now i can call him fred: the birth story

Sixteen, going on seventeen days old. Fred Harrison David Rowley. Here he is on Day One:



Stats at birth:

Entrance into world on Monday, 6/22/09, 3:48 p.m.
20 inches long.
8 lbs 4 ounces...wide.
Apgar* scores of 8 and 9

*Score measuring general robustness of baby, administered once and then again in disbelief. Is he really that awesomely robust?? Yes, and then some.

Story time.

I awake Sunday night/Monday morning at around 3:30 from my tiny, two-hour sleep. Braxton Hicks contractions* are afoot, as they have been for a good while towards the end of this pregnancy, but these ones have a spark about them, a feeling of show time. I get up and noodle around on the internet. I get a message from an old friend I hadn't been in contact with for fifteen years, and I'm so delighted by this that the Braxton Hicks contractions change out of their rehearsal clothes and put on their real costumes and also cross off the "Braxton Hicks" from their dressing room doors. I call the doctor around 4:30 and describe what's going on, and she says we ought to head on over to the hospital.

*These are contractions that happen throughout a good portion of a pregnancy, sort of like practice contractions. On the American Idol finale during the year Finn was born, Taylor Hicks and Toni Braxton performed a duet. I couldn't believe it and I'm still mad that they didn't form a band called "The Braxton Hicks Contraction".

Team Fred's Birth consists of myself, Dave, my dear friend Elizabeth and whoever happens to be on call at Swedish that day. (Hey, wait. Last you knew about it, you blog readers, I was going to have a c-section. Well, some things happened and I changed my mind and a nice lady took out my cerclage stitch and the c-section was cancelled.) I was hoping beyond hope that the aforementioned nice lady would be on call that day, and she WAS. Dr. Susan Harvey. Cool Hand Luke! The first good news of so many good newses of the day.

Elizabeth comes to get us, we go to triage, iv/blood draw, blah blah, and then we are shipped off to our room, where we meet our second good news of the day: our nurse, Ms. Tracy Sharp. Oh, Tracy. Oh, sister. She's bossy and pushy and all business but in the best way, a kind way. She ascertains that we're trying for a vaginal birth, now, as opposed to the repeat c-section. Nurse Tracy lets us know that if a baby CAN be born outta there, SHE can MAKE IT be born outta there. If SHE can NOT make it be born outta there, IT can NOT be born outta there. Nurse Tracy apparently makes it a point of pride with herself that this baby will leave through the traditional exit, but she tells me that I will have to be putty in her hands all day long. She gets to flip me around and move me here and there and I have to do whatever she says. As I do not have the conviction that I can make a baby do anything in particular at all in regards to its being born, I gladly throw myself at her mercy. All day long, I am all "HOW HIGH?!" before she can even get the "Jump" out.

One of my annoying personal qualities is a sort of Zelig* phenomenon wherein I inadvertently mirror the energy of any person I am in contact with for more than five minutes. (I eventually had to stop seeing this one particular hairstylist because she was this loud, obnoxious, Texan party girl and I couldn't stand myself whenever I had an appointment with her. I was all, HA HA, OH MY GOD, I KNOW! Old ladies who live in the apartment beneath you and are just trying to sleep while you have loud parties are total bitches who deserve to have cruel practical jokes played on them for months on end! TOTALLY! Also, I think I will not schedule my next haircut just now, thanks. I will slink away with my cute hair and never return.) Also, I can be a bit of an ass-kisser. These are not positive traits but it appears that I was born with them just for this very day! Just like Owen Meany and his crazy voice, my Zeliggy ass-kissing would bloom into great purposefulness on one pivotal day, this day of Fred's birth. I would have Nurse Tracy on my side. I would zigzag back and forth between ass-kissing and mirroring all day long. Doulas? I agree! They're totally stupid! I know! We hired one, but we fired her because we suddenly realized that they're totally stupid and against everything good! You feel that way, too? I feel that way, too! We want to bring our placenta home, though. I mean, no, we don't! Of COURSE you can move my leg that way. Also, you're really pretty. And a saint!

*Great Woody Allen movie. His character, Zelig, morphs *but exactly* into whomever he's with. If he's talking to a psychiatrist, he becomes a psychiatrist. If he's talking to an old Chinese man, he physically turns into an old Chinese man. If you haven't seen this movie, rent it now and then come back and read the rest of this post later.

Dr. Harvey broke my water around 8 in the morning, and then we didn't see her until later in the day. (I have changed tense. I might do it again. It's late.) For a while, Dave and I walked the halls of the childbirth wing with our iv tree and me very large in my hospital gown and little hospital socks, waiting for labor to intensify, feeling like a a couple about to give birth in a Hollywood movie. Oh, honey. A baby! Stroll, stroll. Pause. Ouch. Resume stroll. Oh, honey. A baby! Stroll, stroll. Switch direction.

Nurse Tracy said that I was progressing really well, and that I could have an epidural any time I wanted, but the longer I could hold out, the better the chances to avoid a c-section. I couldn't believe that I had arrived at the point where I could have an epidural already! Glorious! So do-able, so far! We strolled some more, and then the contractions got more powerful, and Tracy steered me to a rocking chair, which...good. Very good. Elizabeth had gone to seek coffee and breakfast, and when she returned I was heading into the most serious contractions I would have to feel all day.

I put myself down a little, earlier in the post, talking about my Zeligness and asskissomania. Here's where I give myself a dose of the opposite. I am incredibly, incredibly good in difficult, hospitally situations. I do say so myself. Elizabeth said I was like a Jedi during contractions...and I WAS. I WAS like a Jedi. The pain would kick in and I would get very quiet and peaceful and root myself to some solid place within. All stillness, all acceptance. Very strong-feeling. Eventually, the pain was enough that I didn't want any more like it, and I gave the word for the epidural. The anesthesiologist arrived in her hat with cupcakes all over it, and administered the epidural. Did I flinch? I did not. Did I stay perfectly still, even during contractions? You know that I did. When a person came into the room to ask me a question, did I hold a calm finger up during her question and say, "Just a moment. I'm going to have a contraction right now, " and assume my silent, meditative contraction pose, and then did I peacefully open my eyes and address her question? Friend, I did. Nurse Tracy talked me up to the nurse who filled in for her during lunch. "She is awesome," said difficult-to-impress Tracy to lunchtime Deirdre, "She NEVER COMPLAINS." She bade Deirdre treat me right, and Deirdre did.

After the epidural, I had to lie in a funny position for a good while in order that Fred might change positions. He was facing the wrong way, sunny-side-up, and Tracy knew the trick to convince him to move. I lay on my side with the uppermost leg curled up toward my chest, shaking and shaking from the epidural, and Fred worked away for a couple of hours to reorient himself. (Small hero. Helpful wonderbubble.) I had a fever. There was a cool washcloth. I knew when contractions were happening, but they didn't bother me. I slept a little. Everything progressed beautifully. Fred turned and descended, I dilated and thinned, all at a steady clip. At 2:00 pm, Fred and I arrived at our places. I was at 10 centimeters, he was down at the entrance to the exit. We were ready to push.

Clever Tracy. Before we began pushing, she turned off my epidural without telling me. She wanted me to be able to feel what was going on in order to be able to push effectively, but she also wanted me to stay relaxed and avoid internal freakouts about pain levels. So she just quietly turned things off. I love you, Tracy.

Dave was stationed at my left knee, Elizabeth at my right. The pushing began.

All right. So. Pushing. A baby. Out. Is not my idea. Of. A good time. First of all, it feels totally futile. No, first of all, what it feels like is doing situps wherein you're also not allowed to breathe and you're also making some kind of heroic physical effort at something you don't quite comprehend. You're directed to push down with this part here but also push the baby up towards the light, and whatever you're doing is great, really great, but you should also do it, like, five times harder, whatever the fuck it is you're doing, which you're not quite sure but it's really fucking hard already. Second of all, it feels futile. It doesn't feel like anyone is getting anywhere! And your loved ones (which now include your nurse) are telling you, "You're doing so great! He's moving!" And you're thinking, "Why are they saying that? Why are they lying to me?" And then they're like, "Ok, push! Push!" And you're thinking, "No shit?! I should push? Like I was going to do something else during this contraction? 'Hey, you guys, with this one I'm just going to do a great visualization! And with the next one, will you hand me that magazine?' Of course I'm going to fucking push, whatever that means, for whatever that's worth, which is NOTHING, not that you're ever going to level with me about that!" And then they're like, "Push harder! Harder, now!" And you're like, "THAT IS EASY FOR YOU TO SAY, MOTHERFUCKER. ALSO, HOW ARE YOU GAUGING HOW HARD I AM PUSHING?? DO I NOT APPEAR TO BE OPERATING AT MAXIMUM??!" And then Tracy says "Go!" which means "Take a deep breath and hold it and begin pushing" so you take a breath and then someone else says "Breathe!" and you breathe again but realize you already did that and you're supposed to be holding your breath and so you do this stutter breath and you have to figure out how to kick off into this round of pushing on this weird stutter breath, and you plan to speak up when your next little rest period comes up between contractions. Between contractions, all you want to do is breathe deeply and go limp. You have to give some notes, though, to your birth team, because you're all figuring out how to do this. You say, "Don't say 'breathe' after Tracey says 'go' because then I do a double breath," and your team is incredibly sweet and understanding and receives this note like a champ. Next rest period, you say, "Don't say 'push' so much." Next rest period, you say, "When you tell me not to arch my back but then tell me to push Fred UP, I get confused," and they say, "Cool, great, we don't do that any more." During the next rest period, they say, "His head is showing, do you want to feel it?" And you do, halfheartedly, and there it is, but whatever, you just want to breathe cool air and lie there like a dead fish. And during another rest period, they say, "Do you want me to get a mirror so you can see?" and the question seems so irrelevant and far-fetched, like, "Hey, there's this really neat documentary about spiders on right now, do you want to watch it?" No, I don't want to watch a documentary right now. I'm trying to have a baby. I don't even want to watch a documentary specifically about me, Tina Rowley, having a baby named Fred. I just want to have that baby. I have no time for these sideshows.

At one excellent, beautiful point, however, Tracy announces, "He's going to fit." He's going to fit. This is not going to be a c-section. This is the moment when we know it. I am going to have this baby the way nature intended. Lift, rush, lightness, amazement, joy. The c-section with Finn was terribly difficult, our meeting was delayed by a few hours and dimmed by medicated sleepiness, the recovery was slow and painful, and as a result my bonding with Finn was adversely affected for a while, and a fierce depression ensued. I felt useless, wanted to fall off the face of the earth. So, that, THAT, was not going to happen this time. Whatever did happen would not be that. It would be better, for sure, maybe good, maybe great. He's going to fit! (We later found out at that his head is in the 25th percentile, circumference-wise. My beloved small-head. My considerate bunny rabbit.)

At the most excellent point of all, Fred rounded the toughest corner of the exit and made his way to the light. His small, thoughtful head worked its way out. They call that bit "the ring of fire". Fire, no. Ring of OW, FUCKERS, yes. Fire is an exaggeration, though. But his head came out. Then Dr. Harvey was there and she pulled his body out. And then he was up where I could see him, in the light. A baby. Mine. Fred. Visible. Lit from within, sure, but definitely lit from without. Jaw drops. Tears of joy. 3:48 p.m. And then he was wiped off and wrapped in a blanket and then he was on my chest, warm and squirming, with his soft face and soft limbs and soft head, warm like a bread roll. (Bun in the oven is the perfect description of the thing. Bun out of oven.) Heat, weight, movement, sound, happiness. Can't convey.

Other things happened, fine things, good things, but nothing else matters. Fred is born. Stop typing now. The story is told. Maybe a few more details later, maybe not. Shh. Fred is here.

untitled

I have to stop calling him Fred. This is not because we're not going to name him Fred, or something like that. He, if he stays the he that we believe he is, will be named Fred sans fail. No, I have to stop calling him Fred because it's making a problem right now.

It's making me mechanical.

I found this out by not calling him Fred for once. I found this out a few minutes ago lying on my couch, drinking some cold water. Cold things and sweet things (and also hot things and...anything I ingest at all) make this child move around. Evening does it, too, makes him move. The operative word in this paragraph, though, is "child".

There's a human child in there. It's not as obvious as you might think. It's particularly easy to forget, weirdly, if you are the person carrying the child. This whole thing can just seem like a large, semi-permanent medical condition wherein your midsection expands and a little constellation of other symptoms gather around it, and this midsection does some occasional flips and things. And even though you know it's a baby, your baby, it just gets to be background noise. Also, it's just par for the course to fall metaphorically asleep and sleep through your life and organize yourself in such a way that you aren't rousable, aren't disturbable. Par for my course, at least. You may be a wide-awake, blinking, vividly present monk type who eats a wild strawberry and enjoys it with every cell while a tiger chases you over a cliff to your death and you feel that, too. My waking moments are few and far between, I'm afraid, as much as I love them.

But I at least had one this evening, and it happened when I was able to strip away or at least manage in time not to add unnecessary language to the moment when the child I'm carrying moved in response to the cold water. Bang. Awake. Me. I was.

I comprehended that there was a human child in there. Not "my" child, because that puts a whole story on to the situation, a story that I already know and makes me fall asleep. No, a child. A human child. Not mine. Just in me. A child, shifting around, trying for a better position or reacting involuntarily to the cold. I was more moved by "a" child than "my" child, because "a" child is all children, everywhere. Helpless. This was a flash of something primal. Throw a child upon the earth without its parents or someone to care for it and it will die. A child in nature. Small limbs, confusion, need.

This activated something in me so much more maternal than the phrase "my child" or even more instinct-killingly, the name "Fred" does. Naming the child is necessary, but it's also distancing. You start relating to some imaginary idea of who this child is. It's the difference between an empty picture frame and a picture frame with a random photograph of an attractive model that you haven't taken out yet. Calling this baby "Fred" before we know him feels like sticking the frame up with the photograph of the model in it and imagining that this model is our loved one.

I'm getting very large, and it's physically painful in ways that are new to me. A few blood cells have burst inside the skin on my stomach, leaving some tender red dots here and there. These red dots exist, and I struggle when I walk sometimes, because of a child who is curled up in my middle. A person. Another person. The other person I keep forgetting about. A person is dangling off of the front of me, encased in my skin.

I know that you know that. But it's news to me.

I'll tell you something nice that's come of this realization. I've been talking about this pregnancy a lot, naturally. I get self-conscious about that, and also self-conscious about simply being a pregnant woman - particularly a pregnant woman with another child, already. I'm thrown so centrally into my identity as a mother. Or worse, or more tritely, a mom. A mom! Hi, I'm a mom. Just a mom! Oh, you know us moms. Recommended by Dr. Mom. It's easy to feel that being pregnant and discussing it, or being a mother and discussing it, or just being either of those things at all is somehow inherently ridiculous or trite. I keep looking at myself through other people's imaginary eyes and getting bored or irritated with my very existence.

But my small moment of awakeness and accompanying burst of fierce maternal instinct to care for this human child within me cured me, at least for a bit. Mothers are ubiquitous, yes. "Moms." It's not unique. It's not "special". It is, however, extremely real and can cut all of the civilization out of you in a heartbeat. You are dropped right into the middle of the wilderness, an internal wilderness, and just like the child in utero reacting to the cold water, you respond to the child's presence involuntarily. You reach for it.

i totally painted this

In MS Paint. Dear god, I am a genius.

