Today we made Christmas cookies (but only if "made" means "buying dough"), and Asher and Lucy helped apply the bright red frosting.
Today I took Cytotec, also known as RU 486, the abortion pill, to get things moving along after we saw there was no heartbeat yesterday.
Today Asher walked in on me in the bathroom, took one look at me and said, quite disappointed, "Mama! That frosting is for the COOKIES!"
Contrary to popular belief, I am not:
1. So depressed I want to jump off a snow drift into ice-cold water and end it all.
2. DESPERATE to have a baby.
3. Feeling like, "God, why did this happen to me?"
4. Hungry (actually, yes, yes I am...very much, and Lucy is calling us all to dinner, so must go soon.)
5. In love with Brandon Flowers, lead singer of the Killers. (We are snowed in at my parents, and only my parents would have 15 pillows in their house. The kids are all thinking they have hit the JACK POT.) And also, Snow Patrol, where have you been all my life?
I guess this year has taught me, more than anything, how little control I have over things I like to say I have control over.
I am glad for the lesson, and I am excited to see how God chooses to add to our family. I do not feel, in my heart of hearts, that we are "done", and it is exciting to me to know that *I* don't have anything to do with *how* God chooses to do it.
That said, I am not completely in the doldrums, just waiting for the day when we will have a baby again.
I'm excited for it, but thoroughly enjoying each day as it comes. And resting in the "looking forward", and pausing in the "looking back". I can honestly say that with all that has happened this year, I know that none of it was "accident", that none of it will be wasted. None of it. The events of this year have been so crazy, that it smells like it's got God's fingerprints all over it. And that, my friends, is pretty exciting to me.
So, that's where I am.
And it's good.
Let's go have some lefse.
I am always hesitant to share that I am pregnant because I don't want to disappoint anyone. I don't want people to think there's something wrong with me when it goes south. It's pride, pure and simple.
I was reading a friend's blog postings about her miscarriages and thinking about how I would have never benefitted from her words if she weren't honest about her pain in the first place. A lesson learned.
After I posted bits of my story on a bulletin board I frequent, a woman came on and said she pretty much thought I made the whole thing up. Her exact words were, "Uh, go to the miscarriage boards" and then, "I think your whole story is MUD. ("Made Up Drama", presumably to get attention.)
My initial reaction was to bash her naively "5 weeks pregnant" pregnancy ticker into her big fat mouth. I was PISSED. And then I wondered why a stranger's comments bothered me so.
It wasn't five minutes later and other people started writing about how they had either gone through a miscarriage or were going through one now, and they gave her hell. They stood up to bat for me.
I felt like I could breathe again.
If we live long enough, life will present us with a pain pie, in one form or another. And there we will sit, wondering how on earth we are ever going to be able to choke down the whole thing and move on.
There are certain acts of generosity that serve as dividers for our pain. They are words, lowly spoken, that say, "I am sorry and I don't know what to say." They are cards and emails and sobbing messages on an answering machine. They are those who have been through the same before, or are going through it. Those who give us the courage we need...
Here, you can hold him, we can take his tubes off. He doesn't have much time left.
divide
Honey, they cut back my department today.
divide
We don't know why this IVF cycle didn't work, either.
divide
There's no heartbeat.
divide
Mom, do we have to go to Dad's house? We know he doesn't love us, anyway.
divide
There's not anyone else, it's just that I don't love you any more.
divide
Mom, I don't really believe anything you ever taught me. It worked for you, not for me.
divide
We tried to save her, but it was too late.
divide
And soon, the divisions, coming one after another, being to sate our souls. They come in the form of e-mails, phone calls, cards, letters, dinners out, hugs.
A pain shared is a pain divided.
And when pain is divided,
it bleeds light.
The news that you were leaving was news I took well, I thought.
I prided myself on not crying over your too-small body, your too-slow heart.
I laughed when the ultrasound tech told me there was still hope.
I turned away when she offered me a tissue. I left it there, mocking me, bouqueted and white.
It wasn't until I was trying to form the words "hot chocolate" at the McDonald's drive-thru line that I realized I had actually forgotten how to say them. I called your father and he couldn't understand me. I thought I was having a stroke. He drove home.
I told him I was sorry for letting him down again.
He told me I was being silly.
I told him I loved him.
It's a cold, dry-bones type of winter day. You are still making me sick, and I wonder if your heart has stopped beating yet.
My arms curl around your sister as the tears curl themselves down my cheeks. She says, "Mama, what's that wet?" "Sad," I tell her.
