Bonding.

I lied after the boys were born. I remember my mother asking me one day in the NICU, whether I felt the circumstances of their birth were impacting my bond with them. "Of course not." I believed myself. I loved them, and that meant everything. I had my babies. We were all, ultimately, going to be okay.

It is entirely possible to be blind to things sitting right in front of your face. My first impressions of Rhys: I would have known he was my baby in a lineup of a million others. And I felt like he didn't need me. My 5lb, 2oz preemie just seemed so strong. So independent. I kept this thought to myself. And refused to consider what it might mean. My first impression of Quin? Hardly exists. I don't remember the first time I saw him. Or held him. I remember laying alone in recovery, and the NICU doctor coming to explain to me that Quin was experiencing respiratory distress syndrome. In a haze of postpartum hormones and god only knows what drugs from the delivery, I couldn't register the seriousness of the conversation. I wavered between feeling giggly and overly, confidently relaxed. It will be okay. It will alllllll be okay.

I know that I held them for the first time the next day. I don't remember it. I don't know who I held first or what I said or who was there. I don't know how long I was with them. I desperately wanted to try breastfeeding and somehow convinced the nurses to let me try. What I remember from that is trying to hide from all present the fact that I kept passing out, or falling asleep. Slipping away.

My intentions were so good. My desires were so grand. The next year, two years, perhaps, revolved around one thing and one thing only. Survival in the best way we knew how. There was no time to think. To reflect. To mourn.

It wasn't what it was supposed to be. It became its own, as life does. We went with it. We survived.

But somewhere, hidden below the surface, I fell further and further into the rabbit hole. Things don't just fall away. I never had a chance to grieve the lost first moments of motherhood. We were okay. I had no right to be anything but grateful.

I wish I had seen Quin's face. I wish I could write out the emotions of the first time I cradled them in my arms. I wish I could describe to you the lioness inside of me who awakened to fight til the death for my vulnerable newborns. I don't have any of that to share with you. I don't have any of that to savor for myself.

And that is why I broke.

But this is our journey. It is not what I'd dreamed about. Our beginning has fractures. Holes. Heartbreak. And grief. Oh the grief. But it is our shared history. I don't know why. But it is ours. My boys and I. We are strong. Resilient. Enduring in our love. Forgiving. Letting go. Our roots begin with the understanding that we don't get to choose how it will be. Only how we grow from it.

So many moments.  Pivotal moments, ordinary moments, moments that linger forever, and those that go by all too fast.

My pregnancy with Anwen was a series of interwoven moments I may have hoped for but never expected to have...learning I was unexpectedly pregnant, allowing myself to trust in my body's ability to carry a pregnancy to term, approaching labor and attempting a VBAC...

...Overcoming obstacles (breech presentation, going past my due date, heart decelerations) and succeeding at a VBAC.

Succeeding at a VBAC.

***

I woke up a week after my due date with a nagging feeling.  I hadn't felt Anwen move much (at all?) over night.  I tried to get her to move.  I drank orange juice, pushed on my belly, changed positions again and again.  Nothing.  Flashbacks to Rhys and Quin's birth started running through my mind.  We called the midwife, and her instructions were simple: "get here now."

At the hospital, we were relieved.  They found the baby's heartbeat.  They checked my fluid levels.  Everything looked good.  Except.  The baby was having some heart decelerations after contractions.  The midwife was afraid she wouldn't tolerate labor.  They couldn't let me go home, at 41 weeks pregnant, knowing I was having contractions, with a baby whose heart rate was dipping.  They could fit us in for a c-section at 3:00pm.

I cried.

I called our doula.  Instead of attending the birth, would she be willing to instead provide postpartum support?  She would.

The doctor came in.  She confirmed what the midwife had told us: a c-section was likely.  

But.

Would we like to try a trial of labor?  We'd be on a short leash - IV, constant monitoring, and a first class ticket to the OR at the first sign of distress - but she was willing to let us try a pitocin induction.

A window of opportunity.  

They started my pitocin around noon.  Early labor was lovely.  My pitocin dose was low (2 milliunits) and the contractions were bearable.  Kyle and I walked around the unit, we had tea, we listened to music.  (Live harp music, at that, from a musical therapist visiting the unit!)

At four the OB came in to check my progress.  A centimeter and a half.  We discussed having her break my water.  It would allow my body to kick in to help, and I was already on a time frame because of the induced VBAC.  I had nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Water broken.  Contractions coming in waves.  I felt suddenly disorganized and panicked.  Pain.  Relief.  Pain. Relief.  But instead of feeling like a rhythmic pattern, my contractions felt tangled up with each other, with my mind.  Kyle brought me a hot pack for my back.  Helped me get into a more comfortable position.  I regained composure, found a rhythm.

I lose track of time.

Pitocin up to six.  Want hot water.  Into the tub.  In a rhythm.  Waves of pain.  Relief.  Laughing.  Pain building.  Cresting.  Dissipating.  Hot water is amazing.  Again and again.  

The pauses between the waves get shorter and shorter.  Contractions build, peak, and dissipate...and build, peak, and dissipate.  Relief slips through my fingers before I can grasp it.  I feel panicked.  I had planned not to use any medical pain relief.  I also had planned not to use a medical induction.

"I want to talk about pain meds."  As I'd requested months earlier, Kyle and my doula try to talk me out of it. The doctor checks me.  I feel like I'm in transition, and yet I know, I KNOW, that I am nowhere near that point.  I tell Kyle and our doula, "if I'm seven centimeters I'll go on without meds".  I say seven.  I mean eight or nine.

The doctor checks me.  Almost three centimeters.  I am not discouraged.  I am relieved.  "Get me an epidural."  It's all I can say, again and again, until I'm laying in bed savoring sweet relief.  

Two hours later.  4 centimeters.  Okay.  It's okay.  I'm not in pain.

Two more hours pass.  It's time to push.  

At first I can't feel when to push.  The nurse has to cue me.  But then I can tell.  I'm not in pain.  But I can tell.  

I push for an hour.  The baby's heart rate starts getting low towards the end.  Into the sixties.  The midwife talks about the vacuum.  It doesn't scare me, just motivates.  We don't end up needing the vacuum.  Kyle is by my side, holding my hand.  We are doing this.  We are in the hospital, we've been induced, I have an epidural, but we are doing this!  The lights are dim.  We are surrounded by flameless candles and beautiful music.  The doctor is in the room next door, so we're back with the midwife.  Does Kyle want to help deliver the baby?

And then she's out.  Anwen.  She's tiny and warm and wet.  She has an amazing strong cry.  She's crawling up my belly and all I can see are her beautiful big eyes - blue and deep and so, so new.  She has matted dark hair and I'm already in love.

(Photos by Allison Connor, our wonderful doula)

Anwen Bay

4.9.11

6 lbs 15oz ~ 20.5 inches

Successful VBAC!!!

Details to come. 

After I change some diapers.  And get some sleep.  And nurse the baby.  And calm a tantrum.

She is bliss.

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.

Tubbies

I learned pride tonight
here when I thought I knew it all along

but that on the face of my baby son
blowing bubbles in the bath water

half the time taking accidental gulps

all for my applause -

unabashed wild smile
and a sparkle in his eye

I want him to always be this free
and acutely unaware

my torn open heart again and again

be careful, so careful.

These are beautiful tiny humans and all that that entails.

Picking raspberries at the well.

Had I known
that one year olds can pick their own raspberries
reaching out with fat sticky fingers
joyful and sure

had I known the caution-less bliss
no bug checks
just raspberry to mouth
again and again

and had I known
I mean really known

sweet raspberry pulp
smeared haphazardly on baby fat chins

I wouldn't have chosen writing as my outlet

but photography to catch

that.

But then I realize no still camera could capture
the sun's dance in pixie wisps
the way it really is

and so maybe cinematography
until I realize no lens at all
can appreciate
that the wind is better when it's laced with
belly laughs
and chatter untainted by a good grasp of language.

So I'm back to words
and feel like I can't get enough air

until the right word is found

time is slipping away
this will pass
before I've captured it right
and before I'm ready to let it go

presence
beauty
innocence
mine
real
love

and still nothing feels big enough
right enough
or true enough.

Not disillusioned by art
but humbled by life.

Growth

That song came on the radio

drumming through my veins
when I was younger I'd hear it and feel sexy
wild
alive

and today you heard it
you grinned with all four teeth
and bounced on chubby legs

I scooped you up
a baby on each hip

we danced in the kitchen
in front of the dirty dishes
I was supposed to be washing

spinning and twirling and bouncing and dipping

you threw your head back and laughed
and held on tight

I try to be more awake
understanding that some day
you will love to hear this story

and then some day you won't

your chore will be to wash the dishes
and you won't want to dance with me instead.

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.

Cinnamon and Angel Farts

When we were going through infertility, I was certain that the cruelest truth of our situation was that I was destined to be a mother. I am human; I have my flaws. Lots and lots of flaws. But motherhood? I could see it dangling in front of me, just out of reach. My unattainable destined perfection.

And then I became a mother.

Oprah did a show about a year ago on the truth behind motherhood. She featured successful mommy-bloggers like Dooce who confessed their deepest maternal woes and suggested that no matter how bright and glossy the exterior, we all have a poopy diaper or two stuffed under the couch that we're hoping nobody notices. And they were about a year ahead of me. Sleep deprived with two colicky preemies, I watched with a vague interest and no real connection. My entire life felt like that poopy diaper desperately hidden away. The idea of shining up the surface and slapping on a smile seemed insane and potentially harmful.

Now I get it.

And if it's not a wadded, soiled cloth diaper under my couch, it's the fact that I'm writing this while slowly sipping a shot glass full of maple syrup because I'm feeling too responsible to drink anything really serious at 9:52am but dammit my babies are sleeping and if that's not a reason to celebrate and imbibe on sweet condiments, I don't know what is.

I'm a year behind on the uptake, but I'd like to join the collectively pleading voices from that Oprah episode and ask WHY WHY WHY is it that so many mothers make this business look like cinnamon and angel farts?

Motherhood may be wonderful, and I believe it is, but it is also beautifully and recklessly real. I feel like life should suddenly come equipped with air bags and seat belts and a very serious helmet. For me.

I'm not the mother I expected I would be. I call Kyle and beg him to come home from work early. Demand, even. I try to reason with thirteen month olds. "This behavior is NOT ACCEPTABLE!" It is inevitable that at some point in the day, somebody will get hold of their toothbrush and demonically chase after Bella in a desperate attempt to brush her teeth. She will be having none of that and thus will settle for having her tail lavishly brushed with a toddler sized spin brush full of baby Orajel tooth cleanser. The meal I've spent thirty harried minutes lovingly preparing will be thrown over the side of the high chair. I will swear. I will grit my teeth and mumble and grunt and in the midst of it all will not be able to resist kissing those cute and chubby and defiant cheeks as I walk by. Somebody will vomit in my car. I will let that vomit dry using the excuse that it will be "easier" to clean up that way. My babies spend half their life looking like baby hobos with food smeared on their faces and banana gumming up their hair and I will leave it there because really? I don't have the energy to fight over that and besides, people spend a lot of money on strikingly similar spa treatments. I hold on for dear life and offer a snarky laugh at the timid and perfect mother I thought I would be.

This mother, this real life, breathing mother, is a human being.

Scab.

A few days ago, I wrote about Rhys and Quin's time in the NICU. It's not the first time I've written about it, but it is the first time that I really went there and wrote about it. On some subconscious level, I've played through snippets of our NICU days a thousand times. The scene that plays most often is us leaving the hospital for the night. Tucking the thin flannel hospital blankets around my tiny babies and leaning in to kiss their faces. Whispering how much I loved them into their sweet and soft little ears. Begging them to be okay. To grow. To understand why, when they woke up that night, I wouldn't be there to scoop them up into my arms.

It's easy to get lost in the right now. And in most ways, what a wonderful place to be lost. My babies are walking. I watch them take these beautiful shaky steps. When they hear music, they immediately start to dance. I sit in awe and just stare at them - their pureness - just experiencing and reacting with wonder and honesty and joy. When they're not fighting over every toy they own, they fall into the moment and lean their heads together, laughing from the core with wild abandon.