Two items*:

1. Now that I am far bigger than a house, Dave & Finn & I are moving in with Fred in my womb. We need the space.
2. Have I ever, will I ever, is it possible for me to ever have a shower that is just a shower and not an imaginary point-counterpoint face-off with whatever phantom opponent I'm arguing with in my head at the moment I turn the water on? Maybe when I was nine and taking my first showers and my mind was consumed with bearing up under the water pressure, probably not, it would take an act of will greater than I will ever remember or care to give it.
3. Iceburg wedge salad with Russian dressing; strawberry and watermelon agua fresca, all limey and sugary.
4. Six and a half weeks to Fred's airlift into the world. Ach mein Gott. Shawshank Redemption!
5. This is how I like to imagine Finn and Fred in the future:



*I know. But I think it's funnier to say "two" and have five. But it's only funny if I know that you know that I know it. Otherwise it's just gently tragic.

Buona notte,
Tionardo

good intentions snap like yesterday's breadstick

This is a poem of Dave's that was published in the journal "Juked" a while ago. I love it. Also, the title expresses my current feelings about participating in NaBloPoMo. Not quitting. Just saying. Intentions, good ones, they, you know, snap. Not that they are snapping. Just that they do. It's still today's breadstick. But it feels like it's getting late. Yes, I realize that we're only on Day 4. Don't they say something about the first four days being the hardest? Whatever.

To Dave's poem.

****************

Good Intentions Snap Like Yesterday's Breadstick

Eight sets of dinner plates form a stupa
rising from the sink. These seven legs
of ham were harvested from a couple of pigs.
Like art hung from fridge magnets: six ribbons of demerit.

Five quads eye each other with suspicion over dinner.

A four course banquet to commemorate the kitchen fire
goes wrong as the chef is reduced to cinders. Three
marbled steaks and a two fingered Heimlich will satiate
Nina's appetite. One pot of boiling water clarifies things
for the lobster.

*********

Here's the link to the poem as published.
Good Intentions Snap like Yesterday's Breadstick

Tomorrow I will say something.

not, in fact, done

Inconceivable.

a thing that seems cruel and an uplifting thing

Do you know this book? I read it many, many years ago and I wish I had a copy in my hand right now. Sei Shonagon was a member of the court of Empress Sadako back in the 10th century, and she wrote this beautiful mish-mash book of lists and observations. Here she is describing how it came about:

******************************
One day Lord Korechika, the Minister of the Centre, brought the Empress a bundle of notebooks. "What shall we do with them?" Her Majesty asked me. "The Emperor has already made arrangements for copying the Records of the Historian".

"Let me make them into a pillow," I said.

"Very well," said Her Majesty. "You may have them."

I now had a vast quantity of paper at my disposal, and I set about filling the notebooks with odd facts, stories from the past, and all sorts of other things, often including the most trivial material....

I was sure that when people saw my book they would say, "It's even worse that I expected. Now one can tell what she is really like."

****************************

(Oh, ancient proto-blogger, I know how you feel.)

The book is full of the oddest, most charming lists. Pleasing things, ugly things...I found this one on the web.

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Words That Look Commonplace but That Become Impressive When Written in Chinese Characters:

Strawberries
A dew-plant
A prickly water-lily
A walnut
A Doctor of Literature
A Provisional Senior Steward in the Office of the Emperor's Household
Red myrtle
Knotweed is a particularly striking example, since it is written with the characters for "tiger's stick." From the look on a tiger's face one would imagine that he could do without a stick.

***********************

What a long lead up to the tiny substance of my post. It's not going to be a list. Or it will be a list of consisting of one item, which might disqualify it. Here's my own pillow book entry for today.

**********************
A Thing That Seems Cruel:

The knowledge that a fond memory that you have of yourself and another person might be remembered indifferently or worse by the other person in the memory, making it difficult to treasure the memory uninhibitedly.

****************************
Yes, well. Boo. I'm not going to leave that there. I'm going to add a new item. A very potent emotional carbon offset.

****************************
An Uplifting Thing:

When you are positive that your very fondest, most sublime memory of yourself and another person is viewed in the same exact glowing light in the other person's memory, and you can look over and confirm this out loud because you have married the other person in the memory.

****************************
This doesn't address the first problem, but that's like complaining that there are pebbles sticking out in the Garden of Eden* that a person could trip over.

I'm declaring "Pillow Book" as my theme for May.

*A different Garden of Eden, where you can eat the apples.

strawberry fields forever

Welcome to May, the last month in which Fred Rowley will not see the light of day, the perfect month to attempt NaBloPoMo* and perform CPR on my writing practice, the month with the theme "sweetness". Well, look. The official NaBloPoMo theme is "sweet" but I didn't feel like saying the theme "sweet" because I didn't like the music of that, and also I would prefer a noun where the theme lives. The theme "rebellion"! And also the theme "nitpicker".

Strawberries are sweet. Strawberries are also dangerously high in caffeine, apparently. Ask Fred, who released this statement earlier, "What the FUCK, MOM? Holy shit, what - what- what's happening, I'm - MOM YOU ATE SOMETHING - Holy Christ, I'm jittery, I just need to move, I need to....OHHH MAN...shake it out! Shake it OFF. LEG it. Leg it AROUND. HAND. Fuckin'...twist it. Jesus. FLIP IT. Hey, fuckin'....eat another one. Eat another of it. I can work this. Unh. Knock knock. My name is Lyrics Born AKA Macka Dang Dang. Live from the 0-1-5 doing my Thang Thang. So much soul so much MACHISMO so much control oh so much CHARISMA and that's my trademark baby CALM AND CONFIDENT...."

The statement goes on from there. Thank you, Fred. Keep on keepin' on.

And then we go backwards to the very first sweet, the first notable sweet on record. 1975. (My record. I may be narcissistic but not to the point that I feel that the shit throughout history was savory until I was there to taste otherwise.) Washington D.C. Age six. Indian restaurant. Meal is eaten. Dessert is served! It looks like a big pretzel made of orange jelly. Odd, but it's dessert, so I just know that it will suffice. Bite. Static. Consternation. Sweet. Sweeeet. Sweetness. STATIC. Gather forces. THINK, Tina. Go to what you know. Sweetness is good. Right? RIGHT? Bite again! Oh, shit. My assumptions. Scrambling. These bites are sweet. I live for bites of sweet things. But these bites are...DON'T EVEN THINK IT. Bite again. Oh, damn. I'm too young for this. I'm too young for this Zen bullshit. I'm too young for this Siddhartha Middle Way jive. Fuck me. I can't fight the truth. My dessert is too sweet. I'll tell you what's not sweet, though. The salty tears of confusion, these ones on my CHEEK, that's right. That'll cut the sweetness. Thanks for bringing me here, Mom and Dad. This has been wonderful.

Fred, the strawberries are only the beginning. Wait until you meet your orange pretzel. Let me give you a head start. The whole place is like that. This whole scene. Yes, we have brought you here. I'm sorry. And you're welcome. And I mean that.

Look, I won't be writing about sweetness all month. Far from. So cloying. No no. I will theme it as a last resort. But I will be here all month. Tip your waitress.

Edited to add: Anonymous commenter, thank you, and also you have saved me! I hated the title of this post with a passion. You have re-titled it. You are going on payroll.

*National Blog Posting Month, which it is every month, but this month so am I.

self portrait and tiny commentary

I just haven't wanted to write. I haven't been longing to write and unable to find the words. I just didn't want to. Still don't, really. I've heard enough out of me. I want to be nice and mute. All I am is pregnant, and all I've done is talk about it, and everything is fine and there is little left to say. ( Also, I've forgotten how to come on here and noodle around genially. All this THE BABY'S DEAD! NO IT'S NOT! YES IT IS! IT WILL BE! NO IT WON'T! business has temporarily squashed that knack.) So, the will to muteness is strong. Let's not call it muteness, even. Let's call it silence. Then there's no problem.

So I'm drawing and drawing. Since going on bed rest, and since being sprung therefrom, I've just curled up with some nice markers and made stacks of drawings*. That way I can say things without talking and I don't even have to know what I'm saying. I will maybe ask Dave to scan some for me and then you can see that I haven't been just dead for a month.

