Human.

It's been two months. Two months. Two months.

Two months that feel like two years.

Two decades.

In two months, I have transformed. I've peeled back the layers. I've felt. I've mourned.

Respectively: into a truer version of myself. Under which I hid. Love, fear, happiness, sadness, relief, pride, strength. My broken self.

We all want to believe that we will not break. On some level we know it is possible and so we cloak those fears in terms like, "I can't imagine" and "god forbid." We don't look at it. At the possibility of our broken selves. What we would do. What we would say.

Yet breaking - the great possibility of it - exists for all of us.

I broke.

And I am okay.

Healing - the great possibility of it - exists for all of us.

Beyond Attachment

When I was pregnant for the first time, I threw myself into preparing for motherhood. I researched gentle parenting techniques. Kyle and I prepared to rearrange our lives to accommodate and nurture our baby twins in the most loving way possible. I couldn't wait to change their tiny cloth diapers. I couldn't wait to snuggle them close to me in the Moby wrap. I felt peaceful in the idea that attachment parenting would provide us with the right tools to gently nurture our little family.

When the boys were born seven weeks early and whisked off to the NICU, our plans for the early days with our babies changed dramatically. Instead of taking a quiet few weeks together at home to bond, the boys were kept in plastic isolettes amidst the constantly chiming monitors. When I was discharged three days after my Cesarean, I was told to go home and visit the boys during the day, rather than staying with them in their room as I desperately wanted. Weak and overwhelmed, I agreed. I was petrified for my tiny babies alone in their fancy plastic bins. How would this time impact our bond?

Somehow, as time went on, in the blur of postpartum depression and sleep deprivation, I began to think of those first few weeks as my first transgression against attachment parenting. Every AP article I read talked about the shoulds and should nots. I should always respond to my babies' cries. Did they do that at 3 AM in the NICU? I should not allow my baby to spend hours a day laying alone in a plastic bin. Nothing addressed things not going according to plan. In whatever big or small way, I felt I had failed.

Fast forward several months. I persevered with attachment parenting, trying my best to live up to what were beginning to feel, at times, like pretty exacting standards. As time wore on, that early NICU experience started to feel like the first of many stumbling departures from AP. At nine months, there was sleep training - a desperate and heartbreaking solution to my extreme sleep deprivation from getting up to nurse the boys every two hours at night. Skip ahead a few more months. At some point I yelled for the first time. At some point, I swore. At some point, I tried time outs. In my head, all I could hear was "failure!" "Failure!" "Failure!"

Here's the thing. I think attachment parenting offers some wonderful tools. I believe the world would be a better place if more people adopted its principals. However.

I AM AN IMPERFECT HUMAN BEING. I am not always entirely zen. I am emotional, sensitive, and quick to react to my environment. No matter how hard I try, I can never be true to myself AND fit my circular body into a square shaped box. But it goes further than that, too.

I'm concerned about the ominously missing coverage of "what if" situations in AP literature. No parent is perfect all of the time. I'm wary of any parenting advice that quickly and harshly judges those who chose other paths, and I can't help but feel horrified by every AP article I've ever read that warns of the brain damage! and antisocial behaviors! suffered by non AP children.

As a feminist, I'm left feeling icky about the implications of AP on women. AP is child centered, but I'm not sure that it's family balanced. In college, I spent my senior year completing a capstone project on women and self-help culture. My overwhelming conclusion was that our society's plethora of self-help books and television, largely aimed at women, lead to the message that we're somehow not good enough as we are. Forget that we're all supposed to look like super models. We're also not centered enough on the inside. At some point, AP advice has started to feel the same way to me.  I need to be more patient. I need to do a better job of empathizing with my child. I need to be gentle and maintain my child's dignity when disciplining. If I do not do these things, I bear the weight of harming their very sense of self.

I offer these thoughts not to condemn AP or those who practice it. In most ways, I continue to parent in a very AP fashion. What I want is to be honest with myself about how and why I choose to parent. I want to challenge and examine it. AP is becoming increasingly popular. I suspect I'm not the only one who at times feels confused by a parenting style that centers around the gentle treatment of children yet leaves me feeling like my own sense of self has taken a beating. In the end, I pick and choose. More than anything, I strive to parent mindfully, in a way that is gentle for our entire family. As a mother, I know that I am not now and never will be perfect. I'm learning that this little fact isn't a failure on my part. In all reality, it's one of the best parts of this journey.

Blood Work

Sweet baby.
Today you needed some blood drawn.

First we went to the grocery store
where I bought you a balloon
because you were happy
and I felt ashamed that this world can be too harsh

Get Well Soon!
Scrawled across silver mylar
and I wish that towards the world

where you will be subjected to life
the difficult things we have to choose
needles
and the difficult things we never would
heartbreak

I couldn't bear to go into that tiny lab room with you
so your Papa held you on his lap

your brother and I distracting ourselves in the waiting room
until my guilt made me pass by the window

your tiny scared face
rightfully angry
hot tears and sweat

When Papa carried you out
the world could have split
you on one side
I on the other

and nothing
nothing
would have kept me
from pulling you into my arms
safe.

I'm so sorry that I cannot promise
smooth sailing from here

and even sorrier that I can promise
rocky seas will come

but that is life
and we're building you a strong ship.

Tonight we put you to bed
and at first you were happy

but then the tears swelled
a deep cry
and I couldn't stop imagining you
afraid of that needle

I went and first I held you
swaying
and then I put you back to bed
leaning into your crib
rubbing your back
and then my hand still
feeling your tiny breath

Twice I tried to take my hand away
your wide eyes found me
and back it went
until you made it safely to sleep

The trick, I think
is keeping that hand there
gently on your back

even once I've left the room.

magnitude

For the first few months after Rhys and Quin were born, I was certain that throughout the world and throughout history, no mother had ever loved her babies as I loved mine. This thought wasn’t a reflection of my opinions about other mothers, it was simply a matter of capacity and an irrational certainty that loving my babies any more than I already did would cause the universe to explode into a hundred billion pieces of sopping, heavy heart. I wasn’t prepared for the magnitude of motherhood; the idea that other mothers felt the way that I felt and were able to pull it together and function was completely incomprehensible to me. I looked out at the world, feeling perplexed and at a total loss in trying to make sense of the suddenly re-written familiar. Images I’ve seen hundreds, thousands of times immediately took on new meaning. Commercials about the starving children in Africa, news stories about a runaway teenage boy, television dramas about kidnappings and murders. Although I’ve always considered myself a compassionate person, it suddenly seemed as though my former self must have been a cold and heartless shell of a human being to be able to stomach these ideas without urgently forming what had recently become my inescapable conclusion: somebody’s baby. That is somebody’s baby.

As time has passed, I’ve become slightly more acclimated to the experience of being a mother. Of creating life and loving beyond the bounds of understanding. I have come to realize that as much as I love my babies, it is not only possible, but in fact quite likely that other mothers love their babies just as much. Initially, that realization stung a bit. Then the stinging turned into an emphatic, “huh.” And now amazement. What a collective power.

I suppose that’s what knocked me off my center in the first place. Human beings. Creating them. Raising them. Loving them. The impact that we make on the world and on one another. Single influential individuals, good and evil. Martin Luther King. Gandhi. Hitler. Joint movements for change. The Emancipation Proclamation. The suffragettes. The daily fabric of our world, individual lives woven together in a delicate yet inescapable chain reaction. It’s not just about mothers. It’s about all of us and all of our actions and all of the beautiful and mundane details of life. But right now I can only speak as a mother. I want to hold on to this moment; here, where I sit and see the magnitude of what I hold in my hands. Two babies, for whom I simply want peace and love and true happiness. Two babies, who make me want to mold the world into a place that welcomes and nurtures and is safe.

I know that in time I may become desensitized. We haven’t hit the terrible twos yet. I have never attempted to parent a teenager. Just as I’ve slowly come to realize that the universe is not in danger of explosion under the pressure of my love, perhaps in time I will feel at ease with the fragility of it all. But for now I am here. Writing to ask myself to remember what it felt like, peering out at the world with my babies wrapped tightly in my arms.

Turning One.

The babies are one today.

I am one today.

Lately I've been feeling sympathetic towards babies. So much to learn so quickly. They shame us adults and our slowed pace of learning, and I can't help but wondering if humans would be able to fly if we continued to learn and grow at the rate of babies. As a mother, I feel painfully aware of my slow learning. As the babies are learning to walk, to eat, to use words, I am focusing on my own necessary new life skills. There are some things that mothers and babies come hard wired for. For babies, the ability to nurse. For mothers, overwhelming and intoxicating love.

And it is intoxicating, that love. It is beautiful and wild and scary. It is the rawest thing I have ever experienced, trying to walk through the world with composure as I carry in my hand the most vulnerable, the most delicate, the most screaming and hysterical and brazen emotion - love for my babies.

I try to smooth out the edges. Try to believe that with a warm, clean house and successful nap times and nutritious meals, this thing, this love, will not upend me or knock me down with its magnificence. How do mothers walk through the world? How do we not take over and make the world what we need it to be for our children? How are we not overwhelmed by the amazing beauty of everything wonderful - mountains and oceans and sunsets and big trees with strong branches, deep midnight skies that would swallow you whole if it weren't for a thousand bright stars, warm sun on your back and a cool breeze against your face, first kisses, first crushes, first loves. How do we contain ourselves in the face of all things terrible that threaten our children? How do we not march ourselves out there, grab all the bad things by the scruff of the neck, and use that rawness to make things right in every way we know how?

As the babies are learning to maneuver through the world, I struggle to keep pace in my learning as a mother. I work to be as gentle and tolerant with myself as I am with them. I try to shake off the fear that I will fail them and walk confidently, knowing that my crazy love is the only guidepost I need.

The babies are starting to let go when they walk. They are so brave. They've never walked before. They don't know what will happen. But they do it again and again. Sometimes they fall. They get up. Again and again. I am inspired.

I will walk confidently. I will hold this amazing love proudly and strongly, and I will trust myself, knowing I am the mother they need.

bella, revisited.

All is not lost.

bella.

One time when Bella was a puppy, we made the mistake of letting her "chew" on several corn cobs. She was on her sixth one when the thought finally permeated the cheap plywood of our skulls that hey...where are the previous five cobs...OH LORD IS SHE ACTUALLY EATING THEM???

Ten days and zero poops later, we were at the vet's with one seriously backed up puppy and several hundred dollars worth of x-rays confirming the presence of six mushy corn cobs, all neatly lined up in her intestines.

Overly anxious and slightly neurotic pet mother that I once was, I asked the most pressing and logical question that popped into my head: "Is she going to die?" When his laughter died down, the vet sighed and looked at me.

"Just you wait. She's the center of your universe now. But in a few years you'll have a baby, forget about the dog, and then come in crying and wanting us to fix it because she's developed all sorts of behavioral problems."

Well thanks, jackass. Love the bedside manner.

I angrily explained to him that there was no way I would ever allow that to happen. Explained that Bella was special to me. I couldn't tell him that maybe I wouldn't have a baby in a few years. That I was trying and it wasn't working. And that Bella was the stand in, the willing recipient of my excess maternal energy.

For two years, our little mother-baby/pet owner-pet relationship worked. It was ignorant bliss. She absorbed my sadness and helped me feel needed. She stayed by my side as I ran and ran and ran. I petted her, adored her, babied her, nurtured her. We went to puppy class, to the beach, to the relatives' for holidays.

And then I got pregnant.

At first I didn't think much would change. I was excited for Bella to be a big sister. I didn't have the energy to run and play, but we snuggled a lot and life went on.

And then my water broke.

In all the craziness that ensued, I remember one moment clearly. Kyle and I, rushing to get out the door and into the car for a frantic trip to the hospital. Blood, blood, blood. Everywhere. Scared Bella. Bella trying to run out the door with us. And Kyle yelling at Bella to stay. Yelling. Out of panic and fear and necessity. It was the first time either of us had really ever yelled at her.

What followed is mostly now a blur. Weeks in the NICU - functioning - barely. Bella staying at my parent's house. I could not stand up straight. Could hardly feed myself dinner. Did not have the emotional, physical, or mental capacity to wash a load of laundry. The idea of Bella coming home was terrifying to me.

I don't remember when she came home. I don't know if it was before or after the babies were released from the hospital. I only remember realizing that I could not be relied upon to feed her consistently, and delegating that job to Kyle. Eight months later, it's still his job.

Bella, my former muse, my joy and love, is rarely mentioned in my blog anymore. I've avoided writing about her because I'm embarrassed. Embarrassed of how often I walk by her and feel nothing but disgust for the burden that she is to me. Embarrassed because she deserves better and is stuck with me because I'm too stubborn to stop believing that things will change.

Embarrassed. Because when I pull into the driveway, she runs and greets me like I'm the most amazing person in the world. And with the belief that today is a new day. And the willingness to forgive and forget. And the wildly desperate hope that I will do something, anything, to help her feel loved once again.

Embarrassed, because she drops her head and sulks away when I tell her to "move it!" in my nastiest voice.

Embarrassed, because my dog surpasses me in loyalty, forgiveness, and unconditional love.

I'm searching for the day where I stop letting her down.

Wanting

I remember in college once making the remark that I didn't "believe" in infertility treatments. That couples who couldn't have children should adopt one of the tens of thousands of children alone in this world without parents. I remember being disgusted at the millions of self-absorbed dollars that were thrown at the fertility industry. At those poor, driven women who would stop at nothing for a child of their own.

I can almost remember what it felt like to assume that I knew something. What it felt like to believe. To take for granted the fact that I would have my own children. So much so that I didn't even stop to consider compassion.

Having is a weak emotion. Having lets you loosen your grip. Lets you get careless. Wanting is where the strength is, the passion.

These days I grasp for dear life to my mind's picture of my maybe child. Those small, curling fingers. Tiny feet, miniature toenails. All of the love in the world renewed.

My linen closet is stacked with drugs. I have crisp white paper bags full of syringes that terrify me. Small glass vials of clear liquid. I brought them home and proceeded to reorganize the entire closet to make room. To give the impression of calm control. Everything is okay in a house with neatly folded towels.

Any fear, any hope, is hidden quietly among the sheets.