was really not hard. It would have been harder on everyone if I just did or said what I wanted and pissed her off. I still side with her on things and it was kind of a messy, painful divorce that might make it easy to jump on a "I hate everything she does" bandwagon. But just read my "The Ghost of Christmas Past" blog. That whole thing was started because I stuck up for my ex-SIL on a parenting issue.

Just like real outlaws, in-laws become outlaws by their own actions, their own indifference, their own selfishness, and sometimes from traumatic childhood issues. Basically the fast track to looking like a smooth criminal is to maliciously lack understanding, patience, and the ability to keep your mouth closed and give relationship space. I don't care if you think she's a nut, she's your brother's nut and he and his kids love her. She is paramount in his and his kid's lives, and that's that. Don't dwell in a land of misty memories of what fun you had as children and mourn the fact that your sibling has grown older, a little different, and chose a life partner that you wouldn't. Don't be resentful that your sibling sides with his partner or values her opinions or judgments. That's the way it should be. If done right, the bond that your sibling creates with his wife and kids will be stronger and different than any bond he had with his siblings.  And that's ok. That's a healthy thing.

Support your siblings relationship, whatever that means for them. If it means your SIL likes more space and privacy then don't get involved if you haven't been asked, and do your best to make your in-law feel safe in "your" family. That is your job and if you do it right, it will become natural.

Confirmandi

2013-04-17T12:49:00.001-07:00

Confirmandi. I don't know how many times I heard that word on Sunday. It's one of those Catholic words that's kind of cool in that anceint, Latin, holy type of way and also scary for those exact same reasons. I'm my niece's Sponsor for her Confirmation and on Sunday I had to go to Confirmation Practice with her. Any type of Catholic sacramental practice has a lot of "you stand here" and "you sit there" and then at what time you process (are you processing by height or alphabetical order) and what hand is placed on what shoulder of each "Confirmandi". The sponsor next to me whispered, "Which hand did she say to use?" I answered, "Your right hand on the right shoulder. Christianity doesn't like lefties." She smiled uncertainly at me and said, "I never thought about that before."

This is my second time being a sponsor for a niece's confirmation. Both times, I have felt very honored. When you are asked to be a Godparent, you feel special to the parents. When you are asked to be a Confirmation sponsor, you feel special to the child. This time is Natalie, my brother's daughter. Natalie picked Christina for her confirmation name. When a child is confirmed in the Catholic Church, they pick a Saint whose qualities they would like to emulate, and that Saint's name becomes their confirmation name. St. Christina of Bolsena has this type of fabulous female Martyr story...

Christina was beautiful and rich. Her father was the governor of her town, and by the age of 11 she was so beautiful that men already wanted to marry her (creeper alert!). Her father, however, had other ideas for his daughter and commanded that she become a pagan priestess and locked her in a tower where he set up a bunch of gold idols. He commanded Christina to burn incense and worship before them. At some point an angel visits Christina and instructs her in Christianity. So, Christina smashes all the idols in the room and her father is not happy. He has her tortured in all kinds of fun Roman ways including iron hooks, grilling by fire, placement in a furnace, torture on the wheel, assault by snakes, assailment by arrows, drowning tied to a millstone, and other assorted methods through which, as the story goes, Christina survives by her own strength of faith in God.

These female martyrs were probably some of the first recorded feminists. The weren't fighting for out-right gender equality, but they were persecuted all the more harshly for being women and sticking up for what they felt was important. And these women were tortured by people they knew- their families, their towns, their local government officials. Tough stuff. Glad I don't have to hear about this anymore!

But then I hear their names, new names that have been etched into my memory. Beautiful names... Amina, Jyoti, and Rehteah. Some from far away, third world lands, one from just north of us, in first world Canada. And these are just a clip of the ones that have made headlines. Victims of gang-rape and persecution for displaying femininity. It seems St. Christina will never be bored in heaven. She will constantly have a flock of female souls to comfort and attend to.

There is a Latin phrase, "Caelitus mihi vires", it means "My strength is from heaven", and this is what I imagine St. Christina to being saying to herself as she was publically humiliated and tortured by her father. "Caelitus mihi vires", she probably whispered to herself over and over again. "Caelitus mihi vires", were probably the last words on her lips as she saw the face of God and gave herself over to Him.

And now, over the centuries, she sees her sisters' suffering and whispers "Caelitus mihi vires" to them as they are gang raped with a lead pipe, bullied at school, stoned to death, have acid thrown on them, are sold into the sex trade, or left in a gutter as a infant to die.

I think of St. Christina and her company of souls taken too early and too harshly and I know that I have no daughters to teach, no young girls minds to shape, and no feminine virtue to protect. But I do have sons, lots of sons, and they can be enablers of righteousness. So, I turn to my oldest son as we are (of course) driving in the mini-van, where my children are strapped in and forced to listen to me. I decide I must talk to him about safe sex. Not personal safe sex, but concern for the safety of others. I talk to him about gang-rape, date-rape, intoxicated girls, how to talk to male friends about leaving drunk girls alone. I talk about what to do if you hear of someone who was date-raped. I talk to him about what to do if he sees pictures on phones or social media. I talk to him about what to do if he is somewhere and he thinks a girl is in trouble. At one point he asks me, "What if she is slutty and I think she's agreeing to whatever?" I told him, "Her sexual choices do not make her less of a person or less of a victim. If you have any question about whether she knows what's she's doing, you go get help."

More parents need to have these discussions. Daughter's get lots of talks about personal safety, but our sons don't - they get handed a condom and a pat on the back. Most of our sons will not be rapists, but they could easily be the kid who doesn't do anything to stop it, or laughs along at the pictures, or avoids eye contact with her in the hall-way because the whole school knows what happened. Your son could easily fall into a large group of people who force St. Christina to whisper, "Caelitus mihi vires" into the heart of a broken young women.

So, tomorrow night I will be Natalie's sponsor... beautiful, smart, Natalie. The kid who tells me that Math is her worst subject, and I commiserate until I find out that "honors math" is her worst subject. Her parents are liberal. My brother started a scrap-book when she was a baby full of news articles about what a dummy GW Bush is and every bad Republican policy and funny comics to go along with it all. My sister-in-law owns a book titled something like, "So, You Married a Socialist." They are also obviously Catholic, so my dear niece is being raised with mixture of liberalism and Catholicism. And let me tell you, from personal experience, that is not an easy place to be.

Being a liberal and a practicing Catholic, I never seem to fit in anywhere. In the midst of my two favorite groupings I am forever uncomfortable. But, I am generally an awkward person, so I wear uncomfortable like an old pair of sneakers. Natalie is anything but awkward, she will be strong women in whatever she believes and feels for. And her heart is good, so no matter what she does, it will be with a good heart. Her martyr saint, Christina, will be watching her and anytime Natalie comes across fork in the road or a large speed-bump, I hope she pulls her strength from heaven and carries on.

Tomorrow night I will walk with Natalie up the aisle with my right hand on her right shoulder and present her to the bishop, who will call her "Christina". A good name, a strong name, and name dripping with femine ferocity and Godly strength. To Natalie and all young women and men of burgeoning principle - look out for each other, don't let fear or ridicule compromise your principles and goodness, and in your deepest moments of despair and confusion remember to say, "Caelitus mihi vires". It's one of those Catholic phrases that's cool and scary for all the same reasons.

My Letter to Boo Radley

2013-04-03T07:14:00.003-07:00

So, if you ready my last blog "The Final Order", you know what happened on Monday. Well, later in the day I received a few angry emails from Boo Radley. They said things like, "Stop being a victim" and "stop being miserable and trying to bring other people down with your misery." Yikes! Wrong things to say to me buddy.

It all started when James left his last two counseling sessions early. The first of the two was an alone session with Boo, the counselor, and him. He felt ganged up on by the two of them, and pressured to say that he would be open to a relationship. He also was disgusted with Boo's conversation and answers, so he left early and called me. The next one was just him and the counselor and James was fuming mad at the dude going into it. He left that one even earlier, walked a few blocks away, and called me to get him. So, the counselor wrote and email to Boo and I explaining that James was angry, left early, and didn't like his wording in the evaluation he wrote to the court.

I responded back to Mr. O (the counselor), and Boo, letting them all know what James was angry about and that he would be submitting a new letter to the court again requesting no visitation. Boo didn't respond to my email until after court on Monday, and he was full of anger. His email, like my own, was a "reply to all", but really he was speaking to Mr. O and taking side jabs at me. He said things like "I know where James's real anger is coming from" and "I hope you help my son realize the real reason he is angry." That kind of stuff. He also took issue with the fact that I had called his wife and him, the Scheindlin-Radley team. Then came more emails to me directly telling me the victim and miserable stuff. I told him, in response to those emails (as camly as I could) that speaking to James's mother that way would not go over well for anyone and that it didn't seem like he had learned anything from James in counseling. I also told him that I am only miserable around strangers trying to make my kid's life hard.

I had to eat a lot of anger reading these things and I felt like I had fallen down a vortex to 1996 and was listening to a teenage douche-bag with too much facial hair having a temper-tantrum because his mom wouldn't let him go out that night with his friends in that stupid orange van. Listen, I can be as crunchy and fun as the best of them, but I now have to fight a natural reflex to pore sugar in the gas tank of any old VW Van I see.

But, I have this blog, and here is the email I wish I could write back...

Dear Boo,

I understand your comprehension skills are under-developed. This may be from having an over-bearing mother who has a hard time keeping her mouth shut about everything, thus leaving you in a confused state where you just don't want to listen to anything for the rest of your life. Weirdly, the old adage is true and you married someone exactly like your mother who is willing to translate for you for the rest of her life (or until a divorce) as well as loyally pep-talk you even when you are a bad boy.

So, I understand that having your hand slapped by the court is tough for you. I also realize that listening to a woman (me) tell you that you have been a bad boy is not something you usually deal with. And having a child, who you deserted, start to dislike you and then when you reappear, not immediately fall in love with your jovial cave-man disposition, is frightening. I'm sorry that he gets his serious, hard side from me along with his ability to use logic. You can blame me for all of his excellent personality qualities.

What you can't blame me for is your own actions. You didn't want to have a baby that young and either did I. But you were/are dealing with serious personality deficiencies that made you turn your back on a sweet new-born baby boy and continue to party on in that god-forsaken orange van with your team of idiots ("Woo-Hoo! Boo is so fun! Who cares if he's a deadbeat with a baby living less than a mile away. Let's get another 6 pack!). That baby did nothing to you and did not deserve to be ignored or forgotten in a drunken stupor. You want to be angry at me for keeping the child, fine. But that's where the anger should have stopped, and the care of a child should have started.

And then it was off to college 3 or 4 hours away. It's always good to put some distance and time between yourself and your problems. It gives you clarity, or at least the ability to get drunk more. Then college ended, that problem was 5 or 6 years old, and his mother filed for government benefits. Jesus Christ! (oops, I hope Joe and Sue Radley didn't hear you say that, having a dead-beat son does not hurt their Christian sensibilities, but cursing surely does). You had to drag yourself to domestic relations and look at the face of a woman you had tried to forget about as you threw up in a frat house toilette. Ah, good times, good times. So, you fought child support saying that James had a man taking care of him (my David) so why should you have to pay anything? You know what? You were right. I just needed a little help and the state wasn't going to help unless you did, sorry to bring you into all of this.

Well, since I settled with you because I didn't want to fight, and you had to pay less than $100 a month for child support (something that I never had increased for 10 years even though your income went up substantially), you decided you might as well get your money's worth and see the kid every once in a while, on sporadic occasions, and usually just dump him with your parents. But that kid already had bonded with a father, and you were a weird annoyance to his day every so often. So, when James turned 11 he had had enough of you showing up once in a while and whatever weird activities you tried to get him to do - trying to goad him into jumping off a 9 ft. wall? Not the best activity for a naturally cautious child. He told me he didn't want to see you or your parents anymore.

I took the blame for James's decisions to shield him from whatever anger would come our way. Most of it came from your parents, but that's to be expected. So, you went away for a while and we lived peacefully for years until you got married to Judy Scheindlin and filed those court papers last July.

Well, the kid doesn't like you, doesn't need you, and doesn't want to spend time with you. I know it's hard to imagine after years of people telling you how fun and awesome you are, that someone would not think that you are valuable. But you let that kid bond to another man who turned out to be an excellent father. So then James is left with two men... one who has been in and out of his life and is weirdly immature and another man - kind, responsible, smart, naturally good hearted, and sometimes a serious discipliner ... everything a kid thinks a father should be. And this man has been in his life daily - teaching him to tie his shoes, coaching his baseball and football teams, tying his ties, giving him his baths when he was little, coming to school events, working and supporting his family. Who the hell do you think he's going to value in his life?

I'm going to be honest here. Your personality is so weird, immature, and selfish that this kid does not even want to have lunch with you now and then. He's seen for himself now. He's done the counseling with you and it has just frustrated him more about you... because it's right there, in front of him. You're badness is smacking him right in the face.

I don't have to say anything Boo. Your life has said more than I could ever say. You may continue to live blissfully ignorant of this, continuously shielded by embarrassing women who ignore your bad traits and pump your ego. That is a sad thing indeed. Or one day, when the people you surround yourself with start to fall away, and you are left looking at yourself in the mirror, you will see what James sees. And that will be a hard day for you.

As always,

My children's devoted mother and biggest champion

The Final Order

2013-04-01T10:48:00.001-07:00

This morning was sunny and it was another show-down with team Sheindlin-Radley. My kid's had off from school for Easter Monday, so I got up early (court was at 9am) got ready, drove over to my mom's and dropped off the little ones. Then I stopped off at Starbucks and got a coffee, drove home to get James and spilled coffee all over myself in the driveway. Classic. I considered just leaving on the coffee outfit. Since I'm pregnant I thought everyone would over-look it, but I knew I was facing a lot of hair & makeup prep-work from Judy Sheindlin and I figured the least I could do was show up in clean clothing.

So, I went and changed and James took over his father's job and made sure I had meter change. We parked, fed the meter and walked to the courthouse. There was murder trial going on so there were lots of police and photographers and we felt very glamorous walking through it all.

We were about 15 min early, and my attorney never showed. I probably should have called or emailed to make sure he remembered, but to be honest I think I didn't on purpose. The last few times when the attorneys went in alone, I didn't like it because Boo's attorney is also his wife so I felt like they got to be everywhere while I sat outside. This time, since I had no attorney, I was there for everything. The "adults" went in first. Judy really annoys me, and at the risk of sounding like the scorned, angry woman that I sometimes am, she really is a snotty-bitch. And that would probably be fine if she was a hired cut-throat family attorney, but she's not. She's his wife, so it all comes across wrong. It's all "stand-by-your-man", fighting the old baby-momma who's kept her husband away from being a loving, involved father. It stinks of female desperation to make her "man" good, or grasp at straws to believe that he's good. All while I sit there annoyed, pregnant, and desperate for the bathroom.

James had written another letter to court, correcting a statement that his counselor had made in his "evaluation". He also adamantly reiterated his position that he did not want visitation and would not comply with it if it was granted. The master had lots of questions for Boo, and then would turn to me and ask how I felt about it. At one point he asked, "How did you find the counselor?", which in the context of what he had already been discussing meant, "How did you like the counselor?" or "How did you find the counselor to be?" Boo started to answer by explaining the logistics of an internet search. Judy stopped him to explain what the Master meant by "find". Boo still didn't get it and started talking about locating a counselor. Judy has a very pretty, well preformed smile when she's embarrassed by her husband and I saw it often there, because this went on at least three times before Boo got it.

Team Sheindlin-Radley was still was adamant that they want visitation. They said their plan was to have James on the first and third Sundays of every month. The Master was like, "Well, what are you going to do when he sits down in the front yard and refuses to go?" They didn't have a good answer. The Master turned to me and asked me what I thought of it. I told him that I thought it was a lot of weight on James's shoulders to have Boo come twice a month and try to force him to go with him. Judy piped up that two Sundays a month should not be stressful for him, and he is just a child after all. Ahhhhhhh, Judy, you should just shut that lip-glossed mouth of yours right now. I have 3, soon to be 4 kids, and you have none. Don't you tell me what's stressful for my child, let alone ANY child. If you want to tell me about your BMW maintenance schedule or how to flat-iron your hair, I'm all ears. But don't you tell me what's up (we all know I feel about that!) with my teenager. I was pregnant at 17, I have a new in-law mad at me on every alternating Thursday, and I am about to birth my fourth son... I eat pretty little fashionistas like you for breakfast.

So, then the Master wanted to know if we would like him to speak to James. He said there are two options for this, one is with the attorneys present and the other is with the child alone. I said that he should to talk to James alone because my attorney is not present and the other attorney is technically James's step-mother and that's weird (any time I can bring that up, I do, because team Sheindlin-Radley looks uncomfortable). The Master talked to James alone for a while then he brought the "adults" in and sent James back out. He told me that he has been doing mediation for 28 years, and that James is one of the most intelligent and mature children he has ever spoken with. After that "how did you find the counselor" situation, I think we all know where James gets his smarts from.

