Short Assignments

[Jesse Michener]

Please read Week Two before posting to this thread and then share your short assignments here.

Have fun!

~J

[JeanetteL]

The darker side of motherhood.

Okay - I have NO idea if I am on the right track with this or not. I read the notes for this week twice - but was hoping to see an example of someone else's short assignment first. So much easier when someone else jumps in before me... Anyway, here is goes. This one turned out to come out of me even free-er than the freewrites did....does that mean it should be refined more?

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The darker side of motherhood.

I feel heat rising to my face. Pressure threatening an explosion. I want to go and hide. Withdraw. I do NOT want to be her mother right now. I want to be 20, cute and unencumbered by her needs and expectations. I want to carry a tiny purse, with only a lipstick and credit card. I want to bury my head in a good book with long words and deep meanings. I want to dance until dawn and wear high-heeled shoes. I want-I want-I want-I want. she needs-she needs-she needs-she needs. she wants-she wants-she-wants-she wants. I NEED – I NEED – I NEED – I NEED. I am not supposed to think such things. Deep shame for feeling this way. Dark thoughts that cannot be expressed. On the outside I am composed, serene, the ever-giving Madonna. Inside – my dirty little secret. I want to run away. Just for a little while maybe. Till later. I’d come back. I know I would. I would.

[JeanetteL]

Sense of smell

Sense of smell
I open the fridge door, sometime in my eighth week of pregnancy, and I am assaulted. No, that is not too strong a word. My fridge contains every nuance of every smell that exists in the universe. Alone, one at a time, perhaps they would be acceptable. All together, jumbled and overlapping and competing for my attention, they are unbearable. Sweet, sour, mold, blood, tangy, heavy, bitter, creamy. My head swims and my stomach swirls and I slam the fridge door before I completely loose it, adding the stench of vomit to the odorous brew that has sent me tumbling over the edge. The particles of food must still be in the air, in my nose. I run to the sink and splash my face with water, trying to erase the scent. I breathe through a clean towel. Then I sigh a deep sigh, sit down on the couch and eat another unsalted cracker.

[Jesse Michener]

Jeanette--

You are most certainly on the right track. Thanks for taking a risk by posting first. Your words are a gift to the rest of us!

~Jesse

[netnet]

Janettes short assignments...

Doctor

I couldn’t believe it here was the same doctor that scared a first time mother into a nightmarish hospital birth. Now a second time around I was faced to deal with him yet again. He looked me in the eye and asked me “why would you want to have a homebirth, my wife would never want one-you know the mess and everything?” Really and truly he was quite perplexed and couldn’t understand why a homebirth would be desirable. I stared at him dumfounded, here was a man that delivered babies for a living and his definition of childbirth was “mess”. With my homebirth in jeopardy I had to consult this man because I had almost reached my 42-week in my pregnancy. His expertise would evaluate my unborn child and myself so I could obtain some sort of consent to have my “mess” at home. The next time I saw him was at the hospital where he told me my time was up and that I needed to book my inducement. I walked out that day confident that I would not fall prey to his scare tactics and he could take his inducement appointment and well … I wouldn’t be using it. That night I birthed my baby girl in a pool in our home surrounded by family and love. If only I had had the knowledge and confidence the first time around.

[zenfulmama]

sense of smell

Walking down the grey basement steps, I could smell what her cat had done again. There was cat piss on the floor reaking next to the piles of dirty laundry. In my ignorance I grabbed her cleaner and poured it on. the piss steamed and sizzled like witches brew, its vapors rising through the one shaft of light. i screamed and ran, and learned: bleach and ammonia don't mix. all morning, all day, all night i scanned every baby book index i could find for environmental toxins and their effect on baby. i read and learned that if it was a crucial week for the child in the first trimester, chances are you could screw them for life. Perhaps the way all the bong hits and gin and tonics had already done when i was ignorant of the being that i was carrying within. a heightened sense of smell, a heightened sense of life, a newfound sensitivity for the greater good found in a puddle of piss.

[Simcha]

I held up her sweet little onsie...the one that was long and tiny all at the same time. The one with little bees buzzing across the fabric. I wondered as I looked down at my taut, round belly, at the miracle that within me was the being that would one day wear this small piece of clothing. All those wonderings about who this little being would be, what would s/he look like, was she a she? Yet, the certainty that my baby would one day wear this incredibly small onsie was relatively concrete. A stone in the flowing river of possibilities. I would often hold up her clothes while I was pregnant, always marveling that yes! I was pregnant, and yes! one day my babe would be in my arms and in her clothes. Amazing.

