No longer an option

For sale

2010-06-04T12:10:00.002-04:00

Our house went on the market yesterday. We bought it thinking we’d be here for two or three years, tops. It’s been eight years and three months. The time is right for us to move. We need more space. A two-bedroom townhome with a tiny yard is getting too small for two highly energetic boys. And don’t even get me started on how complicated it is to have out-of-town visitors. This was our starter home. The next place—it will be THE house (fingers crossed), the one will be in until the boys graduate and maybe even longer.

I stopped by a coffee shop yesterday for a late lunch. There were three young men there, having lunch together, telling stories, laughing. They were probably high school seniors, I thought, taking advantage of open campus or early dismissal the last few weeks of school. I remember so clearly being in their shoes. It hasn’t been very long. I am not that much older than them… And then it hit me. I AM. I AM much older than them. They are closer in age to my kids than to me. Twelve years from now, it will be Child grabbing lunch at a coffee shop with his friends and preparing for graduation.

And suddenly, I felt old. I didn’t want to put our house on the market. I didn’t want to leave our tiny townhome. My babies are still babies while we are in this house. In the next house, they will be teenagers and graduates and college students and out of the house. And I don’t want that. I want them to be babies—my babies, who love me unconditionally and forgive me for not always doing my best as their mama. I don’t want to move.

Ramblings

2010-03-12T14:49:00.002-05:00

In case you were wondering, I didn’t fall off the face of the earth. It’s just that I haven’t much time or, more accurately, much need to be here. I desperately need writing when I am in distress. I think just about every single post I have ever written here reflects that. Writing is my therapy. Writing is what I do when I can’t sleep, when I can’t mentally disconnect from distress. And, well, I guess I haven’t had much need for therapy lately. Not to say that it is all rainbows and butterflies here, but it is a drastic improvement over the way things were the last time I wrote here. And time… who wants to hear me complain how little time I have. Doesn’t everyone have the same problem? ‘Nuff said.

At the same time, I don’t want to just disappear. I’ve encountered several blogs whose writers stopped writing suddenly. No goodbyes, no “I am going to take a break”… And it does make me wonder what happened to that person. Did she get hit by a bus? So I am back to tell you that I did not get hit by a bus. I am still here, running at the speed of light, playing all the same roles, and some new ones, laughing, crying, playing, dreaming, yelling, regretting, hoping, loving.

Looking back at the last year, not much has changed on the surface. One discussion-worthy change is the fact that Child started Kindergarten last fall, and it has been absolutely nothing like I imagined. For my extremely outgoing, extraverted boy who jumps both feet in in every social situation, it has been the toughest transition of his lifetime. It has taught me that the teacher is what makes or breaks the experience. Not the school, which has a near-perfect score on the web site that evaluates U.S. public schools, not the school district, which is considered to be one of the best in the nation… For the child, it is all about the teacher. And this is where our luck failed us miserably. To be fair, it is not that Child’s teacher is a bad, horrible teacher (she is probably just average, although don’t get me started on grammar and punctuation issues in school communications)—it’s just that her personality and teaching/discipline style could not be any farther away from what I picture when I think of a person who works with a bunch of 5- and 6-year-olds. Without going into much detail (because honestly, I don’t care to relive and retell those stories—I would so much rather forget them), let me just say that Child has spent the first three months of school crying every morning and every night and not able to sleep; he was completely unlike himself; his self-esteem and self-confidence plummeted. There has been gradual improvement (at least there are no tears anymore), but he completely lacks any sort of enthusiasm about going to school, and we deal with this every single day. A child shouldn’t hate school in kindergarten, right? He has 12 more years to figure that out. On the positive side, he appears to be doing really well in school academically, he is very much liked and has lots of friends. So at this point, we simply wait for the year to end and hope that his teacher next year will be a more caring, loving and encouraging person.

Other than that, the boys are doing wonderfully. I cannot even begin to put into words how close they are and how much they love each other. I had no idea it would be like this. I thought the four-year age gap will make it impossible for them to relate to each other. I’ve never been so happy to admit that I was so very wrong.

Our Christmas card last year ended with this: “If there was one wish we could make for next year, it would be that time wouldn’t move quite so fast.” That wish has not come true—nor will it ever, I suspect—but it is this fleeting nature of time that reminds me to count my blessings.

So to summarize: not hit by bus, things going pretty well (except kindergarten), love all around. I do have one particular topic I need to write about and post here because I actually need some feedback—you know, in case someone actually still has this blog in their blog feeds. But other than that, I expect my postings here will be few and far between, which is a good thing because it means my heartache level is low. And really, what more can I ask for?

April 22

2009-04-22T21:32:00.006-04:00

Dear Dad,

Today would have been your 62nd birthday. I would have waffled on whether or not to call you. I would have worried about how the conversation would go. Will it be one of the good ones or one of the uncomfortable, awkward ones? Anticipating the latter, I would have looked for excuses not to call. But I would have called you nonetheless. I hope I would have. I would have heard your voice, so soft yet so excited to hear mine. You loved me so much, I have not doubted that over the last few years, but sometimes I didn’t know what to do with all that love. Sometimes it made me feel uncomfortable.

We would have talked about the kids and the cool things you’ve been doing on your computer. You would have asked about my job and Husband. You, undoubtedly, would have found a way to mention that I have not called or sent pictures in a long time, which would have been true. Or maybe you wouldn’t have said anything, but I would have heard it anyway. I would have asked you about your health, and you would have lied. I probably would not have asked you about grandma because I didn’t want to know the bad news or hear you complain about how hard it is for you to take care of a 90-some-year-old woman with severe dementia.

I probably would have mentioned that we were planning a trip home some time this year, probably in the summer. Of course, you would have known that this meant that we would stay with my mom and stepdad and only stop by to see you a couple of times during the week, in between all other commitments. But you would have told me how you couldn’t wait to take the boys to the river beach near your apartment, show them the frogs, watch them play at the playground, hold Baby on your lap.

And then you would have said something to indicate that you should get off the phone, much sooner than I would have expected. I would have been surprised, as I always was. You were always the one to end the conversation—but maybe you did it to take the pressure off of me. Your voice would have started to sound tired and weak, which I would have probably attributed to minor speech difficulty from your stroke of a few years ago. But there would have been so much emotion, so much pain in your voice that I would have wondered if you were crying.

I would have been the first one to disconnect, and then I would have replayed the conversation in my head many times, wondering how you really were, what you were working on, how you were making ends meet.

But we can’t have this conversation today, and no matter how awkward those calls sometimes—or often—were, today I would give so much just to hear your voice again, Dad. To tell you how much I love you and how sorry I am that our relationship was not what you or I ever wanted it to be. And how much I wish I had a second chance.

I first paid attention to the words of this song on my long flight to your funeral. Since then, I have been unable to listen to it without tears. Yet I can’t seem to be able to turn it off when it comes on the radio in the car. Instead, I pull the car over and cry.

This time, this place

Misused, mistakes

Too long, too late

Who was I to make you wait

Just one chance

Just one breath

Just in case there's just one left

'Cause you know, you know, you know

I love you

I’ve loved you all along

And I miss you

Been far away for far too long

I keep dreaming you'll be with me

and you'll never go

Stop breathing

if I don't see you anymore

On my knees, I'll ask

Last chance for one last dance

'Cause with you, I'd withstand

All of hell to hold your hand

I'd give it all

I'd give for us

Give anything but I won't give up

'Cause you know, you know, you know

That I love you

I’ve loved you all along

And I miss you

Been far away for far too long

I keep dreaming you'll be with me

and you'll never go

Stop breathing

if I don't see you anymore

I wanted

I wanted you to stay

'Cause I needed

I need to hear you say,

“I love you

I’ve loved you all along

And I forgive you
For being away for far too long”

So keep breathing

'Cause I'm not leaving you anymore

Believe it

Hold on to me and, never let me go

But unlike the music video (which I’ve watched for the first time just now while googling the lyrics), for me, it’s love song without a happy ending. There isn’t a last dance, there isn’t a chance to ask for forgiveness, there isn’t a way to make up for being away for far too long.

A brilliant friend suggested that sometimes you simply don’t get closure. Ever. This brought me to tears—and surprisingly, also brought me relief because this notion allowed me to stop wondering ‘what is wrong with me’ and ‘why can’t I just move on.’ But it also made me realize that even if I don’t ever get closure, I need to get through this, I need to get things off my chest, and pushing these thoughts away or ignoring them is just going to prolong the pain.

You always told me that I should write, Dad, but I knew I could never be as good as you, so I resented your pressure. I said, “I can’t write something that others would find interesting.” And you said, “If it is interesting to you, there is a good chance it would be interesting to someone else.”

I took a break from writing, hoping it would free me from my gloomy thoughts. It seemed to work for a while, but the sadness has returned, and I found myself composing sentences in my mind during sleepless nights, hoping that by properly linking them together, one by one, I can build a path out of this darkness. So it seems fitting that on your birthday I return here, to a medium that has helped me find a way out before.

I love you, Dad. I've loved you all along.

Vignettes on sadness

2008-11-19T22:28:00.003-05:00

I can't stop thinking about them. I can't stop crying. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I can't get excited about the holiday season. I know that I have so much to be grateful for, yet all I can think about is how unfair life is. And instead of appreciating my blessings even more, I live in fear that they will be taken away from me. I’ve been a bad mother and a bad wife. I am impatient, snappy, mean. I am frustrated, angry and exhausted. My family deserves better, yet I can’t find the strength to do better.

====

When my dad died, people told me he was in a better place now. And I believed them. He was no longer in pain. I hoped that he was no longer sad. I hoped that he could now see his grandkids any time he wanted—instead of missing them from half way around the world. I so desperately wanted to believe that to be true. But now I don’t.

====

On Thursday morning, I saw her for the last time. She was loading the crib and the high chair in her dad’s truck. Everything else went in the moving truck or in the trash. I spoke to her, asking once again if she needed any help. I wanted to keep it together, but I couldn’t—my eyes teared up and so did hers. We hugged and cried. I was hoping to see her again before she left, but I am sure she didn’t need any more goodbyes. I know I will never see her or hear from her again. She has my contact information, but I don’t have hers. I don’t even know her last name… Even if I did, I wouldn’t try to reach her. I don’t want to be a sad reminder of the life that was. But I do want one thing. I want to know that some day—some day—she will be OK. Because I really want her to be OK. And it makes me so sad to know that I will never know.

====

I am afraid this is going to be either a very sad or a very quiet place for a while, and I won’t be offended if no one stops by here for the time being. My heart is bursting with emotions, wanting to get them all out on paper. Yet my brain is starting to crack down on these outbursts, pointing me to my real-life to do list that overflows with holiday cards, Child’s birthday party, house guests, gift shopping, welcoming my new niece, decorating, Christmas parties, and on and on and on. There is no time to deal with your emotions, my brain says, there is so much else to be done. You will deal with them later. I don’t know how much longer I can wait.

Neighbors

2008-11-11T18:09:00.001-05:00

A little over two years ago, new neighbors moved in two houses down from us. They were a young couple, late 20s or early 30s.

I instantly liked them. They were a lot like us—except… a lot more hip. He had crazy curly hair and wore shorts and baseball hats to work. She was always dressed in hip clothes and had a funky haircut—and I often looked at her wishing I had the same sense of style. They often had friends over—grilling, cheering for the games on TV, drinking beer, playing catch in the common area behind our townhomes. You could tell they were free spirits.

As neighbors, they were very friendly, but not overly so—not the kind of neighbors that engage you in a 30-minute conversation every time you run into them while taking out the garbage in your pajamas. And I was secretly hoping that they would become our friends—they seemed like the kind of people I’d love to hang out with. But somehow we just never got around to getting to know them outside of friendly ‘hello’ and ‘isn’t it a beautiful day’ conversations.

After their first winter in the neighborhood, when layers of clothing were packed away in the attic, it became apparent that she was pregnant. We chatted about babies, deliveries, registries. In late May 2007, they had a baby girl.

This summer, a For Sale sign appeared in front of their townhome. Next time I saw him outside, I asked where they were moving to. He got a job offer in Ohio, a job that would allow his wife to be a stay-at-home mom. And being there would bring them closer to family. He was heading out there in two weeks, and his wife and the baby would stay here until the house sold. I saw her and the baby a lot after that—they’d go for a walk any time someone was looking at the house, and I wondered how tough it must be to have a house on the market when you have a young child.

On Halloween, I noticed that she wasn’t home. And I did not see her car for days after that. I figured they decided that the sale was taking longer than they’d expected, so she and the baby moved to be with him. I was sad that I didn’t get to say good bye.

But yesterday, I saw her outside. She and her dad (whose truck with NY plates I recognized right away—they came down to visit frequently) were taking a lot of stuff out of the house to the trash. They house must have sold, I thought. I saw her from the window of my living room several times and could not help but notice how sad she was. Even though it is an exciting change for them, it must be tough to say good-bye to the house that they brought their first baby to, I thought, justifying her sadness.

Eventually, I walked outside to say hello. ‘You look so sad,’ I said. And then I looked in her eyes, and before she said anything, I knew it was more than the sentimentality of leaving her home.

‘He died two weeks ago. He was walking home, collapsed and died. We are waiting for autopsy results. They think it was a brain aneurism. I was driving to see him. I was an hour away, and I got a call to go to the ER. I was too late.’

The grief is everywhere, and it is overwhelming. I will, eventually, come to terms with the death of my dad and my grandma. I feel devastated for my boys’ nanny, who lost her dad and her mom within four days of each other last month. But all of them lived long lives. But this? This I can not understand. I wish I was a more spiritual or religious person who could understand the higher purpose behind this, who could see this as part of a bigger plan. But I simply can not wrap my mind around it. I don’t understand why he had to die. I don’t understand why her life has now taken a turn she could have never imagined. I don’t understand why their sweet little girl has to grow up without having any memories of her dad. I am beyond furious... at God, the universe, whomever is in charge.

I hugged her, I cried with her, I held her hand, I offered my help with anything she could possibly need. And as I walked away, I kept saying to myself, ‘I can not imagine...’ and I waited for my husband to get home. And she went back to her house to empty out the memories.

Today

2008-11-04T11:37:00.000-05:00

Today is my first presidential election as a U.S. citizen. Today I cast my vote without any reservations, without feeling that I have to pick the lesser of the two evils. Today I vote in a swing state, where my vote will matter.

Four years ago, almost to the day, I cast my vote for a person who I believed could transform my old country, my country of birth. That election turned into much more than just an election—it became a revolution, a peaceful revolution, one for the history books. The man I voted for was eventually named President. I still have a lot of respect for him, but it has become painfully obvious that one man, no matter how genuine and good, is powerless against a hundred years of corruption, brainwashing and fear-mongering. I believe there is a bright future for my country, but it is generations away.

I don’t want to be disappointed again. Not today, not tomorrow, not a year from now.

Today I can smell the change in the air.

The fastest year of my life

2008-10-27T11:55:00.009-04:00

Over the last few days, on more than one occasion, I found my mind drifting off to “a year ago today…” The contractions that woke me up one night and then faded away within a couple of hours. The movie screening we went to on October 25. The heart-shaped banana-bread ‘birthday cake’ I made for Husband in the morning. Getting my hair cut and my toes painted a year ago yesterday.

And a year ago today, just a few minutes ago, meeting my Baby for the first time.

He is my perfect baby. My miracle baby. I love him something fierce. And if I dared to ask for anything more from the universe, I would only ask that the time would not go so fast.

Happy birthday, my sweet Baby.

October 15

2008-10-15T10:59:00.002-04:00

Today is the National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. Today is also the day that two years ago we conceived the baby that we never got to meet. I remember that day—Husband came back from a business trip that afternoon, and I was leaving for a trip the next morning. We had one shot that month, and the fact that it worked—after months and months of ‘unexplained secondary infertility’ failures—made that pregnancy such an amazing miracle. And maybe that’s what made the loss so tough to bear. Only within the last few months I stopped thinking about that baby on a daily basis. Maybe it is the passing of time, maybe it is the new sadness that plagues me these days.

But I will always remember that baby. I will always remember how overwhelmingly happy I was to see that + sign and the afternoon I spent trying to figure out a creative way to tell Husband. I will always remember how devastatingly chilling it was to see no flicker on the gray ultrasound screen.

And while I am not a religious person, I really want to believe in life after death. I want to believe that my dad got to meet this baby and the babies he lost. And that he is there to comfort them and play with them until the rest of us get there, long, long time from now.

11 months

2008-10-03T15:45:00.000-04:00

This past weekend Baby turned 11 months old.

A month from now, he will no longer be considered a baby. He will be 1, and he will be a toddler. This is his last non-birthday birthday, the last time we count his age in months instead of years. One, three or six months from now, we will tell people that he is 1, not 12, 14 or 17 months. The end of his babyhood is no longer a distant dot on the horizon. It is here, right in front of me, and I am overwhelmed by how fast we got here.

This realization has caused me to hold him a little longer each night before putting him in his crib, to comply more frequently with his requests to be picked up, to spend a little extra time giving him a bath, to kiss him even more, to rub the little peach-fuzzy head a little longer as he nurses. I am trying to soak it all up, to breathe him in, in an attempt to hang on to this fleeting babyhood.

Stages

2008-09-12T14:54:00.002-04:00

On my flight back to the U.S., I was reading an article in this magazine about coping with loss. It said that the five stages of grief don’t necessarily come in order, and you can keep skipping from one stage to another and back again. This describes precisely how I have been doing—from feeling fine, to feeling completely devastated, to being angry at the unfairness to it all, to wondering if this is all a bad dream. Most of the time, I feel so emotionally exhausted that I am numb.

The four days and some odd hours I spent in my home town were the most emotionally exhausting days of my life.

Two hours before I landed, my grandmother (my dad’s mom) died. She was 93. Her mind has been slipping for quite a few years now, and when I saw her in the fall of 2006, the last time I was home, she could barely remember my dad, who was taking care of her. But she remembered me—and she remembered so many details about my life that my dad and I were stunned. Grandma and I shared a special bond. She always made me feel so good about myself. She was so proud of me. Even when her memory began to fade, any time my name would come up, Grandma would begin her sentences with “In a foreign land, in a foreign language, my amazing Kate built a life for herself.” We teased her that she sounded like a broken record, and she just smiled and looked at me, shaking her head as if in disbelief that I am real.

