Two-by-Four

(Dear Cate, don't read this, thank you)

After Lillian's 8lb., 5oz. body was pulled from a 5-inch incision in my abdomen, the doctor examining me in recovery decided that she didn't like the amount of blood coming from my nether regions.

In fact, she stood between my leaden legs, and said, and I quote, "What is that?", with this crazy, scrunched up eyebrow look suggesting a head-scratching mystery.

I was feeling like a person who had just been operated on (i.e. like a pile of shit set aflame), otherwise I might have been able to come up with any number of comments in response.

"I'm sorry, doc. Have you ever tried to wax around a beach ball?"

"Didn't you learn about vaginas in med school?"

"I call it my pink taco!"

"Careful, it's got teeth!"

The she pulled something from it and immediately decided that I was a suspicious person and required a bit of torture to get me to divulge whatever prized information I had stewing about in my brain. Faster than I could say What the Fuck, I had several pairs of hands treating my belly as if it were some freshly risen dough in need of a serious beatdown.

And if I'd had any secrets, I would have lasted just about as long as Mancow did being waterboarded.



It wasn't a life and death situation. There was no talk of a trip back to the OR. I just had some excess bleeding and it needed to be stopped.

And they did it by treating my abdomen like a Tae-Bo accessory.

Whatever pain medication that allowed them to successfully separate my flesh and extract my child had most definitely worn off, and it felt just like you'd imagine aggressive palpitations on a just operated upon body to feel like (shit, set aflame, again).

It was the most ghastly pain I'd ever experienced. I would take a full 27 hours of my firstborn's labor before I'd go through that single minute again.

After I had time to fully process the medical staff's smackdown -- with a delightfully cherubic baby sucking away happily at my soon-to-be-ravaged nipple -- I was rather irritated with David for what I perceived as not coming to my aid.

I had indignantly decided that he should have reacted to my loud cries of pain by, at the very least, asking "What the fuck are you doing to my wife, motherfuckers?"

When I actually brought this up, like (no kidding) two and a half years later, he defensively explained that it was all he could to stay conscious. Too much thought and he would have hit the floor.

I should have realized this ahead of time, knowing full well about his difficulty merely having a vial of blood taken, but goodness that pain wiped clean any amount of sympathy I had for squeamishness. I was just so traumatized by the horrific sensation of multiple women punching my just-pieced-pack-together stomach. (Am I successfully imparting how painful this was?)

During childbirth class, Dave almost passed out several times. The most dramatic was when my midwife brought out what can only be described as a relief map of the dilating cervix. I remember him turning to me and kind of squishing up his face, as if willing the vision of gaping cervices from his head, in an attempt to stay upright and conscious. God, I love him.

And it was pretty impossible to look at, even for me. I can watch a surgery on TV with no problem, but the representation of how my lady bits are supposed to look in order for a baby to emerge was just grotesque. 10 looked impossible. (Mine stopped at a ladylike 4, simply refusing to go no further.)

Also a problem was the discussion of vaginal tearing, and really, who can fault him for that. I just kind of la-la-laed through that part, trying to conduct a magical thinking experiment in which my vagina escaped unscathed from the peril of an emerging baby head. La la la la I can't hear you. My vagina is totally gonna be fine, la la la.

Sometimes I have trouble believing that all this happened to me. That I survived these two gigantic events and walked away with two gorgeous babies. But contrary to popular mother-speak, I never forgot the pain. I don't think I ever could. If one was given an ice cream cone after being smacked in the gourd with a two-by-four, one might be excited to have the cone by probably won't forget that their head hurt. Ya know? I know, this example doesn't exactly fit here, so sue me.

(I have no idea why I'm thinking about this, but I am. Now the kids are back from Home Depot with their father, who apparently also stopped at the beer store. So the weekend begins. Happy 4th everyone!)

I'd Like To Say It In A Haiku

Humbled, grateful for
your kindness, willingness to
support a person

unknown to you. You
are amazing, and I won't
ever forget it.

