It's almost universal. Whether it be a friend, family member, or complete stranger; whether it is in email, text, or in person, the exchange is the same.
"Ohhhhh! How cute!" they'll coo over Chelsea. "How old is she?"
"Four and a half months."
And then it comes. The innocuous-but-loaded question, thick with innuendo and judgement.
"How is she sleeping? Is she sleeping through the night?"
I don't mean to imply that every person who writes me or asks me this question is attempting to gauge my parenting skills. There are some who really want to know. They want to know if Jon and I are getting enough sleep.
But many, many more ask this question because they want answers to other questions.
"Is she sleeping through the night?" usually means:
Are you 'parenting' her to sleep the way the books say?
Are you co-sleeping with her?
or
Are you not co-sleeping with her?
Are you too quick to enter her room when she fusses?
Are you letting her 'cry it out'?
or
Are you immediately attending to her needs?
Do you have a routine? Are you following it?
Have you read THE HAPPIEST BABY ON THE BLOCK? Are you "Sears-ering" her, or "Ferberizing" her?
Is she 'well adjusted'? Is she developing properly?
And whatever my answer is can be used as a yardstick to measure that parent's skill too. If they have a baby around Chelsea's age, then of course they can compare my answer to what theirs is. That brings on a whole new slew of comparisons and judgements. If they do not have a child Chelsea's age, then they will simply recall what their children were doing at that time, and compare that as well.
"Is she sleeping through the night?" requires an answer, but what is the right answer? Naturally, the right answer is yes. Preferably something like, "Oh yes. She has slept through the night since the moment she came home" which, while perfectly unbelievable, would be certain to garner some pretty envious gazes. The conclusion? "Wow. She must be a terrific mother, and that child must be a saint."
Because the correlation between a child sleeping through the night and a mother's parenting ability is inevitably drawn. I don't know why.
The answer - the truthful answer - is that she isn't.
She used to. Briefly, around nine or so weeks, she began to sleep at least ten hours a night. It became so quickly consistent that Jon and I would stay up late to work on things like our kitchen without a moment's hesitation - because we knew she would sleep.
Until one night, a few weeks later, she didn't.
And she hasn't ever since.
Oh, there were some nights that were better than others. The nights of her waking as "late" as 5 AM, taking a bottle, and drifting back to sleep. But mixed in to those nights were the nights that we would wake to her screaming at 2 AM, where she would take a bottle and only sleep till 6 AM at the latest.
If I answered the question, "Is she sleeping through the night?" with the honest answer of "No", well, you can guess what happens.
The advice starts, and the judgement commences.
You can almost see it in the faces of those who ask, or read it in the responses you receive. People's eyes grow a little wider, their heads shake ever-so-imperceptibly, and then they start to speak.
"Are you swaddling her?"
"Are you keeping her in your room?"
or
"Are you giving her her own space?"
"Aren't you letting her cry?"
"Haven't you tried that lavender baby bath - the stuff that's 'clinically proven' to help babies sleep?"
"Have you read (insert latest author's patented baby-sleeping book here)?"
The anecdotes begin.
"Well, when My Perfect Little Boy could not sleep, we just did (insert something) and it worked."
The implication is: See? I was a good mom. When my kid didn't sleep, I figured out how to stop that, and now he sleeps fine. You're not a good mom, because if you were, you'd figure it out, too.
I know many people do not respond this way, but many others do. I see it too often.
"Is she sleeping through the night?" is a question that many parents ask for validation. If I say she is, and that person's child is not, then the natural conclusion is that I must be doing something right and she is doing something wrong. Or, I know something that she doesn't know. She should beg me to impart my sagely wisdom, as if I hold the key to babies sleeping.
But if I say Chelsea is not, and that mother's child is, then that mother is validated. She is elated. After all, she must have the most saintly baby and is the world's most perfect mother. She probably read those books, and followed that five step process. She probably "wore" her baby all day as Dr. Sears told her, and he was right after all, because her little bundle of joy is blissfully asleep for twelve hours a night.
She also feels a need to evangelize to me, the unchurched one. She'll recommend the book that "changed her life", or talk of the special lotion or massage technique that "worked wonders" or speak about co-sleeping (or not co-sleeping) and how magical all of that is.
And I will nod my head and smile, mentally rehearsing the answers that I should give, but never would because they would just start more controversy. Things like:
I have a gross of that lavender shit. It did nothing except give Chelsea a rash.
I tried 'wearing' her in slings. However, when I couldn't manage to take a piss without fear of her falling out, I quit. Plus, it hurt my back.
I have a routine. I've been following it since she was three weeks old. Bath, swaddle, bottle, sleep.
I have swaddled her. She's been swaddled most of her four month life. They're starting not to make swaddling blankets big enough for her. I suppose I should knit some?
I've read the books. They either haven't worked for me, or are so infuriating, I want to throw them away.
No, I don't co-sleep with my daughter, nor do I intend to. This room is my room. She has her own. That's where I want her. I'm the Mommy, and I say so.
I listen, and I say nothing. I take their advice - "Oh my, I never thought of that. How helpful!" and pretty soon the conversation turns to something else, and I've made it past "that" question.
And do some people offer advice because they really do care?
Of course they do.
Do some ask that question because they really do want to know?
Sure they do.
But many others do not.
I have had to steel myself against the onslaught of emotions that rise up when I am asked that question and forced to answer it. I have had to physically reprogram myself not to react and to assume that this person really does care about me, or about Chelsea or is really trying to be helpful. I try not to editorialize or apologize for me or Chelsea when I answer the question.
"Is she sleeping through the night?"
My answer must be simple, yet project a future hope that someday, in some galaxy far, far away, she will.
"No. Not yet."
Friday, October 9, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
mastery.
It has been too long since I came here, but whenever I open this white little text box, I find myself mute.
What is there to say?
My daughter is four months old now. She can smile and laugh. She shows her preference toward certain toys. She sometimes cries when I leave the room. I play with her and she smiles.
During those times, I feel happy. I feel love. I feel maternal. I kiss her stomach and smell her good baby-smells, and I feel as though I have it figured out. This is what they were all talking about!
But those moments are fleeting. They do not last. They are slivers of time, and then they vanish. I am left feeling overworked, busy, and hollow. I am left feeling angry because she isn't sleeping the right way or eating the right way, or she has a temperature and I don't know why. In my desperate attempts to master the tasks that are motherhood, I find myself often flailing in the breeze.
I haven't even figured out how to leave the house with her to run errands. As a result, most of my time is spent here - at home.
The books say she should go on walks. That we should walk amongst nature in her stroller. That I should be showing her leaves and crickets and grass and trees.
Instead, what she sees is a carefully choreographed, contrived little light show above her head in the pink and brown swing.
Am I failing?
I don't know the answer to that. I certainly feel like I'm failing; as if my GPA in Mommyhood is dangerously below the "academic probation" stage.
But then others tell me, "Look! She smiles and she's fat and well fed. She's clean and dressed. You're doing fine."
What is the benchmark? To have a child with "Michelin Man" rolls, looking well manicured in clean clothes? Or a child that is actively babbling and watching intently as I show her what a creek is, or what a leaf looks like?
Both? Neither? How can I possibly grade myself when I don't even know how the grading system works? What percentage of my grade is made up of hygiene? What percentage on mental stimulation? What if she hasn't rolled over yet - do I get deducted for that? How much? Sleeping through the night - something she still refuses to do - how much of that counts towards the final grade? Is it all irrelevant until I get to the final exam? Can I salvage it all if I just ace the final? When is the final?