[Simcha]

She walked in the door of that room, with the door open, covered only by a curtain...for "privacy"...and announced, after briefly looking at me and acessing "the situation" that I would probably have a c-section and that I could not drink any more fluids. This after 18+ hours of labor and 7 hours of pushing at home. This after the hugely dissapointing departure from my home. This cold statement after I had been working with all my might to bring my baby into this world...into the light. I, though exhausted, knew I would not submit! Not to this woman or her c-section that she I needed since I had been pushing so long. No! I looked to my man and saw the deep worry in his face...the dispair. I looked at the nurse next to me, a woman I knew and trusted as she had previously been a midwife. I looked at her and she leaned close to me and whispered in my ear, "I know you can do this. I know you can push this baby out." Thank you Joanne. Thank you! I ignored that doctor, though I did not drink any water, and endured terrible reflux burning my throat as I pushed for 3 more hours. And yes...I did push my daughter out...not into the peaceful hands of my midwife in the comfort of my home...but, I did give her a natural birth. At least there was the relief that I gave her that...and did not submit to the ideas of that doctor. (Amaya is awake...so my ending is a bit blunt I fear....I lost my train of thought. Sound familiar?! :-)

[nora--not a llama]

The Darker Side of Mothering

Where am I? Where is the person formerly known as me? I stand in a room surrounded by four children, diapers, toys, snotty Kleenexes, piles of laundry and I wonder what has happened. My days used to consist of me, me, me; my books, my writing, a nap, a party, a two hour phone call. Now if I get five minutes to take a shower I consider myself lucky. A two minute conversation with another woman is a luxury. When was the last time I was able to sleep all night the deep restful sleep of my childless friends? I try to remember what it was like before I woke thirty times every night every time one of my children stretched or coughed or breathed too loud. I pack diapers, wipes, formula, bottles, bibs, burp rags, changes of clothes in a diaper bag and I try to remember what it felt like to just get in my car and go unencumbered, unhindered, unattached. What was it like before a smile or a word or a gesture tugged relentlessly at my heartstrings? Where am I? There must be a balance; there has to be because I am spinning faster and faster out of control into…somewhere. And I am not there. The diaper bag is packed, the babies are in their car seats, and I usher the other two out the door. I stop for a moment to gaze into the deep brown black of my son’s eyes, and there staring back at me is my reflection. The spinning screeches to a halt and everything stands still. I haven’t really gone anywhere; I’m still here. I’m just a different yet better version of my former self.

[nora--not a llama]

My Dad

After watching my dad with my twins yesterday afternoon, I modified the "my parents" topic to just be "my dad." Hope that's okay!

I am busy dealing with my two year old, and in the background the babies are fussing. My dad picks them both up, holds each one of them in the crook of an arm. He sits down and speaks softly into each of their ears. I collapse in a chair across the room and study the picture that the three of them make. Their soft bodies rest comfortably in the curves of his strong arms. Their heads lean on the warmth of his chest. He gazes at one and then the other, and pauses to kiss the tops of each of their heads where their hair is starting to come back in dark and fuzzy. Their breathing is steady and they seem to sink down into his lap, becoming part of him. His hands pat the sides of their finally chubby legs as he gently bounces them up and down, up and down. He is warm like a giant teddy bear, and the babies’ eyes get heavy with warmth and contentment. They sleep and he looks at them, studying the dimples in their fingers and the fan of their feathery eyelashes against their skin. He smiles and bows his head as if in reverence. I get the camera and take a picture to preserve the moment, but the truth is that it is already preserved in the recesses of my heart. It is there for me to see forever, and all I have to do is close my eyes and remember.

[lavender]

Midwife

I remembered that I'd actually wanted a midwife. I still thought in general they were better than doctors but as I lay on the table, legs in the air, my baby across the street in a box under lights, and the midwife scolding me for what I'd “done to myself” as she took a paper towel and scraped it down across my red cut and torn flesh, I screamed and wished I'd been able to afford the doctor.

Perhaps with the doctor things would have turned out differently. Perhaps I would have expected the episiotomy rather than place all my hopes and trust in someone who at the last second, when all my words were gone, wielded the knife we had agreed would stay in its drawer. Or he may have been more skilled with the knife, or understood that not all women can afford such a deep cut. He may not have belittled me, saying I had done this to myself. He may have been better with needle and thread, given me after care instructions for myself and the baby, or...he may have been a thousand times worse.