*This self-portrait is not a hand-drawn marker one. This, and all my self-portraits on the blog, are MS Paint. So's you don't imagine I'm that unhandy with a marker. I'd just go ahead and resort to Comic Sans for this whole enclave if that were the story. Hello, little lady! It's wonderful to try hard things.

Facts: Fred is doing excellently well. He's rearranging the furniture all the time. The furniture = all my organs. I am gaining strength. A date has been set for the repeat c-section I am going to have! June 12th is Fred's presumptive birthday. Banana bread is being baked and eaten a lot. Spring proves it again and again; it's my favorite. Massive heroic little green sprouting everywhere is the feel-good movie of the year. Also, OH MY BACK.

That is all. I promise to claw my way back to regular posting...as soon as I want to.

P.S. This picture makes it look like I have dreadlocks. I do not have dreadlocks. Another thing I don't have is the patience to fix that picture and make my hair look as triumphantly smooth and shiny as it REALLY REALLY IS.

P.P.S. El Finn, underwhelmed by purple airplane:



P.P.P.S. Handsome husband in spring snow:

mirage and oasis

I don't know what I want to tell you first. The sensible, current, chronological thing to do is to tell you that I've been released from bed rest. And I think I'm supposed to be very celebratory about it, and I am, I am, but my fingers don't approve of my starting on this high note. There's just one more low note I have to relate. I know. Repetitive. But then we can get on to the business of freedom and being sprung and gratitude. I promise that we will really get there and it will get very happy. Just bear with me a moment again.

Two weeks ago, we had what I'm hoping is one last crisis with young Fred. It appeared that I was leaking amniotic fluid, and that the fluid wasn't right. I called the nurse and told her what was happening and she said, "How fast can you get to Swedish?" We got there very fast.

For context, in case you're not a pregnancy and childbirth person, if you're leaking fluid and you're still not too far along and the fluid is green, that's bad. That's very bad. That's bad enough that when you're driving to the hospital with your son wiggling around in your womb, you're certain (repetitive!) that he's going to have to come out. And at this point, if he lives, his chance of survival would hover around 10%. But if your son who's already born and has been here for nearly three years is riding in the car with you to the hospital, you have to play it cool. You can't cry and scream and freak out. You have to be like, "Say, if you like cars, you're going to like this freeway. Hey, did you see that blue truck? Big one! Look, look, there's Mount Rainier. Can you see that mountain?" And you have to keep it up otherwise you're going to go where your hands are, which is on your stomach, patting it, stroking it, silently talking to it, transmitting messages to its contents. Your mouth and face have to do something separate, smiling and talking, "Do you know what's good about when Mom goes to the hospital? You get a present when I come out! The hospital's cool because if you have a problem, they're good at fixing it, so it's cool that we're going here today. What kind of present do you think you might want? A lot of animals, huh?" And your heart, of course, is split in two. One half for Finn, pumping out brightness, and one half for Fred, doing something that I don't even know if I dare look at to try and describe it. I don't even know if I could describe it if I looked. I'm looking and I don't even know how to see it to attach language to it. It's beyond my powers. I can give you two words, maybe. Dark and delicate. Well, part of it is very simple, naturally. That part I can give you. You're saying goodbye. The rest is preparation. Okay, I got more out than I thought I would.

So then there are a few hours in triage. And during the first stretch, I'm in what I keep calling the eerie calm. I've already wept and howled at home getting ready to go to the hospital, and I've already packed that away in the car with Finn, and now that we're at the hospital (Dave and I are there - my mom has taken Finn back home with her) I feel weirdly strong and peaceful. It's like being in the eye of a hurricane, maybe. You know what's around you and you know what the level of destruction can be, but you're calm. There are a few times in my life where I've had this strange feeling like I'm a general going into battle. An old hand. Not averse to the challenge. A readiness. Even a little vestigial feeling of pleasant defiance left over from this mystery general's youth. A touch of the "bring it on". So I had that for a while, propped up there on the gurney, waiting for things to happen.

One phenomenon during this period was the sensation of being cartoon eyeball to cartoon eyeball with Mystery. We had our strong suspicions about what would happen, but we didn't know for sure, and we didn't know when, and we didn't know why. A lot of time was spent staring at the white, textured ceiling tiles there in triage, willing some kind of divine face to poke through and explain itself. When? Why? What? Who? A face persists in not appearing. The tile is relentlessly unchanged.

The mechanics of the event, spread out over hours:

Blood draw. (White blood cell count high. Infection somewhere.) Ultrasound on top. Ultrasound inside. Speculum check. Amniocentesis. (Is the infection in the womb? If so, case closed. Baby is delivered immediately. The ultrasound technician asks the doctor to describe the pull from the amniocentesis. The kind doctor murmurs either "turban" or what I later understand to most likely be "turbid". I ask, "What's turban?" She meets my eye and says, "Cloudy." I like this doctor. I tell her she's extremely charming for the Grim Reaper, and I mean it. I like how she just looked me in the eye and gave it to me, gentle and real. Turban is not good.)

Now we have to wait several hours for the full results of the amniocentesis. First will be the glucose reading, then the gram stain, then a culture. The results will unfurl in phases.

The eerie calm is over with a vengeance. No one seems to think we're going to get a good result. The eye has moved on and now it's wind and sound and feeling, full force. One interesting part of the storm that I watch from the side is my new temporary stutter-curse. "Oh, f-f-f-f-f-f-u-u-ck."

Dave is by my side and he's not going anywhere. We're assigned a room, finally. Elizabeth and Jenn come. We all wait together. Fred is squirming around. The nurse tells us that the womb is showing irritability, and I think she means Fred, but she meant the uterus itself. But I didn't get that until later. I thought (you have to forgive me if I jump from tense to tense) that Fred was irritable because my amniotic fluid was cloudy and polluted and horrible, that he was spending his last few hours choking to death in there. I talked to him on the intercom, which is my hand cupped up against my chest. I tried to help him relax in there. And I talked with Dave and Elizabeth and Jenn about how at this point, I would want there to be a little memorial for Fred. Once a guy is moving around like that, and if he's going to come out alive, then he really landed and lived and deserves a sendoff. We talked about that a little, and I talked into my hand into my chest, and rubbed my belly. And we cried, and I stutter-swore.

At around 10pm, four or five hours after the amniocentesis, while Elizabeth and Jenn were at the store getting me magazines and vitamin C and hand lotion, my doctor came in. "Good news! The glucose test and the gram stain have both come in negative. The chance that the third test will come out positive is so small at this point that it's safe to say that the infection is not in the womb." Safe! Safe! I'll be getting antibiotics for my infection, but Fred is going to be fine! I can go home in the morning! We live to fight another day.

There's such a pleasure when you're lying out flat and you feel like you've been run over by a train, and you know you were lying on tracks and you did see a train pass over you, and then you find that you're lying on the tracks still but you're FINE! You didn't DIE! You weren't even hurt, except for the emotional trauma of lying on train tracks when a train is coming and seemingly rolling over you.

It's amazing how much suffering in this life is a mirage. Like so many terrible dreams. But you wake up shaking and tear-stained, something happened to you. But it didn't. This pregnancy is the longest, most bizarre dream. But Fred is real and I really think we're going to make it. I think we're going to go the whole way. I'm starting to feel confident. He farts around in there reassuringly all day.

While I was in triage, in the eerie calm, I kept having images of Fred as Indiana Jones being chased by the big boulder. I told Dave that if Fred lived, we might have to name him not Fred Harrison David Rowley, but Fred Indiana Harrison Rowley. I was serious, Dave. Dave knew this, and shook his head with his hands over his eyes, headache-style. He pointed out that Indiana Jones is played by Harrison Ford. Dodged a bullet there, my dear. Fred Harrison David Rowley it is. George Harrison with a fedora and a bullwhip. I'm satisfied.

