January 18, 2009
A couple of months ago, a Wall Street News reporter came looking to interview me because of it. Because writing about how to "make do" is all the rage, what with our impending (*shhhh*) recession. It's au current - trendy, even.
Me? Trendy? Ha!
As if I could be proud of this. The dire straights we face (as opposed to the dire straights we listen to while we vacuum).
This is the fear that keeps me up, tossing and turning and telling myself to dream of winning the lottery (although, interestingly, we don't play it). more...
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July 14, 2008
I'll tell you after he's served his notice where he worked - and you'll get right away why this place wasn't a happy place to work.
Wait, wait, don't tell me - you want to know if he got a new one first?
HE DID!!!!!!!!
After all these years, he found a job he wanted and the job wanted him right back. (Well, 5 months of interviews later. No, not kidding.) He starts in about two weeks, and if I were any happier or prouder? I'd frigging explode.
For those who are curious - he's an IT SR. ADMIN. The new job bumped his title, but he was already doing the work at soul-sucking job. His long-term dream is to be a robotics engineer, and he goes to school part time for it.
Oh, and one more thing - the new job, like the old one, has the hours he wanted - 6AM to 3PM. He likes being home in the afternoons to help homeschool, take classes himself, putter on the house, and throw the ball around.
Excuse me while I sorta float around for a while 
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July 11, 2008
That wasn't easy to hear.
I don't want to be that person. I don't want us to be that family. I think of myself, of us, as open. Curious.
Isn't it strange how wrong I am about the person in the mirror?
A couple of years ago, we started putting up walls because there was so much pain and anger around CD's depression. As much as I vented, there was that much more I couldn't - wouldn't - say.
And I never realized that even as we healed, the wall obviously didn't come down. Although Bear has many friends and is really social - the truth is that we seem happiest these days when we're the 3 of us, whether piled on the couch with Sara watching Mythbusters or walking along the river with our ice cream cones.
This can't be healthy. But I'm not sure I know how to let go, let in. I tell myself we're just a close family, and maybe we are. Yet...
Even after everything becomes all right again, it isn't over.
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May 18, 2008
There are only 3 of us, but I swear we equal about 12 different opinions. Doesn't matter the topic.
For example, of all the food in all the world - there are exactly 3 meals that the 3 of us like the same. Two of which are made by someone else (IKEA Meatballs and Panda Express) and the third? Yeah, hamburger.
CD is an Icelandic Socialist, I'm a Christian Independent, and Bear is a moderate Democrat who often switches to Republican due to his strong feelings about fiscal responsibility (oh, do YOU want to be the one to explain to my 7 year old that he's too young for informed political opinions? Yeah, have fun with that.)
We took the Belief-O-Matic, and I came up 100% as a Mainline Conservative Protestant, CD was a mix of Christian, neo-pagan, and Unitarian Universalism, and Bear? A Liberal Protestant and Quaker, (both 100%)!
We have different sleep patterns, levels of fitness, taste in decorating, and ideas of fun.
And yet?
It's amazing how much common ground we find, every day. Tonight we all piled onto the couch with bowls of pasta (different sauces, of course) and watched Mythbusters. After we were done eating, Sara McFluffy jumped up and spread across our legs as we stayed in a pile, enjoying the end of the show.
Looking at us, at how much we really enjoy just being together, I sort of stepped outside myself in wonder. That we are so different, and yet have forged this wide ribbon of common experiences that are uniquely, amazingly, us.
Of all the blessings in the world, this is the one I am most grateful for. Not to be too sappy for words on a Sunday Night, but you know - there have been a lot of years in my existence when I could never have imagined this kind of happiness. So I apologize for my misty moments of awe, they are unfashionable and trite.
And miraculous.
Boomdiadah, boom.
(Our favorite new commercial, but watch out - it's addictive!)
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April 18, 2008
As we skid into the end of a crappy week, punctuated by an earthquake, we had to put down my dear companion Maggie Bear.
She and I had been together for over 20 years.
I miss her already. So damn much.
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February 18, 2008
Which, I suspect, makes me a camel.
But moving right along.
You know how people, they say to you "Everything is gonna be all right?"
