Fairy Dust and Race Cars...

The moments of my day have changed dramatically in the past few months.  I couldn't help but to realize this as I sat, with a small girl looking attentively at my activity, paintbrush in hand.  The small girl watched as I dipped the brush in a selected color and rubbed it carefully onto a designated spot.  Just so.  Every now and then, she would break into a joyful chattering of delight--much like the sound of a baby pterodactyl.  I would stop, smile on face...beaming at the little bundle on my left leg...and then, continue painting.

What was I painting you ask??

THIS.

The idea was inspired as a reinforced box appeared in my car after my husband's office moved to a new location.  The box was just perfect and my little miss's brothers zoomed her around in it for over an hour before I saw, in my mind's eye, what it really was.  Her first car.

I imagine her tearing through town...a gleam in her eye.

And the most wonderful part of it all...the most magical part...is that I get to pretend.  With her.  Because she is here.

When you have lost a baby.  Or babies as is the case with me...  You know how precious that reality is.  To have the option of pretending.

In the depths of loss, there is no pretending.  Anything.  You can't pretend your baby is here.  You don't get to fill your hours juggling activities.  The hours tick slowly on.  Without end.  You lose track of days.  Months.  Even years. 

The painful reality is so stark, it leaves no room for imagination.  For silliness.

I remember being silly.  I remember being creative.  I remember not knowing that I didn't know.

I found a picture of the pregnant belly that contained my twins on my cell phone yesterday.  Honestly, I am pretty sure I took it at this same time of the year three years ago.  It was what I looked like right before they were gone.  I took that photo and sent it to my husbands phone right before I set off to teach a psychology class at the University.  I remembered it...because it was the last one I took that year.  

As I painted the little car for my rainbow baby girl, I thought about the fact that I never got to do anything for my twins.  Maybe that's the part that hurts the most.  I didn't get to mother them.  I didn't get to show them how much I would have treasured them.

I held my little girl a little closer as that feeling crept over me, as it often does.  That feeling that knows all too well how lucky I am to have her here.  With me.  In my lap.

I know how fleeting this time is.  Because, even when you get to HAVE your baby in your lap, it's really only the blink of an eye before they are moving out, having their own lives.  Their own babies.
I know how precious these moments are.  The moments of shared smiles and silly box cars.  The moments of wakeful sleep and eager nursings.  The moments where you are the most important person in a child's world.

In a simple life moment, one of those moments that happens before you want it to, she will step out of her box car, and into the real world where I can not insure her safety, or her happiness.

I'll just have these pictures as a reminder of this joyful moment.  The moment wherein she was my baby.

And unlike her twin brothers, she got to be here with me.  Enjoying the blissful world of imagination.

She's here. 

I could never forget how lucky I am in that.

It's no joke...

April 1st.

I had the momentary desire to pull a prank on my boys today but I couldn't think of anything that would be actually funny.  It occurred to me that, while not ALWAYS true, April fools jokes are more often mean spirited than funny.  The whole idea of tricking someone into thinking something shocking, whether it would be a happy thing or not, is just...well....it's just not always so funny to the person being tricked.

I sound like a party pooper I guess.

When I woke up this morning, there was the little girl in me that wanted sooooo much to pull a fast one on my family.  To tell them something that would make them gasp...and then, say in a sing-song fashion, "Aprilllll Foooooools!"  But, I couldn't think of anything funny.  I couldn't think of anything silly.

All I could think about was that this is the month.  April.  This is the month that has haunted our lives for the past three years.  April.  This is the month when we lost them.  April.  This was our season of loss.  And it still is.

April.

I rolled over and hugged my rainbow baby close to me.

And I cried.

Silently.

I thought to myself,  "There is nothing at all funny about loss."

And, I breathed.  I tried to follow her sleepy breathing.  I cuddled against her downy hair.

And I cried some more.  For all the mama's who don't have the rainbows I know they wanted so deeply.  For all the mama's who know loss like the jagged rip I feel acutely this morning.

Who know how painful emptiness can feel.

I see the blue sky creeping out from under storm clouds that left my lawn damp.  The light is starting to peek out in streaming beams.

My cheeks feel taut from the salt tears that soaked them this morning.

I know my boys will each play a trick on me today.  And, I will laugh...and maybe forget for a moment how raw this pain felt in the wee hours before anyone else was awake...and I'll be grateful for all the wonderfulness I am surrounded with...and I'll know I am just about as lucky as anyone has ever been....

And they will still be gone.

They will still only be a whisper.

Their ashes dissolved into soil. 

I think I'll take my rainbow girl to the gully today.  I think I need to spend some time there with her.

It's funny...somehow I believe that she knows Simon and Alexander better than all of us.
Somehow, I believe she will understand.

It's no joke...but, it's funny all the same.  Funny in exactly the way I would expect April 1st to be. 

Standstill...