I don't know.
So I sit....and ponder...and wash bottles. I try to flip through the channels while holding a bottle in one hand. I change her clothes and I force a smile when I talk to her. I bounce her gently and show her the toys she prefers. I say their names. "Cow." "Lion." "Octopus." I read her the latest riveting, crinkly-sounding book she's taken a liking to. I read it without reading it, because I have it memorized. "'Arf'! says the dog. Kitty says, 'meow'! Bunny likes to play." I try to read it with enthusiasm. I try not to think about how I couldn't go to the Saints-Eagles game last weekend because there was no one to watch the baby.
I try to tell myself that it will not always be this way.
What is there to say?
My daughter is four months old now. She can smile and laugh. She shows her preference toward certain toys. She sometimes cries when I leave the room. I play with her and she smiles.
During those times, I feel happy. I feel love. I feel maternal. I kiss her stomach and smell her good baby-smells, and I feel as though I have it figured out. This is what they were all talking about!
But those moments are fleeting. They do not last. They are slivers of time, and then they vanish. I am left feeling overworked, busy, and hollow. I am left feeling angry because she isn't sleeping the right way or eating the right way, or she has a temperature and I don't know why. In my desperate attempts to master the tasks that are motherhood, I find myself often flailing in the breeze.
I haven't even figured out how to leave the house with her to run errands. As a result, most of my time is spent here - at home.
The books say she should go on walks. That we should walk amongst nature in her stroller. That I should be showing her leaves and crickets and grass and trees.
Instead, what she sees is a carefully choreographed, contrived little light show above her head in the pink and brown swing.
Am I failing?
I don't know the answer to that. I certainly feel like I'm failing; as if my GPA in Mommyhood is dangerously below the "academic probation" stage.
But then others tell me, "Look! She smiles and she's fat and well fed. She's clean and dressed. You're doing fine."
What is the benchmark? To have a child with "Michelin Man" rolls, looking well manicured in clean clothes? Or a child that is actively babbling and watching intently as I show her what a creek is, or what a leaf looks like?
Both? Neither? How can I possibly grade myself when I don't even know how the grading system works? What percentage of my grade is made up of hygiene? What percentage on mental stimulation? What if she hasn't rolled over yet - do I get deducted for that? How much? Sleeping through the night - something she still refuses to do - how much of that counts towards the final grade? Is it all irrelevant until I get to the final exam? Can I salvage it all if I just ace the final? When is the final?
I don't know.
So I sit....and ponder...and wash bottles. I try to flip through the channels while holding a bottle in one hand. I change her clothes and I force a smile when I talk to her. I bounce her gently and show her the toys she prefers. I say their names. "Cow." "Lion." "Octopus." I read her the latest riveting, crinkly-sounding book she's taken a liking to. I read it without reading it, because I have it memorized. "'Arf'! says the dog. Kitty says, 'meow'! Bunny likes to play." I try to read it with enthusiasm. I try not to think about how I couldn't go to the Saints-Eagles game last weekend because there was no one to watch the baby.
I try to tell myself that it will not always be this way.
Monday, August 24, 2009
names.
A strange thing, something a person might never think about if they weren't a mother to dead children, is how often you say your child's name.
I say Chelsea's name constantly. Fifty times a day? A hundred? Six thousand? I don't know. But I say it, and Jon says it, and others say it.
"What's Chelsea doing?"
"CHELsea!!"
"What's the matter, Chelseroo?"
"How did Chelsea sleep today?"
On a daily basis, I say my daughter's name for a myriad of reasons.
But I don't say Jacob and Zachary's name every day.
I talk about them sometimes. Sometimes, I suppose because they were twins, they are lumped together. "The boys." "My boys." "Our sons."
"Go put our boys' crosses back on their grave," Jon instructed me when I left to visit the Share Grave and replace the items removed.
But Jacob and Zachary - Jacob Anthony and Zachary Ethan - well, their names are said seldomly in this house.
In the weeks and months after their death, their names were rarely spoken. Of course we were thinking of them and talking about them. But their names were hardly said.
Sometimes, when I have a moment to myself, I try to imagine it. I try to imagine talking about them the way I do about Chelsea, or about addressing them the way I do Chelsea.
"Jacob, put that down!"
"Zachary! Stop hitting your brother!"
"Boys?!?! ENOUGH!!"
I smile, but it's like a dream. It can never happen. It doesn't sound authentic, because it's not. It can never be.
With Chelsea's name comes a plethora of nicknames. So far, out of probably twenty or so, two have stuck. I'm a fan of "Ma'am". "Ma'am!! What's the matter?" I don't know when I started it, but I use it often because I feel it is a term of importance. And Chelsea certainly commands respect and attention when she chooses to create a scene.
Jon has coined, "Miss Pants", sometimes shortened to "Pants". It's bizarre, but true. Rather than say, "Chelsea! What's wrong?" he'll say, "Pants!! What's the matter?" He told me it had to do with changing her pants all of the time, and a shortened version of "Pee Pants", which is actually a FAMILY GUY reference.
What might we have nicknamed Jacob and Zachary?
I could invent some, but they wouldn't be authentic. After all, nicknames evolve over time, sometimes coming out of nowhere, but usually having something to do with the child's behavior. My sister used to call Connor "Stinky" for obvious reasons.
There are no nicknames for my sons, other than Jake and Zach, which are patently obvious. Zachary is not "Sir" and Jacob can never be "Mr. Pants" or something equally silly and endearing. The truth is, their names are rarely spoken because there is no need to speak their names. There should be, but there isn't. I should be the mother of twin sons; instead, I am the mother to a daughter named Chelsea.
The act of speaking her name - of having to speak it so often - is a sacred rite that few realize...until there is a time when you don't have to say that name quite so much anymore.
I say Chelsea's name constantly. Fifty times a day? A hundred? Six thousand? I don't know. But I say it, and Jon says it, and others say it.
"What's Chelsea doing?"
"CHELsea!!"
"What's the matter, Chelseroo?"
"How did Chelsea sleep today?"
On a daily basis, I say my daughter's name for a myriad of reasons.
But I don't say Jacob and Zachary's name every day.
I talk about them sometimes. Sometimes, I suppose because they were twins, they are lumped together. "The boys." "My boys." "Our sons."
"Go put our boys' crosses back on their grave," Jon instructed me when I left to visit the Share Grave and replace the items removed.
But Jacob and Zachary - Jacob Anthony and Zachary Ethan - well, their names are said seldomly in this house.
In the weeks and months after their death, their names were rarely spoken. Of course we were thinking of them and talking about them. But their names were hardly said.
Sometimes, when I have a moment to myself, I try to imagine it. I try to imagine talking about them the way I do about Chelsea, or about addressing them the way I do Chelsea.
"Jacob, put that down!"
"Zachary! Stop hitting your brother!"
"Boys?!?! ENOUGH!!"
I smile, but it's like a dream. It can never happen. It doesn't sound authentic, because it's not. It can never be.
With Chelsea's name comes a plethora of nicknames. So far, out of probably twenty or so, two have stuck. I'm a fan of "Ma'am". "Ma'am!! What's the matter?" I don't know when I started it, but I use it often because I feel it is a term of importance. And Chelsea certainly commands respect and attention when she chooses to create a scene.
Jon has coined, "Miss Pants", sometimes shortened to "Pants". It's bizarre, but true. Rather than say, "Chelsea! What's wrong?" he'll say, "Pants!! What's the matter?" He told me it had to do with changing her pants all of the time, and a shortened version of "Pee Pants", which is actually a FAMILY GUY reference.
What might we have nicknamed Jacob and Zachary?
I could invent some, but they wouldn't be authentic. After all, nicknames evolve over time, sometimes coming out of nowhere, but usually having something to do with the child's behavior. My sister used to call Connor "Stinky" for obvious reasons.
There are no nicknames for my sons, other than Jake and Zach, which are patently obvious. Zachary is not "Sir" and Jacob can never be "Mr. Pants" or something equally silly and endearing. The truth is, their names are rarely spoken because there is no need to speak their names. There should be, but there isn't. I should be the mother of twin sons; instead, I am the mother to a daughter named Chelsea.
The act of speaking her name - of having to speak it so often - is a sacred rite that few realize...until there is a time when you don't have to say that name quite so much anymore.
Monday, August 17, 2009
SHARE of Lancaster Burial Plot Information
*This is edited to include the most up-to-date, relevant information.
Sorry to say that this is not really a post for most of you. But I know there are some of you who read me and are local. I know at least one of you has a child buried in the SHARE burial plot near Millersville, but I can't find who you are. If you are reading, this pertains to you.
There have been changes implemented at the SHARE plot that were apparently not shared with the families there. Perhaps, like me, you have not been to the cemetery in a long while. If you haven't, you will be shocked when you go there. Everything has been removed (with the exception of the stones, obviously). All of the mementos have been either discarded or (as I was told by one SHARE representative) "stored" in some way. I don't know how anyone would know this. I only know because another parent contacted me and because I had a happenstance discussion with a member of the SHARE board while attending a completely unrelated function.
If you have items you have left at the SHARE plot, even items that were designed to be displayed for a long while, you need to know that they are gone. This is a result of an apparent policy change between SHARE and the cemetery caretakers. Again, this information was not shared with the parents of the children buried there. Sadly, a friend of mine went to the plot on Sunday and called me to say that it had been "vandalized". I only realized then that this had happened.
According to my information, the current policy will be that all items left at the plot will be displayed for one month and then removed. One person said the items will be "stored" in some way, but that doesn't make a lot of sense. These guidelines were apparently submitted to the SHARE board Chair at some point by the cemetery caretaking staff and then implemented without our knowledge. Additionally, I have been told that this policy is "subject to revision" and that the new guidelines are still "in flux". However, it is clear that changes have already taken place.
**EDIT**
The current policy, according to Steve Cote, who is the new Share Board Chair, is that items will be displayed for a month and then removed. They will be apparently placed in a cardboard box that is under the tree near the site. The onus is on YOU - the parent - to return to the site and retrieve these items. The reason for this is apparently the request from the cemetery caretaker, but I also suspect it comes from SHARE members and Board Staff who claim the site looks "cluttered" in its current condition and want a way for it to look better and without certain items.
However, the current stance is that the cemetery caretaker has asked for permission to remove things once per month and place them in a box by the tree. There is no set date for this to occur, so you will not know what day each month this will happen. It is supposed to happen in the first week, so ideally, if you return by the second week, you can remove your item from the box and place it back at your child's stone. This is in a perfect world; do not count on this.
These changes were made with Steve's consent and permission, but without feedback from SHARE parents. Steve claims that there was no way to ask parents what they wanted to do. Funnily enough, he also mentioned that there is a survey that will be distributed, hopefully in the next month. I would think that a survey to allow for feedback might have been a good avenue to solicit feedback.
In any case, I feel I have exhausted that channel with Steve, but I will continue to endeavor to advocate for parents who wish for items to be displayed longer than one month. This is not even in keeping with the cemetery's usual maintenance schedule.
If you happen to read any blogs from parents of children who may be buried at the SHARE plot in Pennsylvania, please pass this information along to them. I can provide email addresses to you to discuss your concerns (if you have any) with this new policy. I don't need to discuss the outrage and anger I personally feel knowing that my items were moved by others. I find it personally offensive that SHARE would act in this manner, or that they would allow changes to take place without notifying parents. However, I also recognize and respect the fact that the plot has become cluttered over the years and this is a problem that some parents have spoken out about. That is a valid point, but this solution is not one that I think is appropriate, and the way its been implemented is outrageous.
I think there are people here who have been or are now currently part of SHARE locally. If that's the case, I'd like to reach out to them, as well. Please leave a comment with your email address.
For the rest of y'all, more to come.
Sorry to say that this is not really a post for most of you. But I know there are some of you who read me and are local. I know at least one of you has a child buried in the SHARE burial plot near Millersville, but I can't find who you are. If you are reading, this pertains to you.
There have been changes implemented at the SHARE plot that were apparently not shared with the families there. Perhaps, like me, you have not been to the cemetery in a long while. If you haven't, you will be shocked when you go there. Everything has been removed (with the exception of the stones, obviously). All of the mementos have been either discarded or (as I was told by one SHARE representative) "stored" in some way. I don't know how anyone would know this. I only know because another parent contacted me and because I had a happenstance discussion with a member of the SHARE board while attending a completely unrelated function.
If you have items you have left at the SHARE plot, even items that were designed to be displayed for a long while, you need to know that they are gone. This is a result of an apparent policy change between SHARE and the cemetery caretakers. Again, this information was not shared with the parents of the children buried there. Sadly, a friend of mine went to the plot on Sunday and called me to say that it had been "vandalized". I only realized then that this had happened.
According to my information, the current policy will be that all items left at the plot will be displayed for one month and then removed. One person said the items will be "stored" in some way, but that doesn't make a lot of sense. These guidelines were apparently submitted to the SHARE board Chair at some point by the cemetery caretaking staff and then implemented without our knowledge. Additionally, I have been told that this policy is "subject to revision" and that the new guidelines are still "in flux". However, it is clear that changes have already taken place.
**EDIT**
The current policy, according to Steve Cote, who is the new Share Board Chair, is that items will be displayed for a month and then removed. They will be apparently placed in a cardboard box that is under the tree near the site. The onus is on YOU - the parent - to return to the site and retrieve these items. The reason for this is apparently the request from the cemetery caretaker, but I also suspect it comes from SHARE members and Board Staff who claim the site looks "cluttered" in its current condition and want a way for it to look better and without certain items.
However, the current stance is that the cemetery caretaker has asked for permission to remove things once per month and place them in a box by the tree. There is no set date for this to occur, so you will not know what day each month this will happen. It is supposed to happen in the first week, so ideally, if you return by the second week, you can remove your item from the box and place it back at your child's stone. This is in a perfect world; do not count on this.
These changes were made with Steve's consent and permission, but without feedback from SHARE parents. Steve claims that there was no way to ask parents what they wanted to do. Funnily enough, he also mentioned that there is a survey that will be distributed, hopefully in the next month. I would think that a survey to allow for feedback might have been a good avenue to solicit feedback.
In any case, I feel I have exhausted that channel with Steve, but I will continue to endeavor to advocate for parents who wish for items to be displayed longer than one month. This is not even in keeping with the cemetery's usual maintenance schedule.
If you happen to read any blogs from parents of children who may be buried at the SHARE plot in Pennsylvania, please pass this information along to them. I can provide email addresses to you to discuss your concerns (if you have any) with this new policy. I don't need to discuss the outrage and anger I personally feel knowing that my items were moved by others. I find it personally offensive that SHARE would act in this manner, or that they would allow changes to take place without notifying parents. However, I also recognize and respect the fact that the plot has become cluttered over the years and this is a problem that some parents have spoken out about. That is a valid point, but this solution is not one that I think is appropriate, and the way its been implemented is outrageous.