[lavender]

Drawing blood

I tried to argue against them, I really did, but they wouldn't listen, they threatened and they scared me and that fear got me. It was that fear they placed into my center that drained away the last of my resolve to keep his feet safe in my loving hands and far from the needle. So they let me hold him while they did it but I shook and as they punctured his tiny foot and he began to cry, I cried with an end-of-the-word despair. How can they do this to a five day old infant who only needs mother's arms and milk and should only feel comfort? They squeezed his foot and as the blood trickled out in fragile droplets, I felt life being squeezed out from my heart. I wanted to swaddle him in the blanket, run out the door, down the stairs across the parking lot and far away to cuddle before a fire but I was afraid of what would happen, afraid of what they would do.

[nora--not a llama]

Fear

Fear is cold and dark and lonely. The sky outside the hospital window is grey and the light in the room is dim. My tiny infant son lies in a hospital bed connected to machines that measure his heart rate his respiration rate his oxygenation levels. I stand at his side staring at his tiny body, tracing the curve of his nose his chin his heart-shaped face with my finger. Every time I close my eyes all I can see is his tiny blue/grey body laying unresponsively on the floor. It has happened twice, and the images from each occasion are so strong that they play out in my mind like a movie on a reel. I don’t close my eyes anymore; I don’t sleep for fear of the memory. What is wrong with my boy? Why can’t the doctors figure it out? Fear is always coming for me now. It is creeping up behind me slipping its cold bony hands around my throat. I want to cry out but I don’t. Bile rises in the back of my throat and I gag and retch but nothing comes up. He sighs and stretches in his sleep. His breathing is steady and strong and he is peaceful. He is the picture of perfect health, but somewhere in me behind me around me is a fear with sharp teeth and soured breath because I know that something is wrong. I know the doctors are wrong; I know that they are as surely as I know that I will never ever be the same again. And I am scared; scared of their ignorance and scared of the thought of a life lived without his precious hands to hold.

[harmonymama]

Pants

In my last month of pregnancy, pants feel like a straight jacket, restricting my huge, blooming belly. My belly needs to breathe, needs to roll, needs to connect with my bare legs, sitting. Dresses, like tents, over my pregnant yogi body-- the next best thing to being nude. The breeze blowing over my huge, heavy belly during those last weeks-- one of life's delights.

These are fun!

[ldsapmom]

Onesie

There was a random Onesie on the stairs in front of my apartment. I noticed it one day as I collected my mail. Why in the world would there be a Onesie sitting there? Who could it possibly belong to? In our fourplex apartments across the street from a college there were only student-roomates and my husband and me. That Onesie perplexed me, and everyday for a month, it was there greeting me as I checked my mail. I thought it was mocking me, as we had been trying to get pregnant for over a year. Once the test came back positive, though, I ran outside and grabbed that Onesie. I realized it had not been teasing cruelly, but warning softly. It was my omen, and I took it, brought it into my house, washed it, and laid it in my new baby's drawer and thought, "That made sense all along."

One More

What's one more, right? What's one more grape to a bunch? One more cup of sand to a sandbox? One more cloud in a rainstorm? What's one more child to our family? The family I exhaust myself caring for, the one whose needs unfold before me like the yellow brick road. What's one more pregnancy? One more nine months sectioned off into trimesters? One more fear of loss in the first trimester, a concerned woman always checking for blood? What's one more large weight gain, loss of normal physical function, restless, sleepless nights? One more agonizing time of having a weak bladder, morning sickness, tender breasts. What's one more labor? What's one more baby blossoming from her body? Extending his or her arm as an olive branch to break the mother's insides. What could be worse than all of this? The fact that after this baby, there will not simply be, one more.

[Maltagirl]

newly pregnant breasts

Itching, burning, hot to the touch, these two enormous bombs on my chest are ticking, ticking...nothing fits anymore, not the 34D red bra I always felt so good in, not my sports bras, not the 34DD bra I just found at the outlet mall. It's like I have four breasts, two in the bra cups and two more peeking out of the top of them. My shirts don't fit and still these breasts are on fire. Feverish and shy -- the water from my shower pierces them and they almost cry in pain. 36DD, 36DDD, where do I go from here? I'm not a big person, buy my breasts are overtaking my body. I go shopping and cry in every store. "We don't carry anything bigger than a DDD in a back size under 40, dear," explains the lady at the lingerie store. More tears. There has got to be somewhere for these breasts to go.

