Blog Feed – Page 57 – making unbreakable

sue sylvester keeps her shark tank upstairs and other gestational realizations.

I am walking a very fine line between “getting through” and “becoming the worst OB patient my doctor has ever seen.” The list of fears, questionable maladies and panic have resulted in a list that is going to blind said doctor come Thursday. To make matters worse it will be my gestational diabetes test as well so not only will I be super! inquisitive! I’ll be hopped up on the sugar drink.

I just woke up from a dream where Mozzi’s foot was poking out right around my ribs, I counted 8 (!) perfect tiny little toes and then my friend dug her foot out, the same way you dig you way through new pantyhose, and we all kissed and tickled it. However when it came time to put the little foot back in it wouldn’t stay. My only choice was to pull Mozzi out and head to the hospital where my water then broke and I birthed all that…other crap. Some doctor found me a crappy bed until Sue Sylvester’s shark tank started flooding because all of her landscaping had given out. Honestly, who puts a shark tank on the second level of their home? Anyway, the nice lady that fed Sue’s hammerhead shark ended up getting eaten and we all had to abandon the area.

Last week Cody made me go to a quilt show, then he slammed my fingers in the window of a Jeep. I woke up sobbing.

Last night something happened on the streets of New York and I woke up sobbing again.

I have a highly pasteurized tube of sour cream in my fridge that expires April 28, 2011. Normally that would mean “MY BIRTHDAY! IT IS SO CLOSE!” this year it means “A tube of sour cream may outlast the days of me being pregnant.”

This is really happening. I’m getting my baby. (And all the weird stuff that goes along with making one apparently.) I am going to have a baby to hold. To sniff. To love. My very own baby that I don’t have to give back. A baby that is going to be born into love clean carpet, good smelling sheets and non expired dairy products. A baby that has brought our family closer together with so much hope, love, support, gratitude and peace.

77 days to go.

(card available at Robin’s etsy store along with other fine PG-13 rated goods.)

the cat in my bag.

I am 1.5″ away from reaching the 42″ circumference I achieved at 40 weeks with Addie.

A) holy crap.

B) ow.

I polled some moms on facebook last night about the pain I’m experiencing in the midsection area, I’ve been trying to describe to to Cody, or really anyone with ears who will listen and I think I finally came up with an explanation. (!) The helpful souls of facebook used terms such as “rabid badger! burning! searing! tearing! ripping!”

Thanks facebook! A “it’s normal” would have sufficed but you really went the extra mile with all the adjectives!

Anyway, I finally figured out a way to describe it.

It’s not very ethical. PETA may not like it very much. I will neither confirm nor deny that I have ever done this to a cat. I’m afraid to even search for it on YouTube, because there’s strange people out there with Internet access and video cameras.

And cats.

Anyway, imagine putting a large cat in a plastic grocery bag and hanging said grocery bag from a doorknob.

The stretched bag is my belly, the wiggly cat is Mozzi.

(photo by fen branklin)

Yeah, that looks pretty accurate.

help for broken hearts.

Compassion fatigue.

It’s term I first heard back in October, to me it basically means that while the Internet can bring about great and amazing things, it also means that we are exposed to so much heartache and people in need of help. Death, sickness, terminal illness, injury, natural disasters, loss and heartbreak.

Leaving us weary. Wanting to help everyone but knowing that it is simply impossible to do so.

Today I am going to ask for something very simple, words of encouragement to a very new mom.

Her baby, Tanner, was born February 3. The first week of his life has been spent in the hospital with pediatric cardiologists focusing on Tanner’s heart. I’m not doctor, but there’s a lot wrong with it.

Tanner is being sent to another hospital, at least 3 states away, where doctors will better be able to handle the open heart surgery that Tanner is going to have to go through in his first week of life. His mom will spend weeks with him away from her family, Tanner’s dad and everything she knows.

This is never how anyone pictures new motherhood.

Tanner’s mom is Ali. I can’t even call Ali my high school best friend because we were more than that, we were inseparable. We had our own language. Her family accepted me for everything I was when my own family couldn’t see much past the trouble I caused. On the list of 5 people who shaped me into who I am today? Ali and her family are on it, right towards the top.

Over time we grew apart, our lives changed and took different paths, but I find myself still fiercely loyal to Ali and wanting to protect her heart from all this hurt.

