.not myself.

At one of our first visits to the OB after I became pregnant I found something in one of their numerous baby magazines that made me really uncomfortable.  Mommy calling cards. 

Janie Jones.
Mommy to Carolyn and John.
123-456-7890
myemail@here.com

This concept struck me as terrible for a couple of reasons.  The first was that it made me think of parenthood and socializing with children as nothing more than a business transaction.  A trading of commodities and services.  Incredibly impersonal, although very practical.  Whatever happened to just chatting with someone and writing down their contact information?  I don't know maybe I am missing the point of them entirely and this is something I have to have children to understand.

But the thing about them that really made me feel uncomfortable was that they seemed to imply, to my narrow mind at least, that Janie Jones' entire identity was wrapped up in being Carolyn's and Jack's mom.  I don't like that concept.  It was something I struggled with even before Leif and I decided to start our family.  I never want to be solely appreciated for one, albeit huge and amazing, part of my life.  I am not just a mother (or a mother at all but I guess that is a debate for another time), or just a wife, or just a daughter...sister...PA...artist...scientist...friend.  I'm all of those things (but I'm thinking that they probably all wouldn't fit on a business card).  Although being a mother is certainly something to be proud of and worthy of praise I have never wanted to be defined solely on the basis of my motherhood or lack thereof.

For the most part I started writing this blog to make sure that Leif's parents felt part of this pregnancy, seeing as George was going to be their first grandchild and they were on another continent.  But I didn't want this space to become one pregnancy/baby post after another.  A baby blog, or whatever you want to call it, didn't seem to fit for me for reasons I've partially explained above.  I liked to read them and I appreciated the people who authored them but I didn't want one of my own.

But, looking around this space I've come to the conclusion that a baby blog is pretty much exactly what this has become.  Only it is the antithesis of what most baby blogs are about.  There are no posts about nursery decor (anymore) or posts about what funny things the baby is doing.  No cute photographs of toothless grins or red screaming faces.  Nope, there are just sad and depressing posts about my dead son and how badly I want him back. 

My father told me while I was in the hospital trying to get George's heart rate down that I shouldn't let this terrible, horrible event define the rest of my life.  I shouldn't let it define the entirety of who I am.

He's right.  I shouldn't.  But it has and it is and I don't know how to stop it from happening.

Three and a half months ago I ran away and I have no idea where to start looking in order to find myself again.

Which makes me question what it is I am doing with this blog or if it should even be here at all.

.that went well.

I failed.  I couldn't handle being at my niece's birthday party for more than an hour and a half. 

I really thought I was doing better these days....

It wasn't the multitudes of children or babies, although I think had there been a three-week old baby boy there I might have gone insane.

I failed because I couldn't handle being around my sister's very pregnant friend.  I should have expected that she would be there.  But I was surprised when I saw her.  I hadn't thought about her in months even though I knew she was only a few weeks behind me in dates. 

I failed and so I hid in my niece's bedroom and cried. 

I cried and scolded myself for feeling envious and angry. 

Angry with myself because maybe I was making other people uncomfortable and that is the last thing that I want to do.  Maybe she could tell by my lack of eye contact or by my inability to be anywhere near her that I was really uncomfortable with her presence there.  I feel like such an asshole. 

So we left after only an hour and a half.  I didn't even stay to eat any chocolate birthday cake (which is really unheard of for those of you reading who don't know me in real life).  We decided that the only healthy thing to do would be to go watch a movie about the positivity of life.  Naturally we saw Predators.

I struggle with talking about this part of my grief.  The part where seeing pregnant women with due dates anywhere near my own makes me feel paralyzed with grief and envy.  What good does it do?  I don't want to be a source of sadness or anxiety to other women, especially those in my life who are pregnant.  I want them to be able to enjoy being pregnant without worrying about me and how I am doing.  I want them to feel confident that I am excited and happy for them and that I want nothing but the best for them.  Because, really that is all true. 

I don't know where the line is anymore.  What things should I be honest about and what things should I shield people from? 

I really have not a clue.  So I flip-flop, like a politician during an election year. 

.three years already.

(Somehow this got published last week.  Not sure how that happened.)

Today is my niece M's third birthday.

It trips me out how much she looks like my sister.

Here is picture of us circa Christmas 1980.  My sister is the on the right.  Isn't she cute?  Just like her daughter.  They even have the same haircut.

