Apples And Honey

L'shana tovah!

I've written before about how much I love celebrating new beginnings. Last Thursday was Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.

It feels very appropriate to me that the ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are known as the Days of Awe. It is a time of reflection and atonement, and, as I prefer to think of it in my more secular way, a time of healing. This is the time when God decides whose name gets written in the book of life for the coming year -- who lives, who dies, and who is born.

This year, the High Holy Days coincide with the beginning of my third trimester. I look back in wonder, amazed that we've gotten this far. Whatever one may call the Divine, the Life Force, the Universe, I am in awe. A year ago, we were despairing of ever having a child. Now, I want to fall to my knees in gratitude each time I feel my baby move.

It is also a time of healing for me. I had a somewhat scary episode last week, right on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, that underscored for me just how much healing has taken place. I was having an extremely stressful day at work, and on such days it's not unusual for me to have a couple of Braxton Hicks contractions late in the afternoon. But last Wednesday, they got really bad. I had three in rapid succession, and an hour and a half later another two. I got scared and called labor and delivery at the hospital, and they told me to come in to get checked, just to make sure.

I was terrified on my way in. I started crying and begging the universe to let my child be ok. I didn't want to think about her not making it after coming so far. But even though I was melting down, I felt a calmness at my core. I knew, I can't tell you how but I knew, that she'd be ok.

By the time Atomic met me at the hospital, I was feeling better. They strapped me to a monitor, did a quick ultrasound and checked my cervix. It was all ok. The very kind doctor who examined me was very reassuring.

Maybe I wouldn't have been scared at all had it not been for our history. But something about the experience made me realize how long it's been since I've dwelled in the Land of Fear.

I know I won't ever forget what it feels like to struggle, to mourn, to worry. But this baby, this wonderful, awe-inspiring being growing steadfastly inside my body, is healing me.

And it looks, God-willing, like there will be a new name in the Book of Life this year.

Lemonade Stand

This may have been our last trip out to the desert for a while. It was wonderful and awful, exhausting, dusty, life-affirming, friendship-cementing and friendship-destroying. In short, it was Burning Man.

I did something there that I've never done before. I actually created and displayed a piece of art. I took the pain, heartache, challenges, joys, and weirdness of the whole infertility experience and turned it into . . . a thing. A piece of art that I called "Second Coming." Each of the baby carriages has a bottle of fertility meds in it, and the trees are made from syringes.

Photos below.

Photos courtesy of Eric Slade

Monkey

Long before there was a Pebbles, long before I met Atomic, long before I lived here, I had Max. She's been my furry, four-footed, rambunctious little friend for twelve years.

When Atomic and I moved in together, we changed her name to Monkey because his cat was also named Max. So now we have Monkey and BooBoo, and we love them both.

I was looking forward with both joy and trepidation to the cats' reaction to Pebbles' arrival. Would the critters be curious? Depressed? Resentful? Oblivious? Would BooBoo pee on the baby like he pees on anything else placed on the floor? Would Monkey jump on her like she jumps up on every person she meets? Would we wake up and find Monkey in the crib?

In the meanwhile I've been enjoying snuggling up with one or the other of them. I especially love it when they rest their little heads on my tummy and purr. I imagine Pebbles likes that.

But now, now we're just hoping that Monkey is still here when Pebbles arrives.

Monkey stopped eating last week. After three days, we took her to the vet. They ran some tests and sent her home. The following night, after she still hadn't touched food or water, we brought her back, and they admitted her. A biopsy revealed that she has lymphoma. Kitty cancer. They removed about four inches of her intestine and finally released her Thursday night.

She's still in a lot of pain, and has to be fed through a tube three times a day until she eats on her own again. She's a trooper, though. Apparently the chances (damn statistics again!) are about 30% that she'll go into a full remission with chemotherapy, in which case she might be with us for another couple of years. If not, well, we'll have to enjoy all of the moments we have left with her.

I would really love for her to meet the baby, for the baby to have some memories of her. I know that's not terribly likely at this point, but even if the only memory that Pebbles has of Monkey is the distant sense memory of being lulled to sleep by purring while still in utero, that will be enough.

Old and New

I turned 40 this past week.

Forty. That's old enough to be covered by the laws prohibiting age discrimination, a tidbit I've been giggling over for a week now. When my mother was 40, I was starting college.

And here I am, late bloomer indeed, soon to enter the brave new world of motherhood. My life is about to change radically, which is why I am so glad that so much of it is solid and stable and (I hope) not likely to change much at all.

I've got a nice house and an established career, and that helps. But even more importantly, I've got relationships that have stood the test of time. This baby is going to be born into a crazy but loving extended family comprising people who are related by blood and by love, people whose hope and support really brought her into existence.

