sunshine came softly

not too much happened yesterday.  this is the sort of look ava was giving me all day.  can you imagine the sort of sounds that issue forth from someone with this sort of look?  it wasn't good...the kind of day when motherhood doesn't seem quite the joy it was reputed to be.  and then, rocking my baby to sleep, she reaches up and strokes my hair the way i often do to her. 
looks and sounds?  who cares? 
this IS joy.
i love you, my bean.

footloose and fancy free

it's getting easier and better.  you know, that thing called being NORMAL and NOT FREAKING OUT when you leave your baby.  it's not like i have to cry anymore when i have to leave ava, (not before or afterwards or even both) but it has never been enjoyable.
HOWEVER, this morning, my sister and i left the babes with the boys and headed out to do some garage sailing and business meeting JUST THE GIRLS.  the 'older' girls - though apparently we still look like we could be in high school to some people.  (never thought i'd think this....but, YES!!)  anywho, i had the BEST time ever.  today was the first day that i've EVER left ava with anyone and NOT felt guilty or in some way BAD.  not necessarily just for her, but also for myself.  i've not believed it possible that i would ever think that time away from ava would be good for me (as in good for regenerating, good for remembering that i'm also just a girl and not only a mom, good for relaxing) but today WAS!!  we had the best time hitting EVERY last garage sale in town (even though most weren't really full of treasures) and NOT worrying about taking a small pink baby IN and then OUT and then carrying their small pinkness around while trying to look at stuff - we were footloose and fancy free!  then we got to business meet on a LOUNGE patio - the kind where they serve alcoholic beverages, the kind that DO NOT allow babies, the kind that make you feel a bit more like a woman and a bit less like a responsible mother. 

yep, i had a lovely morning!  but i've got to say, i mighta missed the bean.

new life

two weeks ago, (on wednesday) i was talking to a friend of mine...a friend who was VERY pregnant...one week past her due date to be precise.  we hung up with her feeling, still, VERY pregnant and awaiting a phone call from her clinic about whether she would be induced that friday or if she'd have to wait even longer.  feeling, i suspect, emotionally broken and physically spent. 
as i was putting ava to bed that evening i felt like i needed to pray for her - that, not only, would this baby come naturally without even needing an induction, but that God would bless the whole experience - the birth as well as the aftermath.  (her first baby experience was not the best - she was induced and in labor for a LONG time - 30 hours - and then a few months into it found out that she wasn't producing enough milk for her daughter and forced to supplement and, eventually, give up breastfeeding altogether).
i got the phone call on friday that she had given birth to a healthy baby girl early on thursday morning and would be back home by saturday.  since i wasn't in when she called, that's all the information i got - that and the baby's name. 
three days ago, i finally got a chance to actually talk to her and find out how everything was going.  how encouraged i was (despite the fact that DIScouragement is at an all time high in my self these days).  she went into labor (NATURALLY) about 6 hours after we had talked and it was a fast labor and delivery - just under 5 hours instead of 30 whatever.  she said it was a really positive experience.  the new baby sleeps well and often and had gained back her birth weight by monday...the really awesome, encouraging part? WITHOUT supplementing formula at all!  i praise God for his awesome work in my friend's experience and i am so thankful to him for this blessing for my dear friend. 
why so encouraged you might wonder.  well, it's always an encouragement to hear that exactly what you had been praying has actually come to pass.  it gives your prayer life new wings - like, God actually DOES hear what you tell him.  more than that, for me, though, is the whole positive experience and not needing to supplement thing. 
see, i know by now that i want to have another baby.  but the terror i feel in even acknowledging that fact makes me feel like writhing on the floor in agony.  having a baby, for me, was NOT a positive experience.  the labor and delivery (as i have written before) was, in my estimation, hideous, the ensuing aftermath was worse.  the hospital stay had some good points but, for the most part, only succeeded in making me even more sure that hospitals are awful.  and then...after months of worrying and trying to do my best for my dear little bean to be told that for MONTHS she had been starving...essentially i had been killing my baby.  well, THAT, that was something that i couldn't imagine going into willingly EVER again.  and although i know that it's not the end of the world to supplement or even to solely feed formula - although i know that it doesn't make you (and, in that estimation, me) a bad mom to have to use formula - i WANTED to nurse, when we were doing it, i LIKED it, and it killed me to think that i would NEVER have that option - that EVERYthing that happened with ava was destined to happen with any subsequent babies as well...that not only would i have to go through the hideousness of the aftermath of having the baby, i was destined to almost kill any other babies too.  THAT is something i could NOT stomach. 
i know that just because paula doesn't need to supplement this time is NO guarantee for MY next time.  but just finding this out gives the lies that i am believing less weight.  all the bad stuff that i went through with ava is not a prophetic declaration of what will happen with subsequent babies.  and so, despite my extreme discouragement, my difficulty in believing God's own truth over my life, despite the way i'm ACTUALLY feeling, i'm thankful for this small breakthrough for me and SO thankful for the miracle in paula's life.