There is this different place wherein time not only stands still, but also flies by. 

It's a place where a computer virus is met with a shrug.
And where the understanding that the computer will be gone for weeks, is met with a smile.

And months go by in the blink of an eye.

And tiny toes get bigger.

And the thorn in your heart continues to fester...and yet...you smile anyway.

Because there are things to smile about that feel better than the pain of loss.

And then...you look out the window, and something reminds you. 

A yellow balloon sails by the window, tied with a purple string.

Two birds land on the porch.

A baby girl smiles...at nothing.  And probably something.  Probably.

Walking hand in hand with your best friend.  Your lover.  The one who has walked through everything with you...who will walk through everything yet to come.  You walk...and you talk....and only the two of you are aware that there should have been little twins running up ahead.  Almost three years old.  There should have been little chubby twin fingers stroking the soft cheek of a beloved little sister. 

You look into the eyes of an older child...who is drawing a picture with purple and yellow flowers.  Who always adds purple and yellow to every picture.  Who always will.  Probably.

Because...we were changed. 

All of us. 

And as life speeds ahead.  Parts of us all are standing still.

Changed.

The memories that never were, and that always will be.

In a standstill.

Sorry...

It's funny how hard it is for some people to say they are sorry.  In fact, some people have all kinds of ways to actually avoid saying it at all.  There are the roundabout pseudo apologies like "IF I have done anything to hurt or offend you, please forgive me."  and "I stand corrected".  Both of which simply say..."I am NOT going to SAY I'm sorry...but I hope you will think I have said it so that I can continue doing everything exactly as I've done before.

Then, there are the apologies which come seriously delayed, after every other possible stall tactic has been tried.  Once one realizes that, really, the ONLY way they can save face for their own selfish reasons is to finally say "I'm sorry"...they say it.  Even if a year has passed.  Or years.  

Of course, there are those who will never say it at all.  For, to admit one has wronged another is a mighty hard thing to do. 

My eldest son struggled with this concept throughout his childhood.  He would do something he shouldn't have done, or accidentally hurt someone...or hurt someone on purpose....and when the subject of apologizing would come up he would say "BUT...I didn't mean to hurt him!"  I would then have to go into the monolog about how even if we don't mean to hurt someone, and especially when we haven't meant to hurt someone, an apology is what we give to the person we have hurt in order to express that we understand that we have hurt someone.

Can you see the concept soaring over my son's head?  yeah....it soared.  It literally had wings that would fly over him and out the window.

It's funny how some personality traits seem to be heritable.  It baffles scientists.  How is it possible for a child to inherit a personality?   Aren't personality traits learned?  Well...yes and no.  Some personality traits are learned.  And others...are heritable.  For example, mental health issues can be passed through family trees.  In my own experience...it's also strange things...like the ability to apologize.  

The concept of being to blame for another person's heartache is apparently something that some of us have a hard time with.  I was raised by a father who believed that any suffering I experienced was my own fault through karma and/or perception.  So, if something he said or did or neglected to do caused my heart to ache...it was my fault and not his. 

I take issue with this. 

If I say or do something that causes my child pain, I apologize.  I may also explain why I did what I did, or why I said what I said.  I don't negate their feelings.  I don't act like I should not have to apologize, because, I know that when you hurt someone, the most important issue at hand is to repair the damage you have helped to create.  You say you are sorry.  And, you do it in a timely manner. 

I see that personality is heritable because, though my eldest son was raised away from my father, he has the same issues with empathy and compassion and accountability that my father has.  You can see the effects of my consistent teaching, because he shows glimmers of what he was taught, and is now, at the age of 21, able to accept that to make things right, he must be accountable and apologetic when he has said or done something to hurt another.  Even when he didn't mean to.  That's the part that was learned. 

My father has not yet learned this. 

It took him a year to apologize for hurting the feelings of one of my other sons.  A year.  I know that in that year, he basically came to the conclusion that there was no way he could get out of it if he ever wanted to be allowed to move forward.  So, he apologized.  It was looooong overdue. 

He also owes me a big whopping "I'm sorry" as well.  I don't expect to get it....but, maybe he will surprise me.  My suspicion is that he's only good for one douse of humility a year, so...maybe next year he'll be able to come to terms with the concept of being sorry for hurting someone that perhaps he didn't mean to hurt.  Without an apology, I can only assume he is glad he hurt me.  Why else would he resist making amends with his daughter who loves him so deeply? 

It reminds me of an obsure Dr. Suess story called Bartholomew Cubbins and the Oobleck.  In the story, a silly king asks his magicians to make something new fall from the sky.  And...something does fall.  It IS new.  And...it is awful.  The oobleck falls and falls, ruining everything around.  The king can not and will not admit that he has made a poor choice...and things get worse and worse.  Finally, the little boy, Bartholomew Cubbins, tells the king that he HAS to say he is sorry because he has really caused the whole village to suffer terribly.  The king finally wails that he is so very very very sorry...and suddenly, the oobleck stops falling.  It simply stops. 