All of this makes it easy not to look back. Easy to carefully tiptoe around when it falls across my path. And then I went there. And I wrote it.

I cried.

The details are sharper than knives. I remember the sandy winter grit on the NICU floor. The white board on the wall introducing my babies: "Hi. I'm Quin. Today I weigh 5lbs 1oz." "Hi. I'm Rhys. Today I weigh 5lbs. 6oz." Little dry-erase stars carefully decorating the empty space. Reminding us that this is happy. The incessantly beeping machines. The computer printouts the doctors showed me, neatly charting the dates and times when my babies had momentarily stopped breathing. The nurse who clucked at me, "don't worry dear. We'll get them as high functioning as we can. Easter Seals will work with them." The day I found out that Quin had several unusual cysts on his brain. Sitting alone in the rocking chair that day, holding him and crying. Big salty tears falling on my little sleeping baby. The withdrawal babies down the hall, crying in agony. Trips to the family room. Peeling back the foil lids on plastic containers of cranberry juice and chocolate milk. Believing I would never feel nourished again. Bringing Rhys home. Leaving Quin behind.

In and out of days, I know all of this happened. I thought I had scars.

A scar happens after the flesh heals and the scab falls off.

I wrote it. Hastily and quickly. Without caution. In my haste I caught my scab on the words. It ripped off.

Underneath, to my surprise, is open and raw.

I'm bleeding and bleeding and bleeding.

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.

Four.

We have four frozen embryos.

The leftovers.

The ones that weren't chosen. If the doctors had chosen differently, Rhys or Quin could be neatly preserved in a medical freezer in Boston right now, instead of playing happily on our living room floor.

At first I was thrilled with our four frozen embryos. I felt so lucky - to suddenly be pregnant with twins AND have four more embryos sitting quietly in wait should we need them.

And now the thought sickens me. Haunts me.

My four little embryos. Waiting. With uncertain futures.

I am a card holding member of the National Organization for Women. I will always stand up for, support, and believe in a woman's right to choose. I hate the way pro-lifers make the right to choose about something other than a most basic human right. They make it about "when life begins" and the "rights" of a fetus. Or an embryo.

It's not the pro-lifers who have gotten to me. I don't care what they think about infertility or infertility treatments or frozen embryos. But I have gotten to me. The mother that I have become has gotten to me.

When we chose to freeze them - or back this up even more - when we chose to create them or maybe have them created for us, I understood what we were doing. What I didn't understand was how it feels to be a mother, or the painful pull of the love I would feel for my children.

I feel that painful pull for our embryos.

I let my mind go all of the places that logic tells me not to go. I wonder about the children they might be. Would they coo like Quin? Give big open mouthed kisses like Rhys? Or have their own endearing traits to make me fall helplessly in love? Do they have souls yet? When does that happen, that an embryo, a fetus, a baby grows a soul? Why do I sound like I should be standing outside of an abortion clinic thumping my bible?

We don't know if we want any more children.

And if we do want more children, maybe we would want to see if it could happen without medical intervention this time.

But what about our embryos?

I consider donating them to "the right" couple. And believe almost immediately that I love them too much to chance that. To chance that they wouldn't be loved enough, or that I couldn't live knowing they were out there, mine but not mine.

I consider how selfish it would be to try and have a baby "naturally" when we have four we already started just sitting there waiting for us. I consider what that would say to Rhys and Quin about how they came into this world.

I watch Rhys and Quin play. I listen to them babble together. I look into their big blue eyes and am awed by their simple innocence. Behind the love is a layer of guilt.

Four embryos, waiting.

Bundled

Holidays, fork-mashed with sweet potatoes and breast milk. Part two.

In my first holiday season as a mother, I decided I would sail through in a completely stress-less state, laughing and snickering at the ease of it all in a most festive holiday spirit. My strategy involved completing 98% of our Christmas shopping in one morning online, and cramming 98% of our holiday erranding into three insane days of babies-in-tow mayhem.