And also, I'm free! Yes! This just in. I went for a follow-up appointment to check my cervix/cerclage, and apparently since it's been a month and everything looks perfect, I no longer have to be on bedrest! I still have to take it easy, but I can walk around, and I can drive a car. Such sweetness, ladies and gentlemen. I got up and made my own toast this morning, and stood there with Finn while he stood on a stepstool, which brought us to nearly the same height, and hugged him and went eyeball to eyeball with him and he asked so many questions, like "Why do you have EYES?" and "Why do you have GLASSES?" and "Why are your eyes BROWN?" and he was so happy and I was so happy and the answer, Finn, is I HAVE NO IDEA.

P.S. You are all so wonderful. I can't get over people. We've been the focus of so much love and care over the last while. I feel as rich as Roosevelt.

if you see cerclage on the spa menu don't fall for it

It's a beautiful word. Cerclage. It sounds like something with hot towels and lavender oil and firm Swedish old lady hands, ridding your body of toxins and cellulite and dead skin cells, leaving you smooth and glowing and ready for your honeymoon in the French Riviera.

No.

It's an unpleasant surprise your OB/GYN springs on you when you've gone in for what you think will be a routine appointment. You get an ultrasound and your doctor says, "Hmm. That's not my favorite thing to see." And then she says something about your cervix and says the word "funneling" and says "hospital" and suddenly you have an hour to go home and pack your bags and go to Swedish Hospital, which is a totally different kind of therapeutic Swede.

One thing you can do during that hour is break out into a fast-burning fight with your mom in which she might say something like, "I DON'T LIKE THE WAY YOU'RE TALKING TO ME" and then you can say things like "I REALLY DON'T GIVE A SHIT" and "GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY FACE RIGHT NOW" because this is a good way to relax when you're under pressure. It's even better when your small son watches this exchange and looks at you like you've started projectile vomiting werewolves, because then he'll really be in the mood to give you a hug when you leave and won't hide from you as though you were directly coming after him with a shiv. So that's one option.

Another option is for me to stop writing in the second person because I can't keep this up the whole way. I never meant for it to get this far.

Let's jump to me in the hospital. First, a short list of things I don't like:

IVs
blood draws
surgery

Then, a thing someone might say. Like, an exclamation of sorts:

Too bad!

Let's be balanced, though. A short list of things I like:

adjustable beds
room service
nice ladies

And another short exclamation:

See?

So, that happened. I went in last Thursday, had my blood drawn and hep lock put in for my IV, got amniocentesis to make sure I didn't have an infection, was tended to sweetly by Dave and my friends Elizabeth and George, and on Friday morning had a little surgery to get a cerclage placed. On Friday night I watched "Rain Man" in my hospital bed, which the Percocet rendered quite enjoyable. On Saturday I had another ultrasound, and later had some untoward bleeding followed by the most painful goddamn motherfucking cocksucking exam in history to check the cerclage, made even more undignified by its being conducted on an upside-down bedpan. Why my nice room at the fancy hospital had to turn into some kind of fucked-up makeshift M.A.S.H. unit I will never know. But there was screaming, and also crying, and gripping of hands, but then soon after that I was given the okay to go home.

Cerclage, right. I forgot to tell you what it is. It's when they sew your cervix shut to prevent pre-term labor. There's regular cerclage, which I think is called McDonald cerclage, and then there's Shirodkar cerclage, which is what I got, which involved some crazy shit I was none too happy to be awake for while they were performing it/describing it. (Then there's abdominal cerclage which is even crazier, so thumbs up on not getting that one.) I had a spinal block instead of general anaesthesia - better for Fred, but not a source of tender, soft focus Kodak memories for me. The surgeons were all "knife this", "dissect that" and I was like LA LA LA I DON'T NEED TO KNOW EVERY DAMN THING YOU'RE DOING A-LOUET-TE JE TE ALOUET-TE ALOUET-TE JE TE PLUMERAIS!

While I was in the hospital, Finn asked Dave, "Did Mommy run away?"

I'm getting tired of typing, now. I'm typing with one hand because I'm lying down funny. The cerclage went well, but the upshot is that I now have to be on strict bedrest until Fred is born. His due date isn't for four months. Ai yi yi. I meant to talk about that in this entry, the first stages of facing down that gaping maw of time spent lying down in an uncomfortable position. But that will have to wait until a little later. I'm out of juice.

More details to follow. Once I find a better writing position, I imagine there will be more details accumulating here than the world can bear. Enjoy your reprieve!

the ballad of sir freddie crisp

I'm debating the preamble. Do I put one in? Do I put a disclaimer up top, saying something like "I know this pregnancy has been full of trouble and I'm sure you're tired of hearing about it...[blah blah something about The Perils of Pauline]" or do I just jump in and begin?

The half-disclaimer did it. Allude to some embarrassment/discomfort with telling you about more pregnancy frights, but know somewhere more important that no disclaimer is truly necessary.

We thought we were going to lose Fred on Friday. Oh, I think that disclaimer was more necessary than I knew. I feel like the boy crying wolf. But every time I have cried wolf, there has been a wolf. The wolf just didn't eat anyone. Kill anyone. The wolf didn't kill anyone. But the wolf has been taking enormous bites out of me. Fred remains unharmed.

It began with a call to the doctor about some questionable sensations, and in the middle there were painful contractions up my back, as strong as when I went into labor with Finn, and there were other markers of labor. It headed towards the end with the doctor telling us to come in immediately, and us packing a bag for the hospital and heading for the doctor, certain that we were on our way for me to deliver our son twenty doomed weeks early. It ended well. No pre-term labor. Other reasons for the symptoms. Fred fine.

It's the middle, the goddamned middle, that's still eating me.

This is less a post to describe the particulars than it is an attempt to make some sense of all this trouble, although there will be some more particulars in it. There's sure to be some flailing, here.

I just want to note that this is the third time in the past year in which I have experienced the death/impending death of my child, even if it was really only once, and then very, very early. And the difference obviously matters to an infinite degree, if there can be such a thing. I know that. But it's not nothing, this facing it down all these times. It's fucking ridiculously something.

In the middle, when I was having the contractions and panicking and waiting for the ob/gyn's phone to be turned back on after lunch, I was lying on a couch and trying to listen to a relaxation CD. Word to the wise if you find yourself in this situation: don't.

This:

"Note any feelings that are taking place in your body, and emotions that you may be having."

Pause.

"Now let them drift away."

is not something you can allow to happen in this situation.

It does not go like this:

Well, I'm shaping up for a second trimester miscarriage. My son will come out and be absolutely unviable for this world, and will die quickly. So...yeah. That can just drift away. Drift away. Because, you know, I just need to relax. OH, my god. That feels so good, to just let that go. Shake it off! Oh, yes. Much better. Keep talking, soothing British man. You're taking me to Bermuda.

It goes like this:

British man drones on pleasantly. You squirm, shift, cry out a few times. You bang your fist on the couch. You want to relax because THIS, what is happening, is not what you want. You want to feel something different, and you remember from somewhere in your life that relaxation is good. But you know that to relax is to agree to shake death's hand and show him to your son's room. (Later, your smart friend points out on the phone that you can't let go of something until you have a hold of it. That is also a good point. But you're not aware of that wrinkle while you're fighting with the relaxation CD.) Finally, you throw off your headphones and proceed to eviscerate anyone who comes within three feet of you who tries to tell you something comforting, or attempts to show you a potential bright side/escape hatch. No one escapes your vicinity without their head being bitten off at least once. You assume the character of the wolf.

It goes like that.

But there were isolated moments with that relaxation CD where I struggled not for relaxation but for some kind of honest-to-God acceptance. And that's why I'm here, that's what I'm writing for, that's the jewel here that I'm trying to unearth. Not acceptance in the specific, as it relates to this incident, but a larger one.