That's nice to hear.
It is.
But it doesn't make it so. Wishes? Are not fishes.
However, eventually I have come to a like opinion. Everything is going to be all right.
We dreamed of moving North, of a different lifestyle and of all sorts of firefly-like floaty things.
What we got, instead, is mounting debt - much of it medical - rooted in the same old place and time and a quick slide into what life is like when good health doesn't come back this time. But don't give up, life will surprise you with - like the little flowers that peek up through the snow just when you think there's no color left in the world.
And one thing I know, more than anything else right now - we're not alone. You're not alone. Sometimes a bad day turns into a bad week and bad news begins to feel like a habit you can't break.
But hang on tight to that line, because the wind always changes. The sun always comes back. And the color will once again saturate the world.
Hang on.
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January 09, 2006
After he got home from Karate, my waiter, Monsieur Bear, arrived at my bedside with his Spiderman clipboard and his Crayola Marker to take my breakfast order.
I sleepily requested eggs, scrambled. What I got was half a fruit rollup, and a fascinating array of snack foods including popcorn (CD was drafted to help there). And a glass of ice water in a flower vase.
Delicious, really.
But even that elegant sufficiency and the comfort of our sea of bedclothes and pillows weren't enough to keeps us inside for long. And off we ventured into the wild blue yonder of... downtown Oak Park.
We hit the diner for a second breakfast. While Bear flirted easily with the waitress (batting his baby blues and tossing them his famous crooked grin), CD and I dug into a meal that reminded us why we don't eat at diners much - oy, the grease.
Then we happily walked into the blustery wind of the umpteenth (rough approximation) of steely, windy weather. We ducked into the paint-a-plate place, something we'd never done before (although Happy Montessori has happily engaged Bear in ceramics before). Whiled away a warm hour engrossed in colors and textures as we fumbled our paintbrushes onto naked forms. Amateurish with bright colors and sloppy technique, we cheerfully forked over a king's ransom to have them all fired over the next week.
Bear, meanwhile, was done with his projects fairly quickly and had time left over as CD and I finished ours to make conversation with the staff, chat with some classmates who happened by, and carefully replace our paints to their rightful spots.
Afterwards, we strolled along, window shopping, until finally ducking into an ice cream shop with windblown hair and big eyes. In front of us, they blended the ice cream with candy bars or chocolate chips. The result was such a rich yummy dessert that neither Bear nor I could manage even half our small cups.
(CD manfully was able to demolish his.)
It was dust when we got home, but not too late for a long winter's nap.
I was struck by how nice the day had been. How we'd enjoyed each other's company had so much fun - laughing and creating and walking in the breezes.
Then today...
Wait.
No. I have decided to stop here. For the next 24 hours, there will only be good news. Agreed? Can we all get together on that one?
OK, then.
Thank you.
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September 17, 2004
TV being a fairly universal reference point, let me say - CD reminds me of "Luka" on the TV show "E.R.".
There's the superficial likenesses. Foreigners living in Chicago. Big dark eyes and oozy sensuality that comes, in part, from intent listening skills. A great sense of humor and a razor dry wit.
Then there's the deeper things. Like the "Luka" character, CD has a gravitas that comes from tragic events in the past mixed with a brilliant mind and an honesty that makes him unable to "play politics".
That's probably why most people quickly trust and respect CD, even though he is slow to trust others and is a very private person.
Our love story isn't tidy. It was uncomfortable at times, and overlapped other lives. Too much drama.
When CD and I met, it was an explosion of chemistry. After the dust cleared, we agreed - looking at our goals and our situations - that it made sense to keep it casual. It was to be dinners and a movie. It was to be conversation and long walks. It was to be lighthearted. No hard feelings. No strings, no profound expectations, no exclusivity.
About 3 or 4 months into it, I rented my spare bedroom to a guy who was relocating to Chicago.
My new roommate, "Harry", was a co-worker of CD's . I'd met him about a month after I'd met CD. I'd had 2 or 3 dates with Harry and it had been "meh". He was more enchanted by my circle of friends than he was with me. So it was with a little relief that I stipulated that we would NOT date if he was living in my apartment. Completely platonic. He said he understood.
Of course, he immediately began acting as though we were married.
He wasn't in my place an hour before I noticed that every other freaking word out of this guy's mouth was "us".
With sinking anger, I realized that I had gotten myself into one of those sticky interpersonal situations that are so agonizing for me. I was going to have an honest "come to Jesus" with Harry. A serious confrontation. Just thinking about it made me want to cry. I started hiding from my own apartment. more...
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September 07, 2004
This is the worst of the trip, the part we were awake for... Boston to Pennsylvania, the longest 580 miles. Ever.
Massachusetts
Start time: 6AM, Sunday Morning
Route: Mass Pike - 134 miles
Time: 5 hours 15 minutes
Our alarms were set for 5:30AM and it was still dusky dark when we pulled out of my mom's driveway. We hit Dunkin Donuts (CD - "Can we get going already?") and then put our backs to the sunrise and hopped the highway towards the Mass Pike.
As soon as we hit 50 mph, the antique door that we had bought at New England Salvage and strapped to the roof rack started making a horrible noise; "thwacka thwacka THWACKATHWACKA!"
We pulled over and rearranged the door. Bear, almost asleep in the back, groaned.
20 more miles. 30 more minutes of "THWACKA thwacka THWACKA!"
Holy crap, we were barely to Worcester and we couldn't go over 50mph without rendering ourselves senseless with the noise. We stopped to readjust that ^(*&*$#@! door about a dozen times. We came thisclose to hucking it into a drainage ditch.
There are some serious hills on the Mass Pike. The road is forcibly wedged into rock cliffs, the striations from the dynamite blasts still visible. As the road narrowed, the 'thwacka' noise would increase - it was like having a giant thudding vibrator strapped to our heads. The only relief would come on the open upward stretches, when the van simply buzzed around us, quietly.
By Sturbridge, we were all bonkers. We pulled into the service center and had breakfast, got gas, and ran like banshees in circles. Bear's backseat nest was rearranged and his new Digimon DVD restarted. CD battled the door (again).
"Thwacka! ThwackThwackThwackTHWACKA!" for another hour as we gritted our teeth and made for the New York border.
New York
Hit the border on: Sunday Morning, 11:15AM
Route: NY State Thruway - 442 miles
Time: 11 hours 45 minutes
The first 125 miles of New York state passed in stupor. We were 3 numb bunnies, staring with glassy eyes at the miles of asphalt.
We'd passed through miles of construction, beautiful scenery, and glorious weather and never noticed a thing.
Thwacka. Thwacka.
By Utica, CD had passed back into anger and defiantly pulled off the thruway looking for a Target or something and some kind of solution.
What we found instead was a place called Big Lots. We'd never been to a Big Lots before. Oh. My. Stars. Have you ever been to a Big Lots? This is like a nice clean flea market.
We found a bunch of Rescue Heroes action figures and stuff for Bear's birthday! We found snacks! We found a bra! We found a cheap, streamlined boombox for Bear! We found a garden sprinkler thing! And best of all? We found a foam egg crate mattress liner!
All this, for like 5 bucks.
Out in the parking lot, CD and I pulled the %^#@@! door off the van roof, wrapped it in egg crate, and put it back on. We got back on the road.
Silence.
Oh, the blessing this was. I can't begin to explain. Nirvana.
I stuck the cruise control on 72mph and we tried to make up some of our lost time.
The next 200 miles spun by in a blur. Other than some bathroom and gas breaks, we sailed into the sunset on wings.
In Buffalo, we asked the toll booth guy for directions to his favorite hot wings joint. He sent us to Duffs. Wowza. CD, who is a hot wings gourmand of the highest caliber, purred like a kitten. Bear and I played in the grass with his new action figures.
Then we decided, what the heck?! Let's go to Canada.
After about 15 minutes waiting about a mile from the border in traffic, we decided that Canada? Not so much.
We turned around and headed to Niagara Falls. We pulled into the park just about sunset.
The lookout tower over Niagara
It was a 3-hour detour, give or take. We were all physically exerted, fed, and awed by the time we clambered back into the car. The plan was to drive to Erie and spend the night at a hotel.
