Too young to remember

Dear Walter and Sally,

We had quite an adventure this weekend! It was the 4th of July, but it was also the 40th anniversary celebration of A Prairie Home Companion, a radio show that has been very special to both Mommy and Daddy since we were little kids.  We knew we wanted to get there, if we could, and share it with the two of you.

On Thursday night, after you went to bed, Daddy and I packed and got ready for the trip.  We were pretty tired and wondering what we'd gotten ourselves into.  Traveling isn't easy--there are lots of things to remember, lots of things to figure out and take care of.  We would not have even attempted this particular trip if it weren't for the help we had from our amazing friends. (Friends make life so good, so good indeed.)

We got up early on Friday--got bagels, got breakfast to eat in the car, got everyone in the van and headed to John and Karen's house to drop off Hank. Hank was elated to spend time with John and Karen, their cats, and his best doggie pal, Sammie. From there we turned around and headed north and west.  We took many stops along the way for potty breaks and nursing.  Sally, you did some good sleeping. Walter, you did not, but you were very sweet and managed to have a good day even without a nap.  We did lots of snacking in the car (cheese curds from a dairy store we stopped at on the way ... yum) but held off on lunch until we arrived in St. Paul.

This is how we roll!

After 5 hours of driving we arrived: hungry and a little worse for wear but also very excited and so glad, so relieved to see our dear friends Uncle Ben, Aunt Arden and Greta again!  Walter, you were especially excited to see Greta, who you'd met when she was a little baby, and who is now walking.  Sally, you were excited to get out of your carseat and immediately got to work playing with Greta's toys.  She shared them very graciously with both of you.  We walked from their house to Macalester College, where the anniversary party was well underway.  After a delicious lunch (pasties and tacos from food trucks) we walked around the booths and settled in to play some more at the children's museum area.

The children's museum had set up a fence around a patch of grass and set out large blue foam blocks of various shapes and sizes.  There were colorful plastic balls, too--Sally, you and Greta played with those. Walter, you befriended two seven-year-old boys and engaged in some really fabulous imaginative building with them.  I was very impressed with you for keeping up with the older boys (and very impressed with the older boys for including you so beautifully.)

Soon it was time for the concert--40 Songs, 40 Years.  It was an outdoor concert; we weren't sure how long it was going to be, and we weren't sure how we were going to make it work.  You kids love music, but we weren't sure you'd be able to sit through a whole concert.  Again, our friends made it possible.  Ben and Arden packed an amazing picnic dinner for us, which we enjoyed while we sat on our picnic blanket as the concert got started. We feasted on chicken, hummus, carrots, pita chips, turkey sausage sticks, cheese sticks and graham crackers. As we ate, I sang along a bit with Garrison and his friends--musicians who had been with the show when it first started, and others who became regular favorites along the way.  We got to hear Robin and Linda Williams, Old Crow Medicine Show, Gillian Welch, Jearlyn and Jevetta Steele and Iris Dement. When Garrison joined Robin and Linda Williams to sing "Calling My Children Home" I held dancing Sally in my arms and cried happy tears.

There were a few times when all four of us were on the blanket together, but most of the time Daddy walked with one of you while the other one snuggled on the blanket with me.  Those one-on-one times with each of you were very special for and precious to me.  Sally, you climbed all over me, snacking happily on graham crackers and hummus and charming the bejeebus out of everyone sitting around us.  I sang to you and you smiled and smiled and smiled.  We nursed; we love nursing outside, with the wind in your hair and the warm sun setting all around us, surrounded by music and people and also entirely in our own world, too.

Walter, you spent most of the show walking with Daddy, mostly to check out the super duper fancy porta-potties. They were airconditioned, with wood floors, running water and artwork on the walls.  You and Daddy were both mystified and super impressed and made several trips. That probably would have been your favorite part of the concert ... if it weren't for the Wailin' Jennys.

Three beautiful young women (about my age ... I still call that young) took the stage and giggled with Garrison for awhile. And then they started to sing. Now, everything up to that point had been wonderful, truly.  But something changed when they sang.  They sang without musical accompaniment, they sang in close, perfect harmony.  The harmony hit the air and vibrated and hung there and then spread across the crowd like electricity.  Walter, you'd been snuggling, almost sleeping in my lap.  When they hit their first note, you stood straight up, electrified. You shot up and stood and leaned toward the stage, "What are they singing, Mama?" you asked.  You felt the difference in the air--you knew this was something special.