Tanner’s story is can be found here.

If you could simply leave her some words of encouragement, let her know they will make it into your prayers…my hope is that the support from all of you will carry her, if even for a minute, through this scary journey.

Thank you.

pregnancy and poop. a tragedy.

Pregnancy and poop.

A loathsome relationship for most any gestating female.

One that no one really wants to talk about.

You either miss it or wish it would stop.

Very rarely is there a middle ground.

I am one of those who misses it, dearly.

There have been occasions where it has come…and I have cried.

Pregnancy, Zofran and iron pills are the trifecta of the anti-poop in my world.

Then again I want to be pregnant, I don’t want to barf and anemia I do not love.

*sigh*

But there is one tiny, fuzzy oval shaped lining in all this…awkwardness.

The kiwi.

The kiwi has the ability to make a rough day go a little smoother, without the side effects of gurgle gut, the sweats and your mouth watering (I’m looking at you chemical laxatives.)

Without troubling you too much further with this poop talk…I will end with this.

God bless the Kiwi and the tree it rode in on.

when there’s safety in good night.

Last night I walked a sobbing, overly tired little kid to bed. We were supposed to play a game together as a family but exhaustion proved to us that the only proper place for her to be was in bed. I helped her brush her teeth through hiccupy sobs and put pajamas on her sleepy crumpled body.

She put up a good fight.

I read her two stories. Sang her the two songs I’ve sang to her every night since she’s been mine, curled up behind her and tickled her back until the gasps stopped and her breathing slowed. I kissed her little forehead, covered her with her pink Cinderella blanket, said the five words I say every night “sleep well my little princess” and closed the door.

Aside from the sobbing part, this happens almost every night in our house. No big deal, it’s our routine.

I ended up back downstairs and somehow clicked on a link to a video from Egypt. A dark video full of violence and the sounds of death and terror. I may be doing exponentially better than I was four weeks ago, but violence still tears through my brain with shocking efficiency.

This one hurt my heart too, because unlike those prime time crime shows, this is real.

I sat there wishing I could bring Egypt to my house, read it a story and tuck it safely into bed.

I got ready for bed and went back in to see Addie, her tiny little body curled up, her face surrounded by mopsy curls…fast asleep. I had fixed her night. She fell asleep knowing she is loved and safe. And while I can’t do this for an entire country, I can do it for one little girl.

And that’s pretty powerful, and for now it’s going to have to be enough.

28 weeks.

I gave Addie my remote shutter release and free reign to do whatever she wanted…this is what she came up with.

She’s six, and I couldn’t be more proud.

one can’t forget about us.

This is a story I’d never thought I’d tell, either because it was too sacred or it would scare people off. A woman hearing voices while driving on the freeway tends to land her in the “yay! crazy!” sub genre of society. But allow me to explain.

Cody and I had been married several years. I was having some sort of early 20’s crisis over “is this it? this is all there is? an eternity more of this?” Don’t get me wrong, “this” was good, but a lifetime of Hamburger Helper (I didn’t know how to cook yet) and Friday night movies (come back Friday night movies!) seemed…well…boring.

I was talking to a friend about my crisis (I feel the needs to put air quotes around the world “crisis”) and he said “Did you ever think maybe it’s time for you guys to consider having kids?”

“PFFFFFFFFFFFFTTTTTT!!!!!!!” with a bunch of spittle sprang forth from my mouth. “KIDS? ME? I don’t even like kids! Why would I make one of my own that I am responsible for!?” (There was also an underlying fear that I wouldn’t be able to have kids due to several surgeries to remove benign tumors from my cervix.)

But after I was done talking to him I started to think, “Kids…huh. There has to be a reason people have them.” So when Cody got home I brought the topic up. He was totally not opposed to the idea, especially considering how babies are made. But we were still unable to look each other in the face and say “Let’s make a baby.” So we decided to go to the temple separately to pray for an answer.

My drive to the temple was a sunny one, blue sky, big puffy white clouds. I was mulling this kid business over in my head as I was driving when I heard “Yay! Mom’s going to know about us!” in the tiniest sweetest little voices. To say the wind was knocked out of me would be a dramatic understatement. I’ll also say it was a good thing I was already sitting.