I was lying there, and looking out the window at the midafternoon. Painfully sunny, bright blue sky. Bare branches. And these moments would come where I could see that there was nowhere to run to. Your life is the life that comes right in front of you. It can have absolutely anything in it: beautiful, loathesome, there's no quality control. And I could see in these split-seconds that there's no use, ultimately, in fighting. You fight where you can affect things, but this goes right to the old serenity prayer. The wisdom know the difference. And I thought, well, if this is my life, if the life that has my name on it is one where I lose this child, I can't very well turn away from my life. You have to befriend your life. You have to do it. You don't have anything else.

So I was simultaneously trying not to let death come in and take my son, and trying to let my life in to do what it will. And I only had the one door to work with. Keep death out, let life in. It felt so mind-bogglingly tricky.

My mind keeps flashing back to the George Harrison song, "Ballad of Sir Frankie Crisp". (I didn't quite catch the lyrics properly the first few times I heard it. Instead of "let it roll" I heard "Betty rolled." As far as I could make out, the song was all about someone named Betty.) I love this song.

Let it roll across the floor
Through the hall and out the door
To the fountain of perpetual mirth
Let it roll for all it's worth

This is what I constantly find myself trying to do now. Let it roll. Although everything is fine, I still have a situation going on with this pregnancy that requires extra monitoring. And I don't know how to hold my body. There's an impulse to some kind of magical thinking, something having to do with that door where Life or Death can pass through, wherein if I hold myself right mentally and physically, I can stave off death coming in. So I hold myself in whatever way I think that is. And while I'm doing that, I know I'm not helping anything, not affecting anything. But I don't dare stop it, or I only dare for about five seconds per minute. And I know that those five seconds are the only ones in which I am actually living. I can get from the couch, say, to the dining room table holding myself in some way which reflects the old Native American saying, "Today is a good day to die." It feels excellent, like I imagine surfing feels. It feels dizzy and expansive. Living, incredibly briefly, without fear.

Why do I do this? Why do I tell you these things, these terribly personal things? I worry that it's a kind of emotional exhibitionism, but I try to aim some kind of quality control radar at it, to see if it contains something legitimate. I keep getting a green light. I might be brokenly defaulting to green, but I keep getting green.

this flavor!

BEEP! Beeeep beeep beep! Honk Honk! Beeeeeep beep!

I can say nothing else that hasn't been said. It's unbelievable. Hello, new world.

But also, moving along....THIS flavor:











Ladies and gentlemen....the contents of my womb. Well. Not the first one. Well, not any of them. Just their collective first name attached to one sweet-ass little growing baby with a handsome profile and long fingers who if you stretched him out would be nine inches long. THAT guy.

The impending Fred Rowley.

We went in thinking otherwise. Then the lady said something about "Here's the scrotum," and I thought, "Why is she saying the word 'scrotum' in relation to my daughter?" followed closely by, "Oh."

And then, "YEAH!"

Fred! Finn and Fred. The small comedy team of my dreams. We're delighted to keep populating the world with Rowley men. This will be the eleventh Rowley man born in a row. Ain't seen no lady Rowleys since the 1930's. You gotta marry in. That's what I did.

In parting, I know that none of you particularly enjoy thinking about my cervix, but if you ever HAPPEN to be thinking about it, which never tell me if you are, think LONG thoughts. It's too short. Which is either fine or totally shitty. Too early to tell. Anyway, this cervix business put a damper on our boy joy, god damn it. The box of paranoia that I keep putting in the mail keeps getting returned to sender. Stop it, fucker. Get out of here. Anyway, long. Length. Lengthiness.

Fred! Fred Fred Fred Fred Fred.

FRED!

Fred Barack Hussein Michelle Malia Sasha Obama Rowley. I mean, we'll see.

the thing where you aim the car down a hill and try to start it from downhill momentum

Happy New Year! That's what I'm doing here. Writing is the car and I am the driver. I might also be a person behind the car pushing it if we end up somewhere flat and the car hasn't started yet.

If the engine were running, I would have some sort of direction to take us. This is not a trip to make the car go somewhere in particular. I'm just trying to keep the car alive in case I need to drive it. A person cannot talk and think endlessly about being a writer if she doesn't actually write something ever. It begins to get sort of sad, and being a writer sounds more and more like being a professional skydiver or astronaut or ballerina.

Oh my god. I forgot that nobody likes to read about a writer not writing! Especially when that amounts to approximately a fifth of that writer's output! I'm going to try the ignition now.

___________________.

I have just opened another tab. 101 Great Posting Ideas.

Oh, Jesus. The first suggestion involves "matching up my readers wants and needs using the Visitor Grid method of brainstorming." I thought this would be like, "Write about the best muffin you ever ate!" The thing is, I don't know your wants and needs, other than those of the person who perpetually arrives here after having googled "milk boobs", and I don't want to get in a grid with that person so much.

*Then they suggest I write a post exploring the pros and cons of an issue. I could, because they told me to, but I don't want to, so I won't. There, I did.

*There are a lot of suggestions involving "my niche". I could interview key people of my niche, or controversial people of my niche, or post about current events in my niche. My niche is not writing. I am the key of that. I find me controversial in that way. And the most current event is I'm writing right now! Totally controversial and key!

Tina: Tina, what's happening?
Tina: I know!
Tina: Et tu, Bruté?
Tina: You can't call this writing, though.
Tina: True! Welcome back to the niche.

(To get that accent over that 'e', I googled André Breton and then copied and pasted. Is there another way? Do French people google André Breton when they need an accent aigu?)

*I'm told I can also spruce up my post with pictures. That's a good idea. I google-imaged good writing. This is something that came up under that rubric. (I also googled "rubric" to double-check. I think I'm all right.)



Really? The Lake House. Well. I congratulate the writers on this victory. And I'm not in a position to be snarky, as these writers have written something.

***************

There are a lot of things, of course, that I could be writing about that are actually things. In less than three weeks we're going to have the ultrasound that tells us who this baby is, if this baby cooperates. I could write about how I feel about the two possibilities, an Oona or a Fred - how I'm going to be kind of intimidated if it's Oona, because I've built the idea of a daughter up in my mind so extensively, and how sort of relaxing Fred sounds in contrast, and how shocked I'll be if it's not Oona anyway. I could write about how this particular pregnancy and the overwhelming physical and emotional toll it's taken during its first trimester has left me feeling completely disconnected from everything except my body, and how I miss other things: meditation/the associated feeling of inclusion into the big stream of life, writing/art/creativity, and very very much my friends. It's like I was throwing up not just the things I ate, but many of the things I care about most. I could write about my sudden adoration of beef. Beef and milk chocolate. I could write about Dave, and how great he's been, and how exciting it is to be in love with my husband in a way I didn't imagine that a person could be after a while. My great good fortune. And I could always write about Finn, but trying to describe that utterly bananas, gorgeous, wackadoo creature is far too humbling for someone as rusty as I am. Just imagine a naked, milky-skinned elf dancing around the kitchen holding hands with his parents and then spinning off and bumping dizzily into the cabinets. That'll have to do for now.

Well. It's a start. Rabbit rabbit.

notes from the polar express

Wolves are natural comedians. It's true. They'll be here all week. Tip your waitress.

We let Finn stay up and watch The Polar Express on tv tonight. He has the book, was once wicked into it, is all ready for Christmas and Santa and all that sweet sweet action to begin.

Some notes:

*We thought the appearance of the wolves might scare him. In fact, he finds packs of wolves to be ultra-hilarious. Super totally completely so, to the point where I feel like I might need to reconsider wolves.

*Also popular: the Hot Chocolate Guys! "Hot Chocolate Guys!!"

*Massively compelling: the enormous pack of caribou. I mean, mooses. Caribou. Mooses. What? WHO ARE THOSE GUYS? Ten minutes after the caribou leave the movie, when the Polar Express is about to crash through the ice and all hell is breaking loose, a question.

"Where are the caribou?"

Dave suggests that they've gone home for dinner. Finn determines that they're having pasta. On plates.

*Before the elves appear onscreen, there's a faint jingling of sleighbells. Finn understands this instinctively and breathes out, "ELVES...." with maximum wonder.

