Enough is enough and we are enough.

For those of you who don’t know – and I think it’s safe to say that nearly all of you do, since I posted and linked to a picture of myself stripped down to nearly nothing – last month I was a participant in Ashlee Wells Jackson’s 4th Trimester Bodies Project. I was one of hundreds of women who were lucky enough to snag a spot in a very illustrious project; the market was very unforgiving, as hundreds if not thousands of women vie for a slot in each city this project visits, and only a couple dozen people get in; and it just so happens that I was one of them. Make no mistake, though; I wasn’t chosen – I just happened to be a quick clicker who moved swiftly through the registration process online. My timing was right, and so I got in. That’s all there was to it.

I waited with great anticipation for my photo shoot to come, and when it came, there wasn’t a second that went by that didn’t live up to or exceed my expectations; while the skilled and stunning Laura Weetzie Wilson worked on my hair and makeup to make me look and feel beautiful, Ashlee made her hard work look effortless as she prepared my heart and my surroundings for what was unquestionably a defining experience in my life. Sitting with the two of them in a small hotel suite in downtown Minneapolis cracked me open – it broke my shell and called forth a wave of words, of emotions and tears as I talked earnestly about my experience with conception, pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood; and all the while that I spoke, I was gifted the opportunity to listen; to commiserate, to empathize, to ask questions, to laugh, to feel loved and understood and as though I was part of a greater whole. And indeed, whether or not I had ever had the chance to meet and sit with Ashlee and be photographed by her, I knew and I know that my place in all this is no more valuable than any other woman who’s conceived, birthed or raised a baby. We all share a common bond, and I believe it’s of utmost importance that we remember to acknowledge this.

_____

Those of us who’ve participated in the project are all part of a private group on Facebook, meant to support, uplift and surround one another; it’s a place where each and any of us can ask questions, air grievances, or offer words of advice or encouragement within a community of others who share one or many common experiences – the least of which being our involvement in this project; and I’ve so loved being a part of it. Except these women, who’ve come together to collectively build this strong, beautiful and powerful empire were divided yesterday when some were notified of being chosen to be featured in Volume I of the book series, and the rest became deflated upon realizing that they weren’t. And the group page kind of …erupted. There was joy, surprise, and elation, and then there was – understandably – great disappointment. Many of the women who aren’t being published in the upcoming first volume seem to have felt cheated; a number of people didn’t realize being published wasn’t a given right, others questioned whether their photos or stories were sub-par, and others yet just forgot to celebrate the incredible news that a book is being published (A book! Is being published!) – that Ashlee’s hard work and dedication is coming to fruition in a bound book that we can hold in our hands! – because they swept any notion of celebration aside in order to air their great disappointment. Women were openly upset, and even wondered whether their bodies weren’t scarred, striped or stretched enough to have warranted a spot.

And I had to look away. I had to close my computer and get up and walk away because the explosion of fiery estrogen was almost palpable, spewing off that page. Whereas I usually enjoy reading what everyone has to say and seeing swooping wings of support envelop the women in this group, the advent of a rising-up of those who were vs. those who were not chosen in this group – whether unintentional or not – suddenly became just way too much.

There are 150 women whose photographs and stories are being featured in this book, plus Ashlee’s herself, and it so happens that I am one of them. When I agreed to participate in this project, it was made clear to me that while there was a chance I’d make it into a book, it was certainly not a guarantee; and by no means whatsoever did that possibility or eventuality define my reasons for choosing to get involved. I loved the idea, and I so hoped that my story would one day make it into print and garner a greater scope of reach, but this was not remotely why I got involved. When I was notified of my having been chosen, I was elated; I was completely without words. I’m honored to have been picked, and I’m constantly in awe of Ashlee and her vision and her work; but being published is nothing more than one more blessing piled on top of the mountain of gifts I’ve been given by even just sitting in a room with this woman. To have sat with her, been smiled at by her, and looked square in her eyes is to have been blessed by her.

And so to think that there are women in this collective – women who’ve also had this pleasure – who put such a defining line down the center of being on a page in a book felt so incredibly dismaying. Every single one of us are featured in a growing online gallery – our photos and our stories have been shared already on numerous platforms, and have yet to be featured in various touring galleries, and in all sorts of other collections in articles, reports and other social media pieces – so to suggest that any one of us who didn’t make it into a published volume is not good enough, not stretched or scarred enough, not interesting enough or not powerful enough is ludicrous – it’s discouraging, it’s disheartening, and it’s fundamentally untrue.

It’s time to take two steps back and marvel not only at the magnitude of Ashlee’s work and her footprint, but at the breathtaking beauty of each and every woman featured in this great project. If not for the 4^th Trimester Bodies Project, how many of us would still be looking at our wrinkly, stretched tummies, our caesarian scars or our saggy breasts and thinking they’re less-than? How many of us would not have realized what an honor and a blessing this scarred, stretchy skin is? To realize the power of the female body is to acknowledge just how intrinsically beautiful we all are. It’s only in participating in this project that we’re given a platform from which to communicate our hearts and our experiences and our exhilaration and our love. Each and every one of us is brave, is powerful, is a beautiful pillar of strength for countless women all over the world. We should be nothing but gratified at having been granted the opportunity to strip down to our skin and hold our sweet naked babes close to our bodies while love radiated out of us in every single direction.

Each woman – each photograph – offers its viewers an outstretched hand of hope and inspiration; each one is a message that we as women are beautiful at our deepest core: our hearts.

So please; I implore you – marvel at these women. These photographs. These pillars of beauty and strength. And know that you, as a woman and a mother, are every bit as powerful. Your wives, your sisters, and your mothers. We are all this, at our very foundation.

Working toward normalizing breastfeeding

Margot and I are alone today while Daryl's at work, and we had a really lovely morning together before the shit hit the fan and she spent nearly the entirety of lunchtime bawling her face off because her yogurt was all gone. Nevermind, though, because I totally understand. Sometimes I'm known to scream and cry and let boogers and tears run down my face for half an hour when I finish my ice cream. I get it.