The tears started…”Mom’s going to know about us.” and they didn’t stop. Not when I got to the temple, not when I went through the session and especially not when I was able to bow my head in personal prayer at the end. When I finally lifted my head I noticed I was surrounded by nice old ladies who worked in the temple, worried about when the snotty lady in the corner would finish it up already and “I wonder if she’s really okay?”

I mean, there’s being touched by the spirit and then there’s being knocked flat to your knees I dare you to feel any other emotion but the overpowering love of God touched by the spirit. Whew, still wears me out to think of it almost eight years later.

I knew Cody and I had someone waiting for us. He had gotten the same answer but with far fewer emotions attached to it. Addie came into our lives within the next year (not without struggles of course) and we were happy. But I never forgot that those little voices in the car that day said “Mom is going to know about us.” Meaning more than one.

That tiny little moment filled with those tiny little voices carried me through the last six years. Addie was meant to be part of a them. Part of an us. A pair. Of course I was frustrated that I was promised an “us” and that “us” came much slower than any of us expected.

But I grew up, I changed, I learned. I was shaped by the experiences and the people I met and even now I am learning more and more about my capacity to love and hope and dream. Both of my babies have been trapped inside my broken body at some point. While they’ll never remember the experience, I will. There are times when I hug Addie and remember how we made it through one of the darkest times of my life together, literally.

The same will be true of Mozzi. That first moment I hold her I will be able to look at her and say “we did this, together.”

I was talking with a beloved friend this last week and she mentioned that her first baby was her heart and her second baby was her soul.

Addie is my whole heart and everyday with Mozzi inside me the capacity for my soul to thrive grows.

I will never be able to thank them enough for letting me know about them before I even knew of my capabilities and blessings that would result from being their mom.

silver underwire lining.

The average bra size in America is somewhere between a 34B and 36C. In fact 72% of ladies fall within the B/C cup realm.

I was complaining the other night that the underwire on my 34D bra was entrenched between my ever expanding belly and my enormous pregnancy rack. It’s pretty much the pregnancy equivalent of wearing too tight pants that make you fart.

Very uncomfortable.

Twitter suggested I get thee hence to Nordstrom for a proper fitting, so last night I did just that. As soon as I took off my shirt so I could be measured, I heard “Oh honey, what is this a C cup?”

“It’s…it’s a D.”

“Oh honey, that D is tired.”

She measured, poked, prodded, asked about my underwear and went out to gather up some possibilities.

She came back with a pink lacy bra that could have easily caught fallen trapeze artists at the circus and slingshot them back up to their starting point.

I’ll admit, once it was on it looked nothing like my old bra. Instead of cleavage coming up to my chin I had two perfectly lifted and separated ladies. (I also admitted in the dressing room that my ladies are named, Mildred and Unis, apparently it’s not normal to name them, or at least if people do they don’t admit it while a stranger straps them into a couple of pink shopping bags.)

I took a deep breath to look at the price…Nordstrom isn’t exactly the cheapest place to buy bras, but damn they know their stuff.

When I looked at the tag I didn’t see dollar signs. I saw five different sizes in five different languages.

All of them proclaiming me to be so far past average I had entered the porn star realm of chest sizes.

Suddenly I could hear a faint but distinct cheer from the children’s section where Cody was patiently waiting with Addie.

I had completely skipped several letters of the alphabet, while my band size stayed the same. When I let out a horrified gasp my fitter said “Oh honey, you’re not even done either, just wait until you come back for your nursing bras.”

The “Oh, honeys” really took the edge off, it was as if she were standing there staring at my 39″ belly, my giant fun bags and sending out a sincere “bless your heart” to my back.

She brought in more bras to try but the hilarity of their enormousness overtook me and I had to get out.

The one I bought fits on my head like a strange little Lycra helmet.

Addie woke up at 5 am today to play with a new Barbie that Tiny Gramma had given her. Shortly after I got Addie back in bed with threats of Barbies sleeping with the fishes when played with at 5 am I crawled back into my own bed to a sleepy cheer, apparently Cody was excited about his new toys too.

I fell back asleep attempting to appreciate my newest blessings as much as my darling husband and I came up with a few bonuses.

– Cody now has two pillow pets, whereas Addie still only has one. (Don’t tell her though please.)

– When this pregnancy is over and they’re back to their deflated belly button skimming position, I’ll have an excellent reusable cantaloupe/honeydew/pumpkin/watermelon carrying bag.