...what you eat

after an entire morning and some of the afternoon, cutting, chopping, stirring, cooking, and FINALLY pouring into jars; THAT is all i have to show for myself.  there are times when i REALLY dislike making baby food - namely, on the days when i make baby food.  i must say, though, i AM proud that ava eats good-for-you-food made by my own two hands - as much as possible with stuff i grew in my own garden and at the very least, WITHOUT ANY preservatives, chemicals, and yuckiness.

children grow older

i've been sitting at the computer doing some writing and listening to ava babble in her bed, (most assuredly NOT napping) knowing that this is how she'll look when and if i go to get her...absolutely perfect, and NOT like a baby but like a little girl.  i LOVE this face with an intensity that surprises me.  i love when she puts her arms around my neck and when she (more rarely now) moves in to give me open mouthed kisses.  i can't get over the fact that this is a little person.  a little person who doesn't speak words yet but understands, no problem.  a little person with a big personality, a little person with a huge destiny, a little person who's absolute perfectness and amazingness stuns me sometimes. 

morning wake up

i love her, really, i do.  but i DIDN'T this morning.  nope, not this morning, because without her, i WOULD NOT have been awake at twenty after seven.  shortly thereafter, yes...but only because of a baby.  scratch that.  my REAL baby. 

there are times when i'm happy she's a 'guard dog'.  when strange people (or just people that don't come very often) come on the yard, callie barks and i know that someone's here and that my dog is 'looking out for me'.  but the incessant barking in the morning (or night - ask curt, he'll tell you about that, i usually sleep through it, i'm lucky like that)...WHY?  i tried scrinching my eyes shut and barricading my head with pillows...but the 'ferocious' sound ate right through the pillow fluff and vibrated inside my ear drums.  i tried banging on the wall, and she was quiet for a bit - just enough time for me to relax and think...'maybe i CAN sleep a little more before ava awakes'....and then...barking. 

THAT, my dear lil cal, is why we do the things we do to you...well that among other reasons.

one small 'blonde' moment

there are days when i feel quite smug, though i AM loathe to admit it.  days when i think about how i could have chosen to use disposables on my baby or how i could have chosen to buy all my baby food, and then, i am brought quickly back down to earth, my proverbial bubble is completely busted because it took me an hour to remember the word that i was using in my head...'smug'.  a day in my life.  welcome to the lemon parade, my friends.  yes, celia, THIS is YOUR life.

for always

'I'll love you forever,

I'll like you for always.

As long as I'm living,

My baby you'll be.'

-Robert Munsch

there is a feeling that you can't know until you become a parent.  sure, non-parents love, i loved before ava was born.  but this is a new 'species', this emotion that fills your being when you become a mommy.  it's a feeling akin to love, in the same way a creek is to a river.  the basic premise is the same, but it is SO much more.  SO much bigger.  my heart sometimes doesn't feel able to hold it all without exploding into a million pieces all singing, 'i love you, ava'!  'me' doesn't mean the same thing it did last year.  'me' is now ava included.  it is only now that i have an inkling of what God feels for me.  it is humbling and mind-blowing.  how amazing, that as you become less, you are actually becoming more. 

as long as i live and after.  that is my promise to you, bean.  for always.