By day three of our festive erranding, my state of stress-less-ness was hanging by a very wispy little thread. Despite the seventeen degree weather and whipping wind, in and out of the car went the babies and I - unbuckling car seats, hoisting babies onto hips, using my feet to open doors and enter buildings, and maneuvering my wallet with my one free pinky finger before re-buckling car seats, tightening the straps, and heading to the next stop.

It was at our third-to-last stop where things started to get hairy. First was the fact that the store I chose to complete our shopping in did not have shopping carts as I'd hoped, leading to an unusual shopping experience that entailed wearing one baby on my front and holding the other on my hip, using my one free arm to shop, select, pay, and be done with it. And then there was the issue of the babies requiring nourishment. I had planned ahead and brought bottles of pumped milk to give the babies so I wouldn't have to tandem nurse in public. I was feeling quite satisfied with my forethought as I leaned into the backseat of the car with their bottles. It took me about four seconds to notice a bizarre, rotten cheese sort of smell. Almost like rotten milk. Rotten milk. Shit. I took the bottles away. The babies started to scream.

I got into the driver's seat, turned the key, and weighed my options as I drove to the next stop. All I had left to do was purchase a bottle of rum and go grocery shopping. On the plus side, the liquor and grocery stores were in the same mini-mall. On the negative side, that meant at least another two hours before we'd be home. And two babies screaming in the back seat, scorned by a mother who first fed them rotten milk and then had the gall to steal it away. I pulled into the parking lot and the babies' continued screaming made my decision for me: boobs. Lots and lots of boobs.

Getting the babies out of their seats and into the front of the car was challenging. Even more challenging was getting the three of us settled into the driver's seat, removing the babies' hats, mittens, and jackets, using my feet to kick the keys out of the ignition, and then not dropping the babies onto the floor as I pushed the seat back as far as it would go, unzipped my coat, and inched up my shirt in the most discreet parking-lot fashion I could muster. Keeping an eye out for overly curious cart-collection boys, I fed the babies, and all was well. Time to buy that rum, get those groceries, and get the hell home.

Except. I now had two babies in the front seat. Both needing to be re-bundled for the cold, both needing to somehow be carefully carried into the store, and me feeling perplexed about how to accomplish anything other than sit there and wait for a second set of arms and hands to sprout from my body. But I did it. I used my knees, my feet, my elbows, and my teeth. By the time I emerged into the parking lot, my car safely locked, both babies carefully bundled, Rhys happily on my front and Quin in the front of our cart, I felt really damn proud. Okay, so maybe Quin was precariously balanced in the cart because I couldn't get the seat belt to buckle and it was just too damn cold to mess with it any longer, but I had a death grip on him and we were on our way into the liquor store where I planned to buckle him in for real.

As we crossed the parking lot, I noticed an old woman break from her hurried path to bolt in my direction, yelling. I couldn't hear her at first, her voice lost in the wind. As she got closer, her shrill advice slapped me in the face. "YOU NEED TO BUNDLE YOUR BABIES!!!"

Well.

Perhaps it was a beautiful display of motherly decorum that led me straight into that liquor store without another glance in her direction. Perhaps it was my complete inability to think of an appropriately feisty response.

And so just in case it was the latter, let me take a minute to respond now.

Because I kind of think I've got this thing down.

Because not only were my children both wearing wool hats and mittens, not only were they wearing fleece lined pants and warm jackets, not only was I wearing one of them snugly on my chest and holding on to the other with every cell and muscle in my body, not only had I just whipped out my naked breasts in front of the entire parking lot to feed them, not only that, but have I spent my entire life waiting to love them and mother them. And maybe I'm not quite as perfect as I'd hoped to be, or wanted to be. Perhaps I am a bit sleep deprived and perhaps I have days where I NEED A BREAK. I am still doing the best that I can and have finally realized that I am a competent and fairly good mother to these two perfect babies. And I get it, parking lot lady. It breaks my heart and tears at my soul but I get it. I realize that as much as I love them and try to hold on to every bit of them and every second of every day, I know that life will go on and moments will pass by and sometimes it will be seventeen degrees and we will still have to leave the house and the wind might bite their sweet little noses and make them cold and I get it! I get it! I cannot always keep them warm enough. No matter how hard I try, life or the weather or some shrill stranger will butt in. And so I'm just doing the best that I can. In spite of life, in spite of the weather. And that is why being a mother is hard. Really fucking hard, parking lot lady. It is wonderful, and break-your-heart beautiful, and really, really hard.