*After the movie ends, we spot Finn standing over by a window looking at his reflection, lifting his arms up in the air and going on tippy-toe. He informs us in an excited whisper, "An elf is lifting me!" The elf lifts him on to the couch, escorts him to a diaper change, and basically does our bidding for the rest of the night. An elf can make him do anything. NOTED.

ripple effect

It's great that the news turned good, but that shook a woman up something fierce, Monday's scare. I feel like it's going to be better for me and young Seabiscuit here (a new fetal nickname has adhered) if I shake off some of what shook me.

To it.

Seabiscuit and I have a complicated relationship, due to the fact that I have attached myself to a theory that this is the same person who came in the spring and then left. I'm thrilled that this person made it through Baby Crisis '08 2.0, but I'm wary of this person at the same time. Who is this person and what is this person's agenda? And will this drama persist throughout this person's lifetime? (Spoiler alert, Mom. Yes. Duh. No life is without drama. You missed this? How was jail, again? Thought so.) All children are here to teach their parents a lesson, but this one seems so gung-ho about it. Jesus, Sensei. Calm down. Grow an arm, first.

Monday, God damn it. Monday was brutal. Unforgettable. Worse than this spring's actual miscarriage, until the reverse news arrived. How often does a person truly scream in her lifetime? I remember doing The Seagull many years ago, playing Masha, and in our production Masha goes offstage and discovers Konstantin's body and...makes the sound that she would make. She when she's me. Which was a gutteral scream. So I've made the sound I made on Monday, but I was Acting. Genius! Thank You. Monday was my first real-life scream like that. Only. Only, I declare. I prefer not to repeat it.

Somebody died on Monday and it didn't matter then that they didn't actually die. They died until reports varied. I'm always going to be in that orange bathroom in that red nightgown yelling for Dave and then the yell turning into something else and then Finn crying downstairs because I was making those sounds and then pulling it together for Finn when he came to see me, "Oh, Mommy's just upset because something happened that she didn't want to happen. I'm okay, see? Mommy cries sometimes, it's all right.* Something just happened that I didn't like, but it's all right."

*"And she yells, too," Finn added. "When I run away from her and she puts me in a time out." Right. Yes. Thank you. Great. That's Mommy. Cries and yells. You don't have any other fond memories tucked away in there yet? Just the crying and yelling. All right. Super. Carry on.

You only have a handful of days like that in your life, that are just burned into you like that. I'm not over it, yet. There's this person growing inside me (who, if you go by the latest ultrasound, is getting adorable. Nice head! And those shadows around your face fall in such a way that you look like a g.d. Kewpie doll already. Fast work, sailor!) and this person feels incredibly complicated, beyond the built-in complications of a developing human. I attribute great strength to this person, cramming a little forceful foot in the scarcely-open door we left for his/her conception, and then hanging on in there through the deluge. And I attribute also great fragility to this person, heading down here once and exiting at 5 weeks, and then coming back and having a tiny funeral practically mapped out before hitting daylight.

This pregnancy also feels sort of unhearty. This is not the sort of pregnancy where the young healthy peasant is out working in the field at full term, and lo and behold the child drops on to the soil while the mama finishes the harvest. This is more like the fainting lady in the mansion who's like oh...my condition. I cannot, due to my condition. (Everybody please whisper. The lady. Her condition.) I'm going to be listening to a lot of positive hypnobirthing cd's over the course of the next few months. (As opposed to the negative ones. This contraction, it is beating you. You're cowering, you're crumpling. The pain is too much this time. Get the nurse. You will require intervention.) The next few months feel long, and I'm not, like, running slo-mo through a field of daisies to embrace the actual birth, who's running towards me with sunlit hair streaming Fabio-like behind him. June 20th, 2009 feels right now more like the day I storm the beach at Normandy.

Thank you for listening.

or not! not again!

People. You will not believe a word I say ever again. But I have been to the doctor and the baby is FINE. I AM STILL PREGNANT. The baby is moving around in there and the right size and having a total heartbeat and blowing our minds.

I...I...wha?? Wha????

I am sure to be extremely happy as soon as I peel myself off the floor, which may be never.

We gave that little whippersnapper a time out on the spot, right there during the ultrasound. It's a second per week of gestation, right? Right. So we were like, "NINE SECONDS, buddy. You stop moving around for nine seconds right now. This is a time out. You're in this time out because mommy was bleeding as though she'd been shot. Hey. Stop moving. Nine seconds starts over. Hey! Okay, look, the nine seconds is going to start again. All right. Look. You are in time out because we were about to bury you and plant a tree and place a Buddha statue on the spot. Do you understand? You're - hey! Nine more seconds! Oh, fuck it."

I'll go in next week for a fancier ultrasound to explain what caused all the bleeding. In the meanwhile, I'm resting and not lifting things and explaining my damn self to all you good people.

We're exhausted, and just maybe...feeling really good. Definitely feeling run over by a truck. But it's like a fucking ice cream truck. Driven by clowns.

All of you, all of your sweet messages, your sweet offers....I don't even know what to say. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Massive posse of angels out there. You crazy beauties and all your love worked a goddamn miracle.

Or I made a gigantic, embarrassing public mistake. That could also be it.

Right.

Either way, permanent real estate for all of you right here. (Chest thump.)

Onward.

again

About an hour ago. Miscarriage. This will be abbreviated, because it lacks the, what would you call it, the freshness, the newness of the miscarriage from earlier this year. The wonder is gone.

Doctor's appointment is tomorrow, but there is precious little doubt about what happened. I have what you might call the corpse.

This time I'm totally unapologetic about talking about it.

After the initial animal shock/screaming/crying, a grim black humor has descended. A sarcastic numbness is in place. I'm too angry to feel tender and sentimental.

I can feel something like painless contractions continuing as I type.

I had to listen to goddamn Pachelbel again on the hold music for the doctor's office. It's farcical, really. I used to like that piece of music. I used to love it, actually. Thanks, Seattle Ob/Gyn Group. Maybe when I come for my appointment tomorrow you can fix my favorite meal and have my favorite scents wafting through your waiting room.

The contractions are getting a touch more painful. Well. That seems realistic.

More later. I appreciate all your congratulations, truly, and I'm sorry to give you whiplash again.

Baby, I will feel more for your absence as soon as I am able. I promise.

yes we did and also yes we are

photo lifted from the delightful site yes we can hold babies

First, AAAAAAAAAA! The joy of that moment, when the tv said Barack Obama Elected President...I've never felt/witnessed/shared in anything like it. Jumping up and down and sobbing and laughing and feeling like the sky broke open revealing some new better impossible beautiful sky. A giant world joy all at once, the whole world popping like champagne, like the Christmasiest Christmas Eve Christmas morning holy holy all over the Earth shared glory. Merry Christmas! You, boy! Run and fetch the fattest goose out of that shop! There's ten thousand dollars for you!

Yes. Afterglow. Fantastic. Marred by Prop 8 archaic bastards. God forbid evolution happen too fast in this country. Somebody has to do the job to hold us back. We loved our protruding foreheads! Standing erect is overrated. We were warmer when we had our own fur.

So. So I'm breaking my weird old long blog silence to tell you also* that I'm pregnant. Just 'bout 8 weeks. Yes! Yes, we did. Yes, we are. And I've had my hcg levels checked, and they're nice and high, and I had an ultrasound and that little baby was just the right size with just the right heartbeat. Poom poom poom, you could see it going there, right on the screen. Bap bap bap. Someone's in there, and someone's got it going on.

*Sarah Palin killed also. She shot it from a helicopter.

I was like, let's wait this time, Tina. Let's wait until 12 weeks to tell. But 12 weeks, schmelve schmeeks, I can't do it. I'm a VAULT that I held out this long. My old policy of glasnost or perestroika, whichever one is openness, that has to be reinstated. If things go well, I tell. If things go ill, I tell. I'm a teller! I'm a bank teller and you guys can have all the money out of the vault and you didn't even try and rob me. I'm that kind of teller. I'm a totally gung-ho pro-active co-operator.