So, the Master wrote up a final order and I think we kind of won. Later on, in the car, James told me that the Master told him in private that he did not want to give Boo any visitation but did not want this to have to continue in the court system. So, he and James worked on a solution. The solution, and final order, is that James will attend up to two counseling sessions a month. No visitation or partial custody was awarded, and I retain full custody. It feels kind of good. I don't like James to be forced to do anything, but I'd rather it be counseling than visitations with Boo.

So, it ends for now... until I annoy Judy with something and she wrangles up her husband, puts on her heels, and comes for blood again.

The Red Tent

2013-03-24T18:08:00.000-07:00

This week I felt my age and lot in life. On Thursday I was speeding in my mini-van trying to get my hot home-made breakfast casserole to a "mother's group" on time.  I know, I know, I just said mini-van, casserole, and mother's group all in the same sentence. But this group is good for me, it's full of the type of women that I am slightly embarrassed to tell that I had never made a breakfast casserole before. They also do daily things like praying the rosary and always seem to know what Novena is good for what. And I nod along like, "Oh, of course you say the Novena to St. Rita of Cascia when you need personal courage!" And all this is good for me, I need a little of these women in my life. I need to see women who handle their children's cancer, take on foster kids, and bake bread all while homeschooling like it's as easy as breathing. And if I did say a Novena to St. Rita and actually had the courage to tell these ladies that I hadn't ever made a breakfast casserole before, they would whip out their day-planners and binders and start passing me their best organic recipes without an eye-roll. I love it, it keeps me balanced.

Well, every group session starts with a group prayer, and every person is supposed to say out loud what they would like the group to pray for. This part, I hate. I am not a good group prayer person and always feel like I have to make up something important and meaningful to pray for.  But I was late this time (you know, making a casserole) and they were almost done with the group prayer. I sat down relieved that I had missed my turn until the group leader said, "Leah, you can go now." Ugh. I asked for prayers for my husband to have an easier time with his job and then I considered making up a marriage problem or ailment but all I could think of was that I just saw another penis two days ago. So, I told them all that I had just found out that my fourth child would be a fourth boy and I would like to ask God to help me appreciate that. Everyone nodded solemnly like I had just prayed for someone in hospice care and they closed the prayer.

Today we had a play date birthday party for my little guy. He turned two this week. Friends from Boston, Greg and Jess were in attendance. Along with David's gift, Jess handed me a present as well. After the play date party was over and the guests had left, I reached my hand inside the gift bag and pulled out a book. I saw the woman on the cover and my heart stopped. "The Red Tent" someone whispered in my mind. It was me whispering from the past, 12 years ago, in college and I had just finished the book.

I double majored in college. Gov-Law and Religion. Most of my religion courses where taken in "Jewish Studies". I am fascinated with Judaism and basically have had a love affair with it since the time I was 10 and picked up my first Chaim Potok fiction.  Judaism is everything I love about religion and studying it made me love and understand my own Catholicism more.  Most of my courses had to do with the Old Testament or the Jewish experience in history. I even had one heart wrenching course on human suffering and forgiveness dealing mostly with the Holocaust and reading Elie Wiesel. I left that class feeling shell shocked and tired and scared that there was something inside of me that I did not know.

Then I took a cross-over course dealing with women in literature, and that's where I first saw the cover of "The Red Tent". I was excited to read it. I loved the biblical story of Leah and Rachel and all the sons they had and Leah's one daughter, Dinah. But "The Red Tent" turned out to be an emotional roller coaster for me and I didn't want to buy another ticket too soon. It starts out with the story of my name-sake and continues with a fictional account of the life her only daughter, "Dinah" might have had. Dee-nah... Dee-nah... I can hear her saying her own name. The name is as soft as music and as powerful as a scream. I haven't opened the book since. I remember seeing it catch on and end up on best-seller lists, I remember noticing it in the check-out line at Target and pretending that I didn't see it. "Dee-nah" the book said to me. "I don't know you", I said and turned away.

One of my favorite nerd authors, George Martin, in his book "A Dance with Dragons" wrote, “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.” I couldn't re-live Dinah's fictional life in 12 years.  Now, I open the book to Dinah's voice in the prologue. One passage reads:

     "My mother's were proud to give my father so many sons. Sons were a woman's pride and measure. But the birth of one boy after another was not an unalloyed source of joy in the women's tents. My father boasted about his noisy tribe, and the women loved my brothers, but they longed for daughters, too, and complained among themselves about the maleness of Jacob's seed.
     Daughters eased their mothers' burdens - helping with the spinning, the grinding of grain, and the endless task of looking after baby boys, who were forever peeing into the corners of the tents, no matter what you told them.
    But the other reason women wanted daughters was to keep their memories alive. Sons did not hear their mothers' stories after weaning. So I was the one. My mother and mother-aunties told me endless stories about themselves. No matter what theirs hands were doing- holding babies, cooking, spinning, weaving - they filled my ears.
     In the ruddy shade of the red tent, the menstrual tent, they ran their fingers through my curls, repeating the escapades of their youths, the sagas of their childbirths. Their stories were like offerings of hope and strength poured out before the Queen of Heaven, only these gifts were not for any god or goddess-but for me."

The rest of the book is not easy. Dinah gives birth to her own sons and her love and experiences with motherhood are painful and wonderful. The book is rough for me, the want of a daughter and the love and blessings of sons, the trials and tribulations of womanhood, motherhood, midwifery. The book feels earthy and ancient, transporting the reader back to a primal time. The beauty of the novel is hard and painful, just like the beauty of the red tent itself. I close the book. "Dee-nah" it whispers. "Yes. I know you." I reply with wet eyes.

For every pregnancy, I'd have had to mourn the idea of a daughter even just a little. I want my Dinah but I also am Dinah. For every lost memory un-shared with a daughter is the very present and cherished memory made with a son. I have four chances to make lots of memories and leave sons that will appreciate and love their possible wives and daughters. That will be the gift I leave for posterity. I may be forgettable blip in the family tree just like Dinah's short paragraph life in the bible.  My story may not be passed down on the lips of my daughters, but my son's lives will echo my
name in their lives and lives they create.

Two nights ago I was walking down a dark hall in my house and my teenage son came up behind me and scared me. I shrieked and then laughed. "James! You can't scare a pregnant lady! I just pee'd in my pants!" "Oh my God! That is so gross" He choked as he doubled over in laughter. My other two boys joined in dancing around and laughing at Mommy peeing her pants. I even felt the little boy in my womb wiggle. Ah, my boys and our memories, what would I do without them? The tent I create with my sons may not be red but it is definitely colorful.

Holes

2013-03-11T13:51:00.000-07:00

You know when people really upset you and you struggle between feeling really, really angry at them and trying to convince yourself that they really don't matter. I hate being there. I think it would be easier to dig a 6 ft hole in the middle of winter. But I usually go ahead and dig. I dig through the angry part even when the soil is cold and rock hard and sometimes tears are involved but I usually end up at the other side of the earth in Go- Fuck-Yourself-Land where I continue to happily reside as commander and chief of my own life.

But while you're digging away trying to get to your happy place, let's admit it, it's awful. You put the shovel in and pull out a heavy load of, "Who the fuck do you think you are?" and then the next one is an equally hard, "Who the hell cares who they are? They don't matter to my life." Then you hit a large rock that says, "They don't get me, they don't care to get me, they are just so freaking miserable and judgmental and they just want to put their know-nothing foot in the door of my life and bring me down." That rock takes a bit of work to get out. You have to put the shovel in at different angles until you find the right one, then you might have to stand on the shovel to get the right leverage and strength. It's hard labor, it's a real pain in the ass... and there you are digging a very deep hole just to get back to where you were... confident, happy, yourself.

You wouldn't have to be digging if people would just leave you alone, but that becomes harder with Facebook and a blog. I kind of put myself out there a bit. I like to laugh at myself and others. The things I write are dry, sarcastic, sometimes funny, sometimes angry... but I do strive to be honest. However, not honest in that cruel or "up-in-your-business" sort of way that people use to hurt you or get in your face about something. They say something hurtful and then follow it up with "but, I'm just being honest!" or "I'm just a very honest person." And I'm honestly going to punch you in the face.

So, I'm pretty sure my single, childless, brother-in-law thought he was just being "honest" (honestly out of his league) when he posted two links about fetal alcohol syndrome under one of my funny posts on FB. I was at my father's 70th birthday brunch and partook in my family's Bloody Mary tradition. Just one, in the midst of a breakfast buffet that I eagerly filled my belly with. I am 5 months pregnant now, and my alcohol consumption has been consisted of a glass of excellent Greek wine on Valentine's day and the now infamous Bloody Mary. Except for my first pregnancy (I was too young to drink or vote or be pregnant for that matter), I have had a drink here or there during pregnancies 2 and 3. And it's 2013... we are past the Mad Men era of constant drinking, smoking, and weird prescribed drugs during pregnancies and the follow-up backlash against it all. In 2013, I have plenty of information and maternity experience to make my own informed decisions. And my FB friends know me... either personally or via my posts. I'm a concerned parent but not neurotic, a little bit of a hippy, and a bit saracastic. So, when I posted the comment, "Bloody Mary for the pregnant lady? Eh, why not, it's the 4th baby." I expected my friends to get it... and they did. Except for my brother-in-law who took it down the "You are maliciously hurting your unborn child" road and now I'm digging a damn hole.

But let's not stop there... remember that VBAC blog I did titled, "Intellect and Eve"? My husband's family is suddenly full of medical experts. Apparently all you have to do is have access to the interwebs and know a doctor, any kind of doctor... and you suddenly know more than me, my obstetrician, and my medical history combined. And with this wealth of knowledge you have acquired, you are going to let my husband know all about how wrong my decisions are. Because, you know, that's what matters in all of these medical decisions, my in-laws comfort level. And I keep digging that hole faster and deeper.

Now, I wouldn't tell anyone how to throw a football, or swing a bat. I certainly didn't advise my father on his recent bout with prostate cancer. He is intelligent and had good doctors. I could be online for weeks filling my head with internet prostate knowledge and still not feel comfortable telling him what is right and wrong. Likewise, I could hang out with a pro-baseball player and talk hitting technique and never even dream of tweaking any of my ball playing relatives swings. And that's just g-damn baseball which these people take seriously enough, imagine them trying to get in the middle of my motherhood.

In my head, as I'm shoveling, I’m like - haven’t I shown everyone what a caring mother I am? Do you really think I would “maliciously” harm any of them? I guess you do, and that is upsetting. I have been pregnant 3 times before and have birthed 3 healthy, intelligent children. I’m on my 4th pregnancy have been pregnant more times than anyone alive on either side of our families (except for my mom and g-mom, who each had 4 pregnancies). You really think I don’t know how much alcohol/coffee/tuna fish/lunch meat/allergy medicine/soda/exercise/etc. is too much? And let’s say I don’t, is it really your place to advise me as opposed to say... my doctor? How many healthy children do I have to birth or raise before anyone has an ounce of trust in me? Or at least says, “Hmmmm, That makes me uncomfortable but it’s really none of my business.” This will probably never happen, which is why I need to figure out how to stay on my side of happy so I don't even have to begin digging a hole to get back there.

And then there's the single factor in this. My biggest critics are single well into their late 30's and early 40's, and who cares until.... until they fucking stick their nose where it doesn't belong. Then it's a fast trip to "what the hell does he know? He's never had children or a wife or even been in a 60 mile radius of anyone giving birth besides attending his own." And this causes resentment for the single person. They think, "Oh, just because I'm single it means I can't offer parenting advice or tell you about maternity issues?" Uh.... Yeah, that's EXACTLY what it means! Think about it professionally. Do you feel comfortable taking legal advice from someone who is not an attorney? No. Would you pay someone to make your wedding cake that wasn't an experienced baker or licensed caterer? Probably not. Do you take medical advice to heart from someone who is not at the very least a nurse... oh, wait, ha! Then why the hell would you think that anyone wants to hear what you have to say about their parenting, marriage, or pregnancy? No one does, get over it. I am an experienced parent and pregnant lady and even I don't feel comfortable dolling out advice unless asked. Who the hell do you think you are? There, that was big shovel load.

Ok, time for some inspiration. Have you read "Pride and Prejudice"? Remember Elizabeth Bennet telling off the only in-law she would possible have - Lady Catherine? It was awesome. Elizabeth finally says after enduring cajoling, manipulation, and straight out insults from her future in-law, "I am only resolved to act in a manner that will constitute my own happiness without any reference to you or any person so wholly unconnected with me." Sigh. Put that shovel down Miss Bennet, you made it to the other side.

So, how do I get there and stay there? There will probably always be a little bit of shoveling through hurt feelings and downed confidence. But I'm pretty sure that as I continue to get more confident, the shovel-loads will get lighter, there will be less rocks, the soil won't be so hard and cold and the actual trip back to Go-Fuck-Yourself Land will be shorter and shorter. Until one day, I am as rich in confidence as the new Mrs. Fitzwilliam Darcy was in money and satisfaction, and I will reign supreme of my own happiness.

Then a friend from far away (that's where you have to be sometimes to see these things clearly - far away), wrote to me with a suggestion for letting go of what people think and not giving them my energy for digging holes in the first place. She told me to pray. Pray for those who piss me off. Pray until I mean it - for them to have the best of everything - and when I do mean it, I will start to feel compassion for them and it will free my head to do the things I enjoy more. She finished, "Maybe you've already tried that. I figured you'd be open to it since you practice a religion/spirituality."

Uh, no, I am embarrassed to say I haven't tried it. And that type of thought process is straight out of Catholic school. How could I be so remiss? And funny enough, it took a gay, feminist, tree hugger to slap my knuckles and send me to the confessional.

Another friend of mine is Mormon. When I asked her to keep my Boo Radley situation in her prayers she said, "Well, Mormon's don't pray for specific things or outcomes but we do say, 'Let God's Will be done." Hmmmmm, that's tough and cool at the same time. It is very hard to give up control and leave it up to God or the Universe... but if you can get there I bet it's awesomely free. I bet in "Let-God's-Will-be-Done-Land" you aren't digging any holes.

But these two have great points, I need to pray or meditate and find a way to be at peace more consistently and that takes internal work. Working in your mind or soul on yourself is the hardest type of hole to dig and you can be digging a long time. But that type of digging is completely worth it. It's good, wholesome labor with a good outcome. The shovel loads can be prayers and the dirt thrown away is relieving. You end up with a big pile of yesterday's worries and a hole straight back to your true self. And don't worry, God will fill it back up with good soil to keep you from going back there.

Counseling with the Enemy

2013-03-04T11:59:00.001-08:00

My sister is incredible. She's taken her taken her God given rights as woman and done what she wants with them and in the end she will get the finish line of woman-hood having had a slice of it all. She is college graduate and worked as an accountant in NYC and/or Newark when she met my brother-in-law, got married and had her first child. From then on, for the last 20 years or so, she's been a stay at home mom. Now her youngest of three children is a freshman in high school and my sister has started classes in graduate school for a Masters in Counseling. She gave up her career early (probably around age 26) and was there before and after school for three kids, was home-room mom, and volunteered in the cafeteria and library, she made it to sporting events and even coached tennis. She was there even through the teenage years when her kids probably didn't appreciate it and would have preferred a working mom. She ate the slice of the stay-at-home mom part of the woman pie (pie would work so much better if wasn't also funny) and it was delicious. Now, as her youngest is matriculating towards adulthood, she is preparing to re-enter the workforce. She's only in her 40's and has plenty of career woman years ahead of her. I am so proud of her.

This weekend was my dad's 70th birthday party and we were all together. I was expressing my feelings about my over-involved parents and my sister was asking me questions about it. Half-way through I realized that I was in the middle of a counseling session with her. She was using her new skills to evaluate and help me think of the situation in a new way. It was funny once I realized what was going on and at the end I thanked her for the session. She quipped back that she'd mail me a bill. Truth be told, I am burned out on counseling as of late...

Boo Radley wasn't always the enemy. As of late he has become one. But, in the beginning and for many years afterwards he was pretty much a nothing. When I was 16 I loved him as much as a 16 year old can love. Now I know that my ability to love at 16 isn't even a decimal of my ability to love at 33. This is one of the strongest reasons why teenagers shouldn't have sex. I remember watching that Scott Baio reality show a few years back (I admit, I loved it). It was basically him struggling to come to terms with his relationship and his impeding fatherhood. At the end he went and visited his home Catholic parish in NYC. There a nun told him, "The greatest gift you can give your children is to love their mother". At 16 the capacity to love anyone other than yourself is so insignificant, that the consequences and feelings resulting from sex can be disastrous. Please kids, for the love of God (or in your case yourselves), please wait to have sex even if contraception is not an issue.

Quickly, any love I had for Boo Radley turned to disgust when I was pregnant. My ability to love was growing faster and more complex with each beat of my new baby's heart inside of me. It made the teenage selfishness around me hard to swallow. I recently found a letter that Boo's parents wrote to me. The were/are super Christian-y in that annoying protestant kumbaya sort-of way. But as sadly happens sometimes with those that claim to be in Jesus's inner circle, their support and patience only lasted as long as things were going the way that Jesus told them it should. The letter they wrote to me sounded very much like a letter that fundamental Christians would write to a gay teenager. It was all about praying to God to help me make the "right" decision and that God didn't want me to keep the baby, and that if I prayed God would show me the way. "Jesus Christ!" I thought, re-reading the letter in adulthood. These fuckers ditched me the second that God told me something different than they thought he should. And they probably think it was my fault. I probably didn't listen hard enough or I twisted his words. Whatever it was, my relationship with God wasn't strong enough and now I am the day to day mother of an excellent young man... and he was an alter boy! Who has Jesus in their corner now, Radley's?

Well, since I didn't listen to Jesus, Boo has been a non-issue in my life. I met my husband at 18, and he being 9 years my senior, had a more mature heart than I did. At 18, I loved him as much as I could at 18, which still wasn't as much as at 25, and now at 33, I feel like the greatness and complexity of my love for my husband is amazingly more than even at 25. But all of this wouldn't have been possible if he hadn't loved me with a heart so much more ready for it. His love was like a giant safety net catching and bouncing me be back up. I grew strong and complete under his love, and when he quickly loved my child as unconditionally as any father, it was the greatest love story of the ages. Boo Radley was a distant memory, a non-issue....until....

Until the end of January, when I was sitting next to him on a couch across from a counselor. This was session number 1 of court-ordered counseling, and I was so nervous I almost threw up on the way there. I have tell you how I felt, and when I told this very thing to the counselor during the session, his expression darkened and he asked, "Can you think of a different way to say that?", "No I can't.", I replied honestly. I felt insulted to be in counseling with Boo Radley. It insulted my motherhood, my parenting, and my family. I felt like I was being forced to make something out of nothing. I have had little to no relationship with Boo... no conflicts, little communication, just nothingness. And here I was with him and a counselor to talk about what? He hasn't been a parent and I had to sit there and act like he was my equal? Insulting.

I get this type of counseling for two people who have had a relationship, it failed, and now they need to learn how to co-parent. These are usually at the very least two moderately involved parents that just need to work out the kinks and bad feelings that are preventing them from presenting a dual force to their children. My in-laws could have made good use of this... then maybe 30 yrs out of a divorce my MIL wouldn't get mad seeing her kids tagged in pictures looking happy with their father and my FIL wouldn't act like he was the one screwed around on every time he gets the shaft on a holiday and their kids wouldn't act so peculiarly protective and insecure about their childhood nuclear family. But I'm getting off track.

The term, "co-parenting" gets thrown around a lot in these sessions. I'm like, "Uh, I have a co-parent, he's at home taking care of our three children while I sit here and humor this stranger I'm sitting next to." And let me tell you, Boo's answer's and statements were painfully scripted. It was like his attorney/wife sat down prepped him. This just made me feel even more frustrated. They were like interview answers, it was everything you are supposed to say, while I'm in there saying stuff that even gets the counselor a little flustered. At one point I said that Boo wasn't a parent. Boo finally got a little heated and said, "Yes, I am!" like a third grader in a verbal altercation on the playground. I said, "No your not, your just some guy I had sex with when I was 16." I could see this statement slowly sinking in, and saw a mixture of anger, surprise, and maybe hurt settling in his eyes. I quickly looked away. I have a tendency to easily fall into the trap of feeling sorry for people and Boo wasn't getting that from me, he already had his wife and his mom wiping his ass for him.

Session number two quickly repaired any pity I might have felt, because this time Boo got a little deep and admitted that he felt no guilt about his relationship (or lack of) with James. "WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!" Every primal ounce of motherhood screamed inside my head. I could feel the blood rushing in my veins and every hair on my body stood on end. The counselor looked at me so fast as Boo spoke these words of blasphemy that I thought he would get whip-lash and even the Blessed Mother Mary herself came down and put her hands on my shoulders and whispered in my ear, "Be still child, but if you want to run him over later in the parking lot, I will make sure God isn't watching."

Session three was the most interesting. Boo had gotten bored of talking about his lack-luster history and came with a game plan for our supposed parenting future (I threw up a little in my mouth just writing that). I however, wasn't quite sure he was "getting it". I asked him what he thought James was mad about, like, why does he think James doesn't want to see him? He honestly couldn't come up with an answer, even with encouragement from the counselor, who said, "Yes, that's a good question because it takes a lot for a person to not want to see someone." The only thing he could suppose was that I was bad-mouthing him to James. This made my head spin. Really? That's all you can come up with? You don't see anything else? Let's say I was bad mouthing you - between the reader and I, I honestly don't have the time or energy for bad-mouthing Boo. In fact, I would have considered even thinking about him beneath me. But that's it? That's the only thing? It's not the lack of involvement or support? It's not seeing two parents sacrifice and love while a third party does what he wants? Its not that he might feel pain for his teenage mother or his abandoned infant self? It's not the occasional Christmas card signed, "From, Boo" instead of "Love, Dad"? You can't think that any of that might leave a teenager a little bit put-off? I told Boo all of this... and he said, "This is all new to me, you are showing me myself in a way that I haven't seen myself before". OM-fucking-G.

So, Mid-March we have a session with James, Mom and Boo Radley, while Dad is home taking care of the other kids. Good times, good times. Boo is reluctant to talk about why he abandoned him when he was born. He suddenly is worried about hurting James, "But won't my answer hurt him?". Great, now he grows a conscience. I told him he better just be honest because James already knows the bad answer in his head and if Boo comes up with anything else that kid will walk right out of there. This is unsettling to Boo, I mean, who wants to do something hard, right? The counselor suggested that Boo come up with a good way to say it and then maybe run it by me on the phone. My jaw must have hit the floor because the counselor looked slightly amused. Can't this joker do anything by himself? Now I have to be in charge of helping him come up with some good answers? Instead I suggested he could just run it by his attorney one night after dinner, after all I am being sued over this.

Keep us in your thoughts, prayers and good humor... after all, "For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?"

Pit bulls and Parolees

2013-02-19T21:08:00.000-08:00

Our family dog is a pit bull. He's great. I wish more people would consider them. If you are in the market for a dopey golden retriever, shop around the pit bulls in your local shelter. You will surely find one that meets your needs. We are dog people. My husband and I grew up with many family dogs and when we started our own family we kept the family dog tradition going. Between the two of us, and together we've had... labs, great danes, shepherd mixes, rotti mixes, springer spaniel, akitas, and now... a pit bull. His name is Petey and we got him at 5 months old from a family that couldn't keep him anymore because of landlord issues. I wasn't in the market for a pit bull but our Akita, Kobi, was closing in on 12 and being a somewhat of a snob, had never been a kids' dog. So, I was in the market for a puppy for my children. I really didn't have any strong feelings on pit bulls either way. We were dog people and a dog is a dog is a dog is a dog. So we have Petey the pit bull, our family dog.

Once you have and are fond of a pit bull, a strange thing happens. You become aware and at the very least find yourself on the fringe of pit bull advocacy. You join pit bull FB groups, and acronyms like BSL (breed specific legislation) roll easily off your tounge. You love stories about Hollywood stars adopting pit bulls because it makes you feel very urbane. Then the bumper stickers come out... "Pit bulls are a girl's best friend", "pit bull mom", "I love my pit bull", etc. It's a fast downward slope to crazy dog person land which is just as weird as crazy cat lady land without all the gross litter boxes.

Recently, I read an article (posted on my local pit bull awareness FB page of course) about "dog management". It was a good article and made a lot of sense. Basically, the author was tired of hearing "it's all about how they are raised" when it comes to pit bulls. The author found this concerning because even the best of families with the best of intentions can end up with any kind of dog with problems. He wants people to work more on good "dog management". Know your dog's personality, behavior, and issues and manage it well. It's as simple as don't let your dog run around loose in an unfenced backyard, or don't take your dog-aggressive fido to the dog park. Simple, easy, straight forward - good dog management.

So, this morning I was washing dishes after another exhausting morning with Warren. We are in February and this kid still doesn't get that M-F he goes to school and the mornings are dedicated to getting there. I send him up to brush his teeth, 10 min later go to check on him, and he's just starting to put toothpaste on the brush. What has he been doing? Enjoying the bathroom acoustics by singing to himself. It already took him 25 minutes to put on the same shirt and pants (catholic school uniform) that he wears every day, and then 30 minutes to eat cereal. It's frustrating. As I washed the dishes I pondered my second born and at the same time pondered my dog's garbage eating addiction and realized it all comes down to management.

I need better "child management" with Warren. Because as dog people like to say, "I'm setting him up for failure". I need to make lunches at night because my mornings have to be dedicated to managing Warren so that things don't get frustrating. I have to know his personality, behavior, and issues and manage it well. James didn't need much management at all, but that was him. This is a different kid and I can't expect him to fit into my lax parenting style. I have to up the management on this one.

This is often true with parents out and about. When you see a mother with a wild-child, who is obviously trying to manage the monkey show in her shopping cart, you can give an understanding smile and look the other way. But that mom that's picking out eye-shadow while her kiddos are rearranging the shampoo shelves? Please manage those kids! How the hell do you even have time to apply eye-shadow? You are the equivalent of the idiot who lives behind me who lets her pit bull out to pee loose in the back yard and closes the door. One day, when the other idiot with the loose Chihuahuas, is missing one of the five that poop in my yard, I may not be too upset but you will be in hot water and my placid pit bull suddenly looks all the meaner to the general population.

My brother and sister had poor child and dog management respectively one Christmas and I'm still a little mad about it. At the annual awesome Christmas Eve party at my sister's house, my brother's daughter laid on the floor in front of my sister's nasty cocker spaniel and teased the dog. I probably heard people tell her five times that night not to bother dog because he doesn't like anyone. Then, as she laid next to the dog a few feet from me, I myself told her to get away from the dog before she ultimately got nipped in the face. All this while my brother was in another room away from a child that generally needs a lot of management. And my sister should have had the dog in his crate. The nip wasn't terrible, my brother over-reacted, my sister in turn reacted with a dose of indifference that one would have in this type of "I'm sorry your kid got hurt, but why weren't you watching her and why did six people have to tell her to leave the dog alone" type of thing. So, my brother, in true soap opera form, vowed never to return to my sister's house. My sister was insulted that after all the work she does every year for everyone, that she would be treated this way, and canceled forth-coming parties. My kids were sad, because everyone loved Aunt C's fabulous Christmas parties. All this could have been avoided with a good dose of child and dog management. And no one is saying you have to be on point 24/7, but then when stuff does happen, be humble. Also, please note, my brother and sister are good parents trying to raise their respective criminals "right", but this all came down to management.

I have to manage Warren in public, I have been doing this since the beginning of time (5-6 years). He is "lively" (see my "The Lively Child" post) and it is my responsibility to know that and work with it the best I can. But in the confines of my own home, I have been lax and it's my own sanity that suffers. I will often find myself crying to my husband that, "I'm not the mom I want to be." because I spend so much time being angry and frustrated instead of happy and fun. Where are the sunshine and butterflies?... The craft time and snuggly story times?...The loving kisses and "Have and nice day at school, Angel of my life"? All down the toilette with the back-talking, temper tantrums, procrastinating, whining, and general six-year-old ego-centric selfishness.

So, my new tactic, and maybe this will help others or maybe you all know this already, is going to be better "child management". I have to try to pre-empt bad situations. I have a huge procrastinator so I have to get my own shit done beforehand so that I can dedicate mornings to teaching him how to stay on task and relieve frustration and stress for both of us. Then I can get him to school in a peaceful manner with kisses full of sunshine and butterflies. The less stressed we both are the more able we will be to enjoy each other. With children, like dogs, it's not always how they are raised but often how they are managed.

Intellect and Eve

2013-02-06T07:37:00.001-08:00

This past friday I had a regular OB visit. I mean that it was regularly scheduled, the visit itself was extraordinary for me. I have had one vaginal birth and 2 subsequent c-sections. One of my sections is considered a "special scar" because of the shape of the cut. I pretty much resigned myself to repeat c-sections. This, I was pretty much ok with, I had three healthy children and tried to consentrate on that. Then my docter said to me, "What about a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean)?" "I didn't think I was allowed" I said back. She talked about my risks of rupture still being small, that I could labor and if stuff didn't go well we'd just do the section, that we could schedule a section and give me time to go into labor on my own and if I didn't we'd just section. This was so cool! I was being given a chance to do something that I had been told wasn't an option... this was so me! So exciting! So everything I live for! So, what did I do? I cried.

I cried, right there on the table. The docter looked patient, the medical student look alarmed. I felt... relieved. It was right there and then that I realized how much my birth experiences meant to me. I said to the docter, "I don't feel disabled anymore. It's like I've been using a wheel-chair and you just told me that I really could walk if I wanted to."

Being human is a very hard thing. You are an animal with either God-given or evolved (or both) intellect. I can feel how important birth is to me, like an animal instinct or an innate urge I can't get rid of - not the amount of births or an urge to keep having births, but the act of giving birth. But I'm intelligent (how much is debateable) and my intelligence plays ping-pong with my instincts usuing paddles called logic and social norms. After the appointment I called my husband at work and sobbed into the phone, I could feel his alarm and first, and then his deep understanding. We don't always get each other, but this, he mercifully gets and appreciates. Second, I called an old highschool friend in Ohio. When I was pregnant with James she wanted to be a mid-wife and now is one of those annoying, amazing people doing exactly what she said she'd love to do and more. She get's it too, and has been my phone and FB counselor.

This weekend I did research on VBAC's and baby positioning and natural birthing... all kinds of crazy shit that I had always been jealous of. In fact a friend of mine had a water birth and hired a professional photog to snap away the memories. She showed me the beutiful scenes of herself laboring over the side of a tub, her husband rubbing her back. I looked at the really tear-jerking black and white of her clutching her freshly birthed baby boy to her breast. I loved it and hated it all at the same time. It's a weird feeling, really. I thought of my own photo's of my c-sections... my head in a blue cap with some random nurse holding the baby to my face. The photos that my husband took when his curiosty and sense of humor got the best of him and he snapped away at my cut open abdomen and uterus while the docter gave him an up close and personal anatomy lesson... my baby on the warmer and me on my side of the curtain hanging with my new best friend, the anesthesiologist, thinking, "Is this really happening right now?"

I also read about how healing and empowering birth after a c-section can be. Just reading the words "healing" and "empowering" made tears come out of my eyes. "What the hell is going on?" I thought. Then I went and had a tearfull talk with my husband. I told him that I hold some blame for a family member for my bad birth experience with my second. That baby was breech and I was scheduled for a version (turning the baby). But he was born pre-term and low birth weight... both a sympton of mental stress on the mother. This family member was relentless during the last months of that pregnancy putting pressure on me about everything she didn't like... a big one was the location of the nursery and if there was lead paint in the room. She laid guilt trips on my husband and even called my parents about it. Another family member got so so worked about it that she screamed at me at family function. I cried and we left early. It was a miserable pregnancy and c-section, and I blame this person. And it snowsballs in my brain... if she hadn't gone out of her way to stress me out, I wouldn't have had pre-term labor, and I could have prevented a c-section. Then little David wouldn't have been a c-section and he wouldn't have been in the NICU for a week and I wouldn't be overly-angry at every small idiotic thing that this person does. I don't know how much she really is to blame, but I do know that James and David where full term, normal sized babies... and those pregnancies weren't made miserable by her.

So, I realize that I have issues - anger, sadness, blame, jealously - and I want to feel healed and empowered like those VBAC woman. So, now I'm researching doulas and working on making my perineum (the nice word for taint) strong. I'm going to indulge my animal urge to birth this kid like a cave woman. I want to be like our first human mother Eve, birthing her sons outside the Garden of Eden, probablly squatting against a tree. I want to feel her pain, and her joy, and when it's all over I'll request an apple and take a satisfying bite.

Special Purpose

2012-12-31T16:35:00.001-08:00

I sometimes have a lot of bits and pieces that I would like to write about but I can't figure out how to pull it all together. Like, how do you tell your mother-in-law that you don't like the blueberry pie she brought when your husband is just going to say, "Mom, she hated it." and get you in trouble anyway. But as wonderfull and idiotic as parts of Christmas were, this blog all came together when Sara placed the VHS tape in my hand.

Sara is an old friend. We had the type of childhood friendship that you could write books about and every time I think of her, I smile. That is a very special person, because most people barely get a smirk out of me anymore. We loved Wayne & Garth, starting bands without knowing how to play instruments, and Dorney Park. We would spend countless summer days at Dorney coming up with Saturday Night Live type sketches to amuse ourselves. These included - talking loudly in ride lines about how so and so had died, gotten injured, or was currently in a coma from the ride, waving hysterically at strangers and calling out fake names from the top of water slide towers, and taking turns pretending each other was deaf and doing fake sign language.

But as childhood friendships often do, ours stalled in highschool. I can't even tell you why because when I think of Sara, all the good stuff seems to have taken over my memory. But thanks to facebook and Sara's mother, we found each other. However, she lives across the country and I have only gotten to see her around Christmas. So, this past Saturday was our day. I picked her up at her childhood home and we went for lunch. But, before I pulled out of the driveway, Sara had me close my eyes because she had a Christmas present for me. When I opened them, there in my palm was Steve Martin's movie, "The Jerk".

The Jerk was one of our absolute 14 year old favorites. We could have acted out that whole movie we watched it so many times. So, today I popped it in the kitchen TV while I was cooking and giggled along just like I was in 9th grade all over again. Then I got to the part where Navin (Martin) finds out what his "special purpose" (aka penis) is for, and writes home to his adopted black family about it. That part is hysterical. But it weirdly, or maybe fatefully, pulled it all together for me...

I'm pregnant again. Yup, baby number four for us. David and I were always on the same page, kids wise. A cool four kids never made us sweat, in fact, our scarey "those people are crazy!" number would probably be six. But, I know how a lot of people are, and just hearing about more than two pregnancies makes them break out in hives and they look at you like you're Amish. So, I've felt apprehensive about telling people. And I really shouldn't have to be. It's not like I asked them to carry the baby for nine months, or come over and be my nanny.

One couple I'm friends with are these cool, atheist, libertarian types. They are all, don't tell me what to do with my life, or body, or beliefs! And trust me, I won't! But... They are very good at making me feel like they are judging or smirking at me. Me and my breastfeeding, stay-at-home, multiple pregnancy lifestyle. What the hell! I often think. Aren't you supposed to be all chair-talking Clint Eastwood, to each his own? Not being forced to participate in religious type things... yes. "Backwards" woman activites like nursing and staying home... no.

So, I know what I'm up against out there. In fact, a few days after posting the good news on Facebook, one of my husbands friends called me. And it was one of those awkard conversations where instead of them yelling "congratulations!" into the phone, you get the feeling that they are calling to make sure you are "ok". It literally sounds like they are trying to feel you out for mental illness, and every answer you give them they say, "ok, (pause) ok." And then at the end they ask if this is your last one. What do you say to that? I was truthful, and could feel the apologetic tone rising in my voice as if I had to apologize to society at large for the double sin of not only being pregnant with a fourth child, but also not being scared of a fifth one.

But then I sat down across the booth from Sara. We ate Italian food and talked about our lives. Sara's long time girl friend had just left her. She had big plans swimming in her heart for this girl... kids, picket fence, the whole nine yards. I could feel the pain of a lost future, so much that I could practically touch the wound. The waitress put down an extra soda and I tried to lighten the mood by telling Sara to drink it because every time I get pregnant I lose my taste for coffee and soda. I literally go from a bold, black starbucks to nothing. And every morning after the day I give birth, I drink a black cup of coffee like I didn't skip a beat. Sara laughs and says, "That's so cool. I love that. You're so lucky." I smiled back but I really wanted to throw my arms around her and cry with relief and joy that only a good friend can give you even in the midst of their own personal pain. She very simply made it ok for me to be happy, love being pregnant again, and feel lucky.

Everyone has a "special purpose". When you figure out what to do with yours it is definately something to write home to Momma about. Some people use theirs with more purpose than others. But if you know someone that is happily having a fourth, or fifth baby, and they are happy about it... be happy with them. It may not be your cup of tea, but to them, that tea tastes just fine. Go make your own pot and be happy too.

Shoe Shaming

2012-11-20T06:09:00.000-08:00

Yesturday on Facebook I posted a comment that got 40 repsonses (some were me responding to responses) but this is more than any wacky kid posting that I have ever put on there. What the hell !?! What was it about? Shoes - Specifically the riding boots that are galloping across women's fashion. I hate them.

I don't hate every knee high boot, in fact many of them can look very stylish to me. Just not these g-damn riding boots. I may have taken the wrong angle on Facebook, however, concentrating mostly on the fact that their functional purpose is for horse-back riding and that I only want to see them used for such. Female facebook friends cried foul, with claims of loving their dear boots. This I have no doubt is true, woman to love these things. My sister-in-law attacked back pointing out that have a pair of clear "jellies" that I have hung on to through the years and my fashion sense must be waining due to birthing three males. I also don't spell well, and if she has to put up with that, I have to put up with her boots. I said fine, but if she wears them in my presence I whinny and neigh at her. Then I left the house and went to Wegmans, where I saw a plethera of female equestrians doing their Thanksgiving grocery shopping.

This morning, I drove my mini-van taking James and Warren to school. They go to two Catholic schools clear across our small city from each other. As I did, I watched people on the sidewalks going to work and kids going to school, and I realized what my deep down problem with the riding boots is - I have politicized these boots.

Fashion can be artistic and handcrafted and thus labels can get expensive. I get this. I also enjoy that this type of art can be "knocked off" so that everyone can enjoy the artistic expression if not the craftmanship. Riding boots (and Sperry's, which I also threw under the bus) are not artistic, they are functional and usually well crafted. But what is their original function? Horseback riding and sailing/yachting, two activities of the Leisure Class (Veblen). These two types of footwear bother me because they mimmic participation in two activities of the (usually) wealthy. There is nothing particularly stylish or artisic about them other than being styled after something some WASP would take off and leave in the mudroom before saying, "Harriet, I have finished with my riding lesson, please draw me a bath and later I will be having cocktails on the yacht with Muffy and Emmett." So, just being wealthy is stylish? Ugh. And the functional footwear of the upper-class's recreational activites is what every day women are going to choose to wear around as part of their personal style? I just won't be a part of it.

You think I'm going too far with this? Is it really that big of a deal? Yes. Just look at the hoopla around Michele Obama and Ann Romney's fashion choices for their husband's conventions. I'm not a big fan of the President right now, as much as I wish I could be, but - Michele Obama takes great pains not to dress in something too expensive. Why? Because buying couture is almost offensive to the everyday woman. But really, why should she care when the everyday woman is running around in riding boots.

Part Deux

2012-11-14T07:03:00.003-08:00

Let me get some housekeeping out of the way. A very smart, and very sophisticated Jewish friend of mine told to me that my two references to "Jewish" in the last post were a bit "chilling" for him. This surprised me because since he's a published writer I thought my bad grammer and spelling mistakes would chill him most. I told him - I only included the jokes because Judy is, in fact, Jewish and there are comedic things about that just like there are comedic things about me being Catholic, or a SAHM, or a hippy raw milk drinker, or any crazy shit about me. However, I am no Sarah Silverman, just a goyische girl who may not be able to make these jokes. I don't mean to offend and if I had to marry a son to anyone other than a good Catholic girl I would hope she'd be Jewish because Protestents are really no fun.

So, back to the story...

Yesturday, David came with us. I picked him up at work and as handsome as this guy is, I wish I had reminded him to dress up a little that morning (he's a fashion-free Engineer in a casual work enviroment). We picked up James and then I drove around the block five times trying to find a spot where I could parallel park the mini-van. This annoyed my precision driver husband and the annoyance escalated when I had no money for the meter and he was determined to find some change in the abyss of the van. I told him that I would just get a $10 ticket and it was no big deal... but it was big deal to him because he reminded me that I have never had just a $10 ticket because I never do anything in a timely manner and before I knew it, I'd be in handcuffs in the back of a constable's car making tearfull phone calls to my lawyer brother (yes, this actually happened and it's quite a story). God intervened, and we discovered that the meter was dead.

We entered the courthouse and got in line to go through security. As I was waiting I scanned the loby for either my attorney or team Sheindlin-Radley. I spotted the duo waiting by the elevators. The curls where still gone and this time the hair torture had escalated to a long extension pony-tail. But then I spotted it... the holy grail of natures revenge. As Boo looked up at the elevator numbers, I had a clear view of the top of his head. There, instead of thick annoying red hair, was a bald spot! A friar tuck, round like a yamacha, bald spot! Oh Glory Be of all things assanine and petty! Boo's hair was receding in an inversely porportionate amount to the length of Judy's ponytail like some evil pack with the devil they must have made.

We waited for my attorney and then checked in and waited in the hallway outside of family court. I should have remembered not to be worried about my husbands attire. Apparently, people roll out of bed and come to family court dressing worse than I would to go grocery shopping (maybe not Weis but definately Wegmans!). The court seemed to be running behind and David was definately a comfort as we were waiting. He joked about the times he had been there for his own parent's custody matters. I actually forgot he was old hat at this!

Finally the lawyers went in and out, and then I was brought in with Boo. The Master ordered more counseling and then we would reconvene in February. Again, he talked mostly to me and I don't blame him, team Sheindlin-Radley varies between commical and scary depending on what moment you look at them. I tend to avert my eyes so as not to have any innaproprate expressions on my face. The master also made an interesting concrete anaolgy for Boo's sake. He basically said that Boo had let the concrete cure for 15 years and it would be difficult to try to stir or form it any differently now. Boo must have been ready to say a lot of stupid stuff because Judy kept patting and rubbing his leg, like she was comforting an upset dog at the vet.

Then they wanted to talk about insurance because Boo is responsible for paying for this counseling and it was obviously making him uneasy. They said a lot of confusing things about payments and deductables and I think they were even confusing themselves. I was thinking, "Listen, I have three kids, you have a Bimmer. Just figure this shit out because I am busy woman." My lawyer said it for me in a much nicer way and then we left, but not before I had to go back and get James's early dissmisal school form signed because, you know, that's what us parents have to worry about.

Till next time....

50 Shades of Gray...

2012-11-13T08:41:00.000-08:00

It's raining today, and I should be getting ready but I'm on here. It's soothing and today is another shade of gray. My life has been shades of gray lately but at least today it's raining and I like rain. It's water after-all and my husband says the only time that I look gracefull is in the water. It also rained on my wedding day and someone told me that the Irish say that that is good luck. I don't know if thats true or if they were just trying to make me feel better. It did, I'm still married, and I like rain.

So, anyway, you know how sometimes the weather around you matches your mood, and when it dosen't it freaks you out. Like how starkly contrasting 9/11 was... beautiful blue skies, the sunshine mocking us. I hated that. But one day a few weeks ago, I was driving my firstborn home in the mini-van. My hand was rubbing his back as he was fighting back tears. The world around me was gray. Gray sky, gray city, dead faded bown leaves swirling around my car. The weather felt me... felt my saddness, my anxiety, and then it felt my anger.

The first shade of gray came in July when I recieved a court document telling me that I was being sued in court for partial custody of James. My 15 year old has spent all 15 years in my sole custody and the past 11 years in the shared physical custody of my husband and I. I felt like laughing and murdering someone at the same time. And by someone, I mean Boo Radley and/or his newly-wedded attorney wife, Judith Sheindlin.

I showed the papers to James, and we immediately when into defense mode. James sat at the pool in the sunshine and wrote a letter to the court expressing his desire to have no contact with Boo Radley and stating that he had a good father that he loved. The letter was harsh and beautiful at the same time and it made David and I cry. I started writing my Answer and New Matter. Then I took a trip to the child support office... yeah, that's right. I didn't have an attorney yet, and wasn't ready to get one, but I had worked in a few law firms. I realized that Boo had his attorney wife to help him... but after doing some research and asking around about her, I couldn't figure out what was up with her. I did find a cute wedding/honeymoon site with pictures from their recent destination wedding. They went to the D.R. which only infuriated me more because that was MY honeymoon spot! These two were going to piss on everything!

At the end of July or early August, I had my first custody mediation. I went into the day a little stressed, but really, I have had sole custody of a child who is now 15 for his entire life! And this 15 year old is smart, well-spoken, and an old-soul of sorts... he knows what he wants out of life, and I trust him. I was just going in there to fight for what he wants... to stay completey with the parents and family he's had for 11 plus years.

So, I showed up with James (who demanded to be there), and my brother (an attorney, but not a family attorney). Boo had Judy with him of course. The mediator would only let Boo and myself in for the mediation. We were in there for 20-30 min and this joker didn't make eye contact with me once while I looked him right in the face almost the whole time. His answers were weird. I felt mine were heart-felt. I told the mediator that James wanted to be heard, so she sent Boo and I out and then took James alone. Afterward, she brought us back in. The mediator turned to me and said, "You have a really cool kid." I beamed. Then Boo piped up (imagine a meat-head type of voice) "Yeah, I know! That's why I want to see him!". I stopped beaming and felt rage inside....that rage wanted to say, "Shut the fuck up you shit-head, what the hell do you know? And by the way, his awesomeness is no thanks to you!" Instead, I focused on a picture on the wall and told the rage that I agree but we need to be quiet.   Boo wanted a custody schedule set up right there, and dropped a bomb that he wanted James every other weekend. I was like, really? David and I have a teenager that loves us and is bonded to us and he doesn't want to spend that much time with us. You want a teenager that doesn't like you every other weekend? You be crazy! I think the mediator thought so too, because she said that nothing was going to be decided today and she would forward the case to the next level. Boo left in a huff. I went to the lobby and discussed hot-dogs with my brother and James to keep cool.

Next up was that Child Support mediation. This time Judy Sheindlin entered herself as Bo Radley's attorney. So, from that point on I began to refer to them as the Sheindlin-Radley team. First she accosted me in the waiting room with her Louis Vouitton Bag to discuss the support. I told her that since she was the defendents wife, I would just hang tight to discuss with the court mediator. She looked annoyed and stalked off, heals click-clacking and designer hand bag swinging, like some Jewish Kardashian sister. Inside Judy really took over, Boo barely said anything... at one point I pointed out to the mediator the Judy was Boo's wife. The mediator looked at them and said, "Oh, thats weird." I said, "Yeah it is!" Judy started talking fast about how it doesn't matter because she is a registered attorney and is allowed be here. I thought, "Settle down honey, we aren't saying you can't be here, we are just pointing out that it's weird." At the end we settled on an amount that is nice to have, but will barely cover groceries for a teenage boy. I left and got into my mini-van and passed team Sheindlin-Radley getting into a black BMW... the rage started trying to tell me all kinds of things!

The VERY NEXT day James and I showed up for the Custody Conference with a court Master. This time I had hired a family attorney. I must have looked really good the day before because Attorney Judy showed up in lots of make-up and had flat-ironed her J-fro. That was shame because her curls were honestly very pretty and I could actually hear her hair crying. This time the attorneys and/or wives went in first. Then James went in alone for what seemed like forever. When he came out, he was upset. He felt like the Master kept trying to push him, and he felt like he hadn't been heard or that the Master didn't care.  My rage started whispering. Then my attorney told me that team Sheindlin-Radley was claiming that I had written James's letter to the court. Anger flashed in James's eyes when he heard this and my rage was talking louder. Then everyone (except James) went in to see the Master. He was a large imposing man who obviously had a lot of life experience and enjoyed hearing himself talk. He spoke mostly to me, telling me that I was obviously a good mom (when he said this, Boo Radley snickered and I had to control my rage from flinging my body over the table to strangle him). The master thought that James was stressed (ya' think) and was ordering counseling to be paid for entirely by Boo Radley, and we would meet again in several weeks. He also told Boo that David was James's father and he needed to respect that no matter what happened. That didn't seem to sit well with the Sheindlin-Radley team, but oh well, the truth hurts.

So, that gray day when I was rubbing my child's back in comfort, we were leaving the counselor's office. He had told James to ask me questions about when I was pregnant and considering adoption, and when I didn't Boo Radley got angry and deserted the pregnancy and the baby. It was a hard, sad talk. I told him that adoption was a good, noble, loving thing to do. But I thought I could do this child-raising thing, and was not strong enough to give him away.   Boo didn't want to give the baby away out of nobility or love, he wanted the baby away out of selfishness, to solve the problem. And now he was back out of selfishness.

He doesn't want what's best for James. He wants what's best for him, to clear his guilt or make him look better to his wife and her family and friends. I know this by the things he says... "I deserve to see him...It's MY right to see him, etc".... never about what James wants, just what HE wants. To force a 15 year old young man to spend time with him... suddenly uproot him from a strong nuclear family every other week, take his free time from him, make his work and fun time a hassle. It's about Boo.

So, today I have to drag my ass back to court for Family Court Part Duex and it's raining so I hope it will be good luck... I will let you know more about the antics of team Sheindlin-Radley, and the funny things my rage wants to say or do. Hopefully James wins his battle, and I will do my best to help him and slowly the shades of gray will get lighter and bluer.

*disclaimer* Any references to murder or bodily harm to others are meant in jest.