Then it happens. The heat is too great, the breasts explode. I spend the rest of my pregnancy in bras I buy online, size 36H.

[Maltagirl]

the dark side of motherhood

I'll tell you about a dark side...I haven't had a good night's sleep since sometime in the summer of 2002. I'm going on three years, that's right, three years, without a stretch of sleep longer than 4 hours at a time. The exhaustion has taken root in my body and branched out to every part of me, every cell, every droplet of moisture inside me is tired, every bone aches to rest. I don't think I will ever feel refreshed again in my entire life. Some days, I'm afraid to drive, scared that I'll blink and my eyes, which yearn to be closed, will win the battle that rages all day, every day, the battle between wakefulness and slumber. And then what?

[Jyotsna]

Doctor

"Remove your clothes from your waist up, and put this paper cover on".
I fiddled with my shirt and bra and stood bare chested in room 6, then like a child, I followed his directions. Sitting on the end of the table, it felt like hours had gone by. My loss of dignity as I waited in the cold room, reminded me why I hate doctors.
He came in to examine me. I felt like a little girl, not a women of 40 years, with three beautiful children. He checked my vision, did strength testing and finally viewed my breast and lack of hair on my pubic crest. After looking over my blood hormone tests, and with words as swift and dangerous as a sharp sword, he shared with me my diagnosis. "I am sorry to say, you have a pituitary tumor". My first thoughts moved to getting pregnant, and I asked him what were my chances. "Slim", he said. As I drove home, my throat swelled, my swollen eyes covered with sun glasses allowed an ocean of tears to streamed down my lost face. At home I found temporary solice in my pillow, and a few hours of sleep as reality settled into my soul.

[nora--not a llama]

Pants

The pants lie next to me on the hospital bed, but I do not put them on. I stare at them; I stare at my bag that sits packed and ready to go. This hospital has been my home for weeks, and I can’t remember the last time that I wore pants. I pick up the pants and hold them in my hands. The tears start slowly, and then come faster and faster. How can I just go and leave my babies here? How, how, how? No mother wants to give birth and then go home empty handed. If I put these pants on, then I must get up and walk out the door and leave my babies in someone else’s care. But even if I stubbornly refuse to put them on, I must leave anyway. I must walk out the door and leave my precious ones hooked up to machines that monitor their well-being. I must kiss their tiny little fingers and toes and go home where I will stare for long hours at the empty crib next to my bed. I quiet the sobs that are racking my chest, and I sigh a long, long sigh attempting to blow out the pain like one would blow out a candle. It doesn’t work. Still fighting, fighting, fighting I put one leg in the pants and then the other, wincing from the pain of the fresh wound across my lower belly. The pants are on; I stand to leave, wincing from the pain of the fresh wound across my heart.

[netnet]

Janettes short assignments...

Pre-natal tests

Consent? There were papers I should have signed? I wanted to cry as the midwife explained the protocol that should have been adhered to. Confused I tried to comprehend how my doctor had failed to provide me with adequate care and then a realization came to me. My doctor would never have anything to do with the birth of this baby growing in my belly. The memory of the phone call from the office asking me to come in still takes my breath away. The stuttered agreement and the mumbled I’ll be right there. The numb feeling as I stood staring at the phone stunned, then rushing to the doctor’s office and sitting in the small room sweating. You’re baby may have downs syndrome she casually said to us. I was screaming in my head-what -how? Remember the blood work you went for – I nodded glumly-she continued one of the tests came back positive. These next words -you need to go for an amnio as soon as possible still echo in my head. This pre-natal test brought about senseless worry and procedures that made me weep in anger and fear but it also guided me to my midwives whom I will be forever grateful to for helping me birth my baby in peace and dignity.


Newly pregnant breasts

My breasts are hard and round. I think my period must be soon while I stuff myself into my bra, my breath catches in pain. Later that night as I lay down the thought crosses my mind, pregnant? I feel like I could be pregnant again, a little light headed, nauseas and there are my breasts, ouch. I shake my head and laugh to myself no it would be impossible, a miracle really. Conflicting thoughts run through my head, I would love to have another baby in the house, what are you crazy how can you manage to care for three children when you are already feeling so overwhelmed. A baby, may be a little boy, my little Basquiat? But the blood comes and I feel confusingly relieved yet full of regret.