We went for a walk through the woods, and talked about bugs and green beans (her choice). And when we got home, I got to nurse her on two separate occasions - both of which came highly out of the ordinary since lately I only seem to breastfeed her before bed and in the middle of the night. But she asked, and I was happy to oblige, because is there anything more lovely than looking down into these eyes? For me, today, there is not.

Do I take too many breastfeeding selfies? Not as far as I'm concerned. But do I wish I cared less what other people thought? Yes. I'm working on it, though. 'Tis my mission with this blog; to overcome my insatiable desire to do what others think is best. Really, though, it's not that I care so much about what other people think as it is that I so fervently don't want to offend anybody. I'm a firstborn; I'm hard-wired to feel this way. I understand this quality within myself as much as I am annoyed by it.

But I am ashamed to admit that Facebook feels particularly scary today, with regard to sharing this post; I don't totally know why. But my circle of followers is far wider, and vastly more conservative than those on my other social media platforms.

A little voice in my head reminds me that this is not my finest effort at normalizing breastfeeding or uncensoring motherhood, but I'm trying to combat it with the knowledge that I'm taking my baby steps every day - and that for the record, they don't feel like baby steps at all. They feel like giant leaps off cliffs.

So... sorrynotsorry I'm flashing you my boob again.

In case you're feeling whisked away by the current.

When will we stop comparing our children to others, or measuring them up against something we were told or something we read online? I know it's nearly impossible to disregard it when your child seems to be falling behind the pack; if they're all gums while your friends' kids have teeth, or when their first birthday has passed and they haven't taken a single step yet, or when they should be saying 20 words and they're only saying three with any certainty whatsoever. It's hard not to feel less than, or as though you must not be doing something right - that maybe you're not investing enough time, maybe you're letting them watch too much TV just so that you can make dinner or unload the dishwasher or take two weeks' worth of trash to the end of the driveway - but it needs to be said that you are good enough. You are more than enough, in fact. You as a parent offer your children everything they need, and I guarantee they do not care whether you're still in your pyjamas at 4 o'clock or that the fridge needs to be cleaned out before some of those tupperware containers grow fangs and bite you. 

I just don't think we as parents are apt to give ourselves quite enough credit; or to remember that our babies are developing at their own rate, regardless of what skills come before others. Their brains are constantly working, growing and changing; and I know I'm one of many to sit there and pore over what might possibly be coming next, because Margot wasn't rolling on time, sitting up, or walking before any of the other babies her age. 

The thing is, though, it's imperative that we not get wrapped up in what we think our kids should be doing while we worry over all the things that they're not doing. Remember what a miracle your child is - and how fascinating it is to watch them grow and develop, regardless of what's happening with other kids their age. Remember that you're floating in a magic learning bubble right alongside them. And remember that at your most exasperated, when your baby or your toddler has been acting at their absolute worst, not sleeping, not listening, and throwing fits left and right, it's not unlikely that their brains are going through a major developmental leap. Being a baby is HARD, am I right?! Give that kid some slack.

I don't think any of us are alone in admitting that when a point in time passes by and a particular milestone hasn't been hit, we're suddenly investing all our power into willing our children to hit another stage of development via telekinesis. It so happens that my daughter didn't take her first unassisted steps until she was 16 months old - but I knew why: she was busy mastering language. I'm not exaggerating when I say she was able to count to 10 in English and French before she was walking. And yet... within the past few weeks alone I've witnessed her stick a thermometer into a tower fan (and walk around with its tiny battery in her mouth, unbeknownst to me until she spat it out), toss her shoes in the garbage, because "garbage!", and eat a crayon while saying, "Mmmmm! Yum!" She's a toddler. She doesn't listen, she throws tantrums, she plays with the cat food when I'm not looking, and last night she pooped in the tub. And it's all okay. I'm okay, she's okay.

Your baby is not my baby, and my baby is not somebody else's baby. Trust yourself and your instincts, and remember that that sweet little baby of yours is developing at his or her own rate, and you need not feel intimidated by what's going on outside of your bubble. Especially if you're busy cleaning up poop from inside it. I know all about it. 

Sleep training is not for the faint of heart. It's also not for everyone.

I've mentioned in the past (here and here) that Daryl and I ended up with a horrible sleeper for a daughter; when Margot was a newborn, I answered her chirps and her whimpers and her cries as quickly as I could get to her, and she was always satiated by breastfeeding. It was what she needed, and I was beyond happy to do it for her. To this day, if she asks, I will provide; nursing her is my joy, and I don't plan on stopping until it feels right; and as yet, it doesn't.

When she transformed from newborn to sweet, squirmy little baby, though, our habits didn't change. I knew from things I'd read or been told that maybe I didn't need to keep up with such steady nightly feedings, or that by this age or that age the contents of her stomach at nighttime should be enough to last her through to the morning, but never at any point in time did I feel even remotely certain that her mid-night cries for milk should go ignored; because who was I to say whether or not she was legitimately hungry or not? Granted, there came many occasions on which I'd put my foot down - I'd be in the throes of such debilitating exhaustion and I'd say to Daryl, "I can't do this anymore. We need to sleep train her." But with all the gusto I had mustered up, talking about it and following through with it were vastly different. And as we quickly found out, I can't stand weathering her cries.

We started sleep training her in the beginning over naptime rather than nighttime, and I did some reading and research, but generally attacked the process with a mish-mash of various techniques. I didn't know what I was doing, and I wasn't confident whatsoever. I tried sitting at her bedside, although even with room-darkening curtains, white noise, and pre-nap nursing she just laid there and screamed at me. We shed tears together, and I questioned altogether why I ever thought this was a good idea. Hints of success waxed and waned, and I became a veritable lunatic documenting every single thing that happened, and every single wink of sleep that she got. I kid you not - I kept track of everything. I still (kind of) do - I have notes in my phone that span over a year and a quarter; and although they've gotten far less detailed and I've gotten less diligent, I can't see myself kicking the habit until Margot starts sleeping through the night.