I, on the other hand, am quite possibly the goofiest looking kid ever to take a family photo in front of a fake fireplace (and I know there are a lot of fake fireplace photos from the 80s out there).   Had there been a better picture to demonstrate how much my niece looks like her mom I would never have used this one.

M is really such a sweet little girl.  I adore her.  She likes me well enough but she loves her Uncle Leif.  When we visit I always get a quick hug but I know she is already looking over my shoulder to see if Leif came with me. 

Yep, she loves Leif.  I'm assuming my other niece L, who is nine months old right now, will also grow up to prefer my husband over me.  But, in the end I will win them back (Yes, Leif, it is a competition) because I will paint their nails and buy them clothes when they are old enough to appreciate those sorts of things. 

I am not above buying their affection.

.ashes and dust.

It's engravable.  The man at the funeral home never told us that, but it is.  Had we known I'm not sure we would have opted to have anything engraved anyway.  What was there to be written?  His name?  A single date?  Beloved son?  Beloved idealized version of the future?  Besides, the anonymity of the small bronze box seems to be a more accurate representation of who he was and who he still is to us.  We didn't know him, not really.  Not the way we had thought we were going to have the chance to know him.

I look at that unimaginably small bronze box and it feels like it has always been a part of my life.  I have to keep reminding myself that it has only been three and a half months.  Three and a half months is nothing, yet it is almost half as long as he was here.

...and I can't help but wonder if people read this and think I should be over him by now...

I kept it for too long in my nightstand- I was too afraid to catch a glimpse of my own private Pandora's Box.  Two nights ago, in the early morning I pulled it out along with one of his baby blankets and cried myself to sleep on the couch.  That hasn't happened for awhile. 

Leif woke up to find me asleep in the living room holding the blanket, used tissues scattered around me.  So he made me pancakes.  He is so wonderful.

I knew once it came out I couldn't put it away again.  But where does it belong now?  I stared at it for a long time on the mantel before I ended up moving it.  While there it sat between the flea market bronze candlesticks, a postcard from Melissa, and a gift from Natalie from where in the world I can't remember- Three Wise Monkeys. 

Now it is on a shelf that I inherited from my grandmother.  It is on the same one as a framed engagement photograph and one of Leif's surround-sound speakers.  Those shelves get so dusty.  I'll have to dust the bronze box too, if I decide to leave it there. 

.this is what happens when you have a lack of imagination.

So with my exam date now on the horizon (gulp...August 17th) Leif and I are making plans to take a vacation.  We were pretty sure that we were going to go back to one of the places where we went for our honeymoon in Punta Uva, Costa Rica (we also went to Arenal).  However, since we last went there has been a change in the flights that go to San Jose from Los Angeles and there are no direct flights anymore.  Most flights will take us anywhere from 10 to 14 hours with the addition of layovers.  That wouldn't be a deal breaker except that from San Jose it is another 5 hours by car to the Caribbean side of the country.  When you add that time on to the flight time...well, it seems so less appealing when we are only going to be on vacation for about a week.


This is why this bums me out...

Costa Rica is beautiful.

If no Costa Rica then these are the main things I have to consider when trying to figure out another place to visit:
1. Travel time.  We don't want to travel for longer than half a day or so.
2. Beach.  There must be beautiful tropical beaches where other tourists are not swarming all over the place.
3. Safety.  I am chicken shit.  Seriously.  I am a huge pansy.
4. Low key.  Leif and I like our vacations sloooowwww.  Which is why Costa Rica is so great for us.  We can relate really well to all the sloths that live there.

Those four things don't seem like much but I am having a difficult time coming up with other options. 

• Hawaii is not going to happen since five months ago I was there for my third visit. 
• Mexico seems to be knocked out of the running by either 2 or 3 on my list.  Maybe I am incorrectly swayed by the media to think that non-touristy places in Mexico are dangerous for foreigners right now.  Please educate me if I am indeed being misled by popular media outlets.  Even though I trust the media 100% and they never, ever lie about anything.  Sarcasm, folks.
• The Florida Keys were a possibility but there is a good chance that the oil from the BP fiasco will be headed there next, which is truly heartbreaking.  
• We don't do cruises.  They freak me out.  I had a friend who used to work on a large cruise liner and she shared with me that people die all the time on cruises.  Elderly people will often just continually go on cruises until they die.  They are affectionately referred to as "white-lighters" by cruise staff.  And you know what that means?  Ghosts. 
• Canada is a nice place.  I like Canadians a lot.  But unless the geography of the world has been turned on its nose, tropical beaches aren't really to be found in our friendly northern neighbor's territories.