I think there are people here who have been or are now currently part of SHARE locally. If that's the case, I'd like to reach out to them, as well. Please leave a comment with your email address.
For the rest of y'all, more to come.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
sling.
My idiot sister has a beautiful, pink and brown sling for her son. I guess the reason she got it was because it was the only one they had in her size. When I was at my mother's, she put that super-compliant child of hers into it. He snuggled in and fell asleep.
"Oh, you bitch," I said to her. "I envy you." Chelsea was starting to work up quite a lather in the travel swing and I reached to pick her up. "It's fussy time," I told her, looking at the clock. "But then again, when isn't it? I love your sling though. The colors are so...mine."
"Why don't you put Chelsea in a sling?" she asked.
I sighed with deep exasperation. "I've tried!" I practically shouted at her. "Don't you think I've tried? I have a Moby Wrap. I have a Baby Bjorn. I have this one from Target; I don't even know the fucking name. She just doesn't like any of them." I adjusted Chelsea in my arms. "She just doesn't like slings," I pronounced with confidence.
Surely, she did not. I had done research. I had asked for recommendations (and got several good ones, even from here, thank you very much.) I listened to mothers - real mothers - who had done the same exhaustive research I had. I followed their advice and I trusted it. I watched the DVDs and folded these huge-ass things and had contorted my daughter seventeen ways to Sunday in those expensive fabric contraptions. I strapped her in to the Baby Bjorn, first swaddled and then not. Despite the promise of a smiling baby on the front package, my daughter mostly just screamed.
"I've dropped probably two hundred bucks or more on slings, and I'm done with that," I said. "She doesn't like it. She doesn't like anything."
"Here," my sister said, gently removing Brandon from the comfort of the sling she was wearing. Of course, he barely stirred and sat happily in the swing my daughter had just been barking in. "Why not try her in this one?"
Tempted by the cute colors, but assured that it would be a big waste, I handed Chelsea to my sister. "Good luck!" I warned her, as Chelsea twisted in my arms. "She'll hate it, but go ahead."
My sister took Chelsea and placed her on her shoulder. She eased her into the pink and brown sling at her belly button. "Come on now," she urged her, as Chelsea wouldn't get her feet in the right spot. She pressed her into the fabric and guided her bottom into the little seam meant to hold her there.
Chelsea shut up. She shut up quick.
"There you go!" my sister crooned to her, adjusting her so she was sitting up. Chelsea was looking around, with her hands in her face, sucking her own fingers. Debbie started to move around the room and Chelsea bounced slightly. Her arm was out but she was quiet and looking around.
My eyes were wide as saucers and I was aghast.
"What IS that?" I hissed at her.
"Oh hell, I don't know. It's..." my sister looked like she was searching her brain. "I don't know," she admitted. "I got it from Babies R Us."
"You don't know?" I was incredulous. "You don't know??? You mean you just bought that, and blammo!, your kid liked it?"
"I guess," she shrugged.
My mom, watching the whole thing, said, "Wow, she really likes that. What a good idea!"
I wanted to hit her. I wanted to tell her the hours upon hours I had spent, reading and researching slings, and spending money, and folding and wrapping and walking and praying and probably even crying. I had done the right thing! I had been a good mom! Why, oh why, was Chelsea making a complete liar out of me?
"Take her out," I insisted. "I want to know what the fuck that thing is." At that moment, I was convinced that the sling must have been coated with some soothing substance, like maybe that Diprovan shit that Michael Jackson used to sleep. Or at the very least, some really strong lavender.
Debbie handed Chelsea to me and turned the sling inside out. She was looking for a label.
"Um..." she hummed, searching. "Here. It says 'the peanut shell'."
"Peanut shell," I repeated. "Okay." I mentally wrote it down and was just about to head up to my parent's computer to find nineteen of these "peanut shells" when it suddenly hit me.
"Wait a minute!" I said, raising my hands and gesturing wildly. "You give me that sling to try. Maybe she's only quiet because you're you, and you're a stranger. If I have her, she might still hate it."
It had to be my sister's strangeness and not the sling. Surely, it had to be. It couldn't be anything else. Debbie handed me the pink and brown sling and I put it over my head. It was tight. "I don't think it fits," I said.
"It's supposed to be tight," she said, "but they come in other sizes, so just try this one." She took Chelsea and helped me get her back into the Peanut Shell. Although the sling wasn't the right size, Chelsea sat in the sling, looking up at me.
Silent.
At that moment, I wanted to throw her and the sling across the room.
"You have to be fucking kidding me. You have got to be fucking kidding me. I don't believe this shit." Chelsea, oblivious to my torrent of curse words, stared up at me and almost cracked a smile. How could my idiot sister, who never did one ounce of research on anything, find this magical device just a whim? By accident? It wasn't possible! No. I had been thorough. I had!
"Good job, Deb!" my mom praised her. I looked at my mother, shooting daggers at her as I did so.
"Yeah, good job, Deb," I parroted, sounded more sour than I meant to. I looked down at Chelsea. "You little fucking liar," I whispered.
The Peanut Shell sling I had on was apparently in the biggest size they had, which didn't work. But I did some looking, and discovered its equivalent - Hotslings. I marched into the baby store that minute and found one that is actually too big for me (I didn't realize it then) and so I'll have to exchange it. But it was workable enough to bring back to my mother's and put Chelsea inside of it.
And she was quiet. And I went for a walk after supper around the block, and she didn't utter one peep. I looked down at her like she was some kind of alien. And I was pissed off and happy at the same time.
I'm realizing that slings, like everything else, are a trial-and-error type thing. Your baby might like this one, but hate that. Another baby will hate one and love another, and another baby might hate them all. There is no way to know for sure, I guess. Short of dropping thousands of dollars on every baby sling known to man, I guess you just try it until you find the right one. Reviews are kind of garbage, and the outrageous claims they make on those websites that sell them - Guaranteed! Soothes fussy babies! Will raise your kid's IQ 22 points! - are crap.
So, I am recommending Hotslings.
But don't assume it will work for your kid.
"Oh, you bitch," I said to her. "I envy you." Chelsea was starting to work up quite a lather in the travel swing and I reached to pick her up. "It's fussy time," I told her, looking at the clock. "But then again, when isn't it? I love your sling though. The colors are so...mine."
"Why don't you put Chelsea in a sling?" she asked.
I sighed with deep exasperation. "I've tried!" I practically shouted at her. "Don't you think I've tried? I have a Moby Wrap. I have a Baby Bjorn. I have this one from Target; I don't even know the fucking name. She just doesn't like any of them." I adjusted Chelsea in my arms. "She just doesn't like slings," I pronounced with confidence.
Surely, she did not. I had done research. I had asked for recommendations (and got several good ones, even from here, thank you very much.) I listened to mothers - real mothers - who had done the same exhaustive research I had. I followed their advice and I trusted it. I watched the DVDs and folded these huge-ass things and had contorted my daughter seventeen ways to Sunday in those expensive fabric contraptions. I strapped her in to the Baby Bjorn, first swaddled and then not. Despite the promise of a smiling baby on the front package, my daughter mostly just screamed.
"I've dropped probably two hundred bucks or more on slings, and I'm done with that," I said. "She doesn't like it. She doesn't like anything."
"Here," my sister said, gently removing Brandon from the comfort of the sling she was wearing. Of course, he barely stirred and sat happily in the swing my daughter had just been barking in. "Why not try her in this one?"
Tempted by the cute colors, but assured that it would be a big waste, I handed Chelsea to my sister. "Good luck!" I warned her, as Chelsea twisted in my arms. "She'll hate it, but go ahead."
My sister took Chelsea and placed her on her shoulder. She eased her into the pink and brown sling at her belly button. "Come on now," she urged her, as Chelsea wouldn't get her feet in the right spot. She pressed her into the fabric and guided her bottom into the little seam meant to hold her there.
Chelsea shut up. She shut up quick.
"There you go!" my sister crooned to her, adjusting her so she was sitting up. Chelsea was looking around, with her hands in her face, sucking her own fingers. Debbie started to move around the room and Chelsea bounced slightly. Her arm was out but she was quiet and looking around.
My eyes were wide as saucers and I was aghast.
"What IS that?" I hissed at her.
"Oh hell, I don't know. It's..." my sister looked like she was searching her brain. "I don't know," she admitted. "I got it from Babies R Us."
"You don't know?" I was incredulous. "You don't know??? You mean you just bought that, and blammo!, your kid liked it?"
"I guess," she shrugged.
My mom, watching the whole thing, said, "Wow, she really likes that. What a good idea!"
I wanted to hit her. I wanted to tell her the hours upon hours I had spent, reading and researching slings, and spending money, and folding and wrapping and walking and praying and probably even crying. I had done the right thing! I had been a good mom! Why, oh why, was Chelsea making a complete liar out of me?
"Take her out," I insisted. "I want to know what the fuck that thing is." At that moment, I was convinced that the sling must have been coated with some soothing substance, like maybe that Diprovan shit that Michael Jackson used to sleep. Or at the very least, some really strong lavender.
Debbie handed Chelsea to me and turned the sling inside out. She was looking for a label.
"Um..." she hummed, searching. "Here. It says 'the peanut shell'."
"Peanut shell," I repeated. "Okay." I mentally wrote it down and was just about to head up to my parent's computer to find nineteen of these "peanut shells" when it suddenly hit me.
"Wait a minute!" I said, raising my hands and gesturing wildly. "You give me that sling to try. Maybe she's only quiet because you're you, and you're a stranger. If I have her, she might still hate it."
It had to be my sister's strangeness and not the sling. Surely, it had to be. It couldn't be anything else. Debbie handed me the pink and brown sling and I put it over my head. It was tight. "I don't think it fits," I said.
"It's supposed to be tight," she said, "but they come in other sizes, so just try this one." She took Chelsea and helped me get her back into the Peanut Shell. Although the sling wasn't the right size, Chelsea sat in the sling, looking up at me.
Silent.
At that moment, I wanted to throw her and the sling across the room.
"You have to be fucking kidding me. You have got to be fucking kidding me. I don't believe this shit." Chelsea, oblivious to my torrent of curse words, stared up at me and almost cracked a smile. How could my idiot sister, who never did one ounce of research on anything, find this magical device just a whim? By accident? It wasn't possible! No. I had been thorough. I had!
"Good job, Deb!" my mom praised her. I looked at my mother, shooting daggers at her as I did so.
"Yeah, good job, Deb," I parroted, sounded more sour than I meant to. I looked down at Chelsea. "You little fucking liar," I whispered.
The Peanut Shell sling I had on was apparently in the biggest size they had, which didn't work. But I did some looking, and discovered its equivalent - Hotslings. I marched into the baby store that minute and found one that is actually too big for me (I didn't realize it then) and so I'll have to exchange it. But it was workable enough to bring back to my mother's and put Chelsea inside of it.
And she was quiet. And I went for a walk after supper around the block, and she didn't utter one peep. I looked down at her like she was some kind of alien. And I was pissed off and happy at the same time.
I'm realizing that slings, like everything else, are a trial-and-error type thing. Your baby might like this one, but hate that. Another baby will hate one and love another, and another baby might hate them all. There is no way to know for sure, I guess. Short of dropping thousands of dollars on every baby sling known to man, I guess you just try it until you find the right one. Reviews are kind of garbage, and the outrageous claims they make on those websites that sell them - Guaranteed! Soothes fussy babies! Will raise your kid's IQ 22 points! - are crap.
So, I am recommending Hotslings.
But don't assume it will work for your kid.
Friday, July 31, 2009
smiles.
Chelsea has begun smiling.
At first, around five or so weeks, she began doing these little fleeting smiles where she would look away and allow her face to fall into some kind of strange, contorted smile.
Many enthusiastic mothers eagerly log this in the baby book as a smile, but not I. Oh no. I wanted a real, live, toothless, wide, obvious smile.
I was starting to think that maybe my daughter wasn't capable of performing such an act. Was her mouth somehow malformed to prevent cracking a grin? Or was I simply not funny enough to cause her to do anything but look sour?
Fear not, for at some point during last week, she began to smile at me. First little smiles and then wide grins, curling the corners of her eyes, looking as though she might laugh at any moment.
I can't remember the first time it happened, though I know I'm supposed to. I know it happened, and I kind of remember it, but not exactly. I'm sure between utter exhaustion and formula-puke on my shirt, it got lost. But I know it happened.
One of the first times she smiled, I remember watching her eyes crinkle at me and I smiled back. I was supposed to, wasn't I? I smiled back, and then she paused and smiled back at me. We were having this secret, silent, smile conversation; first me, then her, then me, then her.
At some point, I asked myself: What the hell are we smiling about?
Still, there was no denying that it was cute. Whether it meant that she was just a cute kid, or if any kid's smile is cute, I didn't know. At that moment, I probably didn't care. Her face was sweet and serene, her eyes looked terribly innocent, and she was smiling.
And she wasn't crying.
Yet.
I realized, over the days after she started smiling that I, as Mommy, had some obligation to keep these smiles coming.
I also realized I had absolutely no idea how to do this.
Was I supposed to? I guess I was. Who else was supposed to? Other than me, or Daddy, there was no book entitled HOW TO GET YOUR KID TO SMILE. You're supposed to instinctively know what it is that causes those spontaneous expressions of happiness on her face.
So I experimented. I found that she seemed to like to sit in the crook of my arm, as if she was getting ready to have a bottle. She seemed to like to look up at me that way, and sometimes, she would smile. And sometimes she wouldn't.
Go figure.
I tried talking to her; repeating certain things that I'd heard worked for other babies. She'd watch me with a careful, steady, piercing gaze, but I never saw so much as a twitch. I held her in front of me, singing, "Head, shoulders, knees and toes..." and she'd hardly smirk. I tried tickling her, not knowing if babies were even ticklish, but if she was supposed to be, she obviously wasn't. I tried moving a toy in front of her, bouncing her gently, touching her nose.
Nothing.
After jumping through the proverbial hoop a few more times, I decided fuck it. Fuck it. You'll smile if you want to, but I'm not going to whore myself out or turn into a babbling pile of idiocy to get one outta you. I give up. There. I said it. I give up, and if that gives me another "F" in Mommy class, so be it.
So I quit trying. I talked to her as I always did, and kissed her hands, and gave her a bottle.
And then she smiled. Wide. For more than a second. The corners of her eyes creased and her cheeks were round like apples. She smiled and stared at me and looked like she might even like me.
Did she?
"Do you like Mommy?" I asked her, cringing for just a moment at a reference to myself in the third person - oh God, don't let me turn into that girl!
She kept smiling.
"Well," I said to her. "What do you think of that. You think I'm all right? You think I'm decent?"
Her smile faded, but the question remained with me for several moments as I adjusted her bottle and gave it back to her to drink. Did she like me? Did she smile because she liked me, or because my shirt had blue and black stripes on it that offered her something interesting to look at?
Of course, I knew if I asked the question to just about anyone else, I'd be serenaded with, "Oh! She loooooves you! Of course she smiles because she looooooves you! Why else would she smile like that?"
I don't fucking know; maybe she has to take a really big shit? Maybe she'd smile like that at a picture of Hitler? I don't fucking know!
"Oh, but she's your chiiiiiild, and she knows her Mommy!"
Allow me to cleanse my colon from the overdose of saccarine here.
I stared at her for a long while as she drank the bottle. Her eyes were locked with mine.
"I really don't like you much," I said simply to her. I wasn't aghast at my honesty, though I knew others would be. I didn't care. The only witness to our conversation was a fluffy poodle who was badly in need of a grooming. And, like the Bush's Baked Beans dog, he wasn't talking.
"You make me nuts, and I'm tired because of you. I never sleep."
Chelsea sucked loudly, smacking her mouth against the nipple of the bottle.
"My body is wrecked because of you, and I don't even like to have sex with Daddy anymore because you're always...around. I have dreams, not of far away places, but of having a meal - uninterrupted - at Red Lobster. Red Lobster, Chelsea. I dream about Red Lobster and The Melting Pot because of you. I want desperately to buy that used Chloe Paddington handbag in that natural leather, and I can't because I have to buy you diapers and formula. A Chloe bag! And I wouldn't even be greedy with it; when you got old enough, you could..."
I was going to say "have it", but rethought my words.
"...you could borrow it. Sometimes."
Chelsea didn't look especially enthusiastic as I described the imaginary $1500 handbag I would someday loan to her.
"And when you cry, especially that awful, annoying cry that you've seem to patent, I cringe. I'm not supposed to cringe. Mommies don't do that, but this one does."
Chelsea began to smile. She was smiling so wide, the formula was dripping down her neck and she wasn't getting a drop. It was insane. I began to laugh as I wiped her chin. In a soft, high-pitched voice, I said, "And you just don't care one bit, do you! Do you even know what you are smiling at? Do you?"
Of course she didn't. Of course not.
But I amused myself for five long minutes, believing she did.
At first, around five or so weeks, she began doing these little fleeting smiles where she would look away and allow her face to fall into some kind of strange, contorted smile.
Many enthusiastic mothers eagerly log this in the baby book as a smile, but not I. Oh no. I wanted a real, live, toothless, wide, obvious smile.
I was starting to think that maybe my daughter wasn't capable of performing such an act. Was her mouth somehow malformed to prevent cracking a grin? Or was I simply not funny enough to cause her to do anything but look sour?
Fear not, for at some point during last week, she began to smile at me. First little smiles and then wide grins, curling the corners of her eyes, looking as though she might laugh at any moment.
I can't remember the first time it happened, though I know I'm supposed to. I know it happened, and I kind of remember it, but not exactly. I'm sure between utter exhaustion and formula-puke on my shirt, it got lost. But I know it happened.
One of the first times she smiled, I remember watching her eyes crinkle at me and I smiled back. I was supposed to, wasn't I? I smiled back, and then she paused and smiled back at me. We were having this secret, silent, smile conversation; first me, then her, then me, then her.
At some point, I asked myself: What the hell are we smiling about?
Still, there was no denying that it was cute. Whether it meant that she was just a cute kid, or if any kid's smile is cute, I didn't know. At that moment, I probably didn't care. Her face was sweet and serene, her eyes looked terribly innocent, and she was smiling.
And she wasn't crying.
Yet.
I realized, over the days after she started smiling that I, as Mommy, had some obligation to keep these smiles coming.
I also realized I had absolutely no idea how to do this.
Was I supposed to? I guess I was. Who else was supposed to? Other than me, or Daddy, there was no book entitled HOW TO GET YOUR KID TO SMILE. You're supposed to instinctively know what it is that causes those spontaneous expressions of happiness on her face.
So I experimented. I found that she seemed to like to sit in the crook of my arm, as if she was getting ready to have a bottle. She seemed to like to look up at me that way, and sometimes, she would smile. And sometimes she wouldn't.
Go figure.
I tried talking to her; repeating certain things that I'd heard worked for other babies. She'd watch me with a careful, steady, piercing gaze, but I never saw so much as a twitch. I held her in front of me, singing, "Head, shoulders, knees and toes..." and she'd hardly smirk. I tried tickling her, not knowing if babies were even ticklish, but if she was supposed to be, she obviously wasn't. I tried moving a toy in front of her, bouncing her gently, touching her nose.
Nothing.
After jumping through the proverbial hoop a few more times, I decided fuck it. Fuck it. You'll smile if you want to, but I'm not going to whore myself out or turn into a babbling pile of idiocy to get one outta you. I give up. There. I said it. I give up, and if that gives me another "F" in Mommy class, so be it.
So I quit trying. I talked to her as I always did, and kissed her hands, and gave her a bottle.
And then she smiled. Wide. For more than a second. The corners of her eyes creased and her cheeks were round like apples. She smiled and stared at me and looked like she might even like me.
Did she?
"Do you like Mommy?" I asked her, cringing for just a moment at a reference to myself in the third person - oh God, don't let me turn into that girl!
She kept smiling.
"Well," I said to her. "What do you think of that. You think I'm all right? You think I'm decent?"
Her smile faded, but the question remained with me for several moments as I adjusted her bottle and gave it back to her to drink. Did she like me? Did she smile because she liked me, or because my shirt had blue and black stripes on it that offered her something interesting to look at?
Of course, I knew if I asked the question to just about anyone else, I'd be serenaded with, "Oh! She loooooves you! Of course she smiles because she looooooves you! Why else would she smile like that?"
I don't fucking know; maybe she has to take a really big shit? Maybe she'd smile like that at a picture of Hitler? I don't fucking know!
"Oh, but she's your chiiiiiild, and she knows her Mommy!"
Allow me to cleanse my colon from the overdose of saccarine here.
I stared at her for a long while as she drank the bottle. Her eyes were locked with mine.
"I really don't like you much," I said simply to her. I wasn't aghast at my honesty, though I knew others would be. I didn't care. The only witness to our conversation was a fluffy poodle who was badly in need of a grooming. And, like the Bush's Baked Beans dog, he wasn't talking.
"You make me nuts, and I'm tired because of you. I never sleep."
Chelsea sucked loudly, smacking her mouth against the nipple of the bottle.
"My body is wrecked because of you, and I don't even like to have sex with Daddy anymore because you're always...around. I have dreams, not of far away places, but of having a meal - uninterrupted - at Red Lobster. Red Lobster, Chelsea. I dream about Red Lobster and The Melting Pot because of you. I want desperately to buy that used Chloe Paddington handbag in that natural leather, and I can't because I have to buy you diapers and formula. A Chloe bag! And I wouldn't even be greedy with it; when you got old enough, you could..."
I was going to say "have it", but rethought my words.
"...you could borrow it. Sometimes."
Chelsea didn't look especially enthusiastic as I described the imaginary $1500 handbag I would someday loan to her.
"And when you cry, especially that awful, annoying cry that you've seem to patent, I cringe. I'm not supposed to cringe. Mommies don't do that, but this one does."
Chelsea began to smile. She was smiling so wide, the formula was dripping down her neck and she wasn't getting a drop. It was insane. I began to laugh as I wiped her chin. In a soft, high-pitched voice, I said, "And you just don't care one bit, do you! Do you even know what you are smiling at? Do you?"
Of course she didn't. Of course not.
But I amused myself for five long minutes, believing she did.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
one.
For the past three days, I've been successful in getting Chelsea to nap, twice a day, in her crib.
It's been no small feat and, while I truly appreciate the time with her just in her room, away from the living room, it's been more hectic. It shouldn't be, but it is. Yes, I can catch a nap sometimes, but not long after she wakes up, it's time to change her pants, give her some Mylecon gas drops, swaddle her, feed her, and put her down again. I feel more rushed than I was when I simply let her snooze in her swing to her heart's content.
Still, I'm grateful for the time when I know she'll be quiet and out of my hair enough for me to take a shower and read an email.
The routine that I struggle to keep mimics her bedtime, but without the bath. Change pants, swaddle, bottle, sleep. She seems to be content to sleep in her room. I keep the baby monitor low so that I can only hear the loudest of cries and then try to catch a nap in the room beside hers.
In keeping with that routine, I give her a bottle, gently rocking in the fat, upholstered gliding chair with a pink Boppy pillow stuffed under her. Every time I do this, I look up above her crib at the brown framed picture of my sons; the one that has the words about angels looking down on her, whispering that You are Loved and Blessed.
I stared, as I so often do, at the faces of Jacob and Zachary while Chelsea chomped hungrily on her bottle. I knew I was supposed to be gazing deeply into Chelsea's eyes, but for those moments, I concentrated on the tiny sets of closed eyes in that picture. I looked at one, and then the other, pausing longer on Zachary's tiny face. His wide-spaced eyes and squared chin so closely resembled my own face and I smiled lightly for just a moment. Satisfied, I returned to my task and watched as Chelsea began to shut her eyes, chewing on the bottle as she sometimes does to stop the flow for just a moment.
Predictably, I felt my usual sentiment, one of She doesn't look like me at all. I stared down at her, inspecting her cheeks, her chin, her mouth wrapped around the bottle. Not one thing stuck out as a feature that I had contributed to. Not one thing seemed smeared with my DNA. No. This little girl, down to the changing color of her hair, looked exactly like her father.
Not like Zachary.
Chelsea began to fall asleep and I urged her to take more formula, twisting the bottle in her mouth like a corkscrew. More formula might mean a longer nap, and we'd both appreciate that. She started sucking again.
For some truly inexplicable reason, a thought began to formulate in my mind. Jumbled and confusing, it swirled in my brain like wind in a fishbowl; like the way the winds blow, hard and haphazard, on the beaches in Maui during the afternoons. I turned back to the picture of my sons, watching carefully over their sister's crib.
Two little boys.
One little girl.
Instantly, I was transported from Chelsea's nursery to the dark coldness of the procedure room at Shady Grove. My legs, splayed like an open pair of scissors, were covered with a thin sheet as a means to give me some false sense of modesty, though I was sure everyone staring at me in that room could see what I had for breakfast three days ago. I could barely see my doctor over my knees in the bluish-grey light of the ultrasound monitor. He wasn't looking at me when he said, "You know, Mrs. ***, these embryos look so good, we could just transfer one. It's up to you."
I was aghast. Alone, in this tiny closet, with my legs spread wide open, I was being asked about embryos. Hadn't we already agreed on two embryos? Wasn't that just what the doctor had said when my husband was sitting beside me not ten minutes earlier? Immediately, I began to calculate my odds, until I realized that the odds didn't matter. I had endured 43 shots and a dozen blood tests, and I already knew that, no matter how much Jon begged, I would never do this again. I would never be in this room, with tiny bruises dotting my stomach, looking at embryos. Those embryos, no matter how good or bad they looked, were the only thing standing between me and a biological kid. There wasn't another chance. And so I uttered the words that someday I would later deeply regret:
"No. We said two. I'd rather have twins than nothing!"
I remember distinctly that the last sentence in that phrase coming out a bit too chirpy and a little too loud. I was trying to sound casual, but what I was really saying was, Doctor, you don't understand. I have suffered so profoundly during this cycle that I'm ready to hang myself. If you don't make this work, there will never be a biological child, which will destroy my husband, and I might end up divorced when I tell Jon we won't do IVF again, and then he might make me, which will make me want to kill him. So Doctor, please...whatever you need to do, please just make this work on the first try.
My doctor didn't hear any of that narrative. He heard "two", and so he told the nurse to fill the catheter with the second embryo. And all he said was, "That's fine. All right."
And there, in that room, Jacob and Zachary nestled in to their new home for the next 21 weeks.
When they died, it took no time at all for me to say, "I should have said one. I never should have said two!" I shouted it tearfully in our kitchen as Jon tried to shush me. "I would have told you to use two," he calmly assured me. "We agreed to use two. I don't blame you. I never have." Somehow, his words comforted me. Though I knew that it had been me who had ultimately made the decision, knowing that he would have agreed anyway satisifed me.
Until I really looked at Chelsea.
This little girl who sat grunting in my lap, was proof positive that I could, indeed, carry one baby. Maybe I couldn't carry two, but I had carried this one, and she wasn't dead. She was here, spilling formula down her cheek and into her neck.
Staring again at my sons' picture, I thought, It could have been so different. If I had said 'one', maybe I would have Zachary sitting in my lap now, grunting and spilling his formula. Jacob would be floating in a frozen petri dish somewhere, and Chelsea would be, too. I can carry one baby because I just did. If I had said 'one', none of this would have ever happened.
I realized something so incredibly obvious for the first time. See? Chelsea is proof that it was your 'two' versus 'one' choice - you carried this 'one'!! As large, cold tears formed in the corners of my eyes, I pressed Chelsea to my chest to burp her. Her cheek was wet as little sobs escaped from my chest. Rationally, my mind filled in the blanks with logic: The infection could have happened with just one baby. It might not have had anything to do with twins. And even if it did, it all happened for some reason and you can't change it now.
But I could have changed it. I had the power to change it. In that one moment, leaned precariously on that narrow examination table in 2007, if I had just been less afraid of repeating IVF, if I had just been able to think more clearly, if I had just asked more questions, if I had just done something, I could have been holding one of my sons and no babies would have had to die. Maybe we would have borne Jacob later on. Maybe Chelsea would have been born to another family, or maybe we would have (inexplicably) tried for a third child. Maybe I would have held a living little child who actually looked like she was born to me instead of born to Jon and some nameless egg donor.
Maybe, maybe, maybe.
Chelsea was asleep now and I stood to put her in her crib. She snuggled into the blankets in the car seat she still sleeps in and I wrapped her gently in a soft pink cover. I stared at her for just a moment and felt my chest sink. Would it matter? I was thinking. So often, I don't even think I love her enough...
"I'm sorry," I whispered. It was a blanket apology. It was an apology to Jacob and Zachary for saying 'two' instead of 'one', and an apology to Chelsea for still not quite feeling everything I was supposed to be feeling. It was an apology to every infertile or every deadbabymama who would simply kill for a child and wouldn't care so much that this little thankless creature didn't have one recognizable feature of mine. It was an apology to the unseen baby-gods for doing such an incredibly mediocre job at something that seemed to require pure perfection and excellence.
To me, my daughter was proof that my body could do one thing reasonably correctly. If I'd only done the right thing and not purposely impregnated myself with twins, one of my beautiful little boys would be here right now. I felt like a woman who overindulged at a buffet and ended up throwing up her insides in the bathroom. If you had just stopped at one piece of cake instead of two, you wouldn't have your head in the toilet!