Anyhow, I digress. Here lie Exhibits A through D, demonstrating a fairly roundabout curve of how well sleep training ended up going back in those early(ish) days last summer. These are some particularly noteworthy moments - little snippets from four different days, out of close to a million of them, I'd say - and please excuse the swears. Also, don't bother telling me your madness has never brought a slew of cuss words flying out of your mouth like confetti. This happens to be an example of me reigned in.

So eventually, if it's not obvious herein, I gave up. You might have noticed how heavily me-centric these notes are - Daryl wasn't involved in this at all. Not because he wasn't absolutely and wildly DESPERATE to have his hand at it, but because a) he was always at work during naptime, and b) my maternal instincts offered a staunch HANDS-OFF-I-DON'T-CARE-WHO-YOU-ARE ruling when it came to both my limits and Margot's. Daryl has an easier time letting Margot cry, whereas I can only withstand it for so long before I'm clambering up to her room on all fours. And in the later days, when I eventually conceded and asked him to help - acknowledging there wasn't a bone in my body that wanted to do this alone any longer - there were many a night were I would either be yelling and swearing at him, or he'd literally be holding me back, talking sense into me, to keep me from running into Margot's room and undoing everything we'd been working on. 

Can I say that IT. WAS. HARD. ? That maybe I died a little bit? I hated every minute of it. And here we are over a year later, and I can't tell you with any certainty whatsoever that it was worth our time. Actually, I should give us some credit; even though Margot still generally sucks at sleeping throughout the course of a night, our efforts at sleep training revitalized naptime - and in the long run, eventually bedtime itself. Those long days trying and failing at getting her to be alone in her crib did pay off, in that they taught her that not only was she in a safe place, but she was capable of falling asleep without a boob in her mouth. It was a rocky trip up a steep mountain, but I am ever so grateful that that hardship led to her putting herself down for naps after some chit-chatting to herself rather than screaming so passionately that I'm surprised our neighbors weren't knocking on the door to make sure I was still alive.

The moral of this story? I don't like sleep training. I can't tell you whether I agree with it or not. And nobody but nobody is going to know better about your circumstances than you are. Whether your niece or your best friend's baby or even one of your other pre-existing babies were sleeping through the night after three nights of dreadful Crying It Out, or whether you're like me and spent months not knowing what was up or down and came out with a kid who kind of gets it but kind of basically doesn't, please remember that you're okay; that you're going to be okay, and that you currently are. Seek help if you need it, and rest on your laurels if that's what you need to do. So what if your baby is utter crap at sleeping? You know autopilot? That system that kicks in and makes your legs magically walk into a pair of pants and your hands mysteriously pick up your glasses and put them on your face in the morning (maybe right side up, or maybe upside down. I did upside down once.)? Autopilot. It's there for you and it works and it gets you through all those days that you look back and don't have a single memory of. 

So don't ask me what I had for dinner last night, because I guarantee I don't remember whatsoever, but at the very least I hold my head high knowing I'm doing everything - literally everything - that I can possibly do for my daughter and we're both better off because of it. 

Trust your gut. Read as much as you feel comfortable doing, listen to the advice of others, but take everything you collect with a grain of salt. It can't be stressed enough that nobody knows your child the way you do, and nobody is going to have a better handle on what your baby needs than you. Your methods and tactics and habits do not ever have to measure up to anybody else's. Those other perfect-sleeping babies are not your baby, and that's a good thing. Because they're really boogery anyhow.

My apologies to the departed

This past weekend we took a whirlwind trip to the southwestern corner of the Minnesota to attend Daryl's grandma's funeral. It was a bittersweet weekend, but we filled it with family and parks and puppies.

puppy!

The service itself was a lovely tribute to Grandma Olive, and the church was inundated with her family and beloved friends. I didn't spend a whole lot of time sitting down listening to any of what was being said, though, since I was on toddler duty. And overall it was fairly unremarkable, up until we drove to the cemetery for the interment and Margot pulled an almighty stunt. She snuck off a few feet away from where we were all standing, leaned down on all fours hovering over somebody's gravestone, and spat out a mouthful of chewed-up banana onto it. Daryl and I both noticed it, and were horrified, albeit we couldn't stop laughing. Of course we scolded her, stifling our laughs, and then inadvertently had to scold her again when not ten minutes later she wandered back to the same gravestone and found a little bit of leftover banana on it and smeared it all over the place. Insert absolutely mortified emoji here.

We spent one night in a hotel, which I can effectively say was a nightmare consisting of sharing a bed with a toddler with a horrible cough and an inability to lay in the same position for longer than 60 seconds. She screamed and cried when we tried putting her down in her pack 'n play, so after an hour we caved and brought her to bed with us; and nary did I get a wink of sleep thanks to the non-stop jabs of her knees, elbows, feet, hands, and little bum flying around everywhere. I don't for the life of me know how people bed-share with their kids. I was up all night.

No matter, though, because on the drive home she went from this to this in about three seconds flat and she stole my heart with how adorable she is and suddenly it didn't matter that I hadn't gotten a wink of sleep the night before. 

No I'm just kidding. It sucked. She's cute, but nobody's THAT cute.

Your story matters, and this isn't a contest.

I know how easy it is to feel overwhelmed. Particularly when I was going through postpartum depression, I spent so much time floundering to stay above water. It was hard not to look at my life as a big-picture piece and wonder how on earth I was going to make it through the next five minutes, let alone the following weeks, months, or the entirety of my life as I knew it. I knew it was important to take each thing as it came, baby steps all the while, but depression and being overwhelmed tended to find me compounding issue after issue on top of one another until I was roughly the size of an ant standing at the bottom of a mountain of problems that I couldn't see how I'd ever get through.

I remember being in elementary school or high school and having my parents' friends brushing off whatever it was that I was going through - like if I said I was involved in this or that, or that I was up against x amount of assignments or exams, I remember these adults turning to one another and almost laughing at one another over how petty these issues of mine were, that I was calling "problems", so to speak. They'd talk to me and around me as though it was cute that I was feeling stressed about a test or social hurdles at school, but that if I thought that life was stressful now, I had another thing coming. Because as I can only imagine they were thinking, I had no idea what stress meant until I was up against things like mortgages or marital problems or employment struggles or the like. I remember on numerous occasions feeling indignant when adults made my problems out to be non-issues, when I felt very legitimately upset about this or that.

And now that I am an adult (well...am I? I could argue strongly that I'm still six in my brain; or that I'm actually still every age I've ever been - but whatever) ...or I should say in spite of the fact that I am an adult now, I still remember that feeling so vividly. I remember thinking how unfair older generations tended to be - that just because I'm only 16 doesn't mean I'm not a real person yet, that my emotions aren't weighty or legitimate, or that my experiences are somehow lesser than anyone else's. I remember being 18 years old and making a conscious decision to always remember what it felt like to be that age; that when I grew older, I needed to fight the tendency that adults seemed to have to make light or make less of what an 18-year-old was going through, or what things are like at that point in a person's life. I chose to make note of the importance of acknowledging the personhood of an 18-year-old; or of any teenager, because it felt important to me. It still does. I knew there would come a day when my own teenagehood would slip away from my memory - and it did - but I remind myself that even though they look like puppies and often act like idiots, they're muddling their way through life no differently than I am today.

I'm referencing this because I still very much notice this tendency when it comes to parenthood; whether it's brought on by people making passing comments, or even just by my own habit of holding my situation up next to somebody else's, I realized that this still exists today. We still have the inclination to belittle certain feelings or circumstances because we're holding them up to a greater standard - to think, "Oh, just you wait. This is nothing." It can be a mother of three telling a mother of one that she doesn't know what busy or exhausted means; as though a first-time mother feels even for an instant that she's got it easy. Or it can be a mother telling a mother-to-be to sleep now - sleep while you can - because as soon as that baby comes, you won't get a wink; as though they've forgotten completely how cumbersome it is to be in the final stages of pregnancy, and how little sleep she's actually even getting at this point - not to mention the gamut of emotions she's experiencing, notwithstanding total fear at what parenthood is going to end up being like.

Why aren't we investing more energy into supporting one another, and into reminding ourselves that the hurdles we face, no matter how paltry compared to someone else's, are not unimportant?

My struggles and your struggles are real, no matter how insignificant they may seem up against another person's; and that just because one person has fewer babies or a smaller workload doesn't make their struggles any less significant or staggering. We adapt, and we adjust, and life primes us for greater issues that we'll encounter along our way. So what someone else is up against, or what you might find yourself going through in the future, does not in any way belittle where you are or what you're feeling today. Don't let anyone make you feel like what you're going through is insignificant based on anyone else's situation. Your story matters.

Nine years

I'm dismayed to be posting this a day behind schedule, but yesterday became such a whirlwind that I'm only finding the time to acknowledge our milestone now. Yesterday Daryl and I celebrated our ninth wedding anniversary! Of course we're parents to a toddler now, so it didn't end up being quite as glamorous as our first, our fifth, or even our seventh anniversary - even last year, when we celebrated having been together for eight years, we were parents to a squishy little six-month-old who was still happy to be toted around on our hips and eat little blobs of rice cereal off a spoon when she wasn't being breastfed every few hours.

This year, though, we were a united front working against a strong and opinionated toddler, fighting her second head cold in two weeks. I kid you not - she got over one, and then not four days later we're back to dealing with an ornery child with a strong and fervent hatred for having her nose wiped. Well sorry, kid - I dislike wiping your boogers probably as much as you hate having them wiped, and I'm sorry again and again when I inadvertently smear them all along one side of your face, but if we could only work together with an understanding that this'd go a lot smoother without your tiny hands shoving mine out of the way then we'd probably both be in ever so slightly better moods. Even though I won't do you the courtesy of leaving that rogue booger on your forehead. I don't know how it got there, but I'm not leaving it. Sorrynotsorry.

We had a fantastic morning together, out for breakfast at one of our favorite restaurants, then we drove to Minneapolis and walked around Lake Harriet, stopping for root beer floats and mint chocolate chip ice cream.

(Can you tell this was her first-ever lick of ice cream?)

The afternoon, though, post-nap, revolved around a trip to the mall to get some new shoes for this girl, who took us to battle and didn't relent until long after we were home again, and she was in bed for the night, and I was waving my white flag whilst assessing the damage to my spirit: realistically, I was down for the count, ready to set the universe aflame. Poor Daryl. We survived, though, and dined on Thai takeout and watched about half an hour of World War Z (worst movie ever), before turning it off and channel-surfing until my eyes would no longer stay open. 

I'm getting off track, though. So yesterday Daryl and I celebrated nine years being married. What a feat! We've laughed, we've cried, we've yelled and cursed, we've traveled, we've eaten amazing food, and there's nobody in the world I'd rather do life with. I don't for a moment believe in soul mates, or that there's only one person out there for someone. I believe that love is a commitment, and a choice that we're called to make and re-make every day that we wake up together. It's effortless at some moments, and unspeakably hard at others - but having him by my side gives me a confidence and an assurance that goes beyond words. To have chosen Daryl, and to have been chosen by him, is a blessing that I don't for a moment take for granted.

Marriage is so often a delicate balance of push and pull, though it inevitably goes through seasons of all-push and all-pull. Daryl has pulled me back from the ledge more times than I can count, while I can say I've nearly pushed him off that same ledge more times than I dare mention. He's the embodiment of selfless giving, while I sit there and take. To say that I am undeserving would be an understatement - and yet somehow his unwavering loyalty reminds me that I am exactly as deserving as he makes me feel. Maybe one is a result of the other, or maybe it's a testament to how deeply loved and honored I feel when we're together.

It'd be a great injustice, though, to make this post too mushy, because as a rule, mushy we are not. Daryl has the most hilarious sense of humor - but so do I - so while we both compete with one another for the position of Funniest Person You Know, he'll always maintain that I'm number two (our friend Noah being number one), and he is number two also, of course, because I am numero uno funniest person in my universe.

But we have a good system in place. The officiant at our wedding, someone very dear to our hearts and a father figure to me, spoke about how Daryl and I are like eagles, gathering branch by branch, building a home together. We work earnestly to create a home for each other, and indeed we are home for each other. We've evolved tremendously over our last nine years together, but we've always managed to keep holding hands.

Even when he reaches out for mine and I say, "Ew. No. Your hands are too clammy."

"MY hands are clammy?! YOURS are clammy!" he says.

And I say, "Dude. They are not. I've never had clammy hands in my life."

To which he replies, "You know, I went to high school with a guy named Clammy Hands." Because Daryl Jokes all inevitably lead back to him telling me that he went to high school with some guy with a ridiculous name. ("You know, I went to high school with a guy named Pass Me that Wooden Spoon.")

And I retort, "Daryl, I'm really beginning to think that you never even went to high school at all."
____

Nine years ago, we were two little puppies who pinky-swore our commitment to stay together forever. It's been a real trip and I love my Daryl today more than I ever knew was humanly possible.

Just gimme a sec.

Birth Without Fear started following me on Instagram, so I have to take a minute to thank you all in advance for your time and your patience while I take a moment to process these feelings.

Yeah I posted a gif on my blog. What. 

In case you forgot that you're hard to live with, too.

I think we can all acknowledge the number of times in the course of any given day that we fantasize about dropping our kids off at a yard sale and putting a lowball price tag on their foreheads, can't we? There seems to be a steady stream of events that take place throughout the day that inevitably causes us to contemplate whether pulling out our eyelashes one by one would be equally or less painful than trying to negotiate with a toddler. 

But have you ever thought about how those toddlers feel about us? How hard it is to live with the heavy-handed, fun-suckers that we are? Parents are the worst. We learn this somewhere in the early stages of toddlerhood, and this concept usually stays with us until right around the time we move out, and realize that ramen noodles are only delicious so many times in a row (two times max), and how on earth do you get wine stains out of your roommate's top, and oh by the way can I borrow $20? Thanks mom. I couldn't find any change in your jacket pockets otherwise I wouldn't have had to come to you like this. 

So until that magical day when your children realize what a doting parent you've always been, and thanks you for wiping countless boogers from their noses WITH YOUR BARE HANDS, it's important to remember that that love is a process. And that many a day will pass when your toddler will want to flush you down the toilet because you didn't think it was appropriate to allow them to stick their finger up the dog's butt. 

Without further ado, I present to you a small, non-comprehensive list of the things that Margot has hated me for over the last week or so. 

1. Telling her that under no circumstances does the power cord to my computer go in her mouth. It is not a chew-toy, nor is she a dog, nor would this be appropriate even if she was.

2. Asking her to kindly refrain from licking the shopping cart handle

3. Having the audacity to suggest she do a little drawing on the Magna Doodle 

4.  Reminding her that until she has a working knowledge of how a record player works, she is effectively banned from turning one on by herself

5. Taking the kitty litter scoop out of her hand and reminding her sternly that cat poop is not to be played with

6. Insisting that blueberries are for eating; not for squishing between your thumb and forefinger and throwing on the floor

7. Reprimanding her for using the cat's water dish as a hand-washing station

8. Reiterating that if I say that playing with the dustpan is yuck, that doesn't mean rub your hands all over it

9. Not allowing her to eat a live bumble bee

10. The couch is too slippery to climb onto. Yeah. Like that's my fault. 

That time I found a tumor on my baby.

This is the picture I took that, unbeknownst to me at the time, would flip our entire universe upside down. An entire month would come to pass, wherein we sat with bated breath waiting to find out whether our baby girl had a cancerous tumor.

Taken in early December 2013, when Margot was 10 months old, this picture became a blaring alarm bell; while I was running a bath for us to take together, I couldn't help but giggle and marvel at that cute tiny little bum - so I pulled my phone out of my pocket, and snapped a string of little naked baby pictures. I noticed nothing amiss, and went on to have our warm bath, then continue on with our day as usual. That night, though, long after she was in bed, I was looking at the pictures I had taken, and realized that in every single one, there was this small but unmistakable lump on her back, sitting just below her left shoulder blade. I'd never noticed it in person, but there it was in these pictures, staring back at me. I worked hard at keeping calm about it, not wanting to overreact, so at first I kept it to myself. But I spent the following day at work stewing over it all day long. I was obsessing. I kept flipping through these shots on my phone, zooming in, and simultaneously wracking my brain as to whether I'd ever seen this lump before - whether maybe I was making the whole thing up and it was just a little part of her body - or maybe it was just an odd shadowing effect and there was nothing there after all.

But I couldn't shake my intuition; there was a lump on Margot's back, and I knew something wasn't right. So when I got home from work, I told Daryl, showed him the picture, and he agreed that we should call the pediatrician. Well, okay, I thought - did Daryl's acknowledgement make me worry more, or less? I couldn't decide. We called the doctor, and the very next morning we found ourselves at our clinic, watching Margot's pediatrician examine the lump, ask us a series of questions about when we'd noticed it, what we could glean as far as whether or not it was causing her pain, or whether we'd noticed any changes in appearance since finding it - uh, no, as far as I was concerned, this thing was less than 48 hours old. We'd only just met one another's acquaintance; we hadn't exactly exchanged phone numbers or gone out to dinner and dancing. I had no idea what to tell her about this thing except that no, from what I could tell, Margot didn't even know it existed. She certainly didn't seem fazed by it. 

Well, while her pediatrician speculated that chances were good that this was nothing more than something called a lipoma, a harmless cluster of fatty tissue, she encouraged us to drive across town to the children's hospital, where Margot could get an ultrasound done on it. This would determine with more certainty what we were up against. Now, the pediatrician happens to be one of the most lovely people I've ever had the pleasure of meeting, and her bedside manner is remarkably wonderful. But the fact that she placed a call and got the hospital to squeeze Margot in for an ultrasound 20 minutes from that moment had me understandably on edge. I mean, if it wasn't at least some degree of concern, would we not have been waiting a day or two, or even a week? Anyway, off we went - we bundled back up into our car and drove over to the hospital, and sat with our tiny girl while she had an ultrasound.

This went as well as we could expect - especially since she was so caught up in that little light-up toy, she didn't even know what was going on. After it was over, we were sent home and told to wait for a phone call to give us the results and bring us up to speed. The waiting was agony, of course, but we managed. And a few days later, the pediatrician called us and told us what can only be classified as bad news, in spite of its uncertain nature. Unfortunately, she said, this wasn't a lipoma after all. There are blood vessels extending deep within the mass, she went on, and her hope now was that this was something called a hemangioma - a benign tumor, but a tumor nonetheless. She encouraged us to do our best not to worry, and told us that the next step would be an MRI.

An MRI?! Okay, I told myself; breathe deep. We don't know what this is, but the MRI will tell us conclusively. And until we find out, there's no sense in worrying. That little lump is there, snug on Margot's back, and there was nothing any of us could do about it. So an MRI was scheduled, and much to our chagrin, it was three weeks away. To this day I can't exactly be sure how I made it through those weeks, because never in my life have I felt so worried, so afraid and so anxious. My tiny, happy little girl was being poked, prodded, and examined and she had no idea what was going on; and really, I had to find solace in that; I was thankful that she wasn't in pain.

Finally, the day of the MRI came. We got up at the crack of dawn and drove back to the hospital, and checked ourselves in. We filled out the paperwork, we met a series of nurses, doctors, and an anesthesiologist, and then we got Margot into her tiny little hospital gown. How tiny she looked - how sweet her little face was - it was all I could do to keep from crying.

Then we held sweet Margot while she was given an IV in the back of her tiny hand, and while she was sedated. Never in my life have I so badly needed to crumple into a ball and weep as I did while I watched the life slip out of her eyes, and as she was laid onto a hospital bed and wheeled down the hallway, away from me.

We waited about an hour and a half when all was said and done; the MRI went perfectly smoothly, we were told - thank God! - and here was our groggy little girl, so doped up she looked as though she had had about as much wine as a frat girl at a party. And oh, did we ever laugh! She was like a little bobblehead on drugs.

SO. Okay. I'm getting long-winded, here. Back home we went, with our little frat baby in tow. And of course, we were told to wait again. This time, three days. It was a Friday, so we had to wait for the weekend to pass before we'd find anything out. So on Monday morning, I called our clinic, who told us our pediatrician was out of town until the following Friday (No. NO.), and the pediatrician who was replacing her was swamped with work, so I'd maybe hear back, but also maybe not. I was advised to call the hospital. Okay. So on a wild goose chase I went - but no, sorry, the hospital wouldn't give me any information unless I printed out an information release and either faxed it or snail-mailed it. (FAX? Who faxes anymore?!) I nearly bit this woman's head off on the phone, but Daryl bopped me on the head and reminded me she was just the messenger and to let it go. Blughghghh. So I called the clinic again and begged them to please have this on-call pediatrician call us. Please. Please. I just need to know if my baby's okay. Then I hung up, and waited.

And then - finally - a phone call...

With the blessed good news that this was indeed just a hemangioma! With an exclamation point at the end! We got the news that this little lump is a harmless, benign tumor that needs no further attention or treatment. It'll disappear on its own time over the course of the next handful of years, and won't cause our girl one bit of pain or discomfort.

I don't think I can ever do justice to the fear that rippled through my heart and my body while we waited. Never in my life have I been more afraid than I was at the thought of what could have been.

Daryl and I, well, we were bowled over. I was finally able to exhale for the first time in nearly a month.

Scaling mountains

I have a stepsister.

As it happens, I have a stepbrother as well, but for the purpose of this post, that's neither here nor there.

So again, I say: I have a stepsister. I don't know if I can quite convey to you how weighty this statement is, how deeply affected I am by this, or how long it took me to ever be able to say that out loud. What she was, up until about a year ago, was my dad's wife's daughter.

I mentioned in a previous post that some years ago, I lost my dad; not to death, but to another family – another life, another wife, another set of grown children.

My childhood was, for lack of a better term, pure magic. I grew up under the wings of my strong and lovely mother, and my gentle and completely hilarious father, and floated through the years next to my two beautiful sisters. Of course, our family did not lack in the yelling, fighting or griping departments – but rare was it that we didn’t sit down together as a family of five for dinner each evening.

I am blessed to be able to say that nothing bad – really really bad – had ever happened to me. Tragedy was a stranger to me, and I didn’t know any better than to float through my life blissfully ignorant about so many of life’s big and little things.

Follow me to the winter of 2006, though; I’d been married for six months, was held tightly within an amazing community, and had almost every soul dear to me within walking distance. One Sunday evening in February, my world fell to pieces when my sisters and I were gathered together and told over the phone that our dad had left our mom – he’d just packed up half of their belongings, and moved out. And that was that.

I vividly remember fruitlessly begging him to change his mind, to come home, to work on this; I pleaded for answers – why? What happened? How could you do this to us? What about our family? And all for nothing – I was told this didn’t have anything to do with us girls, that I needed to trust him, and that this was something I wouldn’t be able to understand. And still, I begged, I cried, I despaired. I was a twenty-three-year-old girl who suddenly felt six, and so very alone.

All this, though, was just a month or two before I learned who my father really was; that outside of the gentle and utterly hilarious, present and wonderful dad that I’d grown up with laid a chronically unfaithful husband who I’d known nothing about. Needless to say, I experienced a shift – where once was sorrow suddenly laid grief mixed with fire – pure anger, resentment, and the feeling that I’d been cheated out of my entire life thus far. And yet, the sorrow remained.

And at that, our relationship ended. In one blink, I lost my dad.

There came a day when my father remarried. I got up all the guts I could muster, and left a letter under the windshield of his car, which was parked outside the church he was in, vowing his love and his life to a stranger. In it, I talked about how not a day had passed that I had not been broken; that just as a piece of me died on the day he left, I was broken and re-broken, strangled and smothered throughout each day of my existence. I told him that each day that he is gone, I clamber through mud and rain, dragging my fingers through wet soil, just to keep from slipping into the depths of the earth. I said that that he had shredded my veil of hope, and torn down my foundations of love.

After I drove away, I waited for a response. Years passed, and I never received one.

For each prayer I prayed asking for my father to be returned to me, there existed one in which I begged God to let him suffer; I realized from the experience that I had yet to understand what forgiveness truly is. I prayed that peace and beauty would not acknowledge him. And I prayed that there would come a day when I might rise above this and experience joy again – a day when I might accept that he did not exist – that my father, as I knew him, never was.

____________

Six years went by before we communicated. Granted, I would receive the odd e-mail over Christmas, or on a birthday here or there, but I never found it in me to reply to him. Instead, I’d keep my reactions to myself – or I’d gripe or grieve to my husband and sisters over how angry I was – particularly when I started receiving correspondence asking me to get over this already, to quit ignoring him and put this behind us. As if he had a right to put his foot down and put me in my place. I spent those years angry, resentful and sad. In those six years, I couldn't even say words about what had happened without breaking down into tears. And at night, my dreams were flooded with scenes of him chasing me down – strongly commanding my name, backing me into a corner. Some nights I’d cower in fear, others I’d yell and scream so loudly that my throat swelled. I’d wake up acknowledging that not only was I deeply angry, but I was terrified of this man I once called father.

Something eventually changed in me, though. I’m not sure exactly when it was that I decided to change the way I was living; but I started to realize that I needed to move past this – or even just step into it, and over it – in order to get anywhere further in my life. It was occurring to me that my silence – the bitterness and anger I was harboring – was only destructive to me; that I was being pushed downward, and for what? I was tired of having misplaced all my hope; I wanted my light and my life back. In order to reclaim what was mine, I needed to address this.

So one afternoon, I wrote out a long, thoughtful and emotionally charged e-mail to my father. I didn’t know where to begin, at first; so I started with the basics. I told him about who I am today, what I do, what I’ve accomplished, and what I love.

And then, I told him what he’d done to me. I said that he has hurt me and our family immeasurably; and that while I hoped for years that he was suffering every single day – wishing that he’d never know peace – that I had more recently come to a place where I know that harboring my hatred for him is only destructive to me. I needed him to know that at my very core, I am changed – from the moment he left, I was shattered into a thousand pieces, and left hopelessly to gather up what I could, and keep muddling through my days.

And amazingly, whether this was completely shocking or sadly exactly what I should have expected, he didn’t get it. Somehow, he didn’t understand. I fought tooth and nail for about a week or two, trying to get him to see what he’d done, but to no avail. Sure, he offered an apology eventually – he said he was sorry for everything he’d done to hurt me, but it didn’t offer me the solace or the resolution I’d been looking for, because I realized I was throwing my feelings at a wall. And in the end, I decided to be okay with that; not only because I needed to be, but because surely my resolution needed to come from elsewhere anyway.

So I dusted off my knees, packed my feelings carefully back into my heart, and moved along; one foot in front of the other. And today, I am okay.

What I set out to talk about, though, was my stepsister. My dad's wife's daughter. A year ago, she had a baby – I found out because my dad sent me an email letting me know, and mentioned that she had noticed that our babies had the exact same birth weight; cute, I thought! He sent me her e-mail address, in the event that I might want to write to her.

And I did. Because if pregnancy, childbirth and hatching out of my shell as a brand new parent had taught me anything, it was that mothers – new ones, especially – need all the help, hope and support they can get; and not a bone in my body cared to shut this girl out when she was no more of an instigator of this mess than I was; we were both just children, floating in little bubbles above it all. I needed to stop thinking of her as someone who lived in the enemy camp.

As it turns out, today she's one of my favorite people to correspond with. She and I write emails to each other back and forth all the time, and is one of the most understanding and easygoing people I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. And part of me – no, actually, most of me – looks back at this and can't believe that I've come this far. The months and years leading up to all this were all about scaling mountains; they were about forgiveness, enlightenment, and blessing. They were about discovering what strength laid within me, they were about my strong capacity for resilience, and about the power of forgiveness, with respect to myself and to those around me. They were about what fundamental importance lies in not judging others, and in giving people a chance.

It has sparked within me a great motivation to teach Margot the importance of all this. She's this little person running alongside me, looking up to me for help, support and an endless supply of love. At this exact moment, she's sitting on my lap sucking her thumb as I type. I know I'll always be on a steady incline when it comes to my dad and what he did to our family, but I can't help but feel like I owe a debt of gratitude to Margot; her very existence challenges, motivates and urges me on to be a better and whole person. I will set the bar high when teaching her just what capacity the human heart has to love, grieve and forgive.