Kids, you are too young to remember any of this on your own.  That's part of the reason I try to write things down, so we're sure to share our memories of these times and give you a sense of who you were and what your life was like before you started collecting memories. Sometimes it's tempting to use your age as a reason not to do things, especially things that involve 5 hours of car travel! "They won't even remember it," I think to myself sometimes.  But seeing the two of you at this concert, the way you enjoyed yourselves so completely, the way you danced and sang along (even you, Sally) and basked in the glow of the moment and in our collective family happiness ... there is no reason to wait for this until you are older. Sharing the joy of our lives is something Daddy and I can do (and do, do) with you right now. We get to enjoy it with you in the moment, and add those moments to our own collection of memories. And we will help you remember it, for sure.

Right about the time the two of you started getting antsy and sleepy and needing to head out, Garrison announced an intermission.  Intermission!  The show had already gone on for two hours.  We decided to leave while everyone was happy and the leaving was good.   We walked around the booths one more time and did some very joyful dancing.  Sally, you almost levitated with happiness when you saw Walter dancing. The two of you brought so much joy to everyone around us. With the help of a security guard, we took a family picture and headed back to the house.

We stayed overnight at Uncle Ben's parents' house--you both woke up too early! Sally, you and I did some wonderful snuggling, while Walter and Daddy watched videos until it was time to get up, play and eat some delicious breakfast. One of my hopes for the two of you is that you have friends like Ben and Arden, friends

Sally and Greta: Babies who Brunch

who are so dear they are family. We had a wonderful, relaxing morning together. Walter, you did NOT want to leave. You wanted to stay forever. We all agreed with you, but got back on the road anyway and headed home. We stopped for lunch at a truckstop diner called Norske Kitchen which specializes in popovers. It was very yummy. We picked up Hank, who had been very happy where he was but was also happy to see us again (Walter, you said, "My puppy!! There's my puppy coming back to my house!") We ate some dinner and slept well.

This weekend was particularly adventurous, but every day things happen that make me think, "I should write that down, I want to remember that forever."  Sally, you are learning how to throw a ball, and the look on your face when we play catch together is so intensely beautiful I can barely stand it. Walter, you are in love with two songs right now, "Take Up Your Spade" by Sara Watkins and "Let it Go" from the movie Frozen. There's a line in "Let it Go" that you've rewritten ... the original goes "I'm never going back/the past is in the past," but you sing it, very earnestly, "I'm never going back/the past is in the bear!"  I don't know what it means, but it strikes me as very profound. And very funny.
The past is in the bear, kids.  The past is in the bear.

I love you,
Mama

This date, last year

Soon I will post a very cheerful synopsis of Mother's Day, 2011 ... but today my mind is lingering on Mother's Day, 2010.  These past few weeks have been full of difficult anniversaries ... I would wake up and think, "a year ago today is when it started," "a year ago today is when it happened."  A year ago today I posted the following note on facebook, titled, "Why I'm Celebrating Mothers Day."  I'm posting it again here because I do want to mark these anniversaries somehow; I want to remember where we were and think about where we are now.   This is posted with thanks to The Bean--you taught us so much in such a short time. 

I always knew (on some hypothetical level) that this day is difficult for a lot of people. I imagined what it would feel like for those missing moms who have died, for those missing children who have died, for those who are actively dealing with infertility, and those who can’t or choose not to have children (for a range of reasons, with a range of feelings about it.) This year I am one of “those.”
Sean and I lost our first pregnancy last week. We were still in the first trimester, but as cautious and aware as we were of the usual risks and statistics, we were already pretty attached to The Bean. I had this (hormone induced?) feeling that there was something good happening, there—that this was a very good Bean indeed. Even knowing that this kind of miscarriage usually means that there was something inherently wrong, something that would have kept the Bean from ever developing any further … even now I feel like there was something good, there. Something worth mourning and missing.
Our first positive pregnancy test was kind of funny. The line was faint enough that we couldn’t be absolutely sure it was really there. We used to make fun of those commercials for the expensive digital tests that say “1 in 4 women can misread a home pregnancy test.” And there we were, among the utterly confused 25%, buying one of those expensive digital tests. When that came back solidly positive, we scheduled a blood test. And then another, for comparison purposes. When all that came back positive, we still wondered and worried. I said to Sean, “Pregnancy is rough for people who want instant gratification.” He laughed and said that I should try to get used to it, because parenthood isn’t really an instant gratification thing, either.
I wanted to know everything I could about The Bean right away: I wanted to know if it was a girl or a boy, what we’d name it, if it was healthy, if it was going to make it through to the 12 week mark, when we planned to tell our friends and family. If the pregnancy had continued, there would have been even more questions without instant answers. Not really an instant gratification thing, parenthood. It’s a risk, a constant question with no instant answer.
Being open to that risk, those questions, that ambiguity and lack of instant answers—that’s pretty amazing. That’s worth celebrating. So this Mother’s Day, with new appreciation, I’m celebrating my mom. And because these holidays are totally arbitrary, I’m celebrating my dad, too. My parents dared to hope for a miracle when they were told their only child had less than 6 months to live. When I was cured they realized I was still just a big bundle of risk and unanswerable questions: as the crisis ended, the questions and the risk remained. And continue.
I’m celebrating my friends—parents or not—who take the risk to offer unconditional love and care, without any promise of instantly gratifying answers. I’m realizing that knowing people doesn’t mean I know their stories—miscarriage is common, but talking about it really isn’t. And so I’m also publicly celebrating the risk Sean and I took as we tried to add to our family, a risk we hope to take again someday. It is worth celebrating in the midst of our mourning and missing.
“You may fear that you could never survive another loss. But you are probably more resilient than you think. And you will probably gather up the courage to try again” Deborah Davis, "Empty Cradle, Broken Heart."

William wants a doll

I'm intimidated at the thought of raising a boy. I'm an only child--my main frame of reference/resource for child-rearing is Free to Be, You and Me. Which is great, and it did great things for me, but I'm not sure "William wants a doll" and "It's alright to cry" are going to balance against the messages the world sends boys.

I'm not saying the world doesn't send mixed up messages to girls. I'm just personally familiar with many of those messages.

If you had told me when I was a young feminist (0-18 yrs old) that patriarchal society has just as much of a negative impact on men as it does on women, I would have been deeply offended. This is corny, but in a college journalism course we watched a video called "The Tough Guise" about the dangerous myth of masculinity and its impact on men and boys ... and it opened my eyes. And freaked me out on a whole new level at the hypothetical thought of raising a boy--I'd always imagined having a girl, but this video only heightened that aspiration.

All of this came out in a less-than-graceful way over lunchtime chatting at the refectory last week. A friend asked if we want a boy or a girl, and I responded: "We're planning on a boy, but we're hoping for a girl." Another friend called me out on this and another friend assured me that it's OK to hope for a girl baby, knowing that Sean and I are going to love our baby. Period.

So here I am, a slightly more mature feminist who really does believe that Free to Be stuff. I don't want to turn around and dump a bunch of my own sex/gender issues on my child. I want to go into this mysterious process with an open mind and an open heart (wait a second ...) and really be ready with the love, no qualifications. Frankly, I should be intimidated no matter what.

So when I imagine hypothetical future baby these days, I often imagine a boy. He has a name, which I've promised Sean I will not disclose, but the name does help me imagine the kid. It's exciting. Here's the thing ...

Is it OK if I'm still kinda hoping for a girl? I'm genuinely asking ... as a fine YDS graduate once said in a sermon, "I'm not allergic to your Amens" ... or in this case, comments.

One small step for Anne ...