We had a party last night at a little Italian restaurant where Atomic and I have been regulars for the last several years. Twenty-some loved ones, including my mom, who came all the way from Arizona, and a friend I've known for more than half my life. They all came out to celebrate what will probably be the last "adult" event in my life for a while (as another friend and mother of a two-year-old reminded me). These friends, who are at all different stages of their own lives, have taught me so much about the world and about who I am. And every one of them has cried with us, hoped with us, and celebrated with us throughout our journey.

Last night, I was blown away by how much these people care about me. And as much as they love me, I suspect they already love my daughter even more. Which seems to me exactly as it should be. Everything I have in my life, everything I've ever wanted for myself, I want her to have even more.

One of my friends gave me a sparkly headband for myself and a little tiara for the wee one when she arrives. That gift summed up where I am right now. I know I still have much that I want to achieve in my life, but right now I'm happily passing the torch, passing the attention, and I'm ready to focus on my little girl.

Oh, and the nickname "Flipper" has now officially been set aside. The Assembly of Grandmothers, Godmothers, and Other Interested Parties ("AGGOIP") has decreed that henceforth our child shall be known as "Pebbles."

Here's to a happy, full life for you, Pebbles. You are already so loved.

The Baby-Industrial Complex

My dear friends and family, I am proud to present what may be my first NPP (Normal Pregnant Person) post:

What a racket.

First, you blow a nice chunk of change on fertility treatments. Then, once you've finally got the coveted bun in the proverbial oven, the marketing really begins.

Now, I have no problem with much of the baby gear on the market. A lot of it might actually be useful, if not strictly necessary. And I am, I totally admit, having fun compiling lists and surfing various baby sites. I'm reveling in it, in fact. Soft, cute baby things make me positively oogy, and I can't wait to decorate Flipper's room and buy her eensy beensy hats and shirts and things with monkeys and dinosaurs on them.

Today, however, I got a little reminder not to take things too far.

I was passing by a verrrrrry high end baby store. The kind of place with maybe a hundred items total in the whole store, all magnificently displayed, and, judging from the price, woven from pure gossamer by highly paid, well educated, unionized elves.

I couldn't resist. I went in.

The adorable onesie with the embroidered pig on the front? Forty-eight dollars. I think my eyes might actually have made a "sproing!" noise as they popped out at that price tag. Forty-eight smackeroos for a onesie with a friggin' pig on it.

I casually sauntered toward the exit, passing on the way the two ladies with the cherub-faced toddler in a stroller. They'd been merrily cooing over dresses for the child, holding them up to her face to see if they went well with her skin tone (?!), apparently unfazed by the hefty prices. As I passed, one of the ladies said, "Honey, stop picking your nose."

Ah, yes. You can dress her up in fancy dresses, but in the end, a baby is still a baby. And spit-up on a forty-eight dollar onesie is just as gross as spit-up on a five dollar onesie.

I'm sure I will succumb to the temptation now and again and spend way too much on stuff for my daughter. But in that, as in anything, balance and perspective are very good things.

These Are The Days

It's been very circle-of-life around here lately. Friends getting good news. Other friends mourning losses.

Births, deaths. Little bits of pure joy bobbing around in sadness.

It seems like lots of people around me are suddenly dealing with illness and death. I've also been saddened, heartbroken, over a friend's miscarriage, wishing I could make it not have happened. Other people I care about deeply are slogging through the marsh of infertility, poking themselves with needles, sometimes hopeful, sometimes despairing, often just frustrated as hell that the plumbing just ain't workin'.

I spent a lot of time over the past two years asking, "why me?" Why did I get stuck with the lousy eggs, the dismal odds, the pregnancies that didn't stick? And now I ask myself, "why me?" Why do I have such a wonderful family, such loving friends, a good career, a loving husband, a great life . . . and a baby on the way? It's dizzying, really. What a reminder of the impermanence of everything.

Right now, I rejoice in knowing that there is a genetically normal baby girl flipping and flopping around in there, at the same time I grieve with my friends over their losses, and at the same time I fear another loss in the future. It's a lot to keep in your heart all at once. I'm doing my best to let it all be, to let go of needing things to be a certain way.

Today I am happy and sad and fearful and hopeful.

So be it.

Our Little Alien

Yeah, that's my daughter. She looks like an alien. A super cute alien, to be sure, but gee whiz, kiddo. At one point during the ultrasound, I thought she was sucking her thumb. Nope, said the u/s tech, "She just poked herself in the eye."

That's my girl! Coordinated, like your mama. Now, wave hello to all your friends in the internets: