Freewrite a go-go - Page 3

[mama free]

Cravings

ok, i've already crossed out two beginnings, which i know isn't allowed in freewriting, so here goes, again, without editing so it may be crap

i crave the company of other mothers now, but not just other mothers, other mothers who feel and think and worry and care in the same ways or similar ways that i do. i remember sending c out for pickles and ice-cream and honestly not realizing, until he pointed it out, that it was such a pregnancy cliche, and then i just laughed and laughed and thought how absolutely wonderful it is to live out a cliche and discover its original roots, like coming to a myth backwards by experiencing it firsthand as if it never happened to anyone anywhere before. the connection, of course, between this and my opening sentence, which i've just seen, is that i want to be with others and feel connected and share with them, and i also want to be unique and special, but mostly i want to have support in the form of another mother who nods approvingly at every little new thing i discover and acts terribly excited by my discovery, because that's how i feel. like i've just discovered a new moon or somethng. which i have. because my daughter is a new moon. her curves and smells and kisses that slobber and fingers that scrape and eyes that go on and on remind me of my best view of myself but are also so amazingly separate and new that i want to get lost in all of it. and share it. learning her is self-indulgent, like learning myself. like learning a new language, one that you get to help create. i crave her, and i crave that craving. beause, of course, it's not always there in clear or obvious ways. so when it's gone, i miss it and call it back with all that i do, even if it's resistance. i craved her when i was pregnant and i craved affirmation that she was really there, really going to be, with all the worry that that entailed. my cravings for salt and sweet were like twin sides of worry and anticipation--wanting the perfect birth, baby, being, and fearing the worst--loss, sadness, desperation. that fear can act on you like a craving too, sucking out your energy, becoming your focus, creating itself in weaving, spinning coils of wasted tension.
my mother helped relieve that tension. she was and is that perfect support i described. she is selfless enough, and old enough, to not need anything in return. or perhaps, being my mother, seeing me in the role of mother-discoverer continues her own journey of discovery as my mother. at any rate, i am relishing living in the selfishness of celebrating my child and my cravings for her.

[mama free]

Pregnancy Tests

I had so many fantasies about how I would tell him we were pregnant. Fantasies that gave me the power of telling, of inviting him in, of sharing or withholding that news until the time was right. when the time came, i felt a strange panic about being the only one who knew--i ran down the hall, pee-stick in hand, shoving it awkwardly into his while studying his face earnestly, carefully, while he looked down. "Oh my God" and we were off, a new world of shock and awe and reality set in against the fantasies, created by them, led by them, but diverging from them already in significant ways. he went to study the stick, opening it and exposing the urine-stained tip. ugh--i reached out quickly to stop him, embarrassed and helpful--not there, it's my pee. so silly considering where that stick would bring us, what new levels of intimacy and knowing. i couldn't hold out very long with others either...the word spread from me even as i held my terror close, terror of losing this thing i couldn't yet feel or see or touch. i felt like a pro with p-tests, even though i had only tried for three months. i shopped for the lowest price, compared accuracy levels and convenience features, proudly and matter of factly deposited the tests at the checkout counter, not caring and caring what others thought. who knew it was actually difficult and precise and complicated to get pregnant? all this time i'd been scaring everyone i knew on the dangers of slipping up just one time. of course, after she was born, i had that scare. vomiting after a meal out, after nursing her to sleep. too young, too soon, too much, too tired, too scary. he tried to calm me, but i needed the test to make sure. didn't want to go around worrying about every little thing. negative. relief. a flood of it. full circle of knowing how those sticks can rorshach our deepest desires and fears.

[mama free]

Anticipation

Anticipating birth is like anticipating the hottest summer day in the middle of a snowstorm--you can't do it with any real knowledge of what the experience will be if it's never happened, and after it's happened, you lose that sort of visceral experiential knowledge--memory has a way of softening and obscuring some edges, heightening others. My pregnancy was filled with anticipations of things going horribly wrong--losing the baby, something being wrong with the baby, something happening to me, losing touch with my husband, losing control, changes in me and marriage and the world. Scary stuff, like someone bopping you on the head out of nowhere and you losing vital functions because of it. in fact, anticipating birth is like trying to anticipate a toddler's bumping, chaotic way of striking out around him as he learns to navigate the world--you know there will be great, bubbling joys and discoveries but there is also the potential for deep pools of pain, hurt, trauma.

When I was pregnant, I didn't think about labor and delivery until about 6 or 7 months in. I think this was an instinctual way of deferring what I wasn't ready to deal with. The fears and worries were so great for me, that resisting and working against them was a daily battle. It took until my belly was large and I had regular, kicking reminders of the strength of my child's life energy until I could relax enough to move on to the next stage of anxiety. Now, I feel like I can finally relax and enjoy my daughter, but it's probably another bubble instinctually created to get me through her first years, after which the worries morph again (infinitely, I suppose) into a new set of problems, concerns, fears for her and me and us.

So does anticipation serve any practical purpose? I know it's often thought of in fantasy terms, as an escape, as a longing exploration of desires and wishes. That's all there for me too, but its twin of anticipation of the worst, as a sort of self-protection and rehearsal, is also there. I know it won't help me really prepare for bad things should they actually happen. But the myth I tell myself is that they might, so I go on worrying, go on anticipating the bad, right along with the good. The way an infant may learn to cry before she bumps or gets splashed with water, because of a memory--but also an anticipation--of what might come.

[JeanetteL]

First bicycle

I don’t remember my first bicycle. I suppose I should, right? Isn’t that one of those things that people remember?

I don’t remember much. In fact, my memory problems are the main reason I have developed a writing style that makes recording the shortest of life events a process much like writing an epic novel. My birth story is 19 pages, typed, single-spaced – for goodness sake. Mind numbingly detailed does not begin to describe my journaling.

But….if I don’t write like that, the memories disappear. Gone. Vanished. I don’t have short or long-term memory loss – I think I just have a complete memory void.

Why is that? I do have childhood memories, brief flashes of specific, random events – but not like other people. Even for my older years, in high school, things are patchy. A few years back, ten years after high school graduation I went home for the first time and sat around reminiscing with friends as they told story after story of parties and camping trips and school events – which I sat their blankly wondering what part of my brain was missing that I didn’t have the same recollections, although they all swear I was there.

It scares me now, being a mother, that I will forget the millions of magical, incredible, wonderful moments with my daughter. The times I want to remember forever, hold on to so tightly, bring back later when times are not so good. I know what a tenuous grasp I have on those memories – how quickly I’ll forget what she said, and did, and how she looked and the way she made my heart leap with a joy so full it defies description.

That, more than forgetting my first bicycle, or my tenth birthday, or the zillions of other moments that went into my life, breaks my heart.

[JeanetteL]

Anticipation

AN-TI-CI-PA-TION

Each syllable of that word is heavy with expectation. So weighted down by hopes and dreams and wishes that it seems to fill up the page when I focus on it. I like to say it now, over and over; feeling how merely repeating the word seems to heighten my awareness of all that is coming up in the next few months of my life.

I realize – I have been focusing so much on the present – figuring out birthing plans and mothering realities and how to make my life work RIGHT NOW, that I have not been blessing this baby growing within me with some period of anticipation and wonder and mystery. I’m nearing my third trimester; this seems like the right time to begin looking inward and looking ahead at the same time.

Who is this child I am carrying? What will life be like as a mother of two? Do I have man-child, or another little girl? What will it feel like to birth my baby, to hold my baby, to mother my baby through life?

AN-TI-CI-PA-TION

I think I’ll go now and spend some time on that.

[beachbaby]

freewrite: cravings

i'm empty. that gnawing kind of empty that digs at your insides, the kind that can never really be satisfied. pasta? no. tea and toast? no. soup? no. Breyer's Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream? no.

so i eat. something. anything to fill me up, to keep my stomach from embarassing me with its gurgling or waking me up at 3am. But what do i *want*? homemade pizza? no. Vegetable lasagna? no. Those chocolates with the hazelnut filling? no I *want* to want something, not just to eat, mindlessly, while standing in front of the refrigerator, waiting to be full. I want to crave something, anything. Even steak or fast food french fries, or macaroni and cheese.

it's a strange feeling, really, to be hungry all the time but never want to eat. But i do it--keep eating, hoping the next thing will be it, the magic food i can say, years later, i craved. it'll become a story to tell--the cravings.

[beachbaby]

freewrite: leaving

i wonder what it will be like, leaving. this place, where i created an identity a role, a niche for myself. i want to leave. move on. focus on my new self, my baby, my family. i tell myself all this. "because it's best." "it's what i want." i wonder what it will mean, though, really. will i miss it? will i want back all those things i complain about now? will i come to realize what i love about working? all of the sudden, in a moment of clarity? i try to anticipate it all. to figure it out. leaving. not leaving. if i do--take it all apart and put it together in a million different combinations, maybe whatever leaving means, really, will make its self known.

[Thursday Girl]

pregnancy test

When my daughter was born I never took a home pregnancy test. I didn't suspect I was pregnant, and in a way I almost thought I couldn't have children. I was late with my period but having always had very sporatic periods I wasn't worried about it and told my husband Chris who wasn't actually my husband or even fiancee , as much when he asked. Then I woke up one morning throwing up. I thought I had a stomache flu. I called Chris and let him know I was sick. His mind started formulating opinions. He didn't tell me until days later, but that night he had dreamed we had twin boys, so the news was almost expected. When I went to visit him at the job site he told me I looked especially beautiful. I told him that was good, but Ifelt like shit.
The next morning I again woke up and puked, and the following mroning. I was nauseus through out the days as well. I still honestly did not think i was pregnant. We had an appointment the following day to get on birth control, and as we arrived at the clinic Chris told me about his dream. I brushed it off.
Before getting birth control you of course have to take a pregnancy test.So of course I peed in the little cup, and sat back down to wait. We briefly saw a nurse who gave us informatin on the diffrent forms of birth control. I told Chris at this point " See Hon, we're not pregnant or they wouldn't have given us these" So we sat and waited and read and disccussed diffrent options and what we wanted to do. Clinics take forever so we were waitng for about an hour before we finally got called back there again. They sat us in the weighing and blood pressure room. it was actually just a section of hallway partially blocked off by partitions that are normally used to make cubicle's in the corprate world. We sat there and the nurse looked at us. i was getting ready to tell her what we had chosen when ashe began to talk

"your pregnacy test came up positive. You are going to have a baby. Do you have any type of insurance?'
and I sat there stunned hte only part of me that moved was my jaw as it dropped open. I could not believe it. It was like she had just told me I had a disease. For the briefest of moments I, who does not beleive in abortion( for myself I believe in the women's right to choose), contemplated having an abortion. The nurse seeing how shocked I was paused for a moment before continuing
" we can arrange for you te meet with a representative form medacaid to see if you qualify. You are having the baby right? there are other options of course. here's some information I will let you two discuss this for a moment"
and like that we were back in the waiting room with more packetts, and I sat there still in mild shock and asked Chris what he thought. He pissed me off some because he wouldn't make a decsion, just said that whatever I decided was fine with him. He was being gentelmanly I suppose but i wanted his opinoin. Not getting it I just thought how momentous this all was. I thought about us not being in the position to have a baby. Financially, emotionally, in terms of the relatinship, we had only been dating for 6 months. Finally thought I turned to him, scared of what he would say and told him "let's have it". There was relief in his face as he told me he had been thinking about this since I woke up one mroining throwing up, and that he also wanted to have the baby.





ok I really like this topic and am planning on reworking it, as I was sort of nervous my boss might walk in well i was typing it out.

Courtney

[ldsapmom]

Doctor

I started this as a short writing, but soon realized brevity was not becoming to the emotions stirred up.

I was assaulted, right in the bread aisle at Raley's. As I reached for my bread-of-choice, I looked up to see her. I stared for a moment, my kids unsettling in the cart. Was it her I wondered? It kind of looked like her, but I couldn't tell. It had been over 5 years, after all. She was scanning the bread, making a hasty decision before reaching for a loaf. As she approached my end of the aisle, her pager went off. She opened her coat to pull it from her waist and made a passing glance. It was her, right here in the grocery store.

I wonder if a nurse was paging her with information about a laboring mom. Maybe the nurse would say, "She's ready for you," raising the mother's hope. Maybe upon the doctor's arrival and inspection, she would scold both nurse and patient and chide, "Why did you call me? She's not ready." Maybe she would retreat to the sleeping lounge, not giving any help, praise, or encouragement to this struggling woman, only to return a few hours later and pull the baby from its mother by vacuum, forcing something that could have, with time, skill, and patience, left the mother's body, soul, and confidence intact.

So I follow her to the dairy section, where I am tempted to reintroduce myself, but what would I say? You were a horrible doctor, you stripped me of the opportunity to birth my baby, and now I help empower women to have the births they want? You wretched, wretched woman? You, who said at my six-week check-up, while buring something off my nether regions with silver nitrate, "The miracle of birth is epidurals," while I replied, "I did not get an epidural, remember?" Would it have killed you to say "Way to go, Mom, for delivering a 9 1/2 pound baby!"

I imagine saying simply, "You were my OB with my first baby. I forgive you." Perhaps I could share that through my midwives' love, care, and presence, I finally overcame those fears which grew like a twin alongside my second baby. I could share how her comment, "Do you want to get this overwith? Because I think he's getting kind of big," made me turn to thoughts of starvation with my next pregnancy to avoid what she termed "a monster-sized baby." Would I also tell her of the relief I felt when one of my midwives assured me, "His head is not getting any bigger -- he is just chubbing up, putting fat on his arms and legs," when I expressed my dark fear of going over my due date? If I told her all that, would I also accuse her of witholding information to make her side seem more favorable? To the extent that my baby's health suffered in the long run?

Could I do all of this, right in the middle of the grocery store? Tell her I had a hard but healing second birth? Tell her how by her hands I was not only scarred physically, but emotionally as well? Tell her how selfish of a practitioner she was? Thinking only about her own gain and getting home to her family while prematurely forcing the creation of mine? Pulling out a baby who was unready, unwilling to face the world, not allowed to emerge in his own time? Tell her how I attributed his shy disposition and insecurity, anxiety to new situations to the simple fact he was made to face his first situation on her time, not his, and that simply could not be a coincidence?

As I watched her move from yogurt to the checkstand, I let it all go. I learned from this woman, I learned a lot. Invaluable lessons were gleaned by her hand, as dangerous as that hand was. I look to my own hands -- hands that nurture laboring woman -- hands that touch, love, heal. In the end I could not trust my tongue, so with those hands in mind, I held it.

[Jyotsna]

Leaving (Jyotsna's Freewrite)

I have cradled you in the crook of my arm since you were 11 months old; a gift from your birthmother, and from your country India. Breathing in deeply as I take in the essence of your hair, I remember every milestone, and every precious moment you have shared with me. Oh how I feel blessed, to have experienced motherhood first by you. Each hug on my leg, each kiss on my cheek, and all the times that you fell down and scraped your chubby knee...oh how can you be taking all of this from me?

And now you are leaving. Your ticket is purchased. Adventures and excitement lie ahead of you as you reach out and embrace life and experience it out of the reach of my arms. I will put up a brave face. I will wish you well and send you off with a dozen kisses. But when you turn your back to me, I will weep, softly at first, and then with the roar of the ocean I will wail and beat my chest. I will lay my body on the ground, and not get up until the tide has ebbed.

How can I let you go now?

[Sharona Fontaine]

Tenth Birthday

Tenth Birthday, your tenth birthday. The year 2015. I'll turn 38 seventeen days after your tenth birthday. Whoa!
Will your Pa be around? Will the cancer have taken him by then? Either way, I hope you will still cherish your times with him by the time you reach your tenth birthday.
I hope to be strong as your mother on your tenth birthday. I hope I can still play soccer then! And maybe you'll think that is cool. I hope you still think I'm cool on your tenth birthday!
I know that love increases as time goes on, and because of that it's hard for me to imagine how much I will love you on your tenth birthday, because right now I already love you so much I think I could explode.

[mama free]

onesie freewrite

A beautiful little pink, worn onesie. Packed and repacked in my hospital bag. As other things are taken out, replaced with something else, deemed unnecessary, that gets unfolded, held, touched, fondled, refolded and repacked carefully. it is the smallest of the baby clothes i have, handed down from my baby's cousin, washed and worn and shrunk and soft. it seems to breathe love, care, tiny but worn, familiar. it gives me hope that i can do this. not like the other clothes--new, crisp, too clean, tags intact, threatening, like blank canvases waiting to be imprinted with my mistakes. this one, this feels better. like shared mother-knowledge, a gift from others who have come before, learned, loved. they will be with me, but the onesie is mine now to dress the baby in alone. my baby. i am overdue, and everyone says my baby will be big. i am big, heavy, tired with waiting. the onesie looks small, too small, too pink for an unknown gender. my feminist instincts lose courage--will i want to put a little boy in pink? will others laugh, judge, think i am a bad mother? i pack other pieces, soft greens, blues, yellows. but the pink stays. i know i will love it the most. as i love this baby. the most. more than all others come before, lost before, to other mothers. more than myself. more than him. a love that grows and grows, feeding on itself, tossing aside remnants of old lives. this baby will soon outgrow this onesie. and perhaps my love? maybe it will never fit. i pack it anyway. when she comes, i slide her carefully into it. a perfect fit.

[harmonymama]

Morning sickness freewrite

The first wave arrived, unexpected, unexplained. I was lying on my over-stuffed, brown couch wondering what this mild but unfamiliar wave of nausea was all about. Had I eaten something funny? Was it the flu? Several days later the answer appeared as two pink lines on a little plaxtic stick. from there, my morning sickness quickly became a constant feature of my life. It was a gnawing, hungry, woozy, pukey feeling-- 24 hours a day! It felt like there was a beast in my belly that had to be fed constantly. Iate all day long-- literally. Eating was the only thing that helped diminish my constant queasy companion. I usually threw up once each morning and then just wixhed I could throw up the rest of the day.

but the most striking feature of my morning sickness was my battle with garlic. At first she was an unknown enemy. I just thought I had an utter averstion to the taste and smell of ALL food, which didn't combine well with the imperative to eat. I had to eat all the time, but hated every bite. I couldn't even walk into a restaurant for fear of the smell, and spaghetti was the worst. I could not imagine at that time how anyone dould tolerate such a vile substance. The food I made myself in my house, like daily almond butter and jelly sandwiches, was generally OK, but for some strange reason Icould not enter my pantry. I ran in horror at the smell. Then one day my husband breavely hunted her down-- a sealed bottle of garlic powder on a top shelf! Finally, my house was once again a refuge from the garlic assault. Give me labor, give me birth, give night-waking, but no morning sickness please!

[annieboobags]

free writing

anticipation:

it is the end of september, indian summer. waiting for baby to make her move. dreamt she was a girl all along. due date comes, goes. i am ignorant; an unplanned baby for me, i figure i will go into labor just like every other woman on the planet and my pain threshold is high, so i will DO IT! no problem. friends tell me that if anyone can do this, i can. granola girl, that i am. one week past d.d. no baby. doc says "induction?" i say "you betcha!"
driving to the hospital on a friday evening. legs sticking to the seats, fear, nerves strung tight between me and my husband of 4 months. we know we are on the doorstep of a new life. i know a bit about kids from cousins, babysitting; he has no clue. but here we go anyway! woohoo!
check in at the hospital. up to the place where we toured earlier. in a room with NO natural light. i am set in bed I.V. with some pitocin and a half a pill of some other drug inserted inside me. we wait. sleep, they say, yet they come to check me every half an hour! by 3 am, i am so tired i feel like keeling over, but the pain has started. brave girl had sent everyone home to sleep, so i am alone, scared, cold. but i am making progress! 3 cm, and the water breaks. i feel as if i have wet myself. i am fanatical about changing the pads underneath. i run out of pads and the nurses act as if i am a freak for wanting more.
the pain increases, feels as if my back is splitting open. i submit to the epidural, the pain from the needle feeling like a bee sting compared to the wrenching contractions caused by that wretched drug. and we wait again.
i progress no more. baby did not want to come yet, why did we force her? i am exhausted though, and decide i want it over with. we see her beautiful face within the hour. eyes wide awake, so so blue and curious. what is she thinking? i love love love her. i am so glad to hold her. i am exhausted. we sleep.

~i guess i didn't stick to the anticipation theme all that well, i just got caught up in reminiscing. it sure is hard to not go up there and revise revise revise!!! and to think i started writing this with the intent of paralleling my c-section which arose out of my ignorance with my completely researched and fought for natural vbac!!! i just want to let you know how happy this writing thing makes me! i have a complete fear of sharing my writing, so just know that pressing the button to send it out to you all is making me want to vomit. but it's the first step! must remember that quote to allow myself to write complete drivel and i am humbled and have the strength to click that mousie...

[mama free]

alone, not alone

lying on the hospital bed, on one side, unable to move and having to ask for permission to pee. i wait and hold as long as i can just to savor the treat of moving, getting up and walking the few feet to the bathroom, untethered to monitors, allowed to operate my body. back in bed as quick as you can so we can keep tabs. damn. these threads hanging from me like spiderwebs, clinging to me, controlling me, saving me. keeping me in place. sucking the power from me. the power to birth my baby. actively. instead, i wait. alone, not alone. the worst part. i ask to pee. i've waited too long. they bring out the bed pan. now i am really imprisoned. can't even get up to pee. they all watch me. mother, husband, nurse. anytime you're ready. "it's a lot." yep, it's fine. "it's a whole lot." she's not even listening. they're watching. i can't go. i tell them to look away. i can't believe i ever knew how to pee while lying down. i let loose. the rivers flow. and flow. and flow. i feel wet. the nurse comes running. i've overflowed the pan. i'm uncomfortable, embarrassed, but also a bit smug. told you so. later, they break my water. it comes out, dribbles at first and then a second river. i could swim in these waters. my baby has. follow the water, sweet girl. swim to me so that i can swim to you.

[harmonymama]

freewrite-fear

I'm afraid to start this freewrite on fear, he, he! Fear... It sits in my chest, like lead, constricting my heart. I wake in the morning and it clenches my stomach. I try to speak and it catapoults into my throat. I fear the what ifs. What if my baby gets stuck in my pelvis? What if the cord will not let him through? What if my baby dies and my partner and I do not make it through? What if our families never forgive us? What if my midwife does not handle things well enough? What if I have a C-section? What if labor stops when I get to the hospital? What if my midwife loses her license for attending our homebirth?

All these fears and more took over my daily thoughts when I was pregnant with my first baby who was breech. I cried. I ran. I sat in silence withthe fear who came to be as a wise, but tough grandmother. I drew it in red and black on the blank page. And I spoke to my baby about it. I told him, it was OK to turn, OK to come into the world, but still he stayed... close to my heart.

I remember when the midwife tried to turn him, and we were all listening to his heart beat on the doppler. It went way down, very slow... Fear sizzled like electricity through every cell of my body! She moved him back, and his heart rate went right back up-- breath. I can breath again.

Fear as a friend. I befriended the grandmother. She loved me and told me it would be OK. When I went into labor, the fear disappeared. I was beyond all fear. When I sensed the fear of those around me, it seemed absurd. I had a knowledge. I was birthing my baby. All would be well. And it was. My breech baby told me his dreams this morning. Sometimes he seems so grown up. We have both come a long way.

[Netaris]

Leaving

Leaving
I always hated goodbyes. The very idea of separation leaves me with a feeling of panic rising in my throat, and I can just taste the bile. I suppose this doesn’t happen with everyone I have to say goodbye to, but only the few close people in my life whom I couldn’t imagine seeing or talking to whenever I want.

Being an only child, I really relied on my parents for everything while growing up. I had friends, but lacked self-confidence to really “got get ‘em”, especially as I grew closer to my teen years. Instead, I buried myself in my books, and got lost in a world where fiction seemed better than reality. When I was little, I was gregarious and would even embarrass my parents with the comments I would say to complete strangers. I really don’t know how I changed SO much, but it’s true. Around my initiation to womanhood, I became a geeky wallflower who would only emerge when spoken to, and I carefully held back my opinions and thoughts, but I remained bursting with the energy that just needed to be released. Soon my time came, when I discovered with joy the true art of writing! Journaling was a favorite pastime, but I grew to love telling stories. That became my one reason for existence.

It makes me sad when I have to say goodbye to eras, homes, events, and not just people. I guess the concept of change bothers me, and I am one who likes to have constancy in my life. Oddly enough, though, this changed for me when I had a zillion changes happening in my life starting in 1995, when the first death in my family occurred. It was my maternal grandmother, who lived overseas with the rest of my family, and I was incredibly depressed with her passing. After that, it was the death of my paternal grandmother in 1997 that really started making me different. I had been dating my now-husband in high school, and I was really a mess with not knowing how to handle seeing my parents so melancholy. A few years after that, I was desperate to hold on to everyone and everything when my best friend moved away from my neighborhood (but not out of the area). She started the chain of everyone close in my life moving to a new home. It bothered me in increments, until the crescendo came with my parents relocating out of state for my mom’s job. I stayed behind because I wanted to continue onward in my own life without them, but it was a painful journey I took a long time to adjust to. Another painful thing that happened that still affects me is my now-father-in-law’s sudden passing. As I write this, his death anniversary will be coming up. It makes me sad that we had to say goodbye to him so soon, and he couldn’t have even been around to see our wedding and our baby girl. Change and goodbyes became somewhat easier and somewhat harder during my pregnancy, making me all-too-glad to say goodbye to my parents on several occasions, and yet I would weep like a clingy toddler when I would think of them, and miss them for not being here with me whenever I would want to feel their strength to carry me through my uncertain days while pregnant.

Now I’m at the point where I am ok with goodbyes. For some reason, I feel compelled to want to move from our house and start afresh in a new city, even! That’s hard to comprehend, because I have no clue where that is stemming from. My husband thinks I’m crazy, and he would never dream of even moving outside our city unless he had the job of all jobs. I compensate by moving our furniture around and organizing the house—two things I wouldn’t have dreamed of doing while growing up or while I was in my first apartment alone. I must have the mommy hormones running through me now, and that must be why I have changed so. It’s not a bad thing, but I am still trying to figure out what else I can do with the energy I have, and incorporate that into my writing. But write I will do, and I am happy to do so. And with that, I bid adieu to this little musing.

[celesterra]

rusty, rusty

pregnancy tests

I am the consummate pregnancy test over-user. I am too ashamed to tell my dh how many I use. But not for the reason that many here are... I am not pregnant.

I have longed for those two lines to show up since I was with my first husband, at age 21. If I had all of the one liners, I might be able to cover the wall of my bathroom, or maybe tile the floor. For 4 years, I waited and tested, and then divorced (not because we didn’t get pregnant). Then with boyfriend for 3 years. How I longed for children- more than wanting to be with these men, body and soul longed for children. I was a nanny and would look into the eyes of my charges, I would see into their little souls and wonder “why not me?”

When I saw doctors about my irregular cycles, they would just tell me to go on the pill, and that I probably didn’t ovulate regularly. I was told I was irresponsible. I was told that I could get cancer.

Finally I cleaned up my mind, set my sights upon myself, extricated myself from toxic relationships and moved to China, not knowing that I would meet DH on my very first day in Beijing at my new job. Not long after that, we knew that we would marry, knew that we wanted and would not prevent having children. And that is the road that has carried me through until today.

Ironically enough, my only pregnancy was not diagnosed with a home pregnancy test – we were involved in a head-on car accident just a day after ovulation, March 1, 2004. Over a month later, after being hospitalized for 3 weeks for a fractured pelvis, and suspecting all the while that I might be pregnant, did we find out. We thought that I’d had a miscarriage. It took another 2 weeks to determine that I had an ectopic. 49 days after ovulation, the tube finally ruptured, and an emergency surgery saved my life. The weeks of waiting for resolution to that pregnancy were more painful than the fracture, more painful than anything I have ever experienced. Every day I spoke with that little soul residing adamantly in my being, knowing that this child was not going to be mine to raise.

But now it’s a year later, and this month I thought that it would happen for sure – everything was right, my thinking mature, prayers happening for us all over the world and in the most Holy sites, medication and BDing on all the right days. It feels right. And in the past week I think I have already used at least 10 tests, all negative. Today is 14dpo. DH and I were at CVS this afternoon and I almost bought another box, but he held me back, trying to make me promise (which I did not) that I would not test again until next week (fat chance). AF hasn't come yet, and I am still waiting for those 2 lines.

[mama free]

Turning Points

labor was sucky throughout but a turning point was when i finally said yes to the c-section at the end, because i had to, and because i couldn't do it anymore. the defeat, the letdown, the air out of my balloon, my baby wasn't "tolerating" labor, no progress, i was going to ask for meds anyway, it all came to a head. another turning point was probably being in the room with the stress test, about to be let go, when everything happened and they all came running... not knowing what to do, totally panicked, i found chuck's eyes, which held me up completely. i just knew i had to be still and let them all work. he just knew he had to hold my eyes and keep me focussed. so we locked eyes and souls even though our very insides and cores were overflowing with fear. i was weeping silently, could feel the tears running down my face, but held my head still to look at him. he mouthed "it's ok" over and over and over. after it all passed, and they explained that i would be admitted immediately, there was a brief calm. a turning point. i knew that he would be everything i needed him to be. even though i had wondered before. i let myself turn everything over to him, and i concentrated on sending our baby good feelings. other turning points: breathing through pain, asking questions, finding i could stand up for myself.

[mama free]

he stayed with me

when my daughter came, i didn't see her head, slick with birthing juice, followed by a curved, trembling little body naked and vulnerable to the light, the eyes, the world that waited for her. not my eyes. mine watched his, which watched her--after she was brought outside the curtain that separated her from her mother's view. he stayed with me. i thought nothing of it until later, when someone told me that was unusual. they noted his loyal care of me--it was noteworthy, i guess, that he stayed by my side. but it never occured to me, or to him i think, that he should make a choice. he naturally stood by me, as he always did, and formed the link between us all. i watched him, as he watched her. he touched me, and reached out to her with welcoming love. i listened, and i watched, waited for some glimpse and sound and sign of her. they flashed her quickly to me--no warning or lingering glance allowed, i didn't see enough to take her in. i don't remember much between that and going to the recovery room. when did i get to hold her? when did she first see my face? does she feel sadness at all about the mess i may have made of her birth? does she hold the memory of it? of my not greeting her? of silence and blinding light in the room? where is her mother? i focus on the joy. on the love. on the link between him, her, and me. he stayed with me, and we reached out to her.