Also: a drooler. And a gagger. A heaver. An up-chucker. A bloodhound who will need you to turn on the fan if you're planning on slicing that apple. A tired-unto-dying-of-Saltines-er. An I-got-a-craving-for-banana-cream-pie-five-minutes-later-who-the-fuck-had-the-stupid-idea-to-buy-a-pie-er. Because it can't have been me.

We are very excited and hopeful and nervous. We had barely barely made the decision to try again when some baby barreled in through a two-inch crack in the door. Ding dong, I wonder who's at the door, is it an encyclopedia salesman, let's see OH MY GOD THEY'RE* IN THE HOUSE AND THEY'RE DRAWING A BATH AND ORDERING A PIZZA HOW THE HELL DID THEY DO THAT SO FAST?! Hey mom. Pass me that rubber duck. Thanks. And shut the door. Also I will need to borrow 20 bucks for the pizza.

*It isn't twins. But he or she is too unwieldy, and I'm not jinxing anything.

So, whoo! Baby born in an Obama/Biden world, phew. Now let's get our asses to the second trimester post haste. This trimester blows. It also blows a trumpet, because we're on our way to a Rowley quorum. (6/20/09, give or take a whatever.) But morning sickness just purely blows.

However, screw that. I end on a positive note. C major, mofos!

no, no, no, no and no you didn't

The unthinkable has come to pass. A lady at the grocery store looked at me and said, "Wow. I thought I was looking at Sarah Palin for a minute there."

OHMYGODINEEDAHAIRCUT. And contact lenses. Jeebus.

yes, yes, yes, yes and yes we can

a quick one while the captor is away

Beginning a post at 3:15 in the morning is so crazy that it just might work. The captor is surely napping. How do I know? I feel open to using prepositions. That's how.

Let's do a grab bag as I don't have long before sleep comes for me. First, let's look in the bag, and then we'll pull things out.

Overhead bag view:

***********************************************
**Raja yoga*dining room table*Finn haircut********
**election*house putting together*baby wondering**
**not writing*relaxing about not writing************
***********************************************

Okay. Grab.

Finn's haircut: Jim Morrison has left the building, replaced by the president of the Young Democrats of Lake City. My son looks less dissolute (you know, for a two-year-old), more inquisitive. He looks older, taller and brighter. He's taking SHAPE on us.

Grab.

Dining room table: We have one now. It's wonderful. The soul of the house can now descend into place. A line runs through the great room from the fireplace through the dining table to the kitchen. Hearth, home, welcome, nourishment. I hope that many of you will come and sit at our dining room table with us and fulfill my dreams for this house. Photo to follow.

Grab.

Raja yoga: This is a twelve-week course I'm taking, heading into its fifth week. A Raja/Hatha yoga intenstive. Raja yoga. What be? (Uh-oh. Captor waking?) (The captor is waking, but I will fight to use the English language as it was meant to be used. I'm on to me. Whenever I want to tell you about something beautiful and difficult to describe, I want to revert to cave talk. I constantly feel too shy to attempt to describe things properly.) Oh, listen. Instead of trying to tell you what Raja yoga is, I'll give you a link to the class description. There. Now I can tell you what I really want to tell you, which is how the class feels.

Like home. Like the sun coming up. Like weightlessness. Like my mouth curling inadvertently into a smile like a small boat which is gently pushed off shore. The lake is infinitely wide, the destination is far away. The boat drifts slowly, the current is soft but sure. There is no hurry, not the slightest bit. It's early morning on the longest, best day of my life. By nightfall I will be at my destination. The day can be as long as it needs to be, but this is the day. I have finally left tomorrow back on shore. The boat can get tangled up in seaweed, and I can slowly disentangle it. No panic. I can drift in circles for a while, stop and float. I can eat some of my picnic. Muffins under the noonday sun. I can row until my arms are tired and I want to cry, and I can stop to cry. Very fine. All right. My face will dry, my nose will clear, equilibrium will return. I will keep rowing, and drifting, and rowing some more. Today is the day, however dull, however thrilling, however sweet or painful. Today can last a thousand years but this will still be the day.

So, it's a good class.

Grab.

Baby wondering: Sleep wants to come and rescue me from talking about this one. Cave talk also wants to kick in. Defense mechanisms. And also it's almost 4am. Let me pose this one as a question.

Is there a baby remaining out there in the ether that belongs to us? If so, please report not only to my womb, but please report to my heart and mind and launch a campaign to win them over again. My next birthday is my fortieth. This feels like a wall or a locked door. Will someone slip in before we are up against it?

Grab - wait. Guess what? I am not pulling everything out of the bag. No more writing about writing or not writing, for one thing, is my new motto. The dining room table is sufficient talk of the house. And as far as the election goes, IT IS NOVEMBER FIFTH AND OBAMA WON.

Good night and good morning.

proof of my own existence

I....writer's block....I....alive, I still alive, I.....

Many of you, so kind, so kind....I....you...such nice things you say about my writing....I...such appreciation....

My writing, I....I...what happened is I begin take my writing more seriously, like thing I...like a central fact of my life...like a thing I want do with all heart forever...and then...I...stop myself.

I hold self hostage.

I take me prisoner.

I hold me ransom.

To write like bad caveman is only way I get message to you from cave I hold myself hostage in. I no more good writing a while. I speak you without good writing, in order speak at all.

Why I hold me cave? I not know. Fear of thing. That probably it. Fear of thing, I think. That it.

Miss you, I...you there, reader. I have. By way. The.

What happen in Gallivanting Monkey life? Let catch up bit.

Finn used to never name thing. Like give name. For toy. No thanks. I say, "What name this bear?" And he like, "JUST BEAR." Like, "Just drop it." I keep try. I like, "What name this donkey?" Finn glare or sigh, then, "JUST DONKEY."

No more Finn no name. Finn now fully freewheeling thing-namer. Freewheeling in extreme. And nearly all thing name have same ending in common: dge. "Finn, what name this rabbit?" "Chadge." "Chadge?" "Chadge." Later, "Finn, look this dog. What name, you think?" And Finn all, "Woodge."

Some lately names animals in picture books from Finn:

Radge.
Choodge.
Chodge.
Choadge.
Widge.
Woodgie.

Some outlier names animals:

Cha (short "a" like "cat".)
Ra (also short "a")
Ree

Finn no longer shy namer. He spread this to more language, also. In morning, he enjoy exclaim, "Azazzy!" Like pizazz, but azazz, but -y. This only in morning. Like, morning in general bring feeling of azazziness not present in rest of day.

Also, I ask Finn, "What you dream last night?" And he reply, "Kitties." And I follow up, "What kitties do in dream?" And he say, "They flamshed."

Finn have other language construction I much enjoy. Is a double "is". Like, "What is that clock is?" First of all, question answered in question, right? Great, I think. But double "is" is extra joy. Example, I read Finn Peter Rabbit. Peter Rabbit eat too many radishes and french beans, get sick. Look for parsley. Mr. McGregor come after him, Peter Rabbit hide in shed, jump in water can, sneeze, all nearly lost as Mr. McGregor come after Peter, and then suddenly an interruption, "What is parsley is?!" Delivered in loud tone with face shoved suddenly in my arm.

"What is parsley is?" is now running joke between Finn me. He realize way he asked question very funny. I show him how he do it, he acknowledge very funny. Now we yell "WHAT IS PARSLEY IS?" suddenly at each other as non-sequitur, and shove head at other person. This always funny.

This, plus marvel and bang head against wall Sarah Palin, plus great new yoga meditation class, plus trying (you will not believe) write things to send places, this been Gallivanting Monkey life during self-hostage-taking month.

I not bother swear try write you more here, for swear only make self-captor-self angry. I whisper maybe I write you if captor nap. It not good writing, though, that I swear advance.

Note: This post been edited more thorough cavemaniness.