Her death was the last drop for me. I didn’t have as tough of a time accepting her death as I did with my dad (she was in her 90s, after all, and I expected that she may go soon), but what hurt me beyond words is that I did not get a chance to say goodbye. Not to my dad, nor to my grandma. I missed both of them by a matter of hours. I could have called my dad at the hospital before he died… I could have caught an earlier flight that would have brought me home before she died…

Two funerals. Two cemeteries. Two coffins with people who looked nothing like my dad and my grandma. Too many tears. Too many anxiety attacks to count. Too few hours of sleep. Going through their apartment, sorting through decades of memories, deciding what to keep, what to toss. How do you decide? In three days, that entire side of the family—gone. Our last name is no more.

There is a lot to be said—or written. A lot I need to come to terms with. But where these words belong, I am not sure. Here? In a folder on my laptop? In my head? I’ve been putting these thoughts aside. I have been focusing on the kids and work and the day-to-day of temporary single-parenting. My husband returns tonight after being away for a month. And for better or for worse, this means that the flood gates can now open.

Untitled

2008-08-21T22:57:00.002-04:00

My mom called this morning while I was on the way to the office for an hour-long meeting. You better pull over, she said. I did. Your dad has cancer. He had surgery yesterday, completely unrelated, and they found cancer. Very advanced stage. They could tell just by looking at it, without running any tests. You should be prepared for the worst.

I cried, called Husband who is away from home for a month. What should I do? Should I go now? I want to see him before it’s too late. I want to bring the kids, at least Baby—he hasn’t met Baby, and I know it would mean so much to him. But Baby doesn’t have a passport, so I need to figure out a way to get one soon.

Let’s talk about it this weekend, Husband said, when all of us are together for Baby’s baptism.

The plan was for me and the boys to fly to Midwest tomorrow for Saturday’s baptism, spend a week there to help break up my five-week single-parenting stint, and come back home on Labor Day, with Husband returning home two weeks later. OK, I said, OK, just keep breathing. I got myself together and walked into the office.

And hour later, my mom called again.

Your dad just died.

I have SO MUCH to say about how I feel. About how much this hurts. About how the memories I suppressed from my parents’ divorce 20 years ago are resurfacing now. About how the guilt for not keeping in better touch with him is tearing me apart. About how completely unprepared I am to deal with a death of a parent; most people my age are just starting to lose their grandparents, not parents. About how hard it is to fall apart in front of your kids without being able to fully explain to them what’s happened. About how much I’ve simply needed a hug today, a simple human touch.

But I have to pack. Not the kind of packing I was planning to do for a leisurely week at the in-laws' house, but a suitcase full of black, full of grief. We are still heading to the Midwest tomorrow, but right after the baptism, I will be getting on the plane alone to go half-way across the world to bury my dad.

On breastfeeding

2008-08-19T23:25:00.006-04:00

[Note to anyone who may stumble onto this post: Sensitive subject ahead. If you wanted but were not able to breastfeed your baby, you may want to skip this post. In it, I talk about my struggles with breastfeeding, but the fact is, I was able to nurse my child for nine months and counting, and I fear that women who were not able to nurse their babies at all may find my rant pointless, insensitive and ungrateful. I fully realize how lucky I am to have made it this far, and I don’t want to offend anyone.]

Today, I did not bring my breast pump to work. And unlike the time when I forgot to put it in the car during the morning rush, this time I actually meant to leave it at home.

My already meager supply has really taken a dive in the last six weeks. The week I spent away from my boys was the beginning of the end. I tried to pump as much as I could, but that’s difficult to accomplish when you are running a conference of more than 20,000 attendees. But even after that, especially on weekends, there were many a time when making a bottle was so much easier than finding a private spot to nurse him. For the last month, I’ve been down to one pump session a day, plus nursing him in the morning and at night.

About a month ago, after trying to nurse with great frustration, he finally pulled away, reached for his pacifier and turned away, calming down immediately. My heart ached and I quietly shed a few tears. He no longer needed me for comfort. My mid-day pumpings dropped to three ounces total, less than half of what he takes in one feeding. So it shouldn’t have come as a total surprise when yesterday he refused to nurse at lunch. He gave it a quick try, and when it resulted in nothing, he pulled away. “Be patient, baby, it will come,” I tried to coax him, but he would have none of it. At bedtime, he seemed unusually frustrated while nursing and then had trouble falling asleep, making me wonder if he was still hungry.

So this morning, I decided to leave the pump at home. What’s the point of spending 20 minutes pumping plus washing, when the results are meager? But the voice inside my head is casting doubts, “If you just try harder, if you increase the number of pumping times, you can make the numbers go up.” But why? What for? He is almost 10 months old; I’ve made it so much longer than I thought I would.

I am not entirely sure why breastfeeding is such an obsession for me. I suspect it’s the baggage that I am carrying from breastfeeding Child. Bouts with mastitis in both breasts, the never-ending thrush that wasn’t responding to medication, continued pain even after the infections had cleared (now I realize it was the result of his tongue-tie), round-the-clock pumping—six months of this physical and emotional nightmare and feeling that I failed him so miserably. When I finally emerged on the other side, I wondered why I didn’t quit earlier. I could have been a better mother if I weren’t pushing myself so ridiculously hard. I would have enjoyed my newborn so much more. I promised that I would not put these ridiculous demands on myself again. If it doesn’t work, I will stop. But I secretly hoped that I would do it right this time, with this baby.

I was determined not to make the same mistakes: not to let him comfort nurse so that my nipples wouldn’t crack and let in infection, not to wear too much lanolin, which can trap moisture and let yeast grow; not to scream in pain every two hours for weeks before calling the doctor; to massage out every plugged duct to keep it from turning into mastitis. But while I worried about me, I forgot about him. I was happy to let him sleep longer because it gave my achy breasts a break when he should have been eating. I ignored the fact that he looked a little yellow—he just has his dad’s olive skin, I told everyone. And two weeks later, when he was still almost a pound lighter than his birth weight and his bilirubin was way above normal, I, once again, felt like a failure. We went on a two-day feeding spree, feeding every two hours and pumping after every feeding. I slept a total of 4 hours during that time (as a side note, I doubt complete lack of sleep does any good for one’s milk supply), and the pain was unbearable. I bit my lip and stomped my feet on the floor at every latch (causing my mom, who slept in the basement, to run upstairs in panic in the middle of the night, worrying that the thumping noise of my feet was actually me dropping the baby). But his weight barely budged, and the dreaded words came, “you have to supplement.” I have nothing against formula, but to me, these words meant that I failed once again. A few days later, a dear friend sent a lactation consultant to my house. She took one look at Baby and said, “Did anyone mention his frenulum?” That’s where the pain was coming from. After she left, I called a dozen ENTs, hoping for a next-day appointment. Every single one offered to get me in in four weeks. I could not wait that long! I finally found a place that had an opening in five excruciatingly long days. After the appointment, the relief didn’t come immediately, but within days, things improved. I was not longer screaming at latch-on, just wincing. But I still had to deal with the supply. I researched dozens of ways to increase supply, and I tried many of them, but I would lie if I said I did my best. I could have pumped more, but it’s tough to do when you have a four-year-old running around. Looking back, I blame myself for not trying harder. Maybe if I tried harder, I could have built up my supply completely, and he would not be frustrated with my low flow now. If I didn't ignore his cues in the days after his birth, maybe I would not have had a supply problem to begin with. Having a low supply issue with a second child while there were no such issues with the first is very unusual, from what I've read. I could have avoided all of this if only I tried harder. At least I kept the promise I made to myself four years ago that I will not let the pump run my life.

I will continue to nurse him morning and night as long as he still wants to. Anecdotally, I know it’s possible to continue doing this for a while. But somehow I doubt he will want to for much longer. And I have to come to peace with this. However, the simple fact that I found it necessary to tell this entire story tells me that I am far from being at peace with this. And honestly, while my heart is breaking, my brain tells me that it's irrational to feel like this: I was hoping for an easier time this time, and I got it—I hated the entire six months of nursing Child, and I loved all but the first month of nursing Baby. My mistake was hoping for a perfect experience. And what hurts is that most likely, I will not get another chance.

I no longer do this for him. I do it to satisfy my selfish desire to keep him a baby a little longer, to keep this connection between just the two of us. It’s just another way I am having a tough time letting go.

Reunion

2008-07-17T12:31:00.003-04:00

At half past midnight, I crept into the dark room.

In the glow of the moon, I could barely see them. One curled up like a little ball, his face pressed against the side of the pack-and-play; the other sprawled out on the big bed, looking so much longer than I remembered him. They were wearing their striped pajamas, the only matching set of clothes I’ve ever bought for them.

I laid down on the big bed, trying to take up as little space as possible so that I wouldn’t disturb him. Creaky floors, creaky bed springs, and then finally quiet again, only the swooshing of the ceiling fan interrupting the silence.

Several hours later, as he was changing position in his sleep, his hands brushed against my shoulder. He froze for a second; then his hands moved again, trying to figure out the obstacle in his way. When the hands reached my hair, so much thicker and curlier than his grandma’s or aunt’s, he finally said, “Mommy! Mommy, it’s you!” “It’s me, baby.” “I’m so glad you are here.” “Me, too, baby. Let’s sleep now.”

Several more hours passed, and when the sound of the fan could no longer muffle the songs of the birds outside, the pack-and-play next to the bed began to move. Its little occupant was tossing and turning, eventually giving way to soft coos. As I sat up on the bed, he looked at me cautiously, and as I stood up and approached the pack-and-play, he began to cry. After a week away, he did not recognize me. But as I leaned down to pick him up, he stopped crying. “Hi, baby. It’s me.” When I picked him up and held him, his whole body literally melted into me. Every minute or so, he would lift his head off my chest and look inquisitively at my face, as if to confirm it was still me. Then he would smile and lower his head back down.

As I stood there, I wondered how my heart could keep from bursting when it was so full of love.

Empty

2008-06-18T13:27:00.003-04:00

This morning, my husband and my sons got on the plane to travel half way across the country to see Husband’s family, where the boys will be spending a week while Husband and I, as we do every June, work at our company’s largest conference. After taking the three of them to the airport, where I quietly shed many tears as they boarded the plane, I came home to an empty house, and it has been nothing like what I expected. I knew I would miss them. I knew I would feel sad. But I was also looking forward to this time, two days—48 hours!—at home on my own before I leave on Friday morning to travel to the conference. I thought about how much I could get done: organize the closets, upload some pictures online, set up the crib (yes, Baby is still sleeping in the bassinet, even though he is way over the weight limit), replant a bunch of plants, get a haircut, get a pedicure, put away maternity clothes and outgrown baby clothes, and the list goes on—not to mention hours and hours of uninterrupted work time (I work at home most days). For two days, I will be a free woman, I thought to myself.

Instead, I sit here, feeling completely empty.

I caught myself looking at the clock to see how soon 5 p.m. will be here so that I can go pick the kids up at the babysitter’s—before realizing that at 5 o’clock, I won’t need to go anywhere. I reminded myself to return my friend’s phone call tonight, thinking that I could do it around 8:30, immediately after the kids go to bed—before realizing that I have no one to put to bed tonight.

It’s amazing how certain things become so ingrained in our minds. After four and a half years, motherhood is more that just part of my life. It is my life. It is in everything I do. I am more than a mother, but I am a mother first and foremost. I know that not every mother feels the same way, and I really respect that. Looking back, I think this may have been the toughest transition for me when Child was born. I felt like I was losing my old self, that it was being ‘invaded’ by the demands of motherhood. But with time, it became more comfortable, more natural, so when Baby was born, I was able to delight in the joy that a new baby brings instead of dwelling on what this addition is doing to the ‘real me.’ The ‘real me’ is very different now, and I am not ashamed to admit it.

Today, in an empty and quiet house (exactly the type of house I crave so often in the chaos of everyday life), I feel so completely incomplete.

This time will pass quickly

2008-05-07T10:41:00.003-04:00

“Enjoy your newborn. Sleep when your baby sleeps. This time will pass quickly.”

This was written in bold at the bottom of the hospital discharge instructions from my midwives’ practice. My guess is that most women see the last sentence as an encouragement of sorts, a pep talk: when you feel like you can’t take one more minute of this, remember that this will pass and things will get better.

But perhaps that’s not what the midwives mean at all.

“This time will pass quickly...”

...and in a blink of an eye, your baby will be six months old, and you will wonder where half a year has gone.

Half a year. With Child, I was always looking for the next thing. When will he roll over? When will he crawl? When will he stand? When will he eat finger foods? With Baby, I celebrate these milestones, but I am not waiting for them with anticipation. I delight in the now. I want him to remain a baby as long as possible. I realize now how fleeting this baby stage is.

This half-year point marks my three-month anniversary since returning to work. I dreaded the return to work, and I was right. I have been away from Baby on a daily basis for half of his life, and it breaks my heart. A parent’s decision to return to work or stay at home is such a personal thing, and I honestly believe that there is no right answer. The so-called mommy wars—stay-at-home moms vs. working moms—frustrate me greatly, and I have no interest in debating this issue. But for me, right now, being at work does not feel right.

When I went back to work after having Child, staying home was not an option. Back then, we recently purchased a house in one of the highest-priced markets in the country, and living on one income was out of the question. I started a new job after my maternity leave, and although it was incredibly difficult to leave my four-month-old baby boy at a daycare on that first day at work, I never considered the alternative. I was sad, I cried, I thought about him a lot, I hated the fact that he didn’t smell like my baby when I picked him up at the end of the day—he smelled like daycare, and so I cried again. But somehow, it got easier with time. Maybe it was because the time I spent on leave with Child was far from blissful. Breastfeeding was an absolute nightmare, what with mastitis in both breasts and the never-ending thrush and incredibly painful latch-ons that eventually forced me to pump exclusively, which, OMG, takes so much time because you spend 20 minutes bottle feeding, then 20 minutes trying to get the baby to sleep, then 20 minutes pumping, and then the cycle begins again. But I digress... Maybe part of me was eager to get away from that—and being at work provided a much-needed break.

This time, with Baby, it may have been possible for me not to return to work. I never actually sat down to do the math, but with some major cutbacks and fewer trips, we could probably make ends meet without my income. But I had to return to work for a different reason. As we contemplate moving out of this area in the very near future, my job provides stability. I could do my job from anywhere in the world, and being able to keep the same job when we move will be a major benefit for us. So I never let myself go too far down the road of contemplating staying at home.

But the thing is, I hate it. I don’t hate my job, but I hate being away from my boys. I miss them, and I will admit that I miss Baby more than I miss Child. Child loves his preschool, and I know that he is having more fun there than he would at home with me. So although I would love to spend more time with him, I am more content with him being away from me because I know how happy he is in school. But Baby—oh, how I miss him. I know he is happy with our wonderful nanny, a woman who’s been with us for more than three years now. I trust her completely. But selfishly, I miss my time with him. I want to be the one feeding him as he watches the spoon so intently and opens his mouth wide in anticipation. I want to be the one holding my hand on his belly as he drifts off to sleep. I want to be the one listening to his happy cooing as he wakes up. I want to be able to nurse him during the day and watch him get so excited about a meal that tries to latch on to my bra. I want to be the one taking him for walks and watching him observe and react to the world around him. I want to be the one hearing the compliments from passer-bys about how gorgeous and happy he is. I want to be the one playing with him and listening to him babble and giggle and laugh. I miss him horribly, and I resent being away from him. I hate, hate, hate the breast pump. Most of all, I hate feeling like I don’t have the ability to do anything right. When I work, I worry about missing out on my boys’ childhood or about finding enough time to pump between endless meetings and unfinished projects. When I am home, I worry about how much work I have to do after the kids go to bed. When they are in bed and I am frantically trying to do the laundry, pack lunches and wash bottles, I worry about how little attention I give to my husband. When you spread yourself too thin, you feel like you can’t give your 100% to anything.

Right around the time I returned to work, I read this post by Dutch (from Sweet Juniper), a former lawyer now stay-at-home dad, describing a day with his daughter. “I still have anxieties, concerns that I am ruining any chance at a career. But I can only hope that there will be enough years to try to recapture what I've lost by leaving the working world, and trust in the fact that there will never be any way to recapture any of this.”

Right now, my boys love being with me. Child begs me to play with him. Baby smiles the second he sees me. In a blink of an eye, six months have passed. Another blink, and my boys will be much more interested in hanging out with their friends or playing video games than spending time with me. I can’t recapture this time later, and I don’t want to regret it. I don’t want to miss it.

This time will pass quickly…

Five is the new magic number

2008-04-29T00:13:00.003-04:00

Dear Baby:

On Sunday, you turned 6 months old. But before I go reminiscing about this half-year mark, let me tell you what an amazing month month 5 was. Five has been the months of firsts.

Around the beginning of month 5, you discovered your feet and the fact that you can grab them and bring them to your mouth while lying on your back. This newfound knowledge successfully ended any hope that we had for you rolling over. Now that you have something to do while lying down, you’ve realized that rolling over is highly overrated. Now when we force tummy time on you, you don’t even attempt to roll over anymore—you simply cry with great frustration.

Also at the beginning of month 5, you started learning how to sit up, and by the end of the month, you have perfected this skill. We still put a Boppy around you at times, but you are fully capable of sitting up on you own, and over the last few days, I have seen you even reach for something away from you and then pull yourself back up to sitting. You seem quick keen on sitting up, so you now have very little patience for your bouncy chair—the recline on it is just too boring for you.

Two days after you turned 5 months, you boarded your very first flight to embark on your very first vacation to our favorite city—San Diego. You did a wonderful job on the plane, and you were a real trooper on the trip. You did not care too much for being in the stroller, so we ended up carrying you a lot (thank goodness for Baby Bjorn and Moby). You love to watch people, and being in the stroller must have not given you a good vantage point for people watching. You handled being away from home and the transition to a different time zone as if it was nothing.