Questions abated, she snuggles into me and drifts off into the kind of sleep that belongs only to babies and old men.
Your dad gives me space and doesn't question the tears; feigned ignorance is his most endearing quality. He knows exactly when to employ it, and I could kiss him to pieces for it.
Your brother wonders when Handy Manny will be on.
Some day it will be me, the aunt who went through 10 years of hell to get her miracle child, consoling the niece who cannot see through her tears.
Some day, it will be me on the receiving end of emails with no subject field that read,
"Why?"
and I will know exactly what to say, and how to say it.
Like those who have felt this pain before me, there is a knowledge that any email sent out to the sad one must include the words "alcohol" and "chocolate", and the phrase, "I don't know why, either."
It's knowledge born of experience, knowledge that can be born no other way.
I wish things weren't this way. I wish the world could find peace and that navel oranges would go for a lower price. I wish that leaves wouldn't fall so quickly right after they've been raked, and that the Rwandan orphans would all find good, solid two-parent homes, with guardians who don't have any gun permits.
In that annoying selfish way that humans have, though, my biggest wish today would be this:
That it wasn't your heart, about to stop.
Dear Asher,
Today, I am sicker than a dog. I woke up this morning, ran to the bathroom, and threw up. You came up to me and said, "Mama sick?" I said, "Yes!" from beneath the covers, and you ran to your room to get some blocks for me to snuggle with.
You are constantly wanting to play "Make hu sick", which, roughly translated, means, "Make you sick." It's the doctor game, and you could spend hours poking and prodding at us if we'd let you. You always require that we lie on our stomachs, and you grab your doctor toys and go to town.
You are so meticulous. Everything you do is done very carefully. You spend longer than the average almost-3-year-old making objects talk to each other: Handy Manny toys, Polly Pocket's dresses, or used band-aids. When I hear your sweet little voice coming from your room, I know someone is either being doctored or in trouble for hitting their toy counterpart.
Yesterday you pushed a little pink shopping cart around Target, and you shopped as you went. You chose some Pull-Ups and some Elmo underwear. Personally, I think you chose those particular items just to torture me.
Here are ten things I know because of you:
1. Little boys always stink. It doesn't matter how often they are bathed, they still smell like abandoned puppy.
2. Which toy comes with the Happy Meal at McDonald's.
3. How utterly adorable it is when a 3 year old looks at you with a serious face, nodding along as he dictates his Christmas wishes.
4. How to record multiple Handy Manny's on DVR.
5. A mother's love knows no bounds. I will always change your diaper, even if it feels somehow wrong, as though I am changing the diaper of someone in Boy Scouts. (USE THE TOILET)
6. How to deal with your short little fuse. You remind me SO much of your uncle Michael, who would hit himself if he made a mistake during high school basketball games. I will show you a video sometime; he got a lot of technical fouls, and our dad made him look up lots of Bible verses on self-control. I'm sure he'd share. If you can't figure something out or if your sister predictably bugs you, you will scream and try to hit. It's like clockwork, really.
7. How fun it is to see your giving little heart. Yesterday you told me you wanted to buy a Christmas present for Sissy. We settled on a Disney Princess doll set. You didn't understand why she couldn't have it now. I think you also secretly can't wait to play with it. You love playing with girl toys.
8. That "coffee" really means "hot chocolate." You ask for "coffee" every night, and I just imagine you in 20 years with a briefcase and shiny black shoes, drinking your "coffee".
9. 3 year olds have an uncanny ability to sound like newborns when they really want something.
10. How fun it is to snuggle up with you in "Mama Bed", watching you drift off to sleep.I have so many dreams for you, little man, like every mother does.
Sometimes, Bub, I feel like you get a little bit overlooked because of all we have to do for your sister. Just know that I love those times when it's just you and me, especially after Sissy is at preschool. I love your happy little sigh as you realize it's your time alone with me.
Remember that day a few weeks back when we went to the park? You found a little friend to play with, and I remember thinking that I wanted to treasure you at this age, when being at the park is as good as it gets.
I love you.
Love,
Mom
Today, my son is sleeping.
Today, my daughter is coloring at the kitchen table.
Today, my husband is watching football in his recliner.
Today, the kids and I went to a birthday party and I ate too much.
Today, I really want to lie in my unmade bed, surrounded by clutter in our bedroom, and read a book.
Today, I should go for a powerwalk to get rid of some of these calories.
Not today.