(So sorry this 'ku is devoid of any flourishes outside my desire to express thanks. I just wanted to say it. Thank you for supporting a friend and her family.)

St. Peregrine

Did you know that St. Peregrine is the Patron Saint of cancer patients?

No?

Well now you do.

I should have found this out when my mother had cancer, but the craziness of the 24/7 breastfeeding newborn Lillian and a penchant for turning to St. Jude anyway made this need obsolete. So my mother wasn't exactly a 'hopeless case,' which happens to be St. Jude's specialty. She did, however, have Stage 3 colon cancer. It was serious enough to warrant going to the main intercession Saint.

I'm of a clearer head these days. But once again knowing someone with a serious case of cancer, I wanted to find out who exactly is the go-to Saint for this disease.

We Catholics have Saints for everything. It's amazing. You got some dental issues? Saint Apollonia might be able to appeal to the higher ups on your behalf.

Looking for help during labor? Sr. Gerard Majella, ladies!

Eye troubles? St. Lucy is your best bet, having quite possibly had her eyes taken out by Diocletian as part of her torture.


Gardeners facing a tough growing season can implore for the intercession of St. Fiacre.

Fearful of a shipwreck? St. Anthony of Padua is your guy.

Tired of procrastinating? Expeditus might listen.

Even pastry chefs, undertakers and cab drivers have their own saints. No malady or profession is left without a celestial partner to lean on.

*******

About 10 years ago my parents took me to Ireland as a college graduation present. I made it through college, hadn't succeeded in killing myself, and so that was worthy of celebration. Unfortunately, I was fairly deep in the throes of a nasty depression, and so I was a sullen, weepy traveling companion. (My poor parents, seriously). (Also, Saint Dympna...Patron Saint of Mental Illness! Good to know.)

While we were there, we made a little pilgrimage in our rental car to the shrine at Melleray, where the Virgin Mary had reportedly appeared to some boys in the 80s. It was me and my parents, and a friend of my uncle we were also traveling with. As I sat in the chair before this shrine, where a white statue of Mary was set into the dug out side of this hill, I felt very little. I was so consumed with despair that I was entirely stuck in myself.

I had some natural intrigue about the story of the boys. I admit to watching to see if the statue would change to Jesus and back again to Mary, as some people had reported seeing, or if it would grow almost psychedelic with bright wavy lines around it, before returning to its natural state.

And I did pick up some of the holy water from the blessed spring that ran through the shrine. I did look at all the lit candles that symbolized someone's fervent faith or requests.

But generally, it was just another stop in Ireland, albeit one with a bit more relevance to my scattered faith.

In the car on the way back to our rental house, my mom and Jim began talking about their rosaries. Jim took his out of his pocket and mom took hers out of her purse. And in something my Agent Scully-like nature still has trouble processing today, they both discovered that elements of their rosaries had changed color. On my mother's rosary, the Christ figure, like the rest of the metal on it, had always been silver. It was now a gold color. On Jim's rosary, a scattering of links had also turned to a gold color, in nothing that resembled a pattern.

I won't go on and on about it. It was something I saw (I was sandwiched between them in the car) that still can make me shiver when I think about it.

It was simply one of those times heaven comes down to smack you in your head and remind you of something bigger and more wonderful. Whether we feel it or not. It's there.

*******

Yesterday I saw a bird on our dogwood. It was bigger than any of our typical fare, and I could tell instantly by its size and coloring that it was a bird of prey. I assumed it was a hawk, and stood there for a moment watching it. We see them circling above sometimes, but never this close. And never perched. Then it flew off.

This morning as I opened the bookmark that has St. Peregrine's novena for cancer patients on it, it hit me. What does a peregrine falcon look like?

And do you know what? It looked exactly like the bird on the dogwood. That wasn't a hawk. I scoured Google images feeling this jumpy sort of jubilation. I looked up the info on how they were endangered but are making a comeback, and can be found all over the world. I lingered on one particular image showing its back, and one showing it in flight, the two views I got the best of.

And back to Agent Scully, or at least, back to the reality that I am most certainly not an ornithologist. It was yesterday. The coloring was certainly not brown. I saw those striped tailfeathers. Is my memory serving me correctly?

So maybe it's nothing. Or maybe it was something big and wonderful.

I have decided that I don't care. I'll take it as a sign. St. Peregrine Laziosi has nothing to do with the peregrine falcon. All they share is a name, but right now that is at least enough to make me feel like I'm being listened to.

If not answered, listened to.

Can You Help A Sister Out?

Dear everyone who reads this thing,

I know times are tight. We're all holding on to our hard-earned cash with clenched fists, hoping for a turnaround sooner rather than later.

But I'm going to ask you to unclench a bit, and I know, all of you are exceedingly generous anyway. I've seen it and experienced it among this amazing online community.

I have a friend who was recently diagnosed with liver cancer. She is a year younger than myself, with two small children. And by small, I mean a 2-year old and a baby.

I don't like to talk of prognoses, as we've all seen people who've beaten the odds.

But this is not good. As if any cancer is good. It's downright serious. Without treatment, it's 6 months. Hopefully, treatment will eradicate this monster and keep her with her family. Her team is trying to get her into a clinical trial, but we haven't heard yet if this is a possibility.

I belong to a local organization for moms, and we're holding a fundraiser for our friend and her family.

We all love candles, don't we? So we're selling candles. Small pots are $9.00, and larger ones are $15. There are some really great scents: orange cream, watermelon, chocolate-dipped strawberry, plumeria, eucalyptus spearmint, and something that smells so like the ocean, even Kramer would approve. And many more.

Please, just send me an email if you want to buy one or 20. We'll work out the details there.

Thanks for listening,

Kelly

Pretty Purple Pills

Once upon a time I used to take this great medication. It happened to be during a time when I took lots of other medications. Weeeeeee!

Heh.

Anyway, the medication was called Trazadone, and I used it because I'd go entire days without sleep. We're talking four days at a time. The anxiety I felt at the time was so pervasive that I couldn't escape it. In fact, it was worse at night, when all was quiet and all distractions were gone.

And Trazadone did exactly what it was supposed to do. I could take half a pill and be deliriously tired and pass out within 20 minutes. It was fantastic. It was the first pill I took that its job with no additional side effects.

Once I tried to call Dave after I had just taken a pill, thinking we could have a lovely little long distance chat while I waited to get tired. That was a big mistake. Within minutes, I was slurring like I'd just downed 10 shots of Jaegermeister and followed it with a 40 oz. "I wuv yoooooo. When kin I shee you gin. Garble garble garble."

Man, that shit works.

All this reminiscing has made me think about all the things I'd take a pill for. And here's but a brief list.

1) To never shave or wax again. Ever. Can you imagine the time saved by Italian women all over the world if this pill were available? We'd be able to take more time making sauce ana da meatballs. But how to make a pill that would isolate that hair and not make my eyebrows fall out? I don't know, but there are some fucking smart people out there, and the sky's the limit folks, get going!

2) For a sudden burst of super strength. This would come in handy when I see people litter. Because I really want to smash people when they drop their shit all over the place. They just think, "I don't want this Double Whopper wrapper in my car anymore, so I'm going to just throw it out of the window, because the world's my trash can, and I'm a giant asshole." And that's when I'd follow them to their destination, pop a super strength pill, lift the offender up, spin his or her ass around a few times, and then stuff them in their own trash can, which is probably empty anyway.

3) To grow an impermeable plastic skin, sound-proof and sight-proof, for when the days of childrearing become to much to handle. I mean, pretty much, this is going to straight up be a bubble, except form fitting so I don't destroy furniture.

And pretty much this sucker will just shut me down.

I won't be able to see or hear my children, or feel them clawing at me asking for more frosted animal crackers.