When we returned from vacation, you had another first—your first solid food. While many babies (your brother included) have a tough time at first figuring out how to eat solids, you acted as if you’ve been eating from a spoon for years. You knew exactly when to open your mouth, how to get the food off the spoon, how to swallow it and how to open your mouth again in request for more. So far, you’ve had rice, peas, pears and oatmeal with great pleasure (although I am sad to say that you had a mild allergic reaction to oatmeal, so we will have to hold off on that for a little while).

As if to say, “now that I am eating solids, I could probably use a few of these,” two days after you had your first solid meal, you grew a tooth. Two days later, another tooth appeared. They did not seem to bother you much—or perhaps we were blaming your mild crankiness and ear pulling on recovering from travel when it was actually teething pain.

To celebrate these accomplishments, you figured out how to clap your hands, and you exercise this ability quite frequently and very skillfully—to our very enthusiastic “yay’s” and “bravo’s.” You always have a huge smile on your face when you clap your hands.

You continue to be completely captivated by your brother. These days I find it difficult to feed you with Child in the room because you always want to know what Child is doing and get really distracted. So I shouldn’t be surprised that it was your brother who elicited your very first belly laugh. You’ve giggled before, but this was a full-out, long laugh in response to a silly song Child was singing. Of course, hearing you laugh made Child laugh too, which made you laugh even more, and two of you kept laughing at each other for a long time until I realized that I should grab a camera, and by the time I turned it on, both of you stopped. I wish I could record this moment in my mind—the two of you laughing together—and play it back when I feel down. There is no better medicine.

Happy 6 months, my sweet.

Love,
Mom

Conversation

2008-03-19T22:30:00.004-04:00

This conversation happened as I was putting Child to bed tonight.

Child: Mommy, what does this ring mean?

Me: It means I am married to Daddy.

Child: Oh [disappointed]... But I want to be married to you.

Me: But you can’t be married to me. You can’t marry your mommy.

Child: Not even when I grow up?

Me: Not even when you grow up. But when you grown up, I hope you will find a person whom you will love very much and you will want to spend the rest of your life with her.

Child: [tears in the eyes] But what about you?

Me: What about me?

Child: [tears now flowing down his face] But I don’t want to be away from you. I will miss you.

Me: [fighting back the tears] Well... Maybe you can still live with us.

Child: Could you please make sure Baby will live with us then too?

Me: OK.

For the next few minutes, as I listened to him listing all of the girls he currently knows and pondering to himself which one he would marry, I could not keep the tears from coming. His love is so pure and so unconditional it makes my heart ache. I know that some day I will be counting the days until we can get him out of the house. I know that some day he and Baby will fight and scream how much they hate each other. I know that living with your grown children is not anyone’s vision of a happy retirement.

But today... today the thought of being away from him is as scary and heartbreaking and unfathomable to me as it is to him.

Numbers

2008-02-05T15:05:00.000-05:00

Nights Husband is spending away on business trip: 3

Minutes spent last night to get everything ready for the day: 90

Children driven to preschool and to the babysitter: 2

Bags packed to be carried to the car: 8

Bags carried to the car in the morning: 6

Realizing, when you get to the office, that the two missing bags were your lunch and your breast pump: so flippin' priceless

Resolutions

2008-02-04T12:15:00.000-05:00

I have never liked New Year’s resolutions—mostly because I really suck at making them a reality. A whole year seems like an awfully long time to make a commitment to something. I admire people who can stick to their resolutions, but for me, most of them go out the window come February. So this year, I am trying a different approach. First of all, I decided not to even bother making any resolutions until the month of February. Secondly, I am not committing to anything for a year, but three months seems like a more reasonable expectation. So here is what I am thinking.

1. I resolve to lose weight.
I gained about 40 pounds when I was pregnant with Baby (and up till now, I lost only 15 of them—and nine of those was Baby himself! I initially lost more, but my holiday cookie-baking extravaganza did not help matters, neither did my long-standing addiction to chocolate and complete absence of will power). Add to that the 10 remaining pregnancy pounds I never lost after having Child and about five pounds I gained during the pregnancy that went nowhere, and you will see why my pant size has pretty much doubled in the last five years. I am 40 pounds heavier that I was before children. I am not foolish enough to think that I can get back to my pre-children body, but I can at least make a dent on the scale (no pun intended). So I join Sarah in the weight loss challenge.

2. I resolve to be a better friend.
I’ve been focused on myself and my own misfortunes for what feels like a very long time. I have missed birthdays, anniversaries and graduations, and I feel very, very selfish. Sending a birthday card or dropping a “how are you?” e-mail doesn’t take much, but it may mean a lot to the recipient.

3. I resolve to spend more quality time with my husband.
In the next three months, I want to go on at least three dates. Just the two of us. We have a great relationship, but life gets in the way, daily tasks take over, kids take center stage, and we find ourselves moving around each other, not together. I think it is fairly normal when you have young children, and I am not at all concerned about us, but I would very much welcome more opportunities to reconnect, to get closer instead of moving in parallel lines. Because life is so busy and so full of responsibilities, every marriage runs a risk of transforming the two people into business partners. And I refuse to let that to happen to us.

4. I resolve to write about my children.
In the fall of 2006, I started a blog about Child. It is a collection of short letters addressed to him, with simple stories from his life. My memory is notoriously poor, so I needed something to help me remember. And perhaps some day Child would be interested in reading these stories, too. Using a blog as a vehicle enabled me to make entries from anywhere since I could access it on any computer. I wrote fairly regularly for a while, but my last entry was almost a year ago. So I need to get back to writing down these stories--and writing them for Baby, too.

…And to round out the list, one last very important item:

5. I resolve to floss my teeth every day.
Gotta take care of those pearly whites.

So in early May, I shall update you on my progress. Wish me luck. God knows, will power is not one of my strengths.

Two firsts and a last

2008-01-18T12:43:00.000-05:00

1. Baby has his first official cold. Snotty, plugged up nose, inability to eat efficiently or sleep well (both courtesy of the aforementioned plugged up nose). If Child’s health history is any indication, I predict an ear infection for Baby in the next week or two. Oy. Overall though, I am pretty impressed that this is his first cold in 12 weeks, given the fact that his big brother brings all sorts of preschool germs home and is contantly giving him kisses.

2. Yesterday was Baby’s first snow outing. I have been begging for snow since that idyllic peaceful weekend in the mountains almost a year ago. I hate the cold weather, but I love the snow. I love everything that snow brings—sledding, skiing, snowshoeing, mittens, scarves, red cheeks, eyelashes wet with snowflakes, hot chocolate, hearty soups, cuddles under the warm blankets, school cancelations, snowball fights, the brightness of nights, the feeling of peace.

A snow fall in this area is a fairly rare occasion—and it is very fleeting. It is not unusual for winter temperatures to dip into the 20s, but for some reason, when it snows here, the temps always hover around 32-34 degrees, which makes the snow turn into slushy dirty mess pretty much as soon as it hits the ground. And this leaves a very limited window of opportunity to enjoy the snow. So right after preschool, Child, Baby and I got ready to enjoy the newly fallen snow. With Baby safely tucked in the Baby Bj.orn in his snow suit and Child squealing with delight in his sled, I felt so very happy (and got quite a workout, I tell ya).

Now the snow is melting, and I am melting down, too. Today is the last day of my maternity leave. I am so not ready.

Two-month checkup

2008-01-10T15:06:00.001-05:00

At 23 ¾ inches and 13 lbs., Baby is growing like a champ and falling between 80th and 85th percentiles. He charmed the doctor with all sorts of coos and smiles, but then they had to ruin it all with four shots plus an oral vaccine. Baby’s reaction to shots, if I could put it into words, would go something like this:

Shot 1: “Whoa, that hurts. You better knock if off, lady.”
Shot 2: “I said I do not like this, lady. What did I ever do to you?”
Shot 3: “What part of KNOCK IT OFF do you not understand?”
Shot 4: “YOU MOTHER F***ER!!!!!”

With all the wonders of modern medicine, why can’t they figure out how to give several vaccines with just one needle stick? I mean seriously, four different sticks? I would be pissed, too.

Following the appointment, instead of drifting off into a stress-induced sleep coma for several hours, like Child used to do after all of his immunizations, Baby insisted on continually telling us how pissed he was about the whole ordeal for the next 48 hours. Poor guy, I really felt sad for him. And boy, I surely am not looking forward to the next round of shots at the four-month checkup.

He is developing right on track, and with his weight, we should be able to start solids at four months if we wanted to. His head and neck muscle control is great, although I have been pretty lax with giving him tummy time (because he hates it so), so I need to do better. Like all babies, he has the sweetest toothless smile, which he gave only to his dad for the first couple of weeks and then finally began doling them out freely to anyone (including me) (I can’t say I wasn’t a little jealous about that).

The best part is (and yes, I know you will hate me for this—and rightly so, I would too), beginning right before Christmas, he started sleeping through the night. From 9 p.m. until 7 a.m. With no sorts of sleep tricks on our part. Child began sleeping through the night at about 2 ½ months, but only with the help of dream feeds (courtesy of the Baby Whisperer book). But Baby actually slept worse when we tried the dream feeds, so we stopped those after a few failed attempts, thinking he was not ready, and lo and behold, he began sleeping all night long. Of course, there are some nights when he doesn’t sleep that well, but those are few and far between. You know, I am almost afraid to post about this, thinking that I will jinx myself. The thing is, he does not sleep during the day. A few 20-30 minute catnaps is all we get. Once in a great while, he can nap for an hour—and it feels like Christmas, I tell ya. Needless to say, I have not been showering much these days. But we do get out of the house a lot, especially with this gorgeous 60-degree weather we’ve been having the last couple of days. So I am stinky, but at least not as exhausted as I used to be. This should be a huge plus when I return to work on Jan. 22. (Once again, really hoping I am not jinxing it).

No more silence (maybe)

2008-01-10T14:23:00.000-05:00

Am I the only person in the blogosphere who finds it difficult to post any sorts of updates now that Baby is here? I mean, I don’t have a really good track record here, but in the past, my lack of posting had more to do with having nothing new to say (or some stupid excuses like too much work). Now, I have so much to say, so much that I want to talk about, so much that I need advice/support on, so much that I simply want to have as a written record so that I don’t forget… However, I find it nearly impossible to find a decent amount of time to write. Part of the reason is the fact that Husband doesn’t know about this blog, so when the kids are in bed at night and I actually have some free time, I feel like I am sneaking around if I were to post. And during the day… well, there just isn’t any free time during the day (which is definitely a topic for a post, as Baby appears very much against sleeping during the day).

I have composed so many posts in my head while nursing, but by the time I miraculously (like right now!) get a free block of time to write, the issue either becomes irrelevant or outdated. I think I need to let go of my perfectionism and just write what’s on my mind instead of finding the right way to say it. After all, that’s why I started to blog—to write down whatever was on my mind in hopes that writing would help me find an answer or at least get it off my chest. So please forgive me if my posts from now on will become poorly written, unedited and just plain boring. Then again, maybe that’s how they’ve been prior to now…in which case, there is lots more poor writing and boringness to come. Here’s what’s in store: my never-ending struggle with breastfeeding, the dreaded return to work, sleep—or lack thereof, parenting second time around, 2-month check up. Thanks for sticking with me.

Love is all around

2007-12-30T12:14:00.000-05:00

I have always wanted a spring baby. There is something so natural and so symbolic about bringing a new life into the world at the time when the whole world is reborn: new buds appear on the trees, the first flowers are blooming, the birds return, the people come out of winter hibernation. But there are also practical reasons. You don't have to be pregnant in the summer--and where I live, being pregnant in the summer is quite miserable. Around the holidays, you are safely out of your first trimester, so you don't feel like crap every minute of every day, and yet you are not so far along that you can't travel to see family. Plus, you don't have to worry about putting on those holiday pounds. When the baby is born, you can take him or her out for a walk without bundling up in layers and layers of clothing or go to the store without worrying about the flu.

This was back when I thought it would take just a couple of months to get pregnant. As months went by, I realized that what I wanted was a baby, not a birth date.

Now I have my two winter babies. (OK, so late October and early December are officially fall, but it is darn close to winter.) The other night, as I was baking some holiday cookies,* with my two boys all tucked in and sound asleep upstairs, my husband sitting at the kitchen island across from me doing some online holiday shopping, Christmas carols playing on the stereo, the smell of melted chocolate wafting through the house, I was completely overcome by the feeling of peacefulness. This feeling was so intense and so comforting. Over the last few years, there was always some turmoil in my heart--worry, disappointment, uncertainty, frustration, sadness... And it is against the backdrop of these last few years and particularly the miserable Christmas of a year ago, that I find myself so blissfully happy and peaceful this holiday season. Sure, there are plenty rough moments, like when Baby refuses to sleep and screams bloody murder for no apparent reason, when I am so tired I physically can't get out of bed in the morning, when Child exhibits such stubbornness it makes me want to scream... But on the large picture, when I take a step back from being overwhelmed by the minutiae of everyday life, I feel at peace. My heart is full love. My wishes have come true in the form of two absolutely perfect winter babies. Love is all around.**

I wish this same feeling of peace to you. If your heart is far from peaceful, I know how much you long for it. And I really, really hope and pray that it will come soon.

*What kind of cookies? Well, I am glad you asked. I actually made eight different kinds this season (with various degrees of success). But on that particular evening, I was making these Black Forest Cookies, replacing semisweet chocolate with bittersweet and cherries with craisins. Oh. My. God. These were heaven. (they don't freeze well though, just FYI).

**This is a line from Dave Matthews' "Christmas Song." If you haven't heard it, you should.

The first month

2007-12-07T13:21:00.000-05:00

Where did the month go? On one hand, it feels like we left for the hospital just yesterday. On the other hand, Baby has become such a part of the family that it feels like he’s been here for a very, very long time. Life is busier than ever—what with our constant visitors, holiday shopping, holiday baking, holiday decorating, birthday party planning (Child will be turning four at the end of this week), not to mention this whole round-the-clock taking care of the baby. So here is a quick week-by-week recap of Baby’s first month. I am afraid that if I don’t write it down now, exhaustion will wipe my memory slate clean.

Week 1.
I am not sure if I actually made this point clear in my birth story post, but labor was a piece of cake. I highly recommend having the second labor first. Quick. Easy. Anxiety-free (except for that whole “it may be too late for epidural” business). Margie the midwife and Kate the nurse should definitely be on Santa’s “extra-nice” list this year. The postpartum floor staff and the hospital cafeteria—not so much. I was SOOO ready to go home on the third day. However, it took hours to get discharged, even though we had discharge notices from both the pediatrician and the midwives. When we mentioned that we have been waiting for several hours, the nurse said, “Oh, I saw that you were feeding the baby, so I figured you weren’t ready.” Ummm, if that was the case, no one would ever get discharged from the postpartum floor because newborns, as far as I know, pretty much eat around the clock…

Anyway, being home was wonderful. I was on such an emotional high the first week. I was tired, but the adrenalin kept me going. Breastfeeding was painful, but I knew it would be. Breastfeeding Child was the most physically painful experience I have ever had, so I was prepared for it this time. My parents were staying with us, and they were so, so very helpful in terms of household chores. Husband took a week off from work and was entertaining Child, so all I had to do was take care of Baby. To all of my pregnant and soon-to-be pregnant friends out there, this is how it should be: in those first few weeks, you don’t really need anyone to help you take care of the baby—you just need someone to take care of you and everything else. I was so lucky to have this help, both when Child was born and now when Baby was born.

Week 2.
Breastfeeding is getting tougher, and I am starting to feel down about it. I was really hoping for an easier time this time around. He is eating well, peeing well, pooping well, his latch-on looks perfect, and yet I am in incredible amount of pain. I learned my lesson with Child not to wait a month to seek help with breastfeeding. So I make an appointment with the nurse practitioner at the pediatrician’s office who specializes in lactation. During the weight check, it turns out that Baby is loosing weight. He was born at 8.15, discharged on day 3 at 8.7, was at 8.6 on day 4, and now is down to 8.2 on day 10. Ideally, he is supposed to be at 8.15 by day 14, and that is clearly not happening. Huge surprise for me as he seemed to be doing all the things the book says well-fed babies should be doing (number of wet/soiled diapers, etc.). On top of it all, it appears that one of his newborn screening tests came back with low levels, indicating that there may potentially be a serious disorder, which could be an explanation for why he is not gaining weight. So we are sent back to the hospital to rerun the newborn screening test (which takes a whole week to get results), check the bilirubin and also do a full chemistry panel of blood work. Of course, at that point, my raw nipples are the last thing on my mind. Three hours and three heel pricks later, we are back home. For the next 24 hours, Baby is supposed to be on strict two-hour feeding schedule, and I am also supposed to pump after each feeding to help boost my supply. It was a miserable 24 hours and I did not sleep a wink, but at the end of it, Baby did gain 2 ounces. However, the pediatrician was hoping for a more significant increase, so I am instructed to start supplementing with formula due to low milk supply. Also, the hospital lab lost the chemistry panel blood sample, so we had to do it again, in addition to another bilirubin check. Holding your screaming newborn while someone sticks needles in his little feet is not my idea of fun time.

Week 3.
Breastfeeding still sucks. It hurts like hell, and my supply is not increasing despite what seems like round-the-clock nursing and pumping. I finally see the lactation consultant. This has been the best decision I have made so far in this motherhood experience. She immediately diagnoses Baby with tongue tie. I asked the pediatrician who discharged us from the hospital about this (Child had the same issue, so I was familiar with it), and--just like when Child was a baby--was told that it does not interfere with breastfeeding. When I tell this to the lactation consultant, she simply shakes her head in disbelief. She recommends that we get the frenulum clipped right away. I spend the next day trying to schedule an appointment with an ENT--the earliest openings are a month away. I finally find a practice that can get me in within a week. The procedure goes well, but I don't feel immediate relief. Two days go by, and I am in tears again. I put all my hope in the fact that frenotomy would help with the pain. But on the third day, things begin to improve. I now realize that it must have taken Baby a few days to figure out how to use his "new" tongue. We also hear from the pediatrician's office again. The repeat newborn screening test comes back normal. Beautifully normal. I cry with relief.