t.v. reality

last night i was alone and i decided to watch tv...what else is on on thursday night besides doctor shows...so, doctor shows it was.  i found myself trying to reconcile the stuff i was watching with my own real life doctor experience.  the doctors were fighting amongst themselves and i thought as i watched "wow, that amount of drama is so NOT believable.  as if any doctor is THAT human".  now, as i think about it, i realize it's almost a true portrayal.  i think i have always imagined doctors to be sort of on a separate plane, somehow above the simple (and stupid) human emotions.  like, SURE, they're human, but it seems that they dislike actually being similar to the general public.  i guess i just assumed that the school of doctors would be similar to the one teachers have to go to - you ARE human, but above the common human, you will not engage in any activity that could be frowned upon by someone, you will not take part in celebratory libations anywhere where someone might see you, you will be kind, generous, and compassionate, you will not gamble nor fix up houses to sell them, you will apologize even when it wasn't your fault, you will be an exemplary citizen...  doesn't it seem like doctors would get the same education?  but, alas, it isn't so - the doctors in my dealings have NOT apologized, have NOT been kind, generous, or compassionate, and seem more like the overly dramatic doctors of the tv shows than i thought possible.  only that's where the shows seemed to diverge from my real life...cuz there were patients confiding in doctors!  sharing emotions and REAL stuff with...DOCTORS!!  see i don't share my feelings easily, my REAL feelings aren't anyone's business (maybe cuz it makes me too vulnerable) and i typically like to deal with stuff on my own.  and while my distrust of doctors has always been present, it has only been magnified by the recent dealings i've had.  then i realized that one of the reasons (if i think about him at all) i still feel so hurt by my first doctor was that i DID share stuff with him - REAL STUFF! - and he betrayed the hell out of all that real stuff when he missed what should have been obvious to a doctor.  HE was the one who told me that it was definitely NOT a mistake and we were really going to have a baby, it was HIM with me when i heard the sound of my baby's heartbeat for the first time (and what a religious experience that was!  there inside my tummy was the beating heart of a tiny person, one who i helped to make, one who would have bits of me making up the whole!)  it was with HIM who i shared some joyful tears, my excitement, my fearfulness and he really seemed to care - it's one of the things i liked about him.  i always felt important, like he genuinely wanted the best for me.  why didn't he at least say sorry afterwards?  sorry i missed what should have been obvious, sorry you guys had to go through that, i'm so sorry.   i think that would help with my faith in the medical profession as a whole.  if he could just say even though i'm a DOCTOR, i can and do make mistakes and I'M SORRY, i made a mistake with you...that would be a definite step in restoring a tiny ounce of faith into me. 

(it sorta seems like i'm writing about a lover :) makes me smile a bit as i proofread)

snow sculptures

i can't lie.  i LOVE the snow!  (i can't help it, i'm a farmer's daughter, i KNOW the need for moisture and i yearn for it myself so all my trees can grow, so, perhaps, my lake can be filled, so that my dad and brother can get a good crop this year. even when the warmth would be welcome, even when the soles of my feet would like to walk on dry ground, i can't really enjoy it if there hasn't first been some kind of moisture for the world to drink.)  today the snow has fallen from early in the morning until now...in fact, it's still falling!  with the help of the wind, huge banks have piled up in the trees across from our kitchen window and i've rarely been able to see past the trees on the outskirts of our yard.  and somehow, with the wind howling around the house and the possibility of the power going out and leaving us stranded - i feel so very safe.  the fact that we are wholly dependent upon the grid, that we would be in quite a scrape if the power actually went out for any amount of time doesn't seem that bad.  right now, it's cozy and warm, i have a small pink baby sleeping in the next room all cuddly and sweet and blankets to wrap myself in, my jammies are still on, there is soft light glowing in the yard that illuminates the snowflakes as they dance their way into soft, fluffy formations, it's beautiful!  i sorta wish this day would never end.

hiding in the open

i am an actress.

some of the time.

especially, recently.

when i look back i notice that i am not being honest. i'm not really lying either, it's more like not telling the whole truth, not letting people EVER know exactly. i can laugh and smile with the best of them and, you know, it isn't as if i NEVER feel happy. just, most of the time, it's a mask i'm wearing. i don't really want to talk about it cuz i don't want to be all 'boohoo me' and, in the end, who really wants to hear about the bad stuff all the time? plus, i know that of the people i talk to in my life - my husband, my mom, my best friend - not one of them really understands the way it is. you know, i don't really understand it myself so i can't blame them.

i can't lie, i know i'm not the worst off, i know that there are things that are a million times worse and would make my life (and even the way i feel these days) feel like paradise. BUT, the fact remains, even if it's 'paradise hell' it's still a sub-division of hell.

i feel like an open wound walking around. actually, maybe not quite an open wound, but a very slowly healing wound where the scar keeps opening up when you barely even bump it. it shouldn't be like that - the last 8 months should have been the best times ever - i have an 8 month old baby girl who is the most wonderful, best, most beautiful baby that the world has ever seen - trust me, i know! she's healthy and happy and growing bigger and learning so much and she's perfect and i am so blessed to have her. i HATE that i am unable to enjoy the process as much as i should be.

why?

it was a normal delivery the doctors all said (though, in my world, it was equivalent to cruel and unusual torture)...my question then is WHY WHY WHY did it take 6 freakin' weeks for me to be able to cough or laugh without it hurting? how come it took 30 minutes to walk the 10 meters to my bathroom, go pee, get up and wash my hands and walk 10 meters back? that, to me being an amateur at giving birth, is NOT normal...but hey? who questions the doctors?