40 miles later, we pulled into the Angola rest area - which actually sits in the grassy thruway median, accessible via a walking bridge from either side of the highway.
We took over the family bathroom (I love family bathrooms) to wash up, brush teeth, change into soft clothes/pajamas, and whatnot. Then we made a family decision - we were feeling strong, it was only around 10 PM. Erie was about an hour or so away - but did we really need to stop? Why not just keep driving until we got tired?
So we picked up some coffee and juice, cleaned up the car some and rearranged Bear's nest back into optimal sleeping position. The cool night air was good for a few stretches.
50 miles to the the Pennsylvania border, 550 miles home, a full tank of gas, a sleeping (wait - what time is it here?) 3 year old, a cooler full of juice and snacks, and a quiet door strapped to the roof.
Hit it. more...
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September 02, 2004
Fenway Park, from Sect 18, Box 39, Row G, Seat 1
Game 67: Ana 7 - BoSox 12 (Yeah Baby), 09/01/2004
My old friend Kevin was into baseball in a very big way and infected me with it when I was in my 20's. I lost count of how many games we caught together.
I remember one night, Kevin and I drove around Chicago looking for a somewhere quiet we could talk. It was a melancholy night, just before he moved away.
Finally he pulled over on Addison, and I looked up at that old sign over the stadium. "I think this," he told me quietly as we gazed at Wrigley Field, "is about as Holy a place in Chicago as you could find."
I understood.
Baseball is a language that has given me common ground with other people as well. Like my dad.
Last night, he took CD and I to the Red Sox-Anaheim Angels game. Dad surprised us with amazing seats, and we lucked out with weather - warm with a cool breeze and a bright moon.
Johnny Damon got 5 hits for 5 at-bats and made it home 3 times. Millar got a 3-run homer. Manny got walked a couple of times. Red Sox spanked Anaheim. It was a rollicking boisterous game, and a great time.
It was the second Fenway game I've been to with my dad.
Aug 18, 1993 was the first time we'd taken in a Red Sox home game together. We got same-day SRO tickets, White Sox/Red Sox and grabbed some programs and some beers.
Danny Darwin, #44, was the starting pitcher. Usually, the Red Sox go through pitchers in a game like a cocktail nuts at a bar - but this day would be different.
It was a sunny summer day and my dad and I found a piece of railing with a good view. As the first outs were made, Dad and I got into a rhythm - he held the beers while I scored the game. He'd look over my shoulder once in a while, correcting my marks - "That was 9 to 3" he'd say. Or, "I'm not sure they gave him the error on that play."
Midway through the top of the 3rd, and a hush began to spread around the stadium. Dad peered at my box scores and asked, "Is that what I.." and I nodded. We shared a long look, and then held our breath.
Darwin, that inconsistent pitcher, was pitching a perfect game.
The full stadium was riveted. We watched in absolute silence.
5th inning, into the 6th and we still had, unbelievably, a no-hitter on our hands. Danny was throwing strike after strike. The catcher, Tony Pena, had practically crawled out of his shorts. Darwin was cool. We were praying, pulling, with glistening eyes and bated breath.
The Chicago White Sox were swinging with everything they had. And theirs was a roster of power hitters.
But no one could get a piece of Darwin.
Finally, in the 8th, with one out, Dan Pasqua connected and ran hell bent for leather before settling on 3rd. Darwin retrieved the ball, ready to pitch to the next batter. As though nothing had happened. No sign of disappointment, just steady focus.
But the fans had were not about to let the moment slide by. Before he could throw the next pitch, we stopped the play.
The noise erupted all at once, overtaking me with emotion. My eyes were puddled with tears. I looked around and saw that every man, woman, and child was up. Dad put out beers on the ground and we joined in pounding our hands together in a beat that shook the walls.
"Darwin, Darwin..." came the cheer. We screamed ourselves hoarse for long minutes, while the refs let the man have his due. Darwin stood alone, tall on the mound.
This wasn't Ripken, or Williams, or any of the guys who I've cheered for before or since. This wasn't Ramirez last night, used to the pounding affirmation from stadium full of admirers.
This was Danny Darwin. Traded around, stats up and down, the oldest guy on the team. You think he'd want to bust out in the Macarena. But there's an unwritten code in baseball. It's dictates a calm, unruffled gratitude to appreciation. A stoic's approach to the boiling emotions of the game. Darwin embodied all the class and grace of that code on that August afternoon.
He simply nodded in acknowledgement.
And I joined with 30,000 fans to peal a last hoot of frenzied joy and appreciation before allowing Darwin to finish his day's work- a 5-0 shutout that was much more than the stats of the day.
It was the best game I've ever seen.
Last night, my Dad driving out of Boston and we look back at the park, windows open and the night breeze still soft and cool.
I got a chill watching Fenway recede. It's as Holy a place in Boston as you could find.
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August 06, 2004
**************************************
Late at night, I'm holding on for tomorrow.
My son woke up this morning, and came looking for me. I wasn't there. He asked my husband "Mommy not home yet?" Because he hadn't seen me in a day. Because I came home so late last night and left so early this morning. I told myself, when I heard this with a flinch at lunch, that I would make it up to him.
I left the customer's office at 3PM but it took 2 hours to get home. I found my son, wired from watching TV all day. His teeth still unbrushed. I found my husband, writhing with the flu and a fever and hanging on by a thread.
I meant to help. I meant to.
But I had to collapse for a few hours before I could even remember my name.
I've become the kind of parent that I can't look in the eye. I cringe to think how easily I sometimes unplug from my son's life.
This isn't how it was supposed to be.
Growing up, I knew my life's ambition was to be a mom. I played teacher. I played author. I played rock star. Inside I knew being a mother was the one true thing I wanted to do with my days and my nights. Knew it like some people know they want to be astronauts, or doctors.
I also knew that paying jobs and me, well, let's just say that we didn't get along so well.
My first job? Babysitter. 13 years old. Let the popcorn catch fire and their kitchen was never the same. Paint took care of the most of this discoloration but the smell lingered for about 5 years.
My second job? Grocery store. Cashier. I stank. The manager was a family friend and he would regularly key into a register with my code and work it, in order to bing up my all-important "Items Per Minute" average.
Then my uncle died and I took off some time for the funeral. Then I asked for some more time off to go to his funeral again. Naturally, they had to fire me.
I actually felt bad for them when my father went in and demanded they expunge my records. How could they know that the shipping company had temporarily lost my uncle, necessitating an actual second funeral.
Even I thought it sounded like I was making it up.
My third job? At a restaurant. On my first day, I succeeded in committing a series of errors that, cumulatively, was nothing short of felonious.
But even after using a paper cup on the shake machine (to save time) instead of the metal one and spraying an entire line of customers with chocolate shake. Even after dropping the cash register tray on the floor, causing a scramble for money all over the restaurant. Even after exploding the top of the iced tea dispenser. Even after spilling the oil from the fryer and causing a nice cook to head to the the hospital with a possible concussion...
...Even after all that, they made me keep coming back.
Like my own "Twilight Zone" meets "Groundhog Day". The manager was my English teacher. Clearly on some kind of a Yoda trip. I, however, am no kind of a Luke Skywalker.
My first job in college? Campus tour guide. Accidentally led a group of alumni into a wedding in progress at the campus chapel.
My first job out of college? File clerk at a factory. Walking around and around a table collating a handout. And around. In nylons. In summer. In a break room. In a factory. With, you know, beefy men around. Taking LOTS of breaks. And trying to pat me.
My next job? As a temp in a trucking company, as a receptionist. I was fired after 4 days and called into my Temp Manager's office. "Elizabeth," the woman said sternly. "Don't wear your skirts so tight. Or so... yellow. And only one button undone on your blouse."
"Can it be the bottom button or does it have to be the top?" I snarked. She fired me on the spot.
Eventually, I became a chaplain. The kind of warm fuzzy job that didn't include me being near money, electricity, food or food by-products, or hornball truckers.
I regularly worked projects with other charitable agencies. One time a group of us was making our way into one of the Projects here in Chicago, when a big guy tackled me to the ground. He covered me with his sweaty body and kept telling me to shut up.
I screamed and never noticed the rest of our little group huddled nearby.
"Quiet!" He ordered in my ear. "Stay still for God's sake. Can't you see we're being shot at?"
It wasn't for another 10 years that I finally "fit" somewhere. I intuitively understood MegaCorp. It was like all these bizarre half-skills that I'd acquired all my life suddenly knit together to make me really good at something.
Hard? Yes.
Crying in the bathroom, hoping no one notices me. That kind of hard.
Learning to swim with the corporate sharks, I had a few bites taken out of me. But I am good at this. I am better at this than anyone I know outside my corporate life. I want to sing the chorus from Handel's Messiah. I love this job! I LOVE this job!
And looking back, I would have done it for a decade, maybe a lifetime, happily; stuffing my first dream away.
Then Bear came along.
And in an instant, I remembered why I was put on this Earth. I was born to be his mother.
And I dropped Mega like a hot rock.
Once he was in my arms, I knew certainly what I had known as a dream growing up. Motherhood was the only job I want as a full-time occupation. Luckily for me I had 7 months. 7 months where our plans worked and my job description was two words: Bear's Mother.
There isn't a word for how my soul felt. Happy is the pastel wannabe of the word. Amazing is a dim cousin.
Then circumstances changed and I was suddenly scrambling to nail down a paycheck job. Thank God, Mega took me back. Thank God, I do well at Mega. Thank God, Mega pays me well in return and set me up to work from home.
But there are days when I have to leave before he wakes. Days I am still gone when he goes to sleep. And I don't get to pick the days. Sometimes those are the days when Bear really needs me. One time it was the day he took his first steps. This is not Mega's fault. These are my choices.
Even though it's the only job I ever wanted, it's not my only job.
That means after doing dozens of jobs really, really, really badly I find myself torn between 2 jobs I love.
Well, maybe "torn" is not the right word. "Torn" implies that I am tugged between knowing which one I should do. I know I should be with my son.
What has me "torn" is the work. Ripped up inside over increments of hours, when my ability to prioritize is hog-tied. When the almighty dollar comes first and I twist in agony waiting to get back to who is really important.
God help me, I have not turned out to be the mother I could have been or the mother I wanted to be.
I am trying, instead, to be the best mother I can be.
I'm making decisions in the creases and sometimes? Too often? I am getting it wrong. Those are the times, like right now - like at this very moment in the deep of the night -that I just pray and hold on.
Hold on for tomorrow and try again. more...
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July 13, 2004
That's when you started to become real, when I knew in my heart that I would see you soon. You'd be the first of many; a loud, chaotic, affectionate bunch that I was in training to manage. Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians were singing "What I Am" on the radio as I made vanilla potpourri or some other homey craft and fantasized about non-alliterative family-friendly furniture that wasn't criminally ugly.
I was dreaming about you in 1991.
The cats and I moved into Chicago so I could go back to college. That summer, I was cleaning homes for cash and living in an empty, gusty apartment. I would sit on the fire escape with my dinner and watch the alley in the twilight.
I would sleep under the window: the bedroom always smelled like peaches and there was a little breeze. I had to get used to the occasional wail of sirens as I laid quietly, rubbing my belly and feeling you slipping farther away from being real.
I stopped dreaming about you in 1993.
Curled up in a bunk, clutching a plane ticket, and mourning. You already know that I don't cry pretty. My eyes turn red, my nose runs, and my face creases.
Oh, honey. It was like I couldn't wash that sweaty sad hospital scent off me. No one could help and it was such aloneness. Alone, as it slipped away. And then, I slipped away, too.
It was over a year before I exhaled and came home. It was a long time before you were dreamed of again.
I dreamed of you again in 1997.
Music by Goo Goo dolls and Savage Garden and Sugar Ray on the radio. A new job with Mega Corp. A new love, with your Dad. And suddenly, you were there again.
Clear in my dreams and my waking hours. You and your siblings, and a home for us all. I walked in sunshine, chewing peppermint gum and grinning like I had the secret of life.
You were real in 2000.
We'd joked about a millennium baby and then, suddenly, we had one.
Bright coppery tufts of hair and clear curious eyes. I was singing Joni Mitchell to you in my arms, feeling "The dizzy dancing way you feel, When every fairy tale comes real."
We whispered, the three of us deep in the night, about all our dreams.
There would be sandy summer days with relatives. Wind chimes and dragon tales and soccer balls. There would be homework and snowball fights and band-aids.
We designed tree forts, planned car trips, and imagined big Sunday dinners and holiday traditions that we would invent and carry into the future. I wanted you to be able to share all this - your childhood - with other children. Siblings to grow up with and against, challenge and enjoy, hate and love.
In my dreams of you, there were always more.
But it doesn't seem like it will be a blessing we'll have. And I'm sorry.
I've thought about this so much over the last few weeks and you should know, it isn't for lack of wanting or trying. I'm not normally a quitter. But the miracle of you took the dedication of an entire group of doctors, the bedrest of your stir-crazy mom, and the bedrock belief of your dad.
Somehow, now, I feel it in my bones. Lightning is only going to strike this particular spot once.
It is what it is.
For all the lonely times you may have in the years ahead, know we will be doing everything we can to saturate your life with the camaraderie of others.
For the times when there will only be your parents on the other side of the dinner table, know that we will do everything in our power to expand your view of your world.
No, this wasn't the original plan. But that doesn't mean that the reality will be any less amazing. If ever there was a child who was dreamed of, and then came true - it was you.
You are loved, you are enough, we are enough. We are a family. more...
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January 14, 2000
What to do when holding a positive pregnancy test, in the knowledge that you'd gone through half a box of Stay-Free Lights the week before in what you'd thought was your period?
Well, what we did was get scared. Immediately. While still standing in the bathroom, before CD had even finished getting the shampoo from his hair.
In a surreal haze - when you KNOW it's all surreal but still manage to put one foot in front of the other - we got ourselves out of the house and off to work.
I called my friend M. on the cell phone during the morning commute. I told her what was going on and she urged me to call my doctor. So I did, but the the nurse on duty told me that my usual doctor was in the process of retiring (NOW?!?) and wasn't around. She would have to hunt down another doctor for me.
I got to work about an hour later (argh I was working in the far west suburbs!) and immediately as I sat down, the nurse called and told me she had found someone who could see me.
I stood back up and walked out the door.
An hour and a half later, CD and I met with Dr. S.; CD held my hand as Dr. S did an internal exam as well as ordering several others. (This was CD's first introduction to a speculum. Dr: "CD - this is the big shiny medeival device I am about to insert into your wife" CD: "Gah?")
We pretended everything was fine. Yes - we made small talk. Don't underestimate our ability to make small talk under the most extreme of conditions. If there was a contest for this, we'd be the undisputed champions.
Then Dr. S. sat us down and explained to us that although I was pregnant, I was also bleeding, my cervix wasn't fully closed, and combined with the cramping - he believed...
He believed my body was not supporting the pregnancy.
He gave us a handout entitled "Miscarriage". He said he would pray for us. He scheduled us for a follow-up sonogram. Said we would discuss "options" afterwards. He actually said "aprox. 1 out of 10 pregnancies end up in 'silent miscarriages'."
I knew the drill, but this was CD's first experience with the "it doesn't always go well" world. WE held hands tightly, as Dr. S. scheduled an Ultrasound for us for later in the week.
We went home with our "So, you've had a miscarriage" handout; angry, quiet, at turns telling each other it was fine. CD gently tucked me into the couch with my legs up. We didn't have a conversation. We just waited.
After two brutal days and nights of spotting and cramping and crying, we reported to the local hospital for the Ultrasound. The technician made CD wait outside while he searched for the fetus. (Something no one will ever, ever, ever do to us again. We are immeasurably stronger together than we are apart.)
The technician found it (A jellybean, really), and the nurse went to get CD in. We watched for agonizing moments as the technician tried to find heart movement or heart sounds.
And then. The miracle. We just hung on and listened to the beautiful noise and cried. We were still, amazingly, beautifully pregnant!
And for the first time, we were happy. Just for then. As we floated down the stairs and out the door and down the sidewalk. As we plucked the parking ticket off the windshield of the car.
Happy. Pregnant. Happy.
Posted by: Elizabeth at
07:19 AM
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