And so....that's it.  I'm out of ideas.  I guess my next step would be to start seeing what central/south American countries have direct flights from Los Angeles.  I am totally open to suggestions from all ten of you people out there that may be reading this.

.cake in your face.

Well done Martha Stewart (rather Martha's minion who really does all the work), well done.

By the way, we polished off this cake in two days.  I gave two pieces away but Leif and I ate everything else.  Go us.

.neon in fog.

Memories are tricky beasts.  Some memories can hit you with the strength of a hammer yet when you try to hold on to others they fall through your fingers like water. Why is it that we so easily remember some things and not others?  The things I want to remember so quickly seem to fall into the crevices of forgetfulness, while the ones I wish were a little less vivid seem to glow in my mind like neon lights.

Those neon lights are surrounded in fog and they flash in reds and blues:

"I'm sorry we are meeting under these circumstances.  I have bad news...."
"He's probably had the SVT for at least a week..."
"This happens so rarely, I see maybe one or two cases like this a year..."
"Normally we would send you straight to the hospital but I've spoken to the cardiologist on the phone and we both feel that at this point another night probably won't change the outcome...."
"Dr. Brown said that your blood work came back from last night and it is worse than it was before.  She says we need to go in for the c-section this afternoon..."

Other memories are shrouded in fog and I can hardly remember the first six months of the pregnancy anymore. 

Those memories, when I can pull them out of the fog, come in discreet packets.

The other day Leif and I went for a walk around the reservoir and I remembered that we used to walk that same path at least once a week before we got the news that sent us over the proverbial falls in only a barrel. We went partially to baby-watch...to observe what type of strollers people were using.  We went partially to imagine ourselves there with our own son.  Many times we would swing by on our way home and get a couple of scoops of our favorite gelato because I was, after all, still having trouble putting on weight during the pregnancy. 

Up until that terrible day Leif had taken a daily picture of me in the same outfit and in the position with the intent of doing a time lapse video after George was born.  I used to get so frustrated with those pictures.  Leif was so excited about the project and sometimes I would make such a fuss about having to change into that same outfit every night.  I was foolish and thoughtless.  Now there are loads of pictures of me hidden somewhere on his hard drive.  If ever he were to put them together I would want him to name it "The Girl Who Stayed Pregnant Forever."  Because really, in those pictures time froze when I was 24 weeks pregnant.  We don't have a single photograph of me after we got George's diagnosis.

I still have an unfinished blog post about my 23rd week of pregnancy.  It rambles on about feeling his movements and how I was increasingly getting uncomfortable.  I was working on it when we left the house to go to that first Perinatologist's appointment.  We were just going to get better views of his kidneys and the flow through the cord.  I wasn't concerned.  Besides bad things didn't happen to me.  Bad things didn't happen to Leif.  Now I occasionally look back at that unfinished post and wonder if I should publish it one day.  Right now it is just a reminder, a preserved memory, that life took such a dramatic turn later that day that the person who wrote that post doesn't exist anymore.  Parts of her are still here but I am not that naive young mother-to-be anymore.

So yes, if I try hard enough I can remember, vaguely, that part of my pregnancy when we were happy and all was right in the world. 

Leif first felt him move while we were in the hospital.  I want to remember that moment forever.  Somewhere I think we still have video of the ultrasound when we found out he was a boy.  Even without the video I remember our excitement on that day.  I also recall discussing with my sister the invitations and date for the baby shower.  I have one of the invitations, which were never sent out, saved in a drawer.  I think I will always keep that around.  And the blankets our mothers made for him will always be reminders of how much he was loved.

I want to remember more of those things and hopefully it will cut some of the bitterness still left in my mouth.  I want to remember more laughter and less tears.  More visits with friends and less visits with doctors.  More prenatal vitamins and less cardiac medications.  More morning sickness and less digoxin toxicity. 

More joy.  Less grief. 

Memories are tricky beasts.  Sometimes the only way to hold on to them is to forcibly pin them down with words.  Like butterfly specimens underneath dusty glass.  I guess that is why I chose to do this. Because even when I forget, and there will come a time as my wounds slowly heal that I will begin to forget and a time when more memories will start to blend in with the fog, there is proof that once upon a time I remembered everything.