and then the baby bean grew slowly and we had to go to the doctor to get her checked out every single month (sometimes more than once a month cuz bean's momma is a bit dense) for 5 and 1/2 months and every last time, they weighed her and she was 'fine, just small...NOT CONCERNED'...okay, so loudly i tell everyone, she's JUST LITTLE...then one day bean doesn't weigh any more than the last month that we weighed her (must have been the wrong clothes - don't even get me started on weighing babies with clothes on) and suddenly we are referred to a pediatrician and 1 month later when we finally see him we are admitted to the hospital because my baby was starving.

you tell me which human being, let alone mother, in the world can hear someone say that their baby is starving and not feel like it's her fault. tell me who has heard those words and doesn't feel the gaze of every last medical person involved and every last person who knows what happened and NOT feel their condemnation. and you know, i almost didn't blame them, i still feel like it was my fault, but, honestly, i did EVERYthing i knew how to do - i fed bean cereal early (cuz she seemed hungry - and don't worry, she could hold her head up and all that) and i got in trouble for it...i tried (as she kept getting skinnier) to feed her formula from a bottle and she would not take it and i went to the doctor every blinkin' month - what more could i do? and yet i wish i had done more.

if you HATE all things hospital as much as i did and do (even more now) the admission to the hospital was hideous...though i am SO thankful that baby bean is growing big...but in spite of that good - it was awful. and through it all to feel as though every last person in the world blamed me...and not being able to justify myself at all. on top of that, our pediatrician was an ASS - he thought he was the most brilliant doctor in the whole world and he really wanted to let you know it...he couldn't seem to understand english - though last i checked they do speak english in england (where he was from)...and he seemed to spend all his days thinking of new ways to be awful to me...it didn't matter what we were talking about - he was ridiculously negative. take, for example, 2 days before we were discharged - bean was learning to drink from a bottle, was gaining steadily (so, the problem was my milk - not that anyone told me or bothered to test it or anything), and was doing so well despite the trauma of the 11 days and the ASS (shall we call him dr. a?) told me that they would have to send us to a bigger center where they would put a 'button in her stomach' so the food would go directly to her stomach. THAT is what the 2 weeks in the hospital was like.

but we're home and have been doing well and despite the fact that even after changing doctors in an attempt to find one who was human still and NOT finding one (i'm convinced that in order to become a doctor you sign your soul away and forgo being human), most of my time seems spent dealing with the way i can't stop feeling.

not every time anymore, but every once in awhile, i see my sister nursing her baby, or some random person nursing their baby and i feel that scar break open and the blood gush out - i was forced to wean in the hospital because it was the only way i could see that bean would ever learn to drink from a bottle - but instead of taking a few weeks, i had to do it in 1 day...my god, it hurt - physically, and emotionally and, like i just said - the wound opens up.

as i brought bean in for ANOTHER appointment, our new doctor - the one who was hopefully human - yelled at me and told me that basically i was a sorry excuse for a mother and it was lucky that bean at least had her for a doctor cuz she actually cared what happened - and the scar broke open.

i hear other moms talking about nursing their babies, or about what is going on with their babies - why they are fussy, how they know that this and that is going on - and the scar tears open. i feel like i have no right to 'know' my baby any more - after all, i almost killed her. i'm sure my voice is the loudest, but i hear all the voices saying - honestly, what DO you know?

doing stuff with my husband's family makes the wound start to fester. i KNOW that a HUGE part of it is me - i need to forgive and i KNOW that the things that hurt me like crazy were not and are not meant to hurt at all...and yet i can't seem to give it up - this big part just won't let go, it wants them to actually realize how hurt i was and am and for them to say sorry. plus, i know that they wish bean belonged to someone other than me. i know that they think i do things with bean ALL wrong and so, i lash out (just quietly but still lashing) and i open the wound up myself.

my mom, who has been SO supportive and without whom, i couldn't have made it, casually rips the scar off when she sees someone who knows what bean has been through and says jubilantly 'yep, she sure looks different than when she was STARVING to DEATH'. now, i KNOW that she isn't trying to hurt me, and i know that she's just happy that everything is going smashingly now, but still, i feel that blood start to pool.

so, hopefully, being an actress will give me a little time. just a little time for me to 'stay under cover' and for the wound to heal. hopefully, my lack of forgiveness won't turn into bitterness (though, if i'm honest, there is a definite sprout) and maybe even just writing this will allow me to begin to let go, even just a little.