Maybe, maybe, maybe.
It's been no small feat and, while I truly appreciate the time with her just in her room, away from the living room, it's been more hectic. It shouldn't be, but it is. Yes, I can catch a nap sometimes, but not long after she wakes up, it's time to change her pants, give her some Mylecon gas drops, swaddle her, feed her, and put her down again. I feel more rushed than I was when I simply let her snooze in her swing to her heart's content.
Still, I'm grateful for the time when I know she'll be quiet and out of my hair enough for me to take a shower and read an email.
The routine that I struggle to keep mimics her bedtime, but without the bath. Change pants, swaddle, bottle, sleep. She seems to be content to sleep in her room. I keep the baby monitor low so that I can only hear the loudest of cries and then try to catch a nap in the room beside hers.
In keeping with that routine, I give her a bottle, gently rocking in the fat, upholstered gliding chair with a pink Boppy pillow stuffed under her. Every time I do this, I look up above her crib at the brown framed picture of my sons; the one that has the words about angels looking down on her, whispering that You are Loved and Blessed.
I stared, as I so often do, at the faces of Jacob and Zachary while Chelsea chomped hungrily on her bottle. I knew I was supposed to be gazing deeply into Chelsea's eyes, but for those moments, I concentrated on the tiny sets of closed eyes in that picture. I looked at one, and then the other, pausing longer on Zachary's tiny face. His wide-spaced eyes and squared chin so closely resembled my own face and I smiled lightly for just a moment. Satisfied, I returned to my task and watched as Chelsea began to shut her eyes, chewing on the bottle as she sometimes does to stop the flow for just a moment.
Predictably, I felt my usual sentiment, one of She doesn't look like me at all. I stared down at her, inspecting her cheeks, her chin, her mouth wrapped around the bottle. Not one thing stuck out as a feature that I had contributed to. Not one thing seemed smeared with my DNA. No. This little girl, down to the changing color of her hair, looked exactly like her father.
Not like Zachary.
Chelsea began to fall asleep and I urged her to take more formula, twisting the bottle in her mouth like a corkscrew. More formula might mean a longer nap, and we'd both appreciate that. She started sucking again.
For some truly inexplicable reason, a thought began to formulate in my mind. Jumbled and confusing, it swirled in my brain like wind in a fishbowl; like the way the winds blow, hard and haphazard, on the beaches in Maui during the afternoons. I turned back to the picture of my sons, watching carefully over their sister's crib.
Two little boys.
One little girl.
Instantly, I was transported from Chelsea's nursery to the dark coldness of the procedure room at Shady Grove. My legs, splayed like an open pair of scissors, were covered with a thin sheet as a means to give me some false sense of modesty, though I was sure everyone staring at me in that room could see what I had for breakfast three days ago. I could barely see my doctor over my knees in the bluish-grey light of the ultrasound monitor. He wasn't looking at me when he said, "You know, Mrs. ***, these embryos look so good, we could just transfer one. It's up to you."
I was aghast. Alone, in this tiny closet, with my legs spread wide open, I was being asked about embryos. Hadn't we already agreed on two embryos? Wasn't that just what the doctor had said when my husband was sitting beside me not ten minutes earlier? Immediately, I began to calculate my odds, until I realized that the odds didn't matter. I had endured 43 shots and a dozen blood tests, and I already knew that, no matter how much Jon begged, I would never do this again. I would never be in this room, with tiny bruises dotting my stomach, looking at embryos. Those embryos, no matter how good or bad they looked, were the only thing standing between me and a biological kid. There wasn't another chance. And so I uttered the words that someday I would later deeply regret:
"No. We said two. I'd rather have twins than nothing!"
I remember distinctly that the last sentence in that phrase coming out a bit too chirpy and a little too loud. I was trying to sound casual, but what I was really saying was, Doctor, you don't understand. I have suffered so profoundly during this cycle that I'm ready to hang myself. If you don't make this work, there will never be a biological child, which will destroy my husband, and I might end up divorced when I tell Jon we won't do IVF again, and then he might make me, which will make me want to kill him. So Doctor, please...whatever you need to do, please just make this work on the first try.
My doctor didn't hear any of that narrative. He heard "two", and so he told the nurse to fill the catheter with the second embryo. And all he said was, "That's fine. All right."
And there, in that room, Jacob and Zachary nestled in to their new home for the next 21 weeks.
When they died, it took no time at all for me to say, "I should have said one. I never should have said two!" I shouted it tearfully in our kitchen as Jon tried to shush me. "I would have told you to use two," he calmly assured me. "We agreed to use two. I don't blame you. I never have." Somehow, his words comforted me. Though I knew that it had been me who had ultimately made the decision, knowing that he would have agreed anyway satisifed me.
Until I really looked at Chelsea.
This little girl who sat grunting in my lap, was proof positive that I could, indeed, carry one baby. Maybe I couldn't carry two, but I had carried this one, and she wasn't dead. She was here, spilling formula down her cheek and into her neck.
Staring again at my sons' picture, I thought, It could have been so different. If I had said 'one', maybe I would have Zachary sitting in my lap now, grunting and spilling his formula. Jacob would be floating in a frozen petri dish somewhere, and Chelsea would be, too. I can carry one baby because I just did. If I had said 'one', none of this would have ever happened.
I realized something so incredibly obvious for the first time. See? Chelsea is proof that it was your 'two' versus 'one' choice - you carried this 'one'!! As large, cold tears formed in the corners of my eyes, I pressed Chelsea to my chest to burp her. Her cheek was wet as little sobs escaped from my chest. Rationally, my mind filled in the blanks with logic: The infection could have happened with just one baby. It might not have had anything to do with twins. And even if it did, it all happened for some reason and you can't change it now.
But I could have changed it. I had the power to change it. In that one moment, leaned precariously on that narrow examination table in 2007, if I had just been less afraid of repeating IVF, if I had just been able to think more clearly, if I had just asked more questions, if I had just done something, I could have been holding one of my sons and no babies would have had to die. Maybe we would have borne Jacob later on. Maybe Chelsea would have been born to another family, or maybe we would have (inexplicably) tried for a third child. Maybe I would have held a living little child who actually looked like she was born to me instead of born to Jon and some nameless egg donor.
Maybe, maybe, maybe.
Chelsea was asleep now and I stood to put her in her crib. She snuggled into the blankets in the car seat she still sleeps in and I wrapped her gently in a soft pink cover. I stared at her for just a moment and felt my chest sink. Would it matter? I was thinking. So often, I don't even think I love her enough...
"I'm sorry," I whispered. It was a blanket apology. It was an apology to Jacob and Zachary for saying 'two' instead of 'one', and an apology to Chelsea for still not quite feeling everything I was supposed to be feeling. It was an apology to every infertile or every deadbabymama who would simply kill for a child and wouldn't care so much that this little thankless creature didn't have one recognizable feature of mine. It was an apology to the unseen baby-gods for doing such an incredibly mediocre job at something that seemed to require pure perfection and excellence.
To me, my daughter was proof that my body could do one thing reasonably correctly. If I'd only done the right thing and not purposely impregnated myself with twins, one of my beautiful little boys would be here right now. I felt like a woman who overindulged at a buffet and ended up throwing up her insides in the bathroom. If you had just stopped at one piece of cake instead of two, you wouldn't have your head in the toilet!
Maybe, maybe, maybe.
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