– Maybe this time they’ll work for the purpose Mozzi requires of them, they never did work with Addie, more on that one later.

– The more I have in front the smaller I look in the back (optical illusions!)

– Given gravity, the amount of time I spend horizontal is only doing my ladies (and my back) giant exponential favors.

– Cleavage is natures pocket for when you don’t want to carry a purse. My pocket has been upgraded to a mid size SUV.

Alli has been demanding that I be pushed around the Opryland Hotel (compound) in a wheelchair this week at the Blissdom conference. My pride says “NO WAY ARE WE BEING PUT IN A WHEELCHAIR!” However everything below my neck says “SCREW YOUR PRIDE AND SIT YOUR BUTT DOWN.”

And right now I can tell you that my boobs alone are bigger than my pride.

(look! me upright (wishing I weren’t) speaking at the monthly Social Media Club meeting in Indianapolis! photo by Joe.)

how to be depressed. part 2.

I have been medicated for almost two weeks. “They” say that it takes about 21 days for any new treatment to really make a difference. Hopefully “they” are right, because while I do feel much better and Cody hasn’t come home to me crumpled in a corner sobbing for two weeks…I still feel as though I am watching instead of fully participating in my life.

You need to give yourself time to get better. I need to give myself time to get better. In a perfectly medicated world I would be able to take a pill and 2 to 3 hours later be fully participating in life. Like when I would take vicodin tylenol for cramps. But the brain doesn’t work that way. Emotions don’t work that way. The best way I can think to describe it is when Addie was six weeks old I tried to go out for a night of dancing, dining and general merriment. I could barely keep myself upright. Babies eat your abdominal muscles for lunch and just because the baby has been out for six weeks doesn’t mean your abdominals are back to their pre baby dancing shape. It would be ridiculous to think otherwise.

The same with depression. It eats your brain for lunch, knocks you to your knees and until you hit rock bottom where the ground is cold and hard and slimy you can’t begin to work your way back up. Even more importantly you can’t work your way back out quickly. Even with medication.

Imagine being trapped in a 1,000 foot jello mold with nothing but a toothpick to get yourself out. You can see a blurry reality through the jello and so you start digging your way out with your toothpick. If you have someone supporting you, your toothpick can be bumped up to a chopstick. If you choose to go to a doctor for help your chopstick becomes a plastic spoon. As you continue on with your therapy your plastic spoon becomes a wooden spoon and soon it turns into a ladle. Digging has become easier, but you still have a lot of digging to do to make it to the sunshine on the other side.

Right now I feel as though I have a sturdy wooden spoon in my hand (I also suddenly have an insatiable craving for red jello) and I can’t thank the friends around me who have jumped into the jello with me with their toothpicks made up of dinners, encouraging notes, baked goods and emails that have helped me dig my way out with just a little more spunk.

I have to remind myself that I have a lot of people relying on me to get this right. Especially mozzi. To try and speed up my recovery wouldn’t be fair to her. I have to heal properly. I have to recover as fully as I can. I have to be whole when she’s placed in my arms.

A giant jello mold is no place for babies.

my ladies.

*driving in the car listening to Christmas music*

“Mom?”

“Yes?”

“Christmas and I have the same first name.”

(Her actual first name is Mary…)

********

*snuggled up singing her ‘Silent Night’ before bedtime*

“Silent night, holy night, all is calm all is bright…um…all is calm, all is bright…shoot…”

*she turns and barks out in a whisper*

“GO ROUND UP YOUR VIRGINS!”

**********

*singing along to Taylor Swift’s ‘Sparks Fly’*

Proper lyrics: “Drop everything now, meet me in the pouring rain, kiss me on the sidewalk, take away the pain.”

Addie’s lyrics: “Drop everything now, meet me in the pouting rain, kiss me in the sidewalk, take away the paint.”

“Mom, why does she want him to take away the paint? Is it the wrong color?”

**********

“Addie! Sissy and Thomas are coming to see us!”

“OH! Make sure Thomas brings his fancy gel.”

However no one’s really sure what fancy gel is.

**********

Also, this just in. Mozzi is lazy. Or she has way too much room in there for her little stunts.

Emily is giving away the world’s coolest diaper bag in celebration of Mozzi, you have until Saturday to enter, go!