Week 4.
Things are improving on all fronts. It is the week of Thanksgiving holiday here in the U.S. I have so much to be thankful for.

Perspective

2007-12-05T09:13:00.000-05:00

I had a particularly difficult day yesterday. The lack of sleep was really catching up with me. I have been sleeping for four hours a night and have not had an opportunity to take a nap during the day in more than a week. I was exhausted and cranky. All I wanted to accomplish yesterday was a nap.

But Baby had a different agenda. He decided that the only way he was going to sleep was on the breast. He would fall sound asleep—so asleep that I could not wake him up to continue feeding, no matter how hard I tried. But as soon as I would move him off my lap and into his bassinet, he would wake up and begin wailing—either immediately or within a few minutes. I tried swaddling, rocking, swaying, bouncing, putting him the car seat, putting him in the bouncy chair, putting him in the front carrier. Nothing worked. I spent so much time trying to get him to sleep that eventually it would be time for the next feeding and he would immediately fall asleep nursing. Eventually I dozed off in the glider and woke up with a horrible head and neck ache from my head falling forward when I slept.

“This has been the worst day,” I thought to myself.

Some time later, I turned on the computer and noticed the date. December 4. I felt a pit in my stomach. Exactly a year ago, we found out that we lost the baby that I was carrying, the baby that it took us a year and a half to conceive. A year later, I still feel sick to my stomach when I think of that day. I feel such overwhelming sadness. That was the worst day.

Today, I hold a beautiful boy in my arms. My little miracle. How we ever got so lucky to conceive him on the first regular cycle after that loss, I will never know. But I am so, so grateful for him. And every day with him is a blessing, even if he refuses to sleep or demands to always be held. Every day is a great day when you put it in perspective.

Not quite a trifecta*

2007-11-24T11:58:00.000-05:00

At some point during my third trimester, I asked one of the midwives about when I should head to the hospital when labor begins. She said to give them a call when contractions became regular. “You’ve been through this before,” she remarked, “so you remember what real contractions feel like.” I nodded because I thought I did.

I had stomach cramps most of the day on Friday, nasty gas cramps. Constipation has been a major problem for me throughout this pregnancy, so having gas cramps was nothing new. I did note to myself that they were stronger and more uncomfortable than usual.

The cramps woke me up around 1 a.m. I was starting to get a back ache, too. At 4:30, I woke up again. As I tossed and turned, trying to get back to sleep, I kept glancing at my clock radio and soon realized that these “gas cramps” had a certain pattern to them. It was then that it occurred to me that perhaps these were not gas cramps after all but real contractions. I tried timing the duration of them, but that was not easy to do with the digital clock. I got up and went downstairs, turning on my computer and feverishly trying to finish up some last-minute work. At 5:30, I woke up Husband and called the hospital. The contractions were 7-8 minutes apart lasting about 50-60 seconds. They were uncomfortable, but I could still easily talk through them. The doctor told me to take a shower and call back when the contractions got closer to 5 minutes apart.

At 7 a.m., we were on our way to the hospital. My back was killing me, and I could not talk through the contractions anymore. I remarked to Husband that I didn’t remember having this much pain with Child. At 7:40, the midwife who checked me happily announced, “You are at 7 cm!” Holy shit, I thought, no wonder the pain was so much stronger—I got epidural when I was 4 cm with Child. “I need epidural now,” I said (screamed?). Another midwife piped in, “You are so close, you can do it without the drugs.” “I know I can,” I said (snapped back?), “but I don’t want to.” They were happy to oblige, but they warned me that if my water broke or if I dilated much further, it would be too late for the epidural. Talk about sending this girl into a panic mode: having to give birth without drugs was one of my biggest fears about labor this time around. It felt like it took forever for the anesthesiologist to show up, and the pain was intense. Back labor is no walk in the park, I tell ya. Husband was a rock star, applying pressure to my lower back during the contractions per midwife’s directions. It made the world of difference. L&D nurse, Kate, was amazing too—what a wonderful, calming influence. While we were waiting for the anesthesiologist, I got hooked up to antibiotics for group B strep. The midwife mentioned she was glad I was asking for epidural because they needed to stall my labor—I needed at least four hours of antibiotics before delivery.

9 a.m. Epidural. Sweet relief. ‘Nuf said.

At 11:20, the midwife checked me. “We better set up for delivery now.”

They broke my bag of water. I thought about how odd it was that with Child, having my water break was the first sign of labor, but with this one, the water never broke, even though I was fully dilated and effaced.

I pushed once. “Whoa, hold on, stop pushing,” the midwife said. “Dad, do you want to deliver your son?” Husband looked stunned and a little uncomfortable. “I won’t be offended if you don’t want to do it,” I said. He thought about it for a second and ran to the bathroom to wash his hands.

A minute later I pushed again. And the most amazing thing happened. My husband, the love of my life, pulled out our son, the newest love of my life, from my body and placed him on my belly. 11:38 a.m.

I can not find words right now (doubt if I ever will) to describe what a miraculous moment it was. The struggles, the tests, the interventions, the heartbreaks—they were worth it to have THIS moment.

*Suppose I should explain the title of this post. My birthday is October 24. Husband’s is October 25. Baby was born on October 27. Had he come a day earlier, we would have had a birthday trifecta. Welcome to the Scorpio family, babe.

Can blogging induce labor?

2007-11-20T09:53:00.000-05:00

It happened to A and a few other pregnant bloggers. An unsuspecting blogger writes a post to say that she doesn’t think labor is anywhere near—and BAM! out comes the baby a few hours later.

Less than 24 hours after my last update, Baby made his appearance into the world. He was 8 lbs 15 oz and 20 inches and came exactly a week early (bless his little heart; if he would have stayed in another week or more, he definitely would have outgrown his 9 lbs 5 oz older brother). He is absolutely lovely, and we are completely smitten with him.

And while I had full intentions to write a little more about his birth, he is starting to make those grumpy grunts that mean “get me out of this bouncy chair,” so I better leave that story for another post.

Almost There

2007-10-26T11:40:00.000-04:00

After reading Sarah’s recent entry and realizing that she has way more going on than I do, I decided that there really is no excuse for the fact that I have not updated in almost two months.

I am feverishly trying to wrap things up at work, and it has been stressing me out to a great extent. Hence, my lack of updates or checking in on others’ blogs. I feel like I owe (to whom I am not sure—to myself? to the baby?) a thoughtful, emotional post that reflects on the last days of this pregnancy, most likely my last pregnancy (although that’s definitely a topic of another post). But the work is weighing heavily on me, and I don’t feel in a position to write something—anything—that really makes sense.

So here is the dull and dry update on what’s going on.

Baby: Still not here, but moving around lots, making it somewhat uncomfortable at times, but I can’t complain. I do enjoy feeling him move, even if he kicks my ribs or punches my cervix, making me wince in pain for a few seconds.

Me: Spike in my usually “barely alive” blood pressure around 36-37 weeks. Lots of blood and urine tests (including the lovely 24-hour urine test, which was both gross and comical at the same time). Results come back normal. BP still high a week later, so they begin to worry about preeclampsia. I am sent to the hospital for monitoring for a few hours. More tests. All normal. They send me home with another 24-hour urine test jug (fun!). Modified bed rest prescribed. The 24-hour test comes back with elevated protein levels, but not high enough to think about inducing labor. However, I am to remain on bed rest until the baby arrives. I begin panicking about work—my replacement doesn’t arrive until October 29, and I was planning on spending a week training her. I have so much to do before I leave. Stress is not good for my blood pressure, so it becomes a vicious circle—I worry about work that’s not going to get done, which raises my blood pressure, which makes me worry about the baby coming any day now, which makes me worry about work that’s not going to get done, and so on. The night of October 21, I wake up in painful contractions. I spend the next 90 minutes trying to figure out if there is any pattern to the contractions. I keep saying, “No, not today, I am not ready for this today, I need at least one more week.” And that’s when I finally—and suddenly, as if someone slaps me in the face—snap out of this ridiculous concern about work. I remember how much I wanted this baby. I remember how much I prayed that he be healthy. I remember how much I begged that he would have an actual birthday—not another unrealized due date. And I feel at peace. I feel so excited to meet him, so excited that this could be the day. My contractions fade, and I fall asleep.

My to-do list is still long, and it is still on my mind. But at this point, I am taking it one day at a time. I try to end each work day as if tomorrow I won’t be turning on my computer. The world will continue to turn if my work goes undone. I would still prefer to make it to November 3, the actual due date, but I am ready for my new little man at any time. I can not wait to meet him.

Trouble with Love

2007-09-05T10:26:00.000-04:00

Child was 10 days late. He was scheduled to make his appearance on Saturday after Thanksgiving, but instead we celebrate his birthday in the second week of December. My water broke at home, and the midwife on call suggested that we wait to go to the hospital until the contractions got more frequent and powerful. For some reason, I imagined it would be a mad rush to the hospital when I went into labor. That’s how it is in the movies, right? Instead, we stayed at the house for about six hours, with nothing to do. The bag was already packed. The car seat was installed. What else was there to do? Thus, I chose to spend that time having a major breakdown. Leaning over the exercise ball to help with back labor as I watched reruns of the old Saturday Night Live, I realized that after today, after we walk out the door this evening, my life would never be the same. And I suddenly decided that I very much liked my life the way it was and very much wanted it to remain the same. I didn’t need a change. I was not ready for this baby. Who did he think he was, to just barge into my life and turn it upside down? I already had someone whom I loved more than the world itself. I could not imagine loving anyone—anyone—more than I loved Husband. My heart was full, there were no vacancies. And despite feeling absolutely in love with this little being inside my belly for months and months, despite waiting for his arrival with such excited anticipation, at that very moment, I did not know if I could love this baby as much as he deserved. And so I cried.

By the time we got to the hospital, labor was taking over my body and mind, so I could no longer continue thinking about any of this. I had a task at hand—to deliver the baby.

When they put him on my belly, so long and so big, I could not believe he fit inside me. They cleaned him and swaddled him and gave him to me to hold. He was all mine. With those plump cheeks and red lips and squished nose. I was in awe. He was all mine, and I could not imagine loving anyone more.

There is no question that I want everything to be OK with this baby, the one who is currently swooshing around in my belly. I have wanted him so much and for so long. I absolutely can not wait to meet him, to hold him, to watch him grow. But I have to admit that there are rare moments when I feel just as I did that evening almost four years ago—that everything in my life is perfect just the way it is. I have an amazing husband and a perfect little boy who makes my heart melt. And I wonder if I could ever love this baby as much as I love them. And the guilt of these thoughts is completely overwhelming.

Honey Sweet

2007-08-31T12:16:00.000-04:00

When I first found out that Child was going to be a boy, I was a bit concerned. What am I going to do with a boy? I had no idea how boys worked. I am a girl, after all, and an only child. My mom is a girl, also an only child. My side of the family did not have any exposure to little boys for many, many years. So I felt a bit unprepared for all the boy things. Will I be able to relate to a little boy? In retrospect, my thinking and my concerns were very stereotypical and somewhat sexist. I worried about how I would deal with his thrill-seeking nature, complete lack of fear or inability to stay put for a minute without running off to do something. All those are huge parts of his personality, and I have learned to accept and love them because they are what makes him who he is—a very typical boy. But what I was not prepared for was the amount of love, the compassion, the sweetness, the sensitivity and the caring that are housed in his little body. Nowhere did these attributes exhibit themselves more strongly than in relation to the coming baby.

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Child: Mommy, where is the baby going to sleep?

Me: He will sleep in mommy and daddy’s room in a little crib.

Child: Can the baby please sleep with me in my room? My bed is big enough, and I can keep the baby nice and warm and rub his back if he cries.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When we first told him that a new baby was growing in mommy’s tummy, he asked two questions: How did the baby get there and how is it going to get out. Interestingly enough, although Husband and I discussed how to share this news with Child on several occasions, we were not prepared for those questions coming from a three-year-old. But we managed. Our very basic explanation seemed to satisfy him, and then he said, as if he has been thinking about this for years, “If the baby is a boy, we will name him Alex. If it is a girl, we will name her Sarah.” Mind you, he does not know anyone named Alex, and while we have a friend named Sarah, Child does not see her often enough to think of her name right away. After we found out that the baby was a boy, he renamed the baby Fireman Sam (after a PBS cartoon) and there is absolutely no arguing with him about it. “It is not Sam. It is Fireman Sam.” I think it is starting to grow on me.

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Child: Mommy, is it dark in your belly?

Me: Yes, it is pretty dark.

Child: I don’t want the baby to be scared. Do you think we can get the flashlight to the baby through your belly button? I can share it with the baby, and he can give it back to me when he doesn’t need it anymore.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Every night, before he goes to sleep, he kisses my belly and says goodnight to the baby through my belly button. The routine is repeated in the morning when he wakes up, except at this time, instead of whispering, he treats the belly button as the loud speaker.

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Child: Mommy, can the baby come out now? I really, really miss him.

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During a recent severe thunderstorm, he hugs my belly and says: “Don’t worry, baby. I am here with mommy and I will keep you safe.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Before heading to the hospital to check on the baby when I fell, Child rushed upstairs right as we were heading out the door. Lots of commotion ensued, and he finally emerged from his room dragging the baby car seat, the baby bouncer and a few baby toys that were stored in his closet. “We have to get these set up for the baby. When he comes home, I want him to know I have been waiting for him.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Seriously, sometimes his sweetness makes me cry.

Never a dull moment

2007-08-08T16:28:00.000-04:00

Just when I am ready to finally relax and stop worrying about one thing or another, something new pops up. I guess I am a worrier. I guess it could be a lot worse. And getting this out on virtual paper makes me realize that I am a very fortunate person in so many wonderful ways. So instead of complaining, allow me to simply list two of the adventures of the last few weeks in the most objective manner possible.

1. Child, my fantastic sleeper who slept through the night at a tender age of two months and never really had sleep issues, began having night terrors about three weeks ago. He wakes up roughly two hours after going to sleep, absolutely frantic. His eyes are wide open, he points to the door or the shelf or the wall and either speaks gibberish or says something that absolutely doesn’t make sense (I don’t want babies to blow bubbles, for example). His legs are hard as a rock. He is completely inconsolable. Five to 10 minutes later, he lays down and falls back to sleep. I can’t even begin to tell you how unsettling it is to see your child like this.

At first, we thought he had major leg cramps, and that’s what was waking him up screaming. We thought it was growing pains or potassium/calcium deficiency or just a result of being too active during the day. We pushed water and bananas before bedtime. We massaged his legs. About a week later, we realized that he didn’t acknowledge us when this happened. He was in his own world, completely overcome by fear and not able to snap out of it. And it was then that I finally remembered reading about night terrors a couple of years ago. We.bMD article described his behavior to a tee. Except that I have no idea why he started having those. His sleeping pattern has been the same for a long time, there has been nothing new in our lives (seems that the stay at grandparents was too long ago to be a suspect), he has not seen any scary movies. Not knowing the answer makes me uneasy.

2. Last Friday our nanny was on vacation, so I took the day off to hang out with Child. We had a fantastic day, and after his nap, we headed to a farmer’s market in our neighborhood to pick up some fresh produce. As I was crossing the parking lot, I tripped on the curb and took a dive right in front of a moving car. I was holding Child’s hand and let go before I fell, but he continued holding on, so he went down with me. Thankfully, the car stopped, although it would have been nice if the driver offered to help instead of yelling, “you OK?” through the window. I got up, picked up crying Child who scraped his hands, picked up my bag and moved to the sidewalk to assess the situation. Child calmed down quickly and began the never-ending string of questions (have I ever mentioned that he is incapable of not talking for even a minute) that began with “Why did you fall?” He seemed OK; the jar of jam that I just bought did not break; so it was time to assess me. And that was when Child and I both looked down at my legs, and he started wailing at the sight of blood flowing freely from my scraped knees. Damn, I forgot how much it hurts to scrape you knees! My sweet, compassionate child was in a complete state of panic because he was so worried that I was hurt, so I had to pick him up (the whole 44 pounds of him) and carry him across the parking lot to an ice cream parlor with a bathroom. Thankfully, there was a cake in the display window with a big excavator design, which made him forget his worries and stop crying (because construction vehicles have that impact on three-year-olds), so I could go use the bathroom to clean up the bloody mess.

About half an hour later, as we were driving to the metro to pick up Husband, I noticed a fair amount of discomfort in my belly, and for the first time, the thought hit me like a bolt of lightning: “What if I hurt the baby?” I can not tell you why this did not occur to me earlier. Obviously, taking care of the child who is outside the womb takes a much higher priority than the one inside the womb. I don’t know if this is instinct or what. But I felt like a horrible mother to the baby. I called the doctor, and of course, they told me to come in. So we, as a family, spent a lovely Friday evening at the hospital (I say it sarcastically, although Child actually seemed to have a great time because all of the nurses were doting on him with popsicles and cookies and letting him press all sorts of buttons on the bed).

Everything turned out fine, thankfully, and we were back at home before midnight. But it made me realize just how much I am afraid of preterm labor. As we were checking in, I overheard the nurse making NICU arrangements for a 29-week-old baby boy who was born just minutes ago. Two years ago, a close friend gave birth to a 32-weeker. I knew absolutely nothing about preemies then, so I did all of the reading I could get my hands on. I wanted to know how to support my friend and what was in store for her baby. She is now a tall, chunky, beautiful, brilliant two-year-old. But will that baby boy who was born on Friday night have the same fate? I sure hope so.

So let me make a full circle to the first paragraph. I am grateful for every day that this baby stays in my belly and continues to grow. I am grateful that Child’s nighttime troubles appear to be harmless and do not affect his activities or attitude during the day.

While I am far from grateful for the 110-degree heat index outside (I kid you not), I am grateful for my air conditioner and for the opportunity to spend a few days in Chicago next week to escape the heat.

I am grateful that my life is just the way it is—with some adventures and so many things to be grateful for.

So it WAS nothing, but…

2007-07-23T11:43:00.000-04:00

He is fine. He is perfectly fine. He is perfect. He has two lips and a nose and all those other facial features that we were missing in the last scan. He was very cooperative for the scan and was constantly opening and closing his mouth. It was awesome, and I could not believe how much clearer everything was—compared to a month ago.

But… There is one minor, tiny, completely insignificant to the big picture “but.” He is measuring roughly two weeks ahead of schedule and weighing in at 2 ½ lbs. The significance of the weight did not hit me until I remembered that my most recent weekly e-mail from babycenter said that the baby should be measuring at roughly 1 ¼ lbs. at 24 weeks. Yowza. The lil dude is twice the size of a normal baby at this stage!

And that’s where having a point of comparison becomes both reassuring and somewhat unnerving. It is reassuring because four years ago, Child’s development during this scan measured roughly a week ahead of time and his legs were measuring two weeks ahead, so obviously growing bigger babies is what my body does. It is, however, somewhat unnerving because Child did end up greeting the outside world at 9 ½ lbs., and this makes me wonder just how big this baby is going to be if he is already a week ahead of his older brother.

Husband and I are not small people: he is 6’3”, I am 5’8”, but our weight is in the normal range (though I have been a bit frumpy from lack of regular exercise over the last few yeas). My weight gain in the second trimester has been above average, but I blame a week of glorious food in Vegas for that.

So being a normal, reasonable woman who is not at all prone to overreacting, I have now successfully self-diagnosed myself with gestational diabetes and sentenced myself to a c-section. OK, I am exaggerating a bit, but those thoughts have crossed my mind. Neither of those two issues would be a huge deal, but I would prefer to avoid both.

I have my glucose screen in less than three weeks, so I will have at least one of the answers then. In the meantime, I feel so blessed and so lucky to be where I am. Just look at him, isn’t he gorgeous?

It is probably nothing, but…

2007-07-20T10:17:00.000-04:00

These really aren’t the words you want to hear in relation to your unborn child. Sure, there are much, much worse things to hear, and all of us have played out those scenarios in our heads, so I am not going to go there.

During my last appointment, the OB mentioned that the results of my level 2 scan were not in my file (the ultrasound practice operates independently of my OB/GYN practice and sends the results to the doctor’s office a few days after the u/s is completed). She said she would find my results and give me a call only if there was a problem. That evening, the phone rang, and as soon as I saw the caller ID, my heart started pounding. I did not expect the call; I was so certain that everything looked good—that’s what the radiologist said during the scan. When I picked up the phone, the conversation started with those five words: “It is probably nothing but…” I had to sit down, just in case. The OB did not like what she saw on the pictures of the baby’s face. The pictures of the lips and mouth were either not clear enough or nonexistent (I was panicking, so I can’t remember for sure). She asked if we had any family history of cleft lip or cleft palate. I said that I did not think so, but there is a lot in my family history that I don’t know about. “Would you like to go in for another scan?” Of course, I said yes.

To be completely honest, I am not that worried, which is evident by the fact that I have not googled the condition at all—and that is pretty rare for me. I do actually believe her that it is probably nothing. If it is, indeed, a cleft problem, we’ll deal with it. There are far, far worse things that can happen. I even hesitated to write this post, especially after what Bumble, Watson, Faith and Julia have been going through these last couple of weeks with their babies. But as today’s scan approaches, I am getting more nervous. The baby is a month older now—what if they see something else that wasn’t quite obvious before? What if?

I had lots of worries when I was pregnant with Child, but probably not more than any “regular” first-time mom (meaning, one who did not experience IF or pregnancy loss). He gave us quite a few scares in the first trimester with lots of cramps and bleeding, but even after that, I worried. I worried about what I ate and drank, I worried about accidentally waking up on my back, I worried about water being too hot when getting my pedicure, I worried about not doing enough Kegels, I worried A LOT about labor. (It is amazing how much I do not worry about any those things this time around.) Back then, I could not wait to finally have him out of my body just so I wouldn’t have to worry so much. And then he was born, and I realized that the real worry had only just begun.

You never stop worrying about the “what if.”

The Trip

2007-07-16T22:15:00.000-04:00

Or: When years of good luck come back to bite me in the ass

So as I bitched about previously, the last few months of my work life have been preoccupied with preparing for our company’s annual conference. It is always a busy time for me, but this year, the word busy did even come close to describing it.

But despite multiple snafus, the world continued to turn, and we departed from our lovely East Coast city on a long journey to the West. The trip involved making a two-day stop smack in the middle of the country to drop off Child who was to spend eight days with Husband’s parents while Husband and I (we both work for the same company—and no, that’s not where we met) headed out to work in S.in C.ity. Don’t ask me why I did this, but of the four flights I booked, three departed roughly at 6 a.m. The only flight that didn’t depart before the sun was up actually left when the sun was going down—around 7:45 p.m. It was our first flight of the trip. And it was 3 and a half hours late departing. I went to the airport straight from work (read: uncomfortable clothes and even more uncomfortable shoes). Child was so excited to get on the airplane he woke up an hour early and refused to nap during the day (read: an overtired three-year-old who waited ALL DAY—and that is a LONG time for a three-year-old—just to get on the plane). And there we were, still waiting to board the plane at 11 p.m. When it became clear that we will be able to leave the city after all, I called the car rental company to tell them that we will be arriving to pick up the car around 12:30 a.m. (not 9 p.m., as we expected). To this, the national headquarters told me that all local desks close at midnight, so we will have to wait until 5 a.m. next morning to pick up the car. I negotiated, I pleaded, I begged. “No, ma’am, the desks close at midnight. Our employees need sleep, after all.” Let me just say that this mo-fo probably did not get a good night of sleep after hearing what came out of my mouth next. That’s all I am going to say about that. After hanging up on him, I called the local desk. “Oh, no, ma’am, we don’t close until all flights have landed. And by the way, we are all out of Che.vy Av.eo economy cars that you requested—would it be OK for you to take a Toyo.ta Highl.ander instead, at no extra charge?” There is a special place in heaven for people like Crystal from Omaha airport.

We finally arrived at Husband’s parents around 3 a.m. Exactly 48 hours later, Husband and I kissed our sweet sleeping boy good-bye and drove back to the airport for a 6 a.m. flight to Las Vegas. I got all my crying out of the way the night before, so I was able to say my quiet good-bye without any tears shed. Child handled the separation as well as I could have hoped for. He was lonesome for us, he asked about us, but he enjoyed his time with the grandparents, aunt, uncle and 18-month old cousin. Let me state for the record that everything you hear about grandparents spoiling their grandchildren rotten is true. 100% true. We are still dealing with the fallout from that, after being back for two weeks now.

So at this point, you say, “Oh well, Kate, delayed flight. Not that big of a deal.” And I say, wait, there is more.

We arrived in Vegas roughly as exhausted as we were in week 2 of Child’s life. And that’s before the Conference even began. (For the fear of making this post so ridiculously long that even I won’t have the patience to read through it to self-edit, I will share my thoughts on Vegas in another installment.) Eight days later, after getting three hours of sleep, we headed to the airport for our flight back to pick up Child. I was almost shaking with anticipation of seeing him. I literally teared up every time I thought about seeing his face. During our layover in Denver, we checked the information board and discovered that there was an earlier flight to Omaha, making our layover only 30 minutes instead of two hours. But the grumpy gate attendant told us we could not get on that flight because our bags were already checked on the later flight. We were a bit disappointed, but we patiently waited two hours for our scheduled flight. When we got to the gate to board, we discovered that our plane was downsized from a 130-passenger jet to a 60-passenger one. And all flights to Omaha for the remainder of the day were full (it was 10 a.m. at this point). Panic ensued. People were yelling. People were shoving. People were crying. Someone was going to miss a sister’s wedding. Someone was going to miss an important business meeting. Someone was going to be picked up by an elderly brother who lives four hours from the airport and there was no way to contact him to tell him to go back. It was madness.

We have seen the Amazing Race, so instead of joining the chaos, Husband pulled out the cell phone and called a travel agent. There were three seats on a flight to Omaha at 10 p.m. that night. “Hold them,” said Husband. And it was at this point that I realized that I was not going to see my boy that day. No matter what—whether we took the evening flight, drove 10 hours to get to Omaha or stayed in Denver overnight, I was not going to see him (at least not see him awake) on that day. And I lost it. I sat down in the corner and completely broke down. I tell you this because I don’t think I could ever understand this reaction if I saw someone else breaking down like this. I would have thought, “that seems like overreacting.” And maybe it was. Maybe it was the fatigue, the hormones, whatever, but I could not stop crying. So if you were at the Denver airport in late June and saw a pregnant woman in a purple shirt sitting in a corner and weeping, don’t think less of her. She just wanted to see her baby.

We spent another three hours at the airport: first one, trying to make sure our bags were staying in Denver, and the other two—in line at Customer Service to figure out what the airline will reimburse us for. By that time, it was too late to drive. We opted not to take the evening flight to Omaha because it would have made for a long day at the airport, another really late night and an inconvenience for Husband’s parents who would have had to drive 90 minutes to the airport in the middle of the night to pick us up. We decided to stay in Denver and take a 6:30 flight (yes, I am not kidding, another 6 o'clock flight) the next morning. The airline gave us vouchers for food and hotel. We grabbed lunch at a Mexican chain restaurant at the airport, where Husband ordered soft tacos. Instead, he got hard-shelled tacos. And that was the end of the rope for him. All he wanted was for SOMETHING to go right. At least something as simple as tacos. If he only knew what was to come next.

At the baggage claim our bags were not there, despite the fact that we spent an hour making sure and being completely assured that our bags did not go to Omaha on the original flight but instead stayed in Denver. So we were left to spend the night in Denver with only my purse, Husband’s laptop and “Build Your Own Monster” gift for Child. The hotel the airline put us in was 40 minutes away, and when we finally checked in and entered our room, ready to collapse from exhaustion and frustration, we discovered that someone already had that idea: there was a half-naked man sleeping on the bed in our room. At that point, there was nothing else to do but laugh. We exchanged the key in hopes of getting a room without existing occupants, and that’s when we got a call (…cue the angels singing…) from our lovely, amazing friend who lives north of Denver, telling us that he just got our message and is on his way to come rescue us from this place, treat us to as many drinks as necessary (oh, how I needed one!) and supply us with toothpaste, toothbrushes, a hot shower and a comfy bed in his gorgeous house in the mountains, not to mention a chance to catch up with his fabulous family and two adorable Golden Retrievers.

And that (...cue triumphant music...) was the end of our misfortune. Seeing Child’s smiling face and excited “Mommy, Daddy!” the next morning as soon as he spotted us standing at the curb at Omaha airport was the sweetest sight of all, and I could barely hold in the tears. And he didn't mind me hugging the heck out of him.

The moral of the story is… Who am I kidding, there is no moral. It is just a huge brain dump of complaining. I know that shit happens when you travel. But this shit doesn’t happen to me—hence the sub-title of this post. We travel a lot—for work and for pleasure. But in the 10+ years that Husband and I have been together, we’ve had fewer delayed/missed flights than I can count on two hands. The bad luck finally caught up with us on this one. I just hope that now we are delay-free for another 10 years.

Due Date

2007-07-11T11:10:00.000-04:00

Dear baby not to be,

Today would have been your due date. 7-11. The OB at my first appointment joked that with this due date, I should get a free slurpy. It wasn’t funny then, and it isn’t now.

They were right, time does dull the pain. But I still think of you every day. I am still sad that I never got to meet you. I am still heartbroken that my body failed you. Other than a digital picture of the positive pregnancy test, there is no proof that you ever existed. And yet I miss you so much.

I wish I had you in my arms today. Instead, I wipe my tears and stare at the little angel figurine holding a child. I hope the angel is taking good care of you, my baby. I miss you.

In-Between Hiatus

2007-06-19T10:57:00.000-04:00

...Or is it hiatuses? Does hiatus come in plural?

In any case, I can’t even begin to describe how hectic the last two months have been—mostly because of work. I admit, I blog during work. When else would I do it? Between a full-time job, attention-requiring three-year-old, preschool pick up and drop off, taking care of the house (oh, who am I kidding, the house is a mess, I am a complete failure as a housekeeper) and attempting to have a little bit of child-free time to catch up with Husband in the evenings—the only time I can write is when I am at work. Call me a bad employee. I call it therapy. I love blogging because it gives me time to think. It makes me feel better. Sometimes, it even helps me figure out why I feel the way I do. Work has been so incredibly busy for the last two months that I have not had a chance to take a break to think and write. But lying awake in the middle of the night, I found myself composing posts in my head—and while that didn’t quite have the therapeutic power of writing, it did help me sort a lot of thoughts out. Otherwise, I would be a basket case by now.

And I wish I could tell you that the reason I am writing today is because the insanity is finally over. Alas, it isn’t. This evening, I am leaving town for two weeks to attend the conference that I have been so busy preparing for. In route to the conference, we are dropping Child off at my in-laws in the Midwest (since Husband is working at the said conference as well). I am looking forward to visiting a city I have never been to. I can’t wait to catch up with old friends who decided to make a trip and meet up with us while we are at the conference. I am exhausted to even think about the crazy schedule ahead of me. I am concerned about finding the right balance between taking it easy on myself because I am pregnant—and not appearing incapable or in need of special treatment because I am pregnant. I am salivating already just thinking about amazing restaurants we’ll get to dine at on the company dollar.

Most of all, I am torn between these two: I am beyond thrilled to spend some child-free time with the man I love but I am almost in tears every time I think of leaving the Child without his parents for eight days. We did it once before, two years ago, when the conference was in California. He did well, but he was only 18 months old then. He is 3 ½ now—and so much more aware of the world. I know he will have a good time with his grandparents. He has been excited about this visit for weeks, asking nearly every day when we are going to grandma and grandpa’s house, and last night he was so excited he could not fall asleep until past 11 p.m. But I also know that he will be sad and he will miss us much more than he did two years ago. And it makes my heart ache.

…Breathe in, breathe out…

A lot has happened since I went on my blogging hiatus, but everything pales in comparison to last week’s level II scan. We have a perfectly growing baby with a beautiful profile, 10 fingers, 10 toes and very unmistakable boy parts. When I was pregnant with Child, everyone around me was sure that it would be a boy. So the ultrasound was no surprise. This time around, there wasn’t quite as much consensus, but a good 80% of people thought it would be a girl. So I went in with that expectation—and the surprise of it was absolutely amazing. I do not have enough words to describe just how excited I am to have a boy. Is it wrong to want more of what I already have? Two boys who may grow up to be as amazing as their dad? I can’t think of a better wish.

I have talked a lot about detachment and disconnect I have felt with this pregnancy. They are no more. While I know that a lot of things can still go wrong in the next 20 weeks, this pregnancy finally feels real and not consumed by fear. And having a boy is a big contributor to that. Don’t get me wrong, all I want is a healthy baby. I would be very, very excited about a girl, but I think I would have a bit more apprehensive about it, just because it is an unknown territory for me. With a boy, I know what to expect. And he could be—and probably is quite likely to be—completely different than Child, but at least I know what to expect at the beginning.

We are half way through this pregnancy, and I really hope that the second half is much more peaceful and relaxed than the first.

I am

2007-05-23T16:40:00.000-04:00

Lovely Sarah tagged me (my first tag, yay) with the I Am meme. And the only thing I can write in relation to this is:

I AM BUSY.

So busy at work it is not even funny. The busiest I have ever been in the three+ years in this job. And the outlook is not good. I am pretty sure at least one of my projects is going to fall behind (no fault of mine—I got my stuff done way before the deadline), and I am going to get some serious beating for it (because that’s what you get when you are considered a project manager).

In about 10 days, it should get better, at least somewhat better. And I promise to write the meme then, as well as millions of other thoughts that have been swirling in my head.

Going backward

2007-04-25T16:24:00.000-04:00

The NT scan was yesterday. In the words of the doctor, “sonographically, everything looks fine.” The results of the scan analysis, combined with the blood work, should come back by the end of this week. The baby looked good, moving around a lot, giving all sorts of trouble to the doctor who tried to take measurements. It is amazing what a difference six weeks make—a little bean then and a lot more like a real person now.

I know this is ridiculous and pathetic and why the hell can’t I just be positive, but every time I see the image of the baby on that grainy grey screen, I am surprised to see a heartbeat. I know I am not unique in feeling this way—many bloggers who are pregnant after IF or pregnancy loss talk about this feeling of detachment and always expecting the worst. But it bothers me because, well, I feel like I don’t really have much feelings for this baby. I feel horrible saying this because I wanted a baby so badly and I really want this pregnancy to work out. But here I am, with a beautiful, growing person in my belly—and I am not in love with it.

After yesterday’s scan and because the end of the first trimester is near, I was thinking that it is time to come out to friends and colleagues about the pregnancy (although I am sure my protruding gut has caused at least some speculation). Different announcements kept running through my mind.

We are having a baby...

Child is going to be a big brother...

We are having our second one...

And that’s where my mind stopped dead in its tracks. Our second one? No, this is our third. (or fourth, although I don’t think much about that very short-lived chemical years ago…). And I think for the first time, I realized that my overall lack of excitement about this pregnancy is not only for self-preservation. It is also because deep down I feel guilty for being happy about this new life while I am still grieving the loss of another life. It seems unfair to that baby, the baby we lost, the baby that could have been.

How do I let go of that guilt? How do I start living in the now—and not then?

Grief

2007-04-17T13:08:00.000-04:00

Over the weekend, I got worried e-mails from both of my parents (they are divorced) asking about how we’ve been affected by the nasty weather that’s been hitting this part of the country. To be honest, it has affected me quite minimally, other than the cabin fever one experiences when stuck indoors with an energetic three-year-old for an entire weekend and being generally pissed at the crashing temps that went from 82 degrees to 32 degrees in 72 hours, resulting in two inches of snow Easter weekend, then back up to 60s during the week and down to 40 with pouring rain and 60 mile an hour winds on the weekend. But then on Monday, local schools (including Child’s preschool) closed three hours early because of the weather, and as I was leaving work to pick him up, I was composing a post about how shitty this spring has been weather-wise and how unfair it is because spring and fall are the only tolerable seasons in this city while winter and summer just plain suck.

In an effort to get the forecast, I turned on the radio. And then I heard about Virginia Tech. And everything else became insignificant.

I know there is horrible injustice happening daily in many parts of the world. But this hit so close to home for me, literally and figuratively. Virginia Tech is just a few hours from where I live. My friend’s family just got back home to Blacksburg from their daughter’s wedding when this happened. Husband’s boss’s niece is in stable condition at a local hospital, recovering from three gun wounds. I am sure I will hear more stories from friends and colleagues as more of them receive and share news from their loved ones.

In reading Sarah’s post last week, I thought of my uncle’s funeral where my grandma said that a parent should never have to bury a child, no matter how old. I can’t wrap my mind around what happened at VA Tech. I can’t even begin to analyze it. I simply hurt so much for these people, the parents who have to bury their children.

Scared (updated again)

2007-04-11T10:23:00.000-04:00

Over the last 24 hours, my symptoms appear to be fading. I have been so very miserable for a month, but yesterday, I started to feel better. Suddenly, I had an appetite. Food began to taste good. And when I ate, I did not get sick 10 minutes later. I even had a piece of cheesecake that I made for Easter—something that I knew would set me over the edge—but it didn’t. I still had minor bouts of nausea throughout the day, but they were so very minor compared to the misery of the last four weeks. This morning, I was able to get out of bed without eating something first. And I didn’t throw up. Actually, I spent almost an hour without eating, and yet I didn’t feel like I was going to collapse.

For the first time in over a month, I took my morning temp. 97.6. Still above my 97.3 coverline, but below 98.1, my last reading in early March.

10 weeks and 3 days. I should not be feeling better yet; it is too early to lose the symptoms. I keep telling myself that maybe I just had a good day yesterday. Maybe this is just a fluke.

This weekend, I passed the point when the last pregnancy went to hell. I don’t want to go down that road again, even though I know there is nothing I can do to avoid it if that's where it's headed.

I am so scared.

**Update: Spoke to the midwife at my OB/GYN practice (some day, I will write a glowing post about how much I love the collaborative nature of my practice where doctors practice alongside midwives and what an amazing difference that makes for me). She said what I expected her to say: it could be nothing or it could be something. I have an appointment on Friday morning. Of course, being the idiot that I am, I asked, "I already have an appointment for Monday--should I just wait until then?" And being a sweet and smart woman that she is, she said, "Do you want to go on worrying over the weekend?" Thank you, Gina, for providing the voice of reason.

**Friday update: We’ve got a beautiful heartbeat. 165. Didn’t even need to pull out a sonogram machine—we heard the heartbeat clearly through Doppler, despite my funky inverted uterus. Our chances of miscarriage just went down from 20% to 3%. Woo-hoo! Symptoms also have returned yesterday, although not quite with the same intensity, for which I am grateful. This pregnancy may actually work out. Next stop: nuchal translucency u/s on April 23. Thank you guys so much for your support and prayers.

Note to Self

2007-03-28T10:01:00.000-04:00

Dear Kate,

Some day, you will have another two-year-old in your house and you will question your ability as a parent. You will be pulling your hair out on a daily (hourly?) basis wondering what you did wrong to turn your sweet baby into an evil, emotionally unstable monster. You will spend hours each day just wishing for him to go to sleep so you could get a break, and when he is finally asleep, you will look at his angelic face with those fat cheeks and those plump lips and those long curly eyelashes and hate yourself for not enjoying your time with him and call yourself a horrible, impatient mother. And then he will wake up, and you will once again count down the hours until he is asleep again.

It is at those moments that I want you to remember that there is light at the end of the tunnel. 3 is just around the corner. And 3 is just plain lovely.

3 is reasonable. 3 can be negotiated with (and 3 will like to negotiate, too). 3 understands the idea of a reward for desirable behavior. 3 can sort of spend some time on his own. 3 goes to his room, sulking, when he is mad—unlike 2, who throws a fit right in front of you (and everyone else around you) and tries to bite you or kick you. 3 tells you he is sorry and means it. 3 is either polite or shy in his interactions with others—unlike 2, who loudly says “you bad” or “I no want you talk to me” when greeted by a store clerk/neighbor/grandparent/etc. 3 can make his own choices and delight in them—unlike 2, who always picks the second choice (Apple or orange? Orange. Red pencil or blue pencil? Blue pencil.) and then freaks out and screams “I no want it” when you give him exactly what he chose. Just like 2, 3 insists on doing things “by myself”—but unlike 2, 3 is actually able to do those things by himself. 3 listens and follows directions and remembers things for more than 10 seconds. 3 tells you he loves you and means it. 3 wants to give you hugs and kisses and tells you, “You are a nice girl, mommy.”

3 will have his own quirks. 3 will perfect the notion of stalling. 3 will ask endless “why” questions. 3 will begin experimenting with lying. 3 will occasionally throw a 2-like tantrum. 3 will try to play you against your husband. 3 will talk nonstop. 3 is loud (but not as loud as 2). 3 will have significantly more physical strength, so roughhousing with 3 will bring on new injuries for you.

But 3 is lovely. It is loving, sweet, energetic, compassionate and kind. 3 is a different world. And if by writing this, I have jinxed the remaining eight months of 3, the last four months still have been totally worth it.

She's a Brick. House.

2007-03-22T10:55:00.000-04:00

I promise I won’t do this often, but I have to right now. A month ago, I used to read other women complaining of morning sickness and sore breasts and uncomfortable sleep and thougth how lucky they were and wished that I could be in their place. Well, sometimes you have to be careful what you wish for.

Symptoms suck this time around. Just as it was with Child, I made it to six weeks with nothing more than increased appetite and fatigue. And at precisely six weeks, it all went to hell. I am dead tired. All. The. Time. I feel dizzy. I am constantly nauseous. The sensitivity to smell is killer. There is no better way to describe it than a really bad hangover that has been with me for almost two weeks now. I just want to throw up so that I could feel better—but although this helps with hangover, it does not appear to make any difference with morning sickness.

The only time I feel relatively normal is when I eat. But roughly 10 minutes after I eat, I begin to feel sick again. And another 10 minutes later I begin to feel hungry, which makes me feel even sicker. So I eat again, which means that I eat every 20 minutes. Do you see where I am going with this? By the time all is said and done, I will be roughly the size of a HOUSE. And while we could definitely use a trade-up to a larger house from our two-bedroom townhome, I don’t think my eating and becoming a house myself will solve our cramped-for-space problems. I have not stepped on the scale because I am afraid of what I will see. I gained about 40 pounds with Child, which was above the recommended 25-35 pounds, but I brushed it off because in the end, I pushed out a 9 ½ pound baby and was pretty damn proud of myself. But this time, I am getting worried because in addition to eating constantly, I am not eating too much healthy stuff. The thought of vegetables—especially salad—repulses me. I am craving carbs—crackers, pasta, bread, pastries, you name it. And cheese. I can eat ridiculous amounts of cheese (although that’s nothing new—the ability to consume cheese, chocolate and fire-roasted marshmallows in quantities unimaginable to normal people is the skill I have been developing for many years now). I am also going all nutty for fruit, especially juicy, sweet and tart fruit like berries. Unfortunately, here in the mid-Atlantic, berries are not in season in March, so I have to pay ridiculous amounts of money for less-than-desirable-quality strawberries and blueberries.

Possibly the most frustrating part of nausea is that I can not handle drinking water. It makes me gag. And that is very odd for me—I am a water freak. I go through at least 3 liters of water a day. And I know the importance of hydration right now—I just can’t make myself drink it. Ugh.

Among the less annoying, yet still unpleasant symptoms:

Boobs getting increasingly sore every day, although they do not exhibit any sign of growth—something that I would really appreciate, being an A cup and all.
Gums bleeding like an SOB every time I floss.
Frequent nosebleeds.
Getting up in the middle of the night to pee and not being able to fall asleep.
Heart racing really fast all of a sudden.
Mild cramps on and off, making me worry that something must be wrong. (Seriously, should I be calling the doctor about this? It is nothing major—like mild pre-AF cramps—but is that normal? I think I am going to go scare myself now by checking with Dr. Google).
Oh, and Child is sick again, so I am sure to add a lovely collection of snot, watery eyes and hacking cough to my list of symptoms by this weekend. And Husband is out of town all next week, so yeah, it is going to be a good week. Not.

OK, now that the complaining is off my chest, here is the disclaimer. Every time I feel particularly crummy, I remind myself that all of these things are good signs (except for cramps--see how I have already started to freak myself out?). That it will be worth it in the end. That these same symptoms (though much, much—did I mention MUCH?—milder) brought me Child, the coolest kid I have ever met.

Anonymity

2007-03-21T10:11:00.001-04:00

I began writing here to help me sort things out. I am prone to depression—at least I think so, although I have never gone to a professional to talk about this. Let’s say that I am definitely prone to being overwhelmed by life—which then spirals into feelings of loneliness, sadness and helplessness.

When I am down, it helps me to talk things over or write my thoughts down. I didn’t realize just how much this helped me until my miscarriage last year. Getting those thoughts out on a virtual piece of paper was a tremendous relief, and in the end, it helped me understand when I was ready to move on.

At that same time, as I was struggling with my thoughts, I began reading other blogs, finding comfort in the stories of others who have been there and crying with those who were going through even tougher challenges. After lurking for a while, I began feeling compelled to comment on some entries—especially when the writer was going through a difficult time and needed some support. I began commenting anonymously at first, but soon came across a few places where I had to sign in to be able to comment. I knew what this meant—that I was cracking the door to my blog a little bit, potentially inviting someone in. And someone came. And it felt so good.

But with time, a sense of uncertainty settled in. None of the people I know in real life know about this blog. I don’t think I want them to. This is my space, I want to be me, and I am afraid that if someone I know in real life discovers this space, I will have to be careful in what I say. I like this space just the way it is—open, personal, uncensored. But it also feels weird—and perhaps somewhat dishonest—to keep this space a secret, particularly from those closest to me—like Husband, the person I used to tell everything to. Will it come back to bite me in the ass if someone I know eventually stumbles upon it? How do I maintain my anonymity? Or should I just get over it?

Ultrasound

2007-03-15T09:51:00.000-04:00

[I wrote this entry yesterday, but I could not bring myself to post it because of this and this. I cried and cried. I do not deserve this happiness when there is so much sorrow in the hearts of these two wonderful women. So I felt guilty posting. I am so sorry, Adrienne and Larisa.]

I had a few panic attacks this morning before the ultrasound. Shortness of breath, clammy hands, heart pounding so hard I thought my whole body was shaking. “You shouldn’t worry so much,” Husband said, “it is not good for the baby.” “I can’t just turn it off,” I snapped back. I did really well since last week, but last night, the panic set back in.

“We could expect anything,” Husband reminded me when we parked the car. “Yes, anything,” I thought and tightened by grip on his hand.

I did not look at the screen. I covered my eyes with my hands. It felt like I was here just yesterday. I could not stand the thought of seeing another disappearing life.

And then she said, “And here is your little person.” My heart stopped. “And I see a heartbeat,” I heard Husband say. And all of a sudden, I felt as if I woke up. I looked at the screen and I cried. She said the baby looked perfect, measuring precisely at 6 weeks and 3 days, with a heartbeat of 113. I cried again when she left the room. I buried my head in my husband’s chest. He hugged me. “We are having a baby,” he whispered, and I saw that his eyes were wet.

By the time I got home, I felt different. I felt free. It felt real. I have a baby with a beating heart. I don’t know why I feel so positive. I have made it this far before; it was a month later into the pregnancy that it all crashed and burned. But I am not going to question it. I can’t completely turn off the worry, but I want to allow myself to feel good about this. We are having a baby.

Sleepless

2007-03-08T17:02:00.000-05:00

I was awake most of the night last night. I have fallen asleep on the couch just about every night for about a week, but last night, I could not sleep. I am coming down with another respiratory bug (ugh). But it wasn’t the scratchy throat that was keeping me up. My mind was racing. I had gone in for another blood test earlier that day, and while I was waiting for the results, I began thinking bad thoughts. You know, the “what if” thoughts.

I wonder if it’s self-preservation. I keep telling myself to let go of fear. This is out of my hands now. I can’t lock the door and keep this baby inside if it is not meant to be. I keep telling myself to enjoy it while it lasts—however long or short that may be. But I can’t seem to be able to let go of this fear. Lying awake, I kept preparing myself for the bad news. The low numbers. The unviable pregnancy numbers. I pictured how I would react, how I would try to hold it together if the call came while I was in the office, how I would tell Husband. Reading Adrienne’s suggestion to try to visualize this baby (as the cab driver thought me), I realized that I have not given any thought to whether it was a boy or a girl. I have not thought of names. I have not pondered creative ways to make the announcement to our parents or co-workers. Looking back at the last 10 days, I realize that I have not really thought of anything positive about this pregnancy because my mind was so focused on preparing for the worst. And that’s so depressing because I want so badly for this pregnancy to work. But it is self-preservation, so I mustn’t feel guilty about feeling this way.

When morning came, I felt better. This may sound odd, but after all that thinking and tossing and turning, I felt somewhat prepared for the bad news. But I also held out hope. When the call came, my hands were shaking and my voice was quivering. An unfamiliar voice asked for Kate. “Why isn’t this Kathy, the nurse who always calls me? Did Kathy not want to give me the bad news?” I thought. In a dry, emotionless voice, the nurse went on about getting my results back and how I should call for a sonogram appointment. “A sonogram?” I asked. “We wanted your numbers to be above 5,000 before you could go in for a sono to check on viability,” she said. “And?” I said, my heart jumping out of my chest. “Your test came back at 19,227.” And like an idiot, I asked, “Is that a good number?”

Ummm, yeah, that’s a good number. Before calling Husband, I checked betabase.info to make sure I knew exactly how good this number was. It is definitely in the upper range for 24dpo, but so was my earlier number of 675 at 15dpo. There is a huge variation in HCG numbers, so I am not going to let my mind wander over to a place where it starts to think these higher-than-average numbers mean that we are going to have a high-risk pregnancy with multiples or a molar pregnancy (which, I guess, wouldn’t be that unlikely since I had a D&C in early December)—and oh my god, why can’t I just be happy with a good, solid number? Bad mind, bad, stop wandering.

So there you have it. I am ready to be consumed by positive thoughts. I am going to make myself think positive thoughts. I have six full days until the ultrasound on Wednesday, and I am damn sure going to think positively and get excited.

Visualizing

2007-03-07T13:51:00.000-05:00

Bumble’s recent post got me thinking about how we visualize our children before they are born (or even conceived). And it reminded me of a very strange encounter I had when I was barely pregnant with Child. I was just a few weeks along, definitely not far enough to exhibit any visible signs of pregnancy. I worked downtown (how I hated that 1 ½-hour one-way commute!), and on that particular day, I was taking a cab to a client’s office for a meeting. I rarely took a cab there—I usually just walked because it was about 15 blocks away, and I enjoyed some fresh air—but on this day, I was running late, so I hopped in the cab.

The driver was a woman in her 50s, with long braided hair, wearing a long, flowery sundress. As soon as I got in the car and told her the address of my destination (it was a government building, not a hospital), she asked if I was going to the doctor to check on the baby. “I don’t have a baby,” I said. “No? Then you will soon,” she replied. “I can just picture him by looking at you,” she continued. “A little boy, about 2 or 3, with curly blonde hair, blue eyes, playing in the pile of fallen leaves.” I was speechless. It gave me chills—not only because she could sense and see my baby, but because I could see him, too. After the shock wore off, I dismissed it—I told myself it was just an easy guess since I have fairly light, curly hair and light-colored eyes. But this visualization kept coming back to me. And every time, it gave me chills. I have goose bumps writing about it even now.

And now I have this child. He is 3, he is blonde, he has sky-blue eyes, his hair is incredibly curly, and he loves jumping in the piles of leaves in the fall. The image is a touch different from reality but only because his hair is thicker and shorter than the wispy curls I imagined then. But it is him, the little boy the cab driver told me about.

I so much wish I could find her now. I really need her help in telling me that this baby will be OK, too.

It's good in bread

2007-03-05T16:19:00.000-05:00

[Warning: Acceptable TMO-level breach ahead. Please exit while you still can.]

Did you know that yeast infection is very common in pregnancy? Well, it is, and I am apparently the living proof of it. If someone would have told me about this earlier, I would have drowned myself in active-culture yogurt or any damn preventive measure I could get my hands on. But no one told me.

I have a very strong love-hate relationship with yeast, minus the love part. Before now, my body and yeast got together three times. First time, it was an unpleasant surprise, but it went away without much struggle and I could finally say, “well, now I know what a yeast infection feels like. Mark that off my to-do list.”

Second time, it surfaced a day before we were leaving for a trip to attend our friends’ wedding. Recognizing the symptoms, I went to the pharmacy and picked up an OTC treatment. I woke up the next morning feeling like I was on fire. I was in enough pain to actually consider canceling the flight and skipping the wedding. I didn’t, but what I learned from the experience is that the OTC stuff does not get along with my privates.

And then there was a third time, when yeast arrived in the place I was not expecting—my breasts. And this particular encounter with yeast was worse than any pain I have ever experienced. Labor was a piece of cake compared to yeast—not only in the intensity of the pain, but also due to the fact that this pain engulfed me every two hours. For two months.

Those Lamaze breathing techniques that did nothing for me during labor finally came handy for pain management during breastfeeding. Child was a lazy eater, and he was tongue-tied (which means that his tongue did not come out as far as necessary to have a good latch). But after crying and biting my lip at every feeding session for an entire first month of his life because it felt like someone was jabbing needles in my nipples and down my breasts—not only at latch-on but throughout the whole feeding, I finally confessed to a friend that I didn’t know how much longer I could do this. And instead of telling me that “it will get better” if I gave it time or that I must just have a lower tolerance for pain, as my mom and the lactation consultant told me, she actually said, “I think you should call a doctor and ask if it could be yeast.” And so it was. It took three two-week rounds of high-dose Diflu.can to finally get rid of it.

So now, yeast comes into my life again. It has been a full week since I filled the prescription for treatment—and I am still not feeling quite right. To add to the stress, after taking the treatment, I read the medical pamphlet that came in the box and found out that this drug is pregnancy category C. What the frick? Do I not have enough to worry about with this pregnancy? I mean, I know the doctor who prescribed it was also the doctor who confirmed my pregnancy, in the same appointment, so she would not give me something that would be bad for the baby… But what if she had a major brain fart and just forgot? And more importantly, this treatment doesn’t even seem to be working! So what’s next? I have eaten so much yogurt that even the thought of it makes me sick. Thank goodness for Kefir.

Bedtime

2007-03-01T22:40:00.000-05:00

When Husband travels (and he does so frequently), the Child reacts in two ways: by being an absolute pain in the ass the entire time or by being a pure angel. This trip, he was in the latter category. Or so I thought—until tonight.

Ever since we moved him from a crib to a "big boy" bed in mid January, his night-time routine seems to have extended to last roughly an eternity.

1. Read books
2. Brush teeth
3. Use the potty
4. Put on jammies
5. Lights off
6. Tell a story
7. Sing a song
8. No, two songs
9. No, four songs
10. Rub back
11. Two more times
12. Rub belly
13. Don’t forget to say "ding" when finished rubbing belly
14. Lay down for "one minute"
15. Tuck in
16. Say night-night, sweet dreams
17. Walk out but leave the door cracked open

Mind you, six weeks ago, this routine ended at step #6. But more than that, over the last month, he has absolutely mastered the skills of stalling. And this has added the following steps.

18. Can I have some water? (I usually give in to this, but only once)
19. Can I have a snack? (No way, dude)
20. I need to go potty. (I gave in to this one a few times, but there is always “nothing coming” since step #3 took place just half an hour ago)
21. I need someone to sleep with me (see response to #19)
22. I want a truck/engine/train tracks/Pooh bear/polar bear/puppy/you-name-it to sleep with me. (I usually try a preemptive strike on this one and ask him which toy he wants in bed before I proceed to step 17)
23. I need a book. (Usually ignored)
24. I am too hot/I don’t like these pajamas. (See response to #23)
25. I am too cold/I need someone to cover me. (See response to #23)
26. I am not tired. (See response to #23)

Not all of these happen every night. But at least three or four are a pretty sure bet.

Tonight, however, I did the unthinkable. I skipped steps 7 through 9. I tried #7, but my choice of song was dismissed, so I said, "Fine, no songs then." He seemed fine with it. We finished the routine, and I rushed off because the phone was ringing—and it was the said traveling husband, who usually doesn’t have much opportunity to chat while he is traveling. So I really wanted to get the phone. And then, my angel was no longer an angel.

Of the two of us, I am usually the parent who gives in more easily. I tend to discipline less. And therefore, I get taken advantage of much more. I have really struggled with this last summer because my feelings were hurt so often (how strange is it that a two-year-old can hurt a grown woman’s feelings...). So I am really trying to change that. I mean, I still want to be me—I want to be a mom who comforts and loves, but I want to be treated with respect. So I am more firm. I follow through on my word. And I think we have a much better relationship now (plus, being out of the terrible twos really helps).

So tonight, when stalling attempts continued, I didn’t give in. After being turned down for every request, the Child remembered that I didn’t sing a song. And when I said no, oh, the flood gates opened. At first he cried and wailed, but when he realized that he was being ignored, he got mad. He screamed. And screamed. His requests were getting more and more unreasonable. This went on for roughly 30 minutes. 30 looooooooooooong minutes. I finally couldn’t stand listening to this any longer, so I opened the door and told him that if he wanted the fire truck, he could get up and get it since it was right at the foot of his bed. "But I will be too cold," he said. What the fuck? "Child, you get your fire truck or stop crying." So he did. He got the fire truck. And then he flung it across the room.

And that’s where I snapped. I yelled at him. Got right in his face and yelled at him. And right away, I knew I was wrong. I am not a yelling type. I don’t believe in yelling or spanking or biting back when the child bites you or any of that bullshit. I disagree with that wholeheartedly. Abusive behavior is not the lesson you want your child to learn. So I hated myself for yelling. He started screaming even louder, so I walked out and closed the door—for my sake, not his. It was my way of putting myself in timeout. What I forgot was that this went against step #17 ("walk out and leave the door cracked open"). And so he continued to flip out of the next 15 minutes because of that. During this time, I was trying to decide whether going back there would be giving in. He finally cried so much that he started coughing and gagging, and I could not stand it any longer. I gave in. I went upstairs and opened the door. As soon as the door was open, he stopped. He saw me standing in the doorway, lied down and buried his face in the pillow, away from me. I waited a few moments, then sat down next to him. I told him that I was sorry for yelling and that I yelled because he made me mad, but that was the wrong thing to do. He told me I made him sad. And he was smiling. We said our goodnights, and that was it.

So did I fail twice tonight? I know I failed because I yelled. That was wrong. But did I also give in in the end? His happy smile at the end—that’s what puzzled me. Was he so happy because he got his way? Or was it because we were friends again, neither of us mad at each other?

They say three is a magic number. Where do I get a magic wand to help me parent a three-year-old?

A Tribute

2007-02-28T16:58:00.000-05:00

There aren’t many men like him.

He was only 16 when the war began. He faked his date of birth, telling the Army that he was 17 and enlisted. A 16-year-old soldier who walked in front of the tank. One of his biggest regrets was that because of his injuries, he didn’t get to roll into Berlin with his brigade and celebrate victory.

He was critically wounded twice. A bombshell that exploded next to him cut off his right thumb and showered his body with shrapnel. Some of it was so close to his spine that doctors decided not to remove it because it may have paralyzed him. This shrapnel now sets off metal detectors in airports. He always laughs at that.

The second time, he was wounded in the legs. When the doctors decided to amputate his legs because of gangrene was setting in, he begged them to give him another day. “Today, you’ll lose your legs up to the knees, but if we wait until tomorrow, it will be up to your hips.” But he insisted. And the next day, the infection subsided.

He was on crutches for two years after that. When he fell and was taken to the hospital, he met a nurse. After being released, he asked her out. And married her a year later. They had a daughter two years later. And another 27 years later, their daughter had a daughter, who couldn’t pronounce his name, so she called him Goga, which was just baby-speak, but it became his new name. Everyone—his family, friends, neighbors, colleagues—now know him as Goga.

For many years, he worked as an engineer at a heavy machinery plant that had a secret weapon production arm. He knew nothing of it, but because of his employment with the plant, he was prohibited from traveling abroad until 15 years after his retirement for the fear that he may disclose some sensitive information. After that, he traveled only twice. He retraced his fellow soldiers’ steps to Berlin for a documentary film, pondering why people in the country that lost the war were so much better off than people in the country that won it. A few years later, he flew overseas to attend his granddaughter’s wedding, where, despite not knowing the local language, he won the hearts of so many people.

His passion for helping people is intense. After he retired, he got involved with a local veterans’ committee and it became his mission in life. Even after he couldn’t drive anymore, he hopped from one public bus to another, every day, to meet with the government officials to advocate for the veterans’ cause or help someone get groceries or fill their prescription or make funeral arrangements. When those war-wounded legs started to give him trouble and he couldn’t walk well, his spirit was shaken, but not broken. He continued making phone calls on behalf of “his veterans” to get help for them. And they came to visit him to say thank you. His apartment was always full of flowers.

He is an amazing cook—and always has been because his wife never enjoyed cooking. He believes that a meal that doesn’t contain bread, meat and potatoes can NOT be called a meal. Even when he lost his appetite, he still spent hours cooking from scratch for his family and friends.

He likes to sing after he’s had a drink or two. They are old songs, quite unpopular in this day and age because they promote the old ideology, but they are memories of his past. They are the songs he sang as he went to battle. And he sings them with such vigor that others want to join in.

He is a voice of reason. He is a peacemaker. When his overly dramatic wife argues with someone, he always takes her side, even when she is unreasonable. But he is also the first one to tell her to make peace.

He laughs a lot. His eyes—they are always laughing, they are the perfect definition of that “twinkle in the eye.” He tells jokes. He teases, but it is always so good-natured. He makes up his own words that are absolutely hilarious. He loves to rhyme, and some of those rhymed sayings have become so common in his family that they forget that the rest of the world doesn’t know them.

He is so loved. So respected. So admired. And he will be so missed. He is my grandpa. My Goga. And he passed away on Monday.

There just aren’t many men like him.

Torn

2007-02-26T22:12:00.000-05:00

On Sunday, due to complete lack of pregnancy symptoms, I decided to take a pregnancy test. You know, just to confirm that I wasn’t pregnant before going out drinking with some girlfriends on Monday.

The test was positive.

And I completely fell apart. Which was something that I wasn’t prepared for. Between sobs, I kept saying, “I am not ready, I am not ready” to the utter confusion of my poor husband who asked, “Isn’t this what we wanted?” And this is where it gets strange. Yes, this is what I wanted, what I wanted so badly for a long time. But as I mentioned last week, achieving pregnancy is not what it’s about anymore. And—at least at that particular moment sitting on the bathroom floor—all I could think about was that this could be my third strike. My third failed pregnancy. And that’s what I was not ready for.

Maybe it was just a glass-half-empty kind of morning. Maybe it was the shock of it. Maybe it was the feeling of too good to be true—again. I have tried to push those thoughts away. I have tried to be excited. And I am getting there. My beta at 15dpo is 675. It’s a solid number. My first miscarriage was a chemical pregnancy—and it was so early in the pregnancy and so long ago (before the Child) that it probably doesn’t affect my chances this time. My chances are good. I am just not naïve enough to be too excited. Instead, I am terrified.

Let me say something here for the record—although I know my two readers probably know this from their own experience. I don’t want to sound like an ungrateful bitch. I am happy that I am pregnant—that somehow, after trying, and trying, and trying, and unexplained diagnosis, and trying, and then getting there, and then losing it, and coming out of it with a fresh, clean, D&C’d uterus, I am able to get pregnant. I know how lucky I am to be pregnant when so many wonderful, amazing, deserving women can’t (and oh my gosh, I could link to so many pages here because there are so many of these women out there). I just can’t shake off this feeling that I can’t possibly be this lucky. That’s just not what I was expecting. Struggles, heartbreaks, more tests, still no diagnosis or a scary diagnosis, failed ART attempts—I was preparing myself for those. I wasn’t prepared to be pregnant. It was too easy, and that’s why I fear that this will be taken away from me. I haven’t paid my dues to the IF Association of Suffering, and that’s just not the kind of place where they give you a free membership.

And oh, how I hope I am wrong about all of this.

My reality

2007-02-20T12:38:00.000-05:00

Smack in the middle of the 2ww, I find myself surprisingly calm. This is a very strange place for me. For more that a year, every month I have been obsessing over every possible symptom that could indicate a pregnancy. Temperature rises—are they tri-phasic? Could this be implantation bleeding? Are my boobs sore? Am I more hungry? Am I more tired? Is this hormonal nausea or was that yogurt past its expiration date? And the list goes on.

But now, I feel different. I was still in the obsession mode two weeks ago, charting, OPK-ing, having sex on a schedule (and oh my god, I could write a whole post about how much I fucking hate scheduled sex). But after I ovulated, the obsession dwindled.

I have been trying to put a finger on what it is that’s making me pretty calm about this particular cycle.

It could be because I was relieved to see that with the exception of the excruciatingly painful and copious period, this first “regular” post-D&C cycle appeared to be quite normal, very similar to the ones I have been having for the last year.

It could be because I no longer think about my miscarriage constantly. I know that I can never fully get over it, but I have come to accept it. I am still sad, but I am no longer grieving.

It could be because I am not naïve enough to believe that after a year of trying unsuccessfully, I will get pregnant on the first try after the D&C. Sure, I have a glimmer of hope, but I am keeping it in check.

It could be because I talked myself into the notion that post-O, I have no control over what will happen in the next two weeks. I can’t will for it to happen.

It could be because I am so tired of reorganizing my whole life every two weeks. Can I have a tuna melt? No, not during these two weeks. Should I go out for happy hour with co-workers? No, not during these two weeks, unless you want people to start suspecting something because you are not drinking. Can I have a pick-me-up cup of coffee at 3 pm when my head is ready to hit the desk? No, not during these two weeks since you already had a cup this morning. Can I plan a business trip for next month? No, not yet, let’s see what the next two weeks bring—you may need to be home next month when you are ovulating. Ugh. So this month, I am not doing this. I moderate, but I do not abstain.

It could be because I had a fantastic long weekend in the mountains. Where it snowed for 36 straight hours, creating the most majestic winter wonderland I have ever seen. Where the 12 inches of new snow were as soft as goose down sprinkled on top of already existing snow base. Where all we could do was sled and ski and snowshoe, interrupted only by eating lots of comfort food by the fireplace. But it was more than that. There was something about the atmosphere of a small ski resort town that brought me so much peace. It was so drastically different from the city I live in—the city where people define themselves by who they work for, the city where a 10-hour work day is a short day, the city to which “people move to work, not to live” (as someone once told me). The contrast was not that of a big city versus a small town—the contrast was in the attitude of people: uptight and competitive versus relaxed and friendly. For three days, I felt so much more at home in this little town up in the mountains than in the city where I’ve lived for eight years. And that brought me peace.

But more than anything, I think the reason why I am no longer obsessing about pregnancy is because I realize now that the stakes have changed. For more than a year, we’ve been trying to get pregnant. Whether or not we can get pregnant again on our own—or with help—is anyone’s guess. But getting pregnant is no longer the final goal. Getting pregnant and having a healthy baby 37-42 weeks later—that’s what matters now. So, good or bad, I am not as excited about a possible pregnancy now. I am not as naïve. And although it may seem sad, that’s just my reality.

And I am OK with it. For now.

Movie night

2007-02-16T15:18:00.000-05:00

Fridays are family movie nights at our house. We usually order a take-out, which most would assume is pizza, except that I have one of those odd kids who don’t like pizza. Or french fries. Or chicken fingers. But smoked salmon? Can’t get him away from it. Tofu? Give me more. Prunes? Best dessert ever. OK, so he is not that strange—we did, after all, spent the last two months declining daily requests for mac&cheese.

So back to the movie night... We usually order out Chinese or Japanese because the Child can’t get enough of fried rice and miso soup. We then spread our “picnic blanket” in front of the TV and spend the evening eating our dinner on the floor and watching a movie (more likely than not, the same movie we saw last Friday because seriously, apparently you can’t get enough of Nemo or Cars).

Once in a while, we invite our neighbors to join us for movie night. They have two girls (2½ and 15 months), and the Child plays with them quite a bit. He is the big brother they don’t have. One thing you should know about this family is that they love to eat and love to cook. Now, I love to eat and I love to cook, too, but not like they do. They are from Lebanon, and the food they cook—oh my, the flavor, the color, the taste. Amazing. So when they come over, I feel the pressure to cook instead of ordering a take-out.

Last night, I made some sweet potatoes that I could throw in the oven tonight before they come over. I mixed the salad dressing. I made sure enough cake was left from Valentine’s day to have for dessert. I got up half an hour early this morning to prep the chicken and place it in the crock pot so it would be ready when we got home after work. I felt good. I wasn’t stressed.

About an hour ago, at 2:30 pm, I realized that I never turned on the crock pot. The one that has a whole chicken in it. The chicken that was to be my main dish tonight.

I guess it will have to be Chinese take-out after all.

Sick and sad

2007-02-10T12:58:00.000-05:00

When you have a child, everybody tells you that the first few years of his life—especially if he spends time in a multi-child environment such as daycare or preschool—are a major bootcamp for his immune system. What they don’t tell you is that your immune system is also going to go through hell and back. The first year of daycare just plain sucked for us—Husband and I were sick just as much as the Child because he insisted on sharing all of his germs with us. The next two years were better—both because our systems bucked up a bit from the nightmare of the first year and because we learned to take some preventive measures (like not finishing his leftovers with the same spoon or not letting him drink from our glasses). But this time, we failed miserably to keep this nasty cold at bay. What sucks even more than getting sick is that it comes smack in the middle of ovulation time—the first time we have a chance to try after losing a pregnancy more than two months ago. While it may have looked very cute and adorable and all on Friends when Monica and Chandler were doing the nasty when she was sick, I am sure that making a baby with a coughing, snotty, feverish wife is not what my husband would call a fun time… Preschool germs, I hate you.

Also in the it’s-not-fair category, this week’s Thursday night line up on NBC. Is it me—or does every single show I watch these days have a pregnant woman on it? Yesterday’s Scrubs just about killed me. I went straight to bed and I cried and cried and cried. Don’t get me wrong, I really love the show, but this time, it really hit me hard. Just when I think I am out of the woods, feeling positive and looking toward the future, I come across the reminders of what I lost or what may go wrong next time… And it makes me crumble. I can’t seem to go forward without immediately taking a huge step back.

In-between

2007-02-07T10:54:00.000-05:00

I have been spending a lot of time on the internet lately, mostly browsing blogs. I found quite a few that speak to me—amazing writing, interesting perspectives, heartbreaking or inspiring stories. A lot of my bookmarked links are infertility blogs. Others are parenting blogs. And I find that I fit somewhere in-between, not quite belonging to either camp.

I am a parent, and I relate a lot to the trials and joys of parenting that parent bloggers write about. I also relate a lot to the trials of infertility, but I am a newbie at this. I know the impatient waiting during the 2ww, I know the heartbreak of yet another BFN, I know the obsession over BBT, I even know the horror of a lost pregnancy. But I don’t know what it’s like to have a medicated cycle, I don’t know the devastation of a failed IVF, I don’t even know a lot of the medical terminology used in many IF blogs.

I wholeheartedly hope for the best possible outcome for the individuals whose blogs I am reading (and there were two awesome happy announcements this week that nearly made me cry with joy), but I feel odd commenting because I have not been in their shoes. I don’t want to offend them by pretending that I understand. And I also don’t want to offend them because I already have something they want so much—a child. I feel guilty.

Hoping to find someone who is in a similar place as me, I searched through secondary IF blogs and found a few that I loved. But once again, these women (and men) are much farther on the infertility journey than I am--and once again, I feel guilty for having so little "experience." After the IF diagnosis last summer and the referral to the RE, we decided to wait until the end of the year before doing any additional tests to possibly determine the cause of our so-far-unexplained IF. And then we got pregnant. And then we lost the pregnancy. So what do we do now? Did this pregnancy wipe the slate clean and our IF problems are no more? The pessimist in me tells me to quit dreaming, but optimist has a least a glimmer of hope. But the question remains: How long do we wait now?

Who knows, perhaps a year down the road, we will be all-too-familiar with ART terms. Or we will be filling out adoption papers. Or we will be going through another heartbreaking loss. Or we will be setting up the crib again. For now, I am somewhere in-between.

At Preschool

2007-01-29T12:09:00.000-05:00

When dropping the Child off at preschool this morning, I notice that the mom of one of his classmates, hugely pregnant last time I saw her, is no longer sporting a belly. Sure enough, behind her is a baby carrier with a brand new (and amazingly cute) baby. The Child is stalling and not wanting to go into his classroom, so I try to redirect his attention: “Look, Child, J has a brand new baby brother—do you want to see him?” The Child begins to sob, “But I don’t have a baby brother!”

We never told him about baby-not-to-be, and I don’t know if he sensed anything about the pregnancy or the loss of it. This particular instance was nothing more than a three-year-old seeing something he doesn’t have and wanting it because his friend has it. But it just about ripped by heart out.

Dear Body

2007-01-26T08:01:00.000-05:00

Dear body,

Please stop fucking with me. It has been seven weeks and one day since the D&C. Roughly nine weeks since the baby stopped growing. Day 51 of my cycle. And still no period. I would have had two periods with my usual cycle by now. I’ve finally gotten to the point where this loss wasn’t occupying my every thought. But now you make me remember it every time I go to the bathroom. For the first time in my life, I am begging you for a period. Because I am beginning to lose my faith.

The Next 48 Hours (Dear Baby Not To Be, Part 2)

2007-01-24T22:53:00.000-05:00

[This was written in mid-December, about two weeks after the D&C]

And then there were the next 48 hours. Coming home at night after the ultrasound and seeing my sweet boy and feeling these overwhelming waves of grief and of joy. I don’t think I have ever felt such powerful, my-heart-will-jump-out-of-my-chest love for him or been so thankful for having him in my life. But seeing him also reminded me how much we will be missing because this baby won’t be a part of our family.

Then there were hours of pretending that everything is OK, eating dinner, putting the Child to bed, ordering tickets for a musical in late December, talking on the phone with my family about Christmas travel plans. It feels normal. Maybe nothing bad happened. Maybe it was all a dream.

And then there were hours of unstoppable crying while I lie in bed, with the Child and my mom (who happened to be visiting us during that time—not a good coincidence, but that’s a subject of another post) already asleep.

Then there was a visit the next morning to the heartless, old-school curmudgeon OB. “So you had an ultrasound yesterday,” he says while looking at my charts, “and what did they tell you?”, making me utter those words, those horrible, chilling words that no woman should be forced to say: “My baby doesn’t have a heartbeat.” And then I break down again. And again when he tells me that he recommends a D&C because my cervix is still completely closed. And again when I have to pay the damn co-pay (can’t they wave it, just once?).

And then going to work, telling my boss that I need to be out, thinking how odd it is to carry a dead baby—something that was so loved and cared for, now just a foreign object in my body. Then once again feeling that everything is normal, finishing some projects before leaving, going to a staff meeting. And then completely breaking down again, in my cubicle, knowing that next time I come here, I won’t be carrying this baby.

Then another exhausting sleepless night filled with tears. The morning shower, sobbing. Wearing the same loose sweat pants that I wore home from the hospital when we brought the Child home. Driving to the hospital, thinking how ironic it is that exactly three years ago tomorrow, I was coming to this same hospital to have the baby. Now, I am coming here to lose a baby. Talking to the cheery receptionist, who jokes and smiles and then stops after reading “missed abortion” on my chart. Talking to a sweet, compassionate nurse, a pretty girl, someone who should be on “Scrubs.” Telling her that no, I am not wearing any jewelry, except for my wedding ring, and then breaking down again when asked to take it off (I’ve already lost a baby, don’t take my ring--my connection to the rest of my family). Then changing into the hospital gown, the one I remember so well. Talking to Suzanne, a sweet, eight-month pregnant anesthesiologist who says so genuinly “I am so sorry you are here” and brings me a whole box of tissues. And then loosing it again and again and again as I lie there, waiting for my doctor who is an hour late. Overhearing conversations of other patients and doctors, wondering if they hear my sobbing. Then getting an IV started, except that they can’t find a vein, then they blow another one, and next thing I know, there are four anesthesiologists around me, poking my arms with needles. Finally, success. But it is only water, not drugs because I have to wait for the doctor to sign a waiver before I can have something “to take the edge off.” Finally, seeing the doctor, except it is not the one they told me it would be, not the one I adore, but another one, whom I have never met. Who says those heartless things again. And then finally, the pregnant anesthesiologist injecting something she calls “a margarita” in my IV as I continue sobbing as they roll me away from my husband. Being so scared without him. Seeing those white bright lights of the OR.

And then finally waking up still sobbing. God, please, God, was it a dream? But I am still on the stretcher, in a gown, my husband finally with me. And I continue to sob, but I know that it is over.

Dear Baby Not to Be

2007-01-24T16:48:00.000-05:00

[This was written in mid-December, about two weeks after the D&C]

I honestly don’t know where to start. I have been thinking about writing for two weeks, and all of the thoughts are circling in my head so fast that it makes me dizzy. But where do I begin?

Dear baby not be,
I would have really liked to have known you and have you be part of our family. I don’t think I can ever get over the loss of you, but I do know (or hope) that it will get better and that I won’t come undone every time I think about how much I miss you. My thoughts and feelings run the gamut. Sometimes I am raging mad, wanting to shake my fists at the sky and demand the answer of why this is so unfair. We wanted you so badly, we waited for you so long, we would have given you a nice home and millions of kisses and overwhelming love. How can you love and miss so much someone you have never met—nor will ever meet? Sometimes I am mad in a different way—the screw you way, the way that makes me want to drink to oblivion, smoke cigarettes, eat raw fish—a revengeful kind of mad. Sometimes I refuse to believe it. I feel a rumble in my stomach and wonder if it’s you moving around. I put my hand on my belly and hope that you can feel my touch. These moments are not long-lasting, but they are short glimmers of hope that I know can not come true. Sometimes I am numb. I think about you and almost didn’t feel anything. “Oh well, this is life.” And then immediately I feel so guilty—that I should be missing you more and grieve more. But most of the times, I have this overwhelming sadness, this grief that chills me, makes me sick to my stomach.

You were just too good to be true. After a year of charting, trying, crying, hurting, diagnosing, agonizing, I saw a plus sign on the HPT. How could it be? October was a crazy month, so full of travel that we literally had one chance, one shot of having you—the night Daddy came back from a trip and I left for my trip the next morning. He was on travel again when I peed in the stick and was so dumbfounded with the result. How could it be? I spent the entire afternoon looking for creative ways to tell Daddy about you. I didn’t even call the doctor. I was obsessed with finding the right way to tell him, something better than spurting out “I think I am pregnant” while he was making himself a PBJ sandwich, as I did when I found out your brother was coming. I ended up putting the HPT in a baby bottle, writing a note on it: “See you in July” and wrapping it in a box, pretending it was a late birthday gift. He could not believe it. It was nearly impossible to be true. And it was.

After the first week or two, I knew something didn’t feel right. I wasn’t very sick. I wasn’t very tired. I did not have much of an appetite. Later on, shortly after we found out that you were gone, Daddy said something about mother’s intuition. I somehow knew all along that this was not meant to be. But I dismissed it—and everyone else I told this to dismissed it. It was jitters. It was the worry because of M’s and SD’s and ST’s and J’s experience. But it was not going to happen to me. I should not complain, I said to myself. I should be lucky that I don’t feel sick. Every pregnancy is different. I should not compare.

Early on, I told my friend S that I was worried about this. And she said that all of us are allowed only one heartache with babies in utero. For them, it was preterm labor. For us, it was the infertility leading up to this pregnancy. I have fulfilled my heartache, I have passed the challenge—so I was in the clear. I liked her logic.

And then I started feeling a bit sicker. Every time I would eat, I would feel nauseous. I hated it, but I also loved it. I commented how strange it was that with your brother, I would get sick when I was hungry, and with you, I got sick when I ate. I still don’t know where the nausea was coming from. You were already gone at that point…

Then there was spotting. Just a little bit. No cramps. I already had an appointment with a midwife later in the day, so I didn’t bother calling. I was doing a co-op at your brother's school. The teacher asked me if I had only one child, and I said yes. “And another one on the way,” I thought to myself. And a new thought immediately entered my mind. Maybe I am having a miscarriage right now. I brushed it off. Stop being so worried.

Midwife did an internal check and said, yes, there is bleeding. She even showed us the giant q-tips with blood and said my cervix looked swollen, and that’s where the blood was coming from—but that was because of all of the hormones. She said we should get a sonogram to put our fears to rest. “So you think there is a 50/50 chance that things are not OK?” I asked. She said, “I would not even come close to that line to suggest that something is wrong.” I felt like a million bucks.

I was nervous waiting at the OB office, but once we got to the ultrasound place, my mind felt at ease. I told myself that I was prepared for the worst, but I was not. I felt positive. I was excited for Husband to see that little heartbeat. How cool that we get an ultrasound so early again!

We waited for over an hour. We were the last patient of the day. I didn’t see you right away, but I saw you within the first minute. There you were. Looking bigger that I remember your brother being, although it was roughly the same time. But there was no flashing dot. I kept looking for it. I remember seeing that flashing dot so clearly with your brother—not knowing what it was at first, but when I was told, I burst into tears. That was my baby’s heartbeat—I could not imagine being more excited then. But there was no flashing dot this time. The sonogram technician kept moving the instrument around, trying different angles. And then I knew. That’s when I knew. I wanted to say it, but I didn’t want to be the nay-sayer. Maybe she will find it. It seemed that an eternity went by. “I am so sorry. But I can’t find a heartbeat,” she finally said. I heard your Daddy gasp. He hasn’t seen this before, he thought she was looking at my cervix, trying to figure out why it was swollen. He did not know this was the baby on the screen. I remember covering my eyes and crying. I did not want to look at the screen anymore. I could not stand to see it. Now, looking back, I wish that maybe I should have. Just to have the last peek at my baby. The baby I will never see again. I wish I would have asked for a picture. Something to hold on to. Something to remember you by. But maybe that would be too painful.

She asked for a couple more minutes to take some measurements. She said you measured at about 7 weeks, even though you were 9. When she was done, she called the nurse at the doctor’s office. A cold, compassionless person who scheduled my appointment for the next day to “discuss options” and told me to go to the ER if I were to have heavy bleeding tonight. Oddly, I had no bleeding after that. Not that night. Not the entire next day. Not the morning of the D&C. They asked me at the hospital if I needed a pad and disposable panties. I didn’t. There was not a drop of blood. You weren’t ready to get out.

Something to Hold On To

2007-01-24T16:14:00.000-05:00

[This entry was written on December 27]

I have been struggling with the fact that I am not carrying anything tangible out of this experience. I have nothing to prove that this baby was ever here. All I have is this raw emotion, the devastating grief. I wish I had something to clutch in my hand and cry over. Something to lift to the sky as I ask, “Why, why did this have to happen?” When you lose someone, there is a service and a grave and the clothes and the pictures… There is a public display of grief and just as public, the overflow of support and care for the people who lost someone. But for me, losing this baby feels like a big secret. I am not saying that my grief is more difficult handle (I do not dare to image what it is like to loose an actual child), but it is just different. I feel like the loss is so big, and yet there is nothing I can show for it. I have to go on with my life pretending that nothing happened. Because as far as most people are concerned—nothing did happen. I was out sick for a few days, and that’s that. So in a way, I feel like I am living a lie. Living with this horrible secret that I can’t share. Watching everyone’s life go on while mine is a big dark hole. Going through the motions and pretending to be fine when I feel so hollow inside.

I debated whether I need to have something tangible to make me remember this experience. Would it give me closure—or would it just constantly remind me of the pain?

I saw an angel figure holding a little child—“An Angel’s Embrace”—and I broke down, right there in the Hall.mark store. I felt so mad at this angel for taking my baby away. I was so jealous and so sad that I couldn’t give my baby this embrace, that I couldn’t hold my baby close with his/her arms draped over my shoulders. So I didn’t buy it. I didn’t know if I wanted to have something that would make me cry every time I looked at it—but more than that, I didn’t want something that would make me angry. I cried every time I pictured it.

Yesterday, I saw a bracelet—a silver band that said, “Expect Miracles.” As soon as I saw it, I knew that this may be the tangible object I was looking for. Not a figurine to place on a dresser, but something that I can have with me all the time. Something to remind me of what happened. Something to give me hope. “Children are miracles,” wrote a friend of mine—and this bracelet reminded me of that. This last pregnancy was a miracle, and losing it was equivalent to losing faith. It seemed so unfair—we went through so much just to get pregnant… How could we lose it? Couldn’t we have a “get out of jail” card because we’ve already encountered so many challenges? Lying in the hospital bed before the D&C, I thought that there was no way I could ever go through this again. It would completely break me. I simply could not handle doing this again. And that made me think that perhaps we would not try again. To make sure we never have to go through this again. That’s the only way to make sure—because if I didn’t get a get out of jail card this time, why would I get it again? Who can guarantee that this won’t happen again? And for weeks, that’s how I felt. Completely terrified of the thought of trying again. But when I saw this bracelet yesterday, I realized that I am no longer afraid. I am ready to expect a miracle again, I simply have to expect a miracle again—or I will never find my way out of this black hole. I am still terrified of the thought that it would take another year—or more?—to get pregnant. I am sure the first time I get my period after we’ve been trying, I will be disappointed. But at least I am ready to try. I am looking forward to my period coming in the next few weeks, and I am ready to start trying. And when we do finally get pregnant—whether it is in two months or two years—I will be cherishing my miracle. I will be protecting it. I will be praying for it. And one day, I know I will carry it in my arms—not just as a bracelet on my wrist.

And I will get the “Angel’s Embrace.” Because I am not angry anymore (although may still a bit envious). I think I can find peace in knowing that an angel is taking care of my baby. I am getting closer to finding the peace within—and recovering my faith.

What Not to Say

2007-01-24T15:58:00.001-05:00

[This post was written in mid-December]

I have a friend who had a miscarriage at 12 weeks and a subsequent D&C. It happened a few months ago, and I was devastated for her. She said she needed to lay low for a while, so I didn’t call. I didn’t write. I thought I was respecting her wishes. But I also didn’t know what to tell her. I finally composed a note to her. I think I struggled for hours figuring out what to say. I wanted to be supportive but also sensitive. I didn’t want to tell her things that weren’t true or things that I didn’t know. Now that I have gone through this myself, I really wanted to find this note to see what I said. To make sure that I didn’t say something stupid and something hurtful. I am glad I didn’t--at least, from my perspective I didn't. Only being on the other side of it can you find the right thing to say. Or maybe it’s that you know what not to say, even if the “right thing” escapes you because it is different for everyone. So here is my list of what not to say when your friend has a miscarriage.

Don’t tell me it is nature’s way of taking care of a nonviable pregnancy. I know that. It doesn’t make me feel any better though. I lost my baby, and the nature is just too fucking cruel.

Don’t tell me that this is common, that the percentage of miscarriages is quite high. I know that, too. I read the books. I knew my odds. But just as you would, I didn’t think it would happen to me. A person going through divorce doesn’t hear, “Well, there is a 50% rate of divorce in this country, so you didn’t have much of a chance anyway.” So don’t give me the statistics. I lost a child.

Don’t tell me that I will get pregnant again. If you are not God, you don’t know. And most likely, you don’t know what a long and painful road it’s been to get to this pregnancy.

Similarly, don’t tell me everything will be OK. Seriously, what the fuck? How is this going to be OK?

Don’t tell me, “at least you already have a child.” I know I do. I love him more than you can imagine. But that doesn’t diminish my loss. I wanted another baby—and I lost it. You wouldn’t tell someone who lost a parent, “Well, at least your other parent is still alive.” So don’t tell me that because I already have a child, I shouldn’t grieve the loss of another.

Don’t imply that there was something I did to make this happen. I have looked at every scenario. I have blamed myself for many things. Over and over, I have retraced my every step and wondered what I may have done. You have no fucking idea how much I wanted this baby, so don’t you dare to suggest that I did something to jeopardize his or her well-being.

Don’t tell me not to be sad, not to look back or look only toward the future. I have the full right to be sad. I lost my baby. I will be sad, and I will keep looking back, and I will fear the future. Let me have my time to grieve. Let me be sad. Let me fall apart. Don’t ask me why I have tears in my eyes. You know why. Yes, I am still sad. No, I will not get over it in one week. And yes, I will fall apart unexpectedly. You are not in my head, and you don’t know that seeing a maternity store or going to a Christmas party where I expected to be “hiding” my pregnancy breaks my heart. Let me be.

If you do know what I have been through, don’t pretend like nothing happened. Ask me how I am. If you are afraid to hear the answer, then just tell me you are sorry. I already feel like I am living in my own, very lonely world, the world where everyone’s lives go on while mine stands still. So don’t make my loss a secret when it is just you and me. I have already been robbed of the chance to grieve publicly, so I count on you to be my shoulder.

P.S.: I just came across this wonderful resource on helping someone with miscarriage on another blog. It relates a lot to my rant, so I wanted to add it to this post.