My babies are bundled, parking lot lady. Bundled, and bundled, and bundled.

armor

I think I was in the third grade the first time that I realized that my world wasn't fully comprised of butterflies and cinnamon. I knew that THE world had dangers and sadness. I had seen the starving children on TV. But I didn't know MY world was susceptible. Ignorance? Innocence? Gluttony? Ethnocentrism? Being an American? Probably a combination. But then the news broke that the US was embarking on the Gulf War. I remember sitting in the living room with my family and begging my parents to cancel their upcoming trip to Florida. I pictured bombs falling from the sky and soldiers on street corners like in the books I had read about World War II. Surely plane travel and a trip to sunny Florida were perilous activities in the war-torn country I was certain we were about to become.

But then life went on. Our favorite shows were still on TV. I didn't know anybody who died. We could still buy microwave popcorn and ice cream at the grocery store. I licked my wounds and moved forward. In time, the illusion of safety settled in around me once again, with only the slightest ding in its shiny varnish.

And that's how things went. I became so accustomed to that illusion of safety that eventually it felt like an armor. People were killed in Kosovo and the armor suffered another ding. Matthew Shepard was brutally murdered, there was genocide in Rwanda, and hundreds of thousands of people died from cancer: ding, ding, and ding. I got it. Terrible things happened in the world. I didn't feel invincible. I just felt safe.

I was living by myself for the first and only time in my life when two planes crashed into the world trade center. This time, there were no dings. The armor shattered. As the dust settled, I looked around and felt stupid. Ignorant. I never had any armor. Luck, maybe?

A little over a week ago, not far from where we live, a mother and daughter were picked at random and attacked in their home while they slept. Four teen boys with machetes and knives stabbed the mother to death and slit her daughter's throat. They say the little girl is going to live. I wonder what they mean by that.

I don't understand this world we live in. A world with apple cider and fall leaves. Where miracle babies are born and learn to smile and laugh and crawl. Where incredible people overcome incredible obstacles. Where we strive to save the forests, save the whales, save the ozone. A world with tulips and warm puppies and grandparents. A world of good. Beauty, love, peace, and harmony.

This world. With poverty and disease. Where we send our children to war. Where we get up in the morning and make our coffee, knowing full well that somewhere, right this instant, there is rape, torture, hunger, and worse. Where four bored teenagers break into a home and massacre a sleeping family.

I don't know how we piece these worlds together. I don't know how to build an armor around my children. How to make that armor real.

I'm not interested in illusions this time.

This.

Sometimes when we go to put the babies to bed at night, panic sets in. And it's the type of panic that might have once sounded to me cliche or inauthentic. But still it's there. We're giving the babies their baths and they have these soft full little tummies and tiny hands that splash the water and wet heads with hair that mats together and smells like lavender. And I feel panicked that I haven't loved them enough today. That I haven't breathed in enough of their baby-ness. Or made them giggle enough. The sound of their giggles makes me want to cry. It is the most beautiful sound I've ever heard. I panic that whatever I've done to mother them and make them feel loved is just. not. enough. Because they're them. Beauty and wonder and more than I ever thought I could know of anything. Ever.

And I suppose that's how this will be.

Eight months, almost nine, have gone by, and this has not faded. I love them more. Every day I know them, I love them more. And that is not possible. It is not humanly possible. It happens anyway.

And Kyle and I sit on our couch at night while the babies sleep and we say, "God they're fantastic. They're fantastic. Amazing." And it never gets old. Or stops being truer than the day before.

I wanted this more than anything. Would have moved the universe to have it. And it's more - they're more - more than everything.

bella, revisited.

All is not lost.

Cost-Benefit Analysis

Sometimes

we sacrifice

for

the greater

good.

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.

Sunday Morning Story (told on a Monday)