Don't get me wrong. This would be a last resort, for when all my calm voiced parenting and reasonable offers fail, when the yelling and fighting doesn't cease, and when I feel myself wondering if it would have been better to have simply been born a squirrel. "I'll give you a choice kids, either you knock this shit out, or Mommy takes the bubble pill."

4) You can't have visited this website for any length of time and not know that I have a problem with headaches. Specifically, migraine headaches. I was at a website the other day that describes migraines as a brain disease. And quite frankly, it fucking feels like it. It feels like a red hot jackhammer blasting away at the inside of my skull. And I've had them since high school. I currently have a really great medication that gets rid of them almost 100% of the time, but sometimes they come back. And since my insurance only covers 6 pills a month, and one headache might require 3, you can see how I might run out. And that sucks.

On a scale of crosses to bear, I can live with this one. But if I didn't have to, I'd pop that pill in an instant. To never experience that blinding pain again, to never have the blind spots, the nausea, the pre- and post-headache hangovers. That would be amazing.

And honestly, I don't really like taking medication. Seriously. I know you're all like, right, you just spent minutes rhapsodizing over some anti-depressant that knocked you out cold and how fantastic that was, and then how you'd love to pop other pills, and we're supposed to believe you're more a natural-type gal? Really, though, it's true. I'd rather just go about my life without filling prescriptions until my arteries start filling with plaque or something awful like that.

Right now, beside my migraine meds, I also take Omepreazole for reflux. Which really pisses me off. Because producing too-much stomach acid is totally an old man disease.

So this is what I want to know, readers. If you had the inclination and could take a pill that would change something for you, what would it be?

Hello...It's Been A While

Hey.

It's me.

I know, it's been like three weeks or something awful like that. The rest of you prolific ladies are writing witty posts with images and anecdotes and memories and here I sit, pretty much trying to force something to come out.

Sometimes I think I'm trying to lose all of the readers I possibly can.

Sometimes I think I am simply waiting for something to happen. And lots of things do happen, but I just don't feel like writing about them.

I think that's the problem when you're like me, and your personality is such that you require a little bit of quiet time each day. And not at 8:30pm, when you're so bloody exhausted from the day and you still need to fit in some exercising, and then shower, and then sit down to do the work you get paid to do and didn't accomplish during the day because you had a sick child home all week.

Mine is a good life. It is.

And I am lucky to be is possession of it.

But, like so many of us, it's quite a busy one, and when you need just a little bit of something to feel restored, and that something is in very short supply, you start entertaining those lengthy fantasies of running off to an island in Mexico.

Through my work I found this place called Isla Mujeres, and it's been this constant presence is my brain. Laid back and relaxed, it's the anti-Cancun. Just the place to get...well, restored. And I started doing all this research on it, looking at hotel reviews and B&B reviews that showed pictures of guests having margaritas at the low-key, open air bars, with free appetizers and the camaraderie that accompanies escapism. To quote Liz Lemon, "Me want to go to there."

Alas, it's not to be. At least, not yet.

I'm looking forward to summer, and I'm not. I don't look forward to being activity coordinator to two children home for 3 months solid, but I am looking forward to venturing out with them, and seeing what kind of fun we can have. I don't look forward to the bickering, but I am looking forward to picnics in the park with friends, hikes, day trips and water ice.

I still have to work in the summer, quite possible two jobs, and my children will be home all day, and I'll have to try to balance this again. It's elusive, the feeling that you're doing things right.

But it's the way things are.

Yesterday evening we spent about an hour outside. We pitched a ball for the kids to hit with a plastic bat. We watched Hannah run track and field around the tulip poplar. We watched unknown bugs fly haphazardly, like a dissipating tornado, in a distant patch of sunlight, looking like flecks of gold. We drank iced coffee, sat some and played some. It's the part of this time of year that I love, when things go smoothly and we are this unit and we're outside doing. When we shed off the passive nature of winter and work together toward a common goal.

So that's what I'm asking for. There will no free time, no margaritas in an open-air bar. (How to remedy that?) But I'm hoping to make some memories just the same.

And shit, I'm hoping to write a little bit more too.

She's My Girl

She came out of me screaming, a hellion covered with the bloody remnants of her prior home. I saw her there, to my right, screaming under the bright lights of the OR, being wiped off, before I closed my eyes. After 27 hours, the desire to sleep was relentless.

When the midwife held her over my battered body, trying to get her to latch on, I couldn't keep my eyes open. Our first nursing was a haze, lost to drugs and the marathon of labor.

We truly met the next day, when I was awake enough to look at her and note her blue eyes. I nursed her and became drowsy again, but this time the sleepiness was from the pleasant oxytocin rush that comes from a little mouth getting her fill of colostrum.

Oxytocin is the love hormone.

Diane Ackerman wrote, "So the mother and baby find themselves swept away in a chemical dance of love, interdependency, and survival," and that's how it was that first day, when I had the chance to fiercely hold the body that had been poking me for the past few months: the elbows that would protrude, the knees, the feet, the perfectly round head that would butt my cervix and stop me dead in my tracks. The oxytocin flowed as I looked down at her sucks and pauses, the fluttering of her jaw, examining her furry ears and brushing her cheek with my finger.

It's been six years since that day. Six years since my broken water, six years since swept membranes, since castor oil and contractions every 90 seconds, six years since a hospital transfer, since Pitocin, since occiput posterior, since midwives and nurses and doctors, six years since I balled up my birth plan after 27 hours and chucked it as infection came on, since I lay shaking on the table thinking oh my god they're cutting me open and then, then, six years since her cry first entered my ears and registered. She's mine. Mine.

So there was love, the kind both natural and chemical. And there was the slow creeping in of terror: the realization that this creature we created would indeed be coming home with us, and that we'd have to figure out this breastfeeding thing, this non-sleeping thing, this crying thing, this healing thing.

And as much as I wanted to get in the car with my pain meds and ice packs on my boobs, and hide out in a K-Mart clothes rack, pilfering Combos and Cherry Cokes to live off of, this little baby that scared the hell out of me was also completely enchanting.

Oh oxytocin, bringer-back of frightened new mothers...

She is my evidence that we don't completely suck at the task of parenthood.

Her now 6-year old hand is constantly creating: pictures, notes, cards. Most have the same message, in one form or another.

I ♥ U Mom

Love you, Mom

I Love Mommy

Most are brightly colored, rainbows and flowers and butterflies, the stuff of her age and stage. She draws us all together, her family.

She notices things: the color of a flower, the way the sunset looks, how a clump of tall trees will remind her of being in her grandparents' cabin. I am so proud of this observant part, the recognizing and acknowledging of beauty.

She is always talking. Always planning. She has decided to live near us when she gets older, because she cannot comprehend living apart and surviving. Or, at least, this is what I tell myself. For her it's simpler. She just wants to be with us. She plans dinner and dessert menus for when we'll have 'grown-up' dinner together. She skips over dinner and gets right to the dessert: brownies dipped in chocolate sauce.

Her husband will be named George. She will have 4 children and own her own bakery. "Maybe you can work in it with me," she tells me. And actually, despite the desire to finally sleep in in my later years, this early rising to go bake with my daughter has an appeal that I can't quite describe.

She is sensitive, compassionate. When my grandmother died, she massaged my shoulders as I cried by the fireplace. She brushed my hair. She made me a card that said "I'm sorry that GG died." I watched her try to process my grief and make me feel better. She'd flutter in with a card or with words of empathy. She'd kiss my cheek and then depart, hesitantly, trying to discern if she'd made an impact.

She did. And she does. Every day.

For six years, I've had the pleasure of knowing her. And though we've hit some bumps, it's mostly been like rowing on a still lake. The sun is out and the rowing feels effortless and you just want to keep going, forever.

The pain of her birth day hasn't faded. It's impossible to forget how the earth moves, each contraction like the shifting of plates deep within the ocean. But how I'd throw myself back into the epicenter to see the glory of her, emerging.

Happy Birthday to her, my first girl, my big kid, the child who made me mother.