I'm not sure how to write this post without getting all gross and graphic ... yeah, not sure it's even possible. I refer you first to this excellent wikipedia article on endometriosis -- it's a good, squeamish read on quite a common thing very few people talk about. I was 12 ("my mother slapped me, my father went out for a bottle of Sangria ... We all wanted it to come!") I'd had my period for about a year and was exhibiting a lot of the classic endometriosis symptoms: long, heavy periods; debilitating cramps; gastrointestinal problems; fatigue and bleeding between periods. There was no way they were going to laparoscopy (although they did do a CT scan and found some little cysts, which is really neither here nor there for endometriosis diagnosis, but sucked, I mean ... 12 years old ...welcome to womanhood.) My gynecologist reasoned that I had enough scar tissue already: they would just start me on birth control and see if that helped.

I know a lot of women have a love-hate relationship with The Pill, but birth control and I have so much history together, I feel I have a word to add on the subject. We tried a bunch of different types, trying to find something where the side effects wouldn't completely negate the benefits. I was on pills that gave me morning sickness, made me lactate, gave me facial hair, made my acne worse, and made it awfully easy to gain weight (and difficult to lose it). It made adolescence just that much more .... more. But birth control also made my periods shorter and more predictable: the cramps and other symptoms were terrible once a month, not all the time. As I got older and we narrowed down the options, the birth control seemed to be doing a better and better job of handling the really bad stuff. When I was giving my medical history to the physician's assistant at the MFM office, I completely forgot to mention endometriosis--it's been that long since I worried about it.

So, tonight I'm not starting another pack of Yazmin ("Yaz! I will pretend I am having a casual conversation while I very quickly list all the side effects of this drug! I didn't go to med school for nothing! Yaz!") and I have, unsurprisingly, mixed feelings. The only time I've been off the pill in recent memory was when a random student health doc at MSU wouldn't refill my prescription because she thought it was irresponsible to give birth control to a woman with chronic migraines. So I had to skip a month before I could go back on (with a scrip from a reasonable doctor) and ... cue the worst migraines of my life, the worst cramps, bleeding all the time ... I couldn't wait to get my normal life back, nicely regulated.

I'm in a different place now: I want to try to have a baby. I worry about scarring, pain, all of that ... but I'm also feeling adventurous. This is totally new territory for me, with potentially life-changing results. Glad I'm not in it alone. =)

Planning

Sean and I share a passion for planning: on the drive back to school yesterday we planned meals, housing and activities for my parents' visit to our new apartment in June. We like to start with a big brainstormed list of almost infinite possibilities and then winnow it down to the ideal plan: we did this for the Feast of the 7 Fishes we hope to host someday, and also with names for hypotheticalfuturebaby. We've got it down to one and half possibilities for boys and three possibilities for girls, with one clear front runner if none of our siblings claim it first (their future babies being less hypothetical than ours.)
. . . . . . . . . .
I was about 13, in the car with my mom, planning out loud the names of my future children and oblivious to her growing agitation. "You may not want to be naming your babies," she said, finally unable to stand it anymore. "You probably can't have children of your own."
As I calmed down from my initial shock and tears, she explained her worries--concerns that seemed obvious when she named them, but hadn't occurred to me yet. Most of it connected back to two surgeries I had when I was 4 years old: one to remove a football-sized ganglioneuroma from my abdomen, the other to remove my left kidney. In addition to the scar tissue, surgical staples and some worry over the one kidney, Mom's biggest concern was the remnant tumor: the 5% of the tumor that they couldn't remove because it is wrapped around my aorta. How would this bunch of cells--that started misbehaving when I was a fetus--react if my body was exposed to those kind of hormones again?
As much as this conversation with my mom upset me (so ... much ... angsty ... journaling ... ) I appreciated (still do) the way it made me seriously consider the possibility that I may not, biologically, have children. It gave me lots of low-pressure time to think about other options and made "OK-with-adoption" a dating criterion. A result my mom did not intend is that I've felt guilty about wanting to try to have a biological child: that it is selfish and irresponsible for me to want this.
As Sean reported, Maternal Fetal Medicine has given us the go ahead to try whenever we're ready. Based on a recommendation from the Doc, we're going to check in with an oncologist too, just to be a little more sure about that tumor. I'm going to work with my doctor here to get my migraine meds and symptoms stabilized: no triptans during the pregnancy! With all these pieces in place, plans may still depend on how my fertility has been affected by endometriosis, and a host of other factors we can't even predict right now. I feel good, though: excited, not guilty. I want to keep planning, talking and writing it out.