Not being able to say you are sorry is a lot like allowing your village to be covered in Oobleck.  It will keep on falling until you own what you have done to another person.  The next time you suspect you have hurt someone, even when you didn't mean to, talk to them...hold their heart as a precious jewel...say you are so sorry for causing them pain, and explain how you will prevent that from happening again.  In that way, they will see that you mean your apology and understand what you did...

In doing that, you have not only apologized, you have opened the door for forgiveness.  It takes courage to own your actions...but it the effort that is required of any healthy relationship.  It doesn't come natural for us all, but it is a skill that can be learned.  It can be learned.  The first step in learning it...is to do it. 

Darkest before the Dawn

Once very recently and not so far away, there lived a little girl in the deepest valley of the world.  This little girl walked through this deep valley, aware that there must be a place beyond that she had never been told about.  She didn't know how she knew this, but she felt sure of it.  Every day, she would wander through the trees in the hopes of finding a path that would lead her away from the valley that enclosed her.  One day, she came upon a path that she had never seen before.  It seemed rocky and narrow and she was afraid that it might not lead her anywhere.  Nevertheless, she found her self climbing it slowly. As it grew dark, she looked back from where she'd come and knew that not only could she not find her way back but that she was perfectly sure that there was no way to return to the life she had decided to leave.  She walked on.  The blackness of night chilled her to the core, and she felt a distinct glimmer of fear well up within her.  Tears flowed down her cheeks where the grime collected from her journey turned into muddy tracks.

She walked on.

And on.

Her feet bloody from the rocks, she walked on.

It seemed that the night would never end.

Owls hooted in the trees where the wind whispered encouragement to the little girl.

And as the sun made its way into the sky once more...the little girl saw the new dawn.

The colors swirled purple and golden over the horizon and the birds sang a lullaby to the night owl that lulled him to sleep.

The little girl walked on and as the light brightened the world, she saw herself in a land that existed above and beyond the valley below where the flowers bloomed and rainbows danced in the misty air.

She was finally home. 

Doing it differently

There are people who believe that it is best to forget the past.  Perhaps they feel that remembering negates any beauty of the present?  Honestly, as a person who feels that one must remember in order to fully appreciate what IS, I can't pretend to understand the desire to forget implicitly in the name of "being healed".

What IS healing, anyway?  Is it not remembering?  Is it turning the other way when the sharpness of a memory permeates the present moment?  Or is it being able to see the contrast, acknowledge the pain and longing, and then...continue living.

Once upon a time, (many times actually...) I was called diarrhea mouth. This "loving" nickname hurt me deeply.  It was an effective way to express that what I had to say was so abundant that it was sickening and uncontrollable.  Funny that I would go on to become a writer: ie: a person who has much to express.  Call it diarrhea mouth...or call it being expressive.  My parents chose the former...and as I watch my rainbow baby coo and croon and babble and chat in beloved baby expression, I am choosing the latter.  Expressive.  Not diarrhea mouth.  Beautiful.  Not nauseating. Precious.  Not dismissible.

There are those who would wish that I wouldn't think of what I was called as I give my daughter the warmth I feel she (and I) deserve.  Instead, I say to her "Sweetie!  You have SO much to say and I LOVE to listen to you!"  or "Oh Ali V.  Tell me MORE of that sugar!"  or "You go sweet Venus...tell the people what you want!"  there are those who feel, to this day, that they wish I didn't express what I feel or call it like I see it.  But...there is a discrepancy between the sentiment of wishing a person could find healing while wishing they would shut up about their pain. Diarrhea vs. Constipation??  Better out than in!!!

Oh yes.  I hear, in the words of a parent not as enthusiastic as I happen to be, the groan of "there goes diarrhea mouth again...." in the depths of my own childhood memory.  Because I love my own beautiful little girl so much, I feel the contrast, and it aches in my gut.  That I, a beautiful baby girl...a rainbow baby myself (!!!)...would not have been cherished...that my earliest sentiments would have been viewed in a similar fashion to something as wretched as diarrhea...well, all I can say to that is---wow.  I deserved better.  I'll give my daughter better.  That is my promise to her.  That is my promise to me. Healing.

As I love my daughter, I am learning that I deserved just as much love.

That is true healing.  See the now.  See the past.  And do it differently in honor of the love you wanted...in honor of the love deserved by all.

The Past...

This morning, I am thinking about what has been.  I am thinking about what has been in the light of what is now.

It is, surprisingly, not making me feel sad.

When I look at what has been, all by itself, I typically feel a wave of grief.  I can look behind at my footprints and see that there are so many tears about so many things.  I can find myself falling back into those footprints, wishing I could change them.  Or, at the very least, make them more palatable.  That isn't the way footprints are though.  You can't erase them, or turn them in another direction without messing up the rest of the journey.  So, as I look at my footprints, I found myself realizing that it was those very steps that have led me to now.

I found myself feeling...grateful.  Yeah.  I said it.  Grateful.

I started thinking this way because my on and off again boyfriend of middle school years found me on facebook.  I had to smile, because this boy was one of my happy memories of the past.  I remember...  I remember him passing me a note in Mr. Mormon's class in 6th grade.  I was new to the school, and had pretty low self esteem after my torture from a particularly mean girl in the school I'd been in previously.  He passed me a note.  It simply said..."I think you're cute."

Harmless enough, but...being the silly fool I was at the time, I thought he was making fun of me because I knew without a doubt that I was everything BUT cute.  I ran out of the classroom in tears because I was horrified that this very cute boy was making fun of me.  I wasn't cute.  I was ugly.  I was fat.  I was stupid.  I was....worthless.  I cried and cried until another girl came out of the classroom onto the field to console me.  She assured me that I was cute, and that if this boy, whom she also agreed was as cute as I'd thought, said I was cute, he meant it!  I was elated!  Have you ever seen Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer?  The old one...with the fur-mation and the snow monster?  The scene when Rudolph leaps into the air, flying better than all the reindeer because the girl reindeer tells him he's cute?  Well...that was me.  All because of being given a letter (a confirmed one at that!) that said I was cute.  He became my boyfriend, and gave me my first kiss.  Of course, we were kids, and we broke up, he went with my best friend, they broke up, we got back together, we broke up, we got back together...and then, he met another girl.  A girl whom he married.  I remember her...she was sweet, pretty, and smart.  They were perfect for each other.  Everyone agreed about that fact.  When he told me he'd married his high school sweetheart, I was elated!  It was meant to be.  It was perfect.

I saw our footprints of the past join happily, and then move apart to join other footprints.  Just as it needed to be to bring me to my husband.  Had I stayed with my 6th grade crush, the first boy to tell me I was cute, well...I wouldn't have my husband.  I wouldn't have this life. 

I saw my footprints join with the wonderful man whom I love with every fiber of my being.  I saw tiny foot prints walking beside us.  I saw tears in some of the deeper prints and sparkles in others.  The most recent footprints are filled with the light of rainbows.  Deep, sturdy prints are these.  No mistaking that these prints have been taken with determination.  With purpose.

I walk more carefully now-a-days.  I'm not as flitting and fleeting as I was once upon a time.  I feel like I know where I am going, though I can't chart the course on a map of any kind.  As I make new footprints, I realize that the past has made the present and the two combined will make the future.  We all carry baggage with us on our journeys through life.  One of the things I carry in my pocket is a little note with the penciled scrawl of a boy who gave me back my self esteem.  The boy who first told me I was cute.  And meant it.

If it wasn't for him, I might have never known that.

I might have believed a lie told by a mean girl instead.

To all the people of the past...to all the things that have been...To all the smiles, and all the tears...to all the loss and all the gain...

Thank you.  Thank you for being part of my now.

Of panic attacks and wishful thinking...

There is a sleeping bundle of girlishness on my bed.  She's sleeping in the pseudo-starlight of  her turtle nightlight.

And I...I am here.

I had a panic attack last week.  Two of them actually.  It's amazing to me that the nervous system can really get fried badly enough that it misfires even when you're feeling just fine.  Because, I really was feeling fine.  Or...was I?

Apparently...I wasn't feeling fine enough.  I get that there is this underlying anxiety that lives in my chest at all times.  I get that I'm hyper vigilant.  I get that I'm basically damaged goods.  But...I also get the psychology of grief.  I get the human psyche.  I understand what I've been through and I've been working hard to heal.  And...she IS here.  Sleeping on my bed.  Right next to the co-sleeper that she never sleeps in, because...that is too far away.  I can hear her sleepy noises from where I stand right now.  She is 10 steps away from me at this very moment.  She is here.  Alive.  A big gorgeous girl with bright blue eyes and a presence that say's "Mama...I am here to stay!"

She's vibrant.  Unscathed by life.

And...my grand-babies are within her body right now.   All the babies she could ever have....inside her ovaries.  And that was what did it.  I was holding her.  Loving her smell.  Cherishing her presence.  Knowing all too well how very very very lucky I am.  It was that moment when my heart clenched.  My breathing shallowed.  My eyes swelled with tears...and it began.

I couldn't really protect her.  Not forever.  Not in every way.  Not from loss.

As I held my tiny 2 and a half month old daughter...all 16 pounds of her...I was deeply aware that I was also holding all her babies...her future darlings...and the fear poured over me.  I quaked.

I lost it.

She slept through my jerky sobbing and my sudden fear that I might just die from the despair that was racing through my veins.   She slept through my wails.  Cuddled on my chest...peaceful.

As if to remind me that she wasn't worried.

As a parent...you have to remember not to push your fears on your children.  I bite my lip hard when I see a spider...and calmly try to act like I'm not terrified that it will run up my leg.  I feign composure when we drive on narrow roads near mountain cliffs.  (Of course...I typically lose that battle...My boys are all too aware of my fear of heights, but, I haven't passed it on.  They just think it's silly....)
I don't want my daughter to fear bearing a child.  I don't want her to fear loss.

But mostly...I don't want her to experience loss.

Ever.

And that isn't something I can force.  It isn't something I can protect her from.

I can only watch.

I can only hope it isn't on her path.

And I fear that it isn't enough.  Hope isn't enough to protect her from pain and tears and loss.

It isn't enough, but it's all a mama has.

When she wants me, she calls for me.  She actually says "Ma mam! Meh Mem!"  She only says this when she wants me.  She can talk.  She's been doing this since birth, and there is no disputing the communication.  She trusts me to protect her.  She trusts me to know what she needs.
I know that she trusts me to have the answers.  She needs to know that I can help her when she's gassy or hungry or lonely or just plain...needy.  She turns to me for help.

My panic attack was over knowing that there will be times that I can't help.  Won't have the answers. Won't be able to take away the pain.

The thing that eased the second panic attack was remembering that I don't need to know the answers.  I found a peace in my being by remembering my readers...my friends...my sisters on this journey that is being a woman who has lost babies.  I remembered all you have done and all you have been to me.  You've been HERE.  You couldn't take away my pain.  But you witnessed me in it.  You couldn't change the fact that loss was part of my being.  You understood and validated my pain.  You couldn't promise me that it wouldn't happen again.  But you held my hands and gave me hope.

And in that, I suddenly realized that hope is more than enough.

Hope is everything. It's all we have.  It's not desperate and it won't change hard events.  It gives you a reason to go on. To find your path. To know that doors will and DO open, even if they aren't the doors you thought you'd venture through.  Experiencing life isn't a bad thing, though it can be a hard journey.  When I look back, I understand that there is hope.  I can give that to my little girl when she needs it...even though I hope she won't need it in the way I did.

Hope.  It saved my life.  It brought me to this moment, where I can hear her breathing.  Where she is only 10 steps away.  Where she is being watched carefully by a loving furry sheepdog who wants nothing more than to lick her tiny feet, but is resisting the temptation....for now.

Stupity....it has to be that.

I know I am not the only one in the world who thinks her mother in law is lacking.  In wit.  In brains. In common sense. In tact.  In everything.

Last night I lay awake wondering, once again, how it was possible that my beautiful, loving, intelligent, spiritually competent, sensitive, amazing husband came from her loins.  How did such a miracle occur?

She does it every time---she whacks me from some unexpected place that only she possess the key to.  I've gotten agile over the years.  Seventeen years of practice...and yet, she knocked me over again.

I was on my guard for this visit.  I'd been practicing my mental fencing techniques, just to be sure I wouldn't get poked again.  I was on my guard.  Practiced.  Seasoned.  Ready.  I've gotten pretty adept at fending off abuse over the past few years...since our loss....

When you realize that life is too short to tolerate anything but the best, you have to be prepared to defend your heart.  Fragile as it can be, people still can be careless about it...stepping on it as they go their merry way.  I've been so lucky to have met amazing people on my journey.  People who go above and beyond to love and support me.  Wonderful friends.  My true family.  My sisters and brothers in life.  People who understand.  I'm married to my best friend.  I'm truly blessed.

And broken.

It is the broken parts...the weak parts...the fragile parts---which I defend the most vehemently. 

My mother in law...she was here for Thanksgiving.  It's been two years since she was last here.  It didn't go very well.

I was pretty good about standing up for myself.  For my children.  For my husband.  In general, if I felt she was out of line, I told her.  Again.  And Again.  And Again.  I was kind.  I was firm.  I was honest.  She didn't like it, but the thin line of her lips would close stiffly and she would stop in her tracks.  She was obviously trying too.

Hour after hour, I would spend in polite conversation...trying to make things run smoothly while my husband was at work.  Trying.  Trying.

The effort was exhausting...

The last day of her visit, I must have let my guard down or something...because she nailed me hard.

She was talking about some celebrity.  She looooves media life.  I know very little about anything in that realm.  It's not my thing.  Never has been.  Even as a young teen, I didn't have posters of the hotties of the day on my walls.  Never fell in love with a celebrity.  Didn't dream of hooking up with someone rich and famous.  Didn't want to BE famous either.  So....I don't really care about who did what or who went where or who married who or which loaded billionaire had another baby.

My mother in law, on the other hand, cares A LOT about this.  So...she was talking.  Very animated. About some famous person...maybe you know who it was...I can't even remember the name.  Honestly.  I'm totally serious.  I was simply nodding and acting like I gave a damn just to keep her happy.  But suddenly...in the midst of my nodding and smiling, I suddenly found that her words were clear as a summers day...and they were ripping me apart.

She was going on and on and on about someone who has new twins and all about how cute they were. "Oh Sara!  They are the sweetest little twins!  I just love twins and always hoped I would have them, but I didn't.  Don't you think having twins would be fun?!"

Bulls-eye.

I stood frozen.  My rainbow baby in a sling sleeping soundly at my breast.  Frozen in time.  Frozen in memory.  Numb.

Do I think having twins would be fun????  Did she REALLY ask me that?

It took me a moment as I looked at her smiling, completely idiotic, sunburned face to really register that she really had said what I thought she said. 

My voice sounded dull to my ears.  "Yeah.  I would have loved to have had my twins.  I would have loved that."

She brightened..not really taking in my reply.  "I KNOW!  It would be SO fun to have twins!"

She babbled on for the rest of the afternoon.  She had no idea what she'd done.  No idea.  When my husband came home from work, he saw my face and knew right away that something had happened.  He told his mom that he wanted to go on a walk with me and asked if she'd watch the boys (who, for the record, don't need a baby sitter anymore.)  We put Ferdinand on his leash and headed out for the gully.  We walked in silence holding hands.

When we came to our rock...the rock that houses our twins ashes...I sat down and held our little rainbow girl tightly against my chest.  I sobbed.  And sobbed.

Would I have thought it would be fun to have twins?

Yeah.

Would I have liked twins?

Yeah.  Yeah I would have liked that.

My tears fell on the rock.  My baby girl nestled into my body...warm and alive.

I have much to be thankful for.


Perhaps, the next time my mother in law comes, I should actually don full body armor...just so she doesn't forget who she is talking to next time.

Grace...

Funny things happen in this seemingly material world.  Things that aren't "supposed" to happen, but happen nonetheless.

My doctor can't explain it.  But, then again...there are a lot of things that have happened in my life that doctors can't explain. 

That hole in my belly is apparently....smaller.  Much smaller in fact.  So small that they wouldn't even think of operating.  So small that they are wondering why they even suggested surgery in the first place.

This is something they said "never" heals on its own. 

And yet....  a two inch hole has turned into a two centimeter hole...in a matter of a few weeks. 

They tell me the hole will never go away, and I believe them.  Of course, I am still talking about the one that is innate in my gut.  The one that yearns for twins that should have been.  The one that aches.

They can't explain why that hernia is suddenly....pretty much gone. 

They are chalking it up to "grace".  What else can they do when medical science fails them once again as they glance at my chart and decide I'm...weird.

My Venus girl slept for 5 hours without waking last night.  Snoozing in the crook of my arm as I looked at her face in the shadows of the night light that casts purple stars on the ceiling.  I thanked Simon and Alexander for healing my heart...for keeping her safe...for reducing the hole within me. 
I thanked them for keeping my family together...for bringing us a furry sheepdog who "knows"...for being.  Yeah....for just....being. 

The fact that they were....that they ARE....
that's grace.

Brick Walls

Somehow, being told one has a hernia from a pregnancy seems like a microscopic occurrence when one has also been told that one's baby is dead.

Perspective...

I happen to have a hernia at the moment.  A tiny little rip in my umbilical region which occurred during my pregnancy with our little Venus girl who is, at the moment, bouncing happily in a little chair as she makes dear little vulture sounds that seem to be the precursor to laughter.  This tiny little rip in my abdomen seems like the most insignificant occurrence I have endured in the past three years. 

Looking behind me, I see a young man with a smashed in skull...a dead baby...my own blood running out of a hospital room...another dead baby....a sudden head on collision in my marriage which, luckily, took no one hostage...and a tearful pregnancy full of terror and fear that resulted in the longest labor of my life....

But all of that....all of that...brought me here.  To the coos of my rainbow girl who squawks and squeaks with joy. 

They told me I should get the hernia fixed.

I agreed.

They told me it was a simple operation.

I agreed.

They told me it wouldn't be a big deal to give my baby a few bottles of breast milk.

I sort of agreed.

They told me I'd be under general anesthesia instead of the spinal I requested and that I'd be out for an entire day and wouldn't be able to breast feed for at least 2 days or pick up my 13 plus pound 2 month old for six weeks.

I did not agree.

I insisted upon the spinal.

They protested.
I insisted.
They refused.
I cried.

Yeah.  I cried.

After all I've seen.  All I've been through.  Everything I've worried about....no...I'm not leaving her for the whole day.  I'm not doing it.

I'll keep the hole in my gut.  In a way, it's symbolic.  Of course I would have a hole in my middle...of course there is a gaping spot in my center....of course there is.