Margot's birth story, Part II

Well, this story takes off where Part I ended. In my last post, I recounted the story of Margot’s birth – an intervention-free natural water birth, which was far and wide the most profound and empowering experience of my life. I had an iron will and a driven outlook on a woman’s body’s capability to rise to the challenge of childbirth; and after 14 hours of active labor, my sweet squirmy girl was born.

Shortly after her birth, I was moved from the birthing pool to a hospital bed in the room we were in; the hospital’s protocol was that the placenta must be delivered on land, so to speak, in order to accurately gauge the amount of potential blood loss. Fair enough, I thought, and waddled over to a bed. My midwife, Edie, who I can’t tell you for certain is not an angel walking among us, kneaded on my belly to engage my placenta; out it came, and I think the population of the greater Midwest heard me howl. Once that was over, though, Edie praised me for my hard work in getting Margot here, said that I had achieved my goal of a drug-free birth, but that I needed to know that I had sustained a severe laceration when Margot flew out of me, and as a surgical team was on its way down to perform the repair, she was offering me drugs to withstand the pain of surgery.

Well, I may be a hardcore advocate of natural childbirth, but please don’t paint me with the wrong brush – medication-free surgery is just not my jam. So bring on the drugs, I said, with the understanding that they wouldn’t interfere with my tiny nursing newborn, who happened to be clamped on to my breast at that moment.

It was less than a minute before everything went loopy. I remember being told that whatever it was they were giving me wasn’t going to knock me out, but that it’d numb the pain in spite of the fact that I’d still be conscious, and still able to hear and speak. Now, I haven’t spent a lot of time on the operating table – at that point, actually, it had been zero time whatsoever – but I can only liken the effects of those drugs to what it feels like to have consumed a bottle of wine or two (or four) on one’s own. My eyeballs were swimmy, my speech was slurred, and it felt a bit like everyone in the room was talking in low, slow-mo voices. (I can only assume I’m factually wrong about this.)

I distinctly remember a number of people shuffling in (how many, I can’t be sure – three? Four?), and only learned in retrospect that this was a small team of medical students being led by one proper surgeon. Why I was never asked permission before I was made into a hands-on guinea pig I’ll never know, but I will always be resentful of this.

The team assessed the situation, and I could hear them going back and forth over the final consensus of my laceration. “Fourth-degree, would you say?”

“No, third, I think.”

“Yes, third.” Said someone else. Okay; so they had agreed it was a third-degree tear; now to work on a plan of attack.

Everything that ensued is all wrapped up in my mind as vividly clear enveloped in a fuzzy outer shell. From the moment they started stitching – no; from the moment they injected me with some further layer of pain-numbing medication – I realized this wasn’t going to be pain-free at all. I felt every needle prick, every poke, every pull. I was, as I said in my earlier post, floating somewhere between the precipice of hell and snug within the heart of pure bliss. My focus was entirely on Margot nursing on my chest, and on Daryl, standing bedside, holding my hand while I squeezed the very life out of his own. And yet I couldn’t shake this team of surgical workers who were stitching me up, and going over what I can say confidently was all too much back and forth about what needed to happen with regard to proper repair. They weren’t sure, and I was suffering immensely.

As it goes, though, it finally came to and end. I remember a doctor named James (“Hey! That’s what Margot’s middle name is!”) telling me that while I needn’t be alarmed, there was a piece of hymenal tissue that had torn during childbirth, that I was going to see if and when I looked at the …construction site, should I say. Since I was still looped up on drugs, I’m sure I managed nothing more than an, “Oh-kay…thahnkyou..vurrymuch.” And it wasn’t until a few hours had passed that I understood the gravity of what he had said. A piece of live tissue – something that was meant to be snug and safe and sound up IN my body – was not in it at all.

Now, anybody who’s given birth can attest to what a horror scene a vagina is like immediately postpartum. I don’t need to write about it in order to convey just how terrified I was of my own body in the hours and days that followed childbirth. And to add insult to injury, I had a piece of tissue prolapsed and veritably snapping its jaws at me every time I looked down. I took what Dr. James SomethingOrOther said to heart, though, and trusted that this tissue would retreat, and that my body would heal on its own time.

Suffice it to say, though, days and weeks and months passed and I was in chronic pain. The tissue eventually did retreat, but still remained visible, and it caused me pain in all areas; I couldn’t walk or sit comfortably, and don’t even mention sex. I’d burst into tears just thinking about it. Five months went by and I grew ever weary that I’d ever have enjoyable sex again, let alone be able to conceive another baby when the time came. I slinked into a depression over this as well as a Molotov cocktail of other factors – namely sleep deprivation, an untimely end to my maternity leave, and a case of eczema that swallowed up one of my fingers on my left hand, leaving me without a fingerprint, even; it was a physical manifestation of the debilitating stress and anxiety I was feeling every day. So I decided I needed to address my situation, and I made an appointment to talk to my doctor about what I was going through. She confirmed what I’d been afraid of – that my body wasn’t likely to heal any further, so if I was experiencing pain, we were going to have to pursue some sort of reparative surgery.

Within minutes, I was scooped up under the wing of the surgeon who gave me my hope and my life back – Dr. Ruth Merid – she couldn’t have been much older than me, if at all, and exuded confidence and strength. And without a doubt, she was my saving grace. Within two weeks, I was lying on her operating table while she effectively undid the work of that surgical team five months prior, and put me back together again. It was a long road back from that surgery, though, since I was essentially recovering from childbirth for the second time in a five-month span; but recover I did, and even though it took a year from start to finish, the advent of Margot’s first birthday saw me finally dusting off my knees and seeing my future and my present with hope rather than fear.

The fact that Margot’s first birthday coincided with her forays into experimenting with temper tantrums and other such toddler behavior, though, was a different battle altogether. One, though, that at least followed afterward instead of crashing head-on into my broken body and spirit. Onward and upward I went, and in spite of newfound challenges being thrown at me from every direction, I was unspeakably blessed at my recovered ability to, you know, put on a pair of shoes and walk to the end of my driveway.