It's not just a metaphor.  There's a hole inside of me.  In time...it may lessen, but, it will never go away.  I'll have to treat it with care...paying attention to it, least it should get bigger.  That's just the truth of my being.  I have a hole inside of me.

Medical science...they might have been able to sew me up---good as new.  However, in reality...the hole would still be there.  No matter how many sutures they apply, that hole can't be repaired.  I'm not about to make that hole bigger with a separation from the little girl who makes my every moment worth living.

I just can't do it.  I've hit a brick wall.

I'm keeping the hole.  It's part of who I am as a whole.
I know that this hole in my body is a symptom of the hole in my spirit.
I can hear my little one bouncing in her chair, and I know that there are worse things than having a hernia.  There could be silence.  The sound of nothing.  The sound of dead babies.  Gone. 

This is nothing. 

There are much worse situations.  I've lived them. 
I have the hole to prove it.

A bad mother...

I felt like a bad mother today.

I sat here...with a beautiful, perfect, softly snoring baby girl in my lap.  Tears rolling down my cheeks as my older boys made salmon chowder upstairs. 

My heart was aching.

There was nowhere to go.  Nothing to do about how I felt.  No place to feel differently.

So I cried in silence while living perfection slept.

guilt.
longing.
lonely.

desire.  Desire for the ability to turn it off--the thoughts--the memories--the regrets.

I sat here just wishing to feel like the me I once was.  Oblivious to the pain. 

My first grand-baby was born on Sunday.  He was early.  His poor mamma has only held him twice due to complications.  I've been crying for her pain as well.  Her worry is my own.

I feel like a bad mother for not just keeping my focus on my girl....for letting my heart wander from her to what is lost....to the  tears of the past...and the tears of others.

A bad mother....for even momentarily...feeling sad after her living presence.   Or maybe...I just feel like a bad sister.  Bad for having reasons to smile when my sisters in life are still crying.  Bad for being lucky.  This time. 

On manipulation...

Did you know there are people out there who really believe that loving a baby "too much" can lead to a personality defect called "manipulation"?

Oh yes....according to this lore, if you respond to a baby, particularly a female baby, who exhibits a lower lip pout in her sadness over...uh...anything at all...with affection, love and attention...you are creating a manipulator.

"You'll have to watch THAT if you don't want her to become manipulative."

What???

I'll have to watch "THAT"???

Hummmmmm.....

As I care for this little sweet one month old baby girl, I can only shake my head in massive disappointment in my "elders".   Suddenly, all the neglect and abusive techniques I experienced as a girl make sense.  It was all in the name of not spoiling me.  All in the name of making sure I didn't really think I was worth much...not worth listening to...not worth attending to...not worth caring for.  My tears were laughed at.  Photos even taken of my sobbing...as proof that I was a little "diva".  A drama queen.

Or maybe I was hungry.

Perhaps even exhausted?

Or...maybe I was just....manipulative.

or would have become manipulative had anyone shown a glimmer of tenderness.

Thank GOD they saved me from myself.

Now...excuse me while I barf a little in my hand.

Manipulation.

This isn't what you get when you respond to a baby's distress---even if she happens to have a vagina and is prone to become "a manipulator".

Manipulation.

This isn't an innate quality in a baby who is nurtured, attended to, even adored.

Manipulation.

This isn't something that develops from being treasured.  Loved.  Honored.

No...I see something very clearly.  People who withhold love from a baby in the fear based non reality which sees NEED as a personality flaw are severely mistaken.  In fact, this false belief is really based on a desire to perpetrate the insult that was bestowed upon them so that they can continue the tradition of selfish neglect that allows the adult to manipulate the baby's very tender psyche.  This, in my opinion, borders on insanity.  "Don't let your baby turn into a manipulative little girl or you'll be sorry!"  Hmmmmmmmm...... what I hear is "Don't let your baby think you actually care about her or she might grow into a human being who actually knows her worth, and then, she will be harder to control with manipulation."  oops. 

In the meantime...I am going to keep responding to my daughters very appropriate need, her tender cries for assistance, her emotional honesty, and her baby-ness with prompt sincerity and total abandon!  I couldn't love her too much.  I couldn't care for her too much.  This abundance of love won't spoil her or taint her.  She can have free access to my heart.


Anyone who worries that she will become manipulative as a result can go take their outdated dogma to a much much warmer climate and roast them over a pit fire.

So, please excuse me while I go, without any worries, to snuggle with the brightest light in the nighttime sky--My Venus girl--Ali V.

Reminders...

It is October.  My husband and Ali V. and I went for a long walk in the woods yesterday, with shaggy Ferdi in the lead.  The boys opted for some uninhibited "gaming" instead of enjoying the fall colors I was so eager for.  It was o.k....I wanted time to just..."be".

October is beautiful in Montana.  Truly stunning.  We have all the color of Vermont maples in abundance...but...it's Montana, so it's all on a much bigger scale, and there are more open places to romp and admire.  We chose the woods near the river that "runs through it".  Beautiful.  Red, orange, yellow, burnt umber...and...purple?

Yes.  Purple.  Purple and yellow flowers.  Everywhere.

I guess we haven't had a frost yet.

Ever since we lost Simon and Alexander, purple and yellow have reached out to us from season to season.  This year, as I felt the crunching of leaves underfoot, I was absolutely taken with the presence of flowers.  Taken...with memories.

I've walked these woods before.  Trying to find myself.

Trying to get a grip.  On sanity...on life.

With a sleeping bundle of girlyness in my arms, and a two year old sheepdog leaping up ahead, I felt my husbands hand in mine.  He saw the flowers as well...and they mean as much to him as they do to me.

Our little rainbow baby is a loud sleeper...she coos happily in an audible mantra of life.  It's a good thing, because I'd be apt to try to wake her if she was too quiet...just to make sure...to make sure.

As she cooed noisily, I felt the tears rimming my eyes.  They felt cold in the autumn air that I was breathing.

They would have been toddlers.  They would have been chattering to each other in twin-speak.  They would have...been.

When Ali V. stirred in her sleep, groping for the ever present nipple which she assumes access to on demand, I didn't hesitate to pull out my breast as we continued to walk in the woods.  My husband laughed at my native look.  Boob being suckled in the woods near the river as I trekked on without pausing even a step.  I smiled...wiping the tears away.

I can do this.  Yes.  THIS I can do.  Being "Ma MAM!"  is easy for me.

It's the loss that was hard.

It's the loss that still stings.

Not only my own losses....but the losses that lay in the breasts of other mamas....the losses that continue.  It's the loss that stings my heart as I listen to my darling daughters coos of contentment with full belly in the magical woods of Montana.  The loss that has been...and will be.  I felt a stirring of guilt in my wondrous fortune having become the grateful mother of this precious being who needs me...who actually gropes for me in a sleepy request for sustenance and comfort. 

I felt the breeze flutter past...and I could almost hear their laughter.  The way it should have been.  It echoes in the woods...

Where purple and yellow flowers continue to bloom in the depths of October...

And...I remember.

Regarding Sleep...

"You look tired." 

"Are you getting enough sleep?"

"Is she a fussy baby?"

Questions...these are the questions people ask. 

My Ali V. is three weeks old.  I do look tired.  I am not getting "enough sleep".  And no...I wouldn't say she is fussy.  Not fussy.  Particular.  She requires consideration.  Attention to how she feels.  But fussy?  No. 

In reference to sleep...  I honestly don't care that I'm tired.  I don't care that dark circles shadow under my eyes.  I was up last night until 2:30...falling asleep while standing up swaying with a small girl in the darkness.  "It's o.k. my Ali V....it's o.k...."  And....I meant it.  It really IS o.k..  It's o.k..  Better than o.k..

For the many of us who know the wakeful hours of tear filled loneliness due to empty arms where a small being should have nestled.  .  .yeah....it's better than o.k. to be walking the halls in a sing song sway of hip in an effort to soothe someone in need of comfort as they get used to having a human body.  It's better than o.k.. to feel tired due to the need a newborn insists upon than the feel tired at a soul level as you try to convince  yourself that hearing a baby that isn't there cry loud enough to wake you up, and vividly enough to remind you of all you have lost.

My husband held me close the other day as I walked those midnight hours.  His confession of finally understanding the depth of our loss as he watched me care for our tiny daughter was comforting.  Yes...it is true...every single moment of every single day for the past two and a half years was spent, for me, in the stark reality that presented empty arms and a broken heart.  No babies.  No twins.  No....anything. 

As I look down at this little girls "finally" sleeping face and admire the sweetness of an existence which allows for her to sleep during daylight hours in the comfort of my arms just as easily as it allows for her to protest the night in those same comfortable arms, I am overcome with the love that is profoundly healing.

I find myself feeling a profound thankfulness to my twins for bringing this little girl to us safely.  I yearn for them.  I tear up as I look at her...and the thankfulness fills my being.  I know that our twins know better than any other how deep the scar was that they left behind as I groped for healing the bleeding wound in my heart.  I know they were there witnessing the pain of losing them.  I know they were protecting this little girl as she made her way into this world, and into our arms. 

In the nighttime solitude that I share with my tiny daughter...yes, I am tired. 

And...I've been waiting to be this brand of tired for several years.  I am tired.  I am not getting "enough sleep".  And no...my little girl is not fussy.  She's alive.  And she needs me.  And that is exactly how it should be.

There will be time to sleep later.  When that time comes, my dreams will be filled with the bliss of remembering those well worn pathways walked with my little girl.

And with the understanding that I will never forget what it feels like to walk them empty handed.  She is not "fussy."  She is Ali V. She is of stardust